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Trinity
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The looks of shock on the faces of the men in the room that we entered was definitely funny. That was for sure. Seeing their jaws dropped in terror, awe, and everything else in between was just enough to make me laugh. Thankfully, though, I have had nearly twenty years of experience with controlling the looks on my face and every other involuntary reaction that a body might have. And, trust me, it isn't easy to control them all the time.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” I spoke as I walked through the door. “I trust you know who I am. I do not have the time to waste here. We need to examine the murder site and the body as soon as we can. If I am right, there will be a call from the agents back home that will tell me that there were more deaths last night.” I was striding across the room to the man that was sitting at the head of the table. I was going to greet him, but I was dropping most of the formalities here. We had lost a lot of time today already and I needed to hurry.
“U..u..uhm Q..Q..Q..Queen Trinity?” The man was stuttering as he looked at me. I saw that he looked like he was in his mid to late thirties, but that didn't mean that he was that young. With the way things were for our people now, he was probably about as old as Grandfather. And if my memory serves, he might even be older.
“Alpha Bevin I presume.” I stopped before him.
.....
“Y..yes. I am the Alpha. I am Bevin. I..i..it is an h..h..hon..honor to meet you, my queen.” He seemed to be more in awe of me than Cadwal had been.
“I am sorry that I am not being nicer at the moment, Bevin. And I promise I will take the time to talk to you later. But for now, I need to see the body of the deceased and where that body was found.” I felt like I was being rude, but I was also just being an efficient queen and investigator. I was doing my job.
“Yes, yes, of course, I understand. I will take you to the crime scene right away. However, I am sorry to say that we cannot show you the body. They have already been cremated.”
“Did they not believe that it would be best to wait until they were completely certain that they had all of the evidence? Why would they cremate the body before the investigation was over?”
I guess I was just feeling angry about it since the others had waited. And, not to mention, there was the fact that the souls were trapped in the body. What happened to that victim that was cremated? Was their soul released?
I mean, Dietrich did say that the man that he had known before would cleanse the souls with fire or something like that. And that was when they were released. But what did the souls go through? What did they experience? I guess we would have to wait until Lucifer found that soul in the underworld. If he could do that, then we would be able to learn what they were going through.
“I..I am truly sorry, my queen. I did not know that we should wait.” This man, old as he was, was cowering before me. And the reason for that was because I was his queen, and I was angry. He was scared because he thought that I would be taking my anger out on him. I wouldn't do that though. I was just not very happy.
“It's fine. We will have the soul found. For the time being, take me to the crime scene.” I turned toward the only door in the office and showed him that I was ready to go right now.
“Yes, Ma'am.” He hurried after me and so did the man that was standing behind him. The other four men that had been in the room didn't get up from their seats, but I did hear them whispering as we left.
“What does she mean that they will have the soul found?”
“Hey, don't you remember, she went into the underworld.”
“She is so cool, but so scary.”
“I want to go with them, but I am too scared to. I don't know what will happen to me if I follow them. The Alpha is lucky, though I also feel sorry for him. She is so scary.”
Well, apparently Reece wasn't wrong when he said that I would intimidate the others. These men right here were confirming that for him. And it wasn't necessarily a good feeling.
Bad feeling or not though, I wasn't going to make them stop fearing me. I hadn't threatened them or harmed them, so this was all just them being scared of power. And for now, that was good. If they stopped being scared of my power, then I would be faced with people that might try to take over my kingdom.
Bevin took the lead when we were in the hall. He was hurrying out of his house and down the driveway rather than toward the vehicles.
“Is it that close to your home?” I asked him, slightly surprised.
“Yes. It wasn't far from here. That is why I was so upset about it.” This village was apparently a lot smaller than the other one that we were at. Though they were not far from the city that our plane was waiting for us at.
“Just show us where it is.” Vincent snapped at the man. I think he was feeling upset about the cremation as well.
Bevin took us to a small wooded area that was no more than a five minute walk from the small Alpha house. The wood smelled heavily of blood and I could tell that there had been death here, the smell of it was so overpowering.
“Rudy, Alexio, keep Talia out of here. Don't let her follow me. Dietrich, Vincent, Shawn, you follow me and Reece into the woods with Bevin. The rest of you start looking for witnesses. I want to be done here before it gets dark. We have a lot to do, and I would like to get to at least one fresh murder scene today. I need to get the details as soon as possible. And we need to save the soul.”
“Yes, Queen Trinity.” They all agreed at the same time. Gabriel, David and Shane heading off with Bevin's Beta to interview witnesses. Bevin, without a word, led the way into the woods.
I was glad that I had good night vision. Better than most people, in truth. That was the benefit of having so much magic and being a goddess. I was able to see at times like this. Though, in a way, I was not happy to be seeing this place.
“The rain hasn't seemed to penetrate through the trees. The blood is still as thick as it was the day that Erwin was murdered.” Bevin stopped at the edge of a small clearing in the area. There was still a thick canopy of branches and leaves up above, but it shouldn't have kept the rain out like that.
“I have read the report on how the body was found. It fits with the other scenes as well.” I used magic to sense the area around the clearing. I saw that there was another rune made with the blood. It was a sort of zigzagged line. I didn't know what it meant, but I knew that Dietrich would. “Dietrich, what does this mean?” I asked him, drawing the symbol in the air. There was, of course, a golden after image of the symbol left behind for a moment.
“That is a Celtic rune. It is the symbol of the sun.” He answered immediately.
“Would that keep the rain away?” I turned to look at him instead of the foliage in front of me.
“Yeah, it might. If it was done right. And I am guessing that this is another one that was written in blood.”
“Yeah, it was.” I nodded at his response. “I think the killer wanted to preserve this crime scene. We will need to search it thoroughly. We can't miss a single thing. I don't want to let any of the clues go to waste.”
“We need to be thorough, but quick.” Reece nodded. “I want to be moving to the next location before the night is over.”
“Agreed.” I nodded at him. “There are bound to be more murders if we don't stop these people. And seeing what they have been doing with my own eyes, I can't let this go on for much longer. I need to save my people. I need to protect them. And most of all, I need to catch the assholes that have been doing this to my people.”
The anger was swelling within me. I could tell that I was not going to go easy on these people when I found them. I was going to show them that I meant business. Apparently, they meant business when they killed these people, so they would expect me to mean business when I hunted them down.
I was on the hunt for a killer. A killer that was on the hunt for supernatural beings. I was out to protect everyone that I could, human or not. And I would stop at nothing to end this nightmare. For the sake of my family, and my people, I would end this.
