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Trinity
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There hadn't been a whole lot of information that Lucifer had given us, but there was something. The people that had been cremated had been released to the underworld, but at a great cost to their mental well being. And considering that souls were purely a mental state and nothing physical at all, that meant a lot to them.
Aside from that, I now had to deal with Talia. Who, by the way, was looking at me with glowing pink eyes. I didn't know what was going on with her or why her eyes were like that, but I would find out, and soon. Right now in fact, since I was about to ask her.
“Talia, what did you do to your eyes?” I put my hand on her face and looked at her almost eye to eye. She really was already my height. Maybe only an inch different, if that.
“Oh, well, I was, uhm, I was trying to emulate you, Mom.” She looked nervous for a moment. “I saw your eyes glowing and I knew that you were using that to look for clues. So, I wanted to do that too. I decided to call my magic to my eyes and try to see more as well. Actually, there was something that I saw when I did this. It was blurry at first, but I managed to see it after just a second.” She started to step away from me and I turned to look at where she was going. My eyes were still glowing of course, so I could see whatever it was that she wanted to show me.
.....
“I am proud of you, Talia. You're truly here to help. Thank you.” She stopped and looked at me in surprise. Did she really think that I wouldn't appreciate her?
“I just want to be useful, Mom. I want to help you.” Sometimes I forget how grown up she is now, but then she goes and talks like this and that is when I can still see that sweet little girl that she used to be. That tiny little Tally that looks like she disappeared but is just hiding. When she was two, three, four, five years old, and even a little older than that, she only thought about how she could help people. She always wanted to be there for others. And that caring instinct of hers never went away.
“I know.” I gave her an approving smile before moving on. “Now, what was it that you needed to show me?” I needed to see this, whatever it was. If it was evidence, then I would make sure that it was collected and use it to help the case.
“Oh, right here. There is something written here. It angered me when I read it though, I am not going to lie about that.”
When Talia stepped aside, I saw that there was writing on the tree that was in front of her. The writing consisted of the same words that had been written on the church at the last village. During the time that we were in the coroner's office, Shawn and the others had looked into the second crime scene. They had found these words there as well. They had been written in blood on a boulder. This was something like a mission statement. It was something that the killers seemed to plant at all the scenes, but they hid them somewhat. This one, I had not seen at all until Talia pointed them out to me. Then again, I hadn't looked for them when I came over here with my magic eyes in effect. I was more focused on my child and what was going on with her.
“What is this written in?” I asked, curious to know what was happening.
“It just smells like a tree. If I had to guess, I would say that it's water.” Reece, who had come walking over to me recently, leaned toward the tree and sniffed at it. “It's odd, why use water to write the words?”
As he said that, Reece touched the tree with his fingertip. I think that he was just trying to see if he could find the words. I didn't think that he could see the words unless they had some sort of color to them. Since they were glowing for me, I couldn't tell what color they normally were.
I stopped wondering about that though. The moment that Reece touched the tree he seemed to cry out in pain. Not to mention I could smell the distinct scent of burning flesh.
“OWW! What the fuck! Son of a bitch, that fucking hurt! What is fucking going on here?” I hurried to Reece's side, which was only a few steps away from me, and grabbed his hand.
“What the hell happened?” I saw that there was a letter distinctly burned into his fingertip. Well, two letters to be exact. On his finger, I saw the letters 'on' standing out against his flesh.
“Didn't I basically just ask that same thing, Trinity?” He was clearly grumpy about being burned. “How the hell did the tree burn me?” He was looking at it, trying to figure it out.
“I think it was the words. The letters are here, see.” I pointed to his hand. “It's like the substance that they wrote with was what burned you.”
“Like some kind of acid or something?” He was confused. “What the hell?! Wouldn't it have lost its effect by now? Or wouldn't it have burned into the tree?”
“I don't know.” I was not sure what was happening. “Dietrich, have you ever seen this before?”
“No, I have not.” He shook his head as he came closer to the tree. “Reece is right though. It doesn't smell like anything but water. There is nothing but the scent of the tree here.” Dietrich touched the tree then. It was almost the same place that Reece had touched it and he too screamed in pain. “Fuck! That hurt.” Shawn rushed to him and grabbed his hand.
“You just saw that it hurt Reece, why would you touch it?” Shawn snapped at him as he kissed the wound on Dietrich's finger.
“Well, I thought that maybe it was activated by the heat in Reece's body. I am much colder than him and therefore should have been fine if that were the case.” Dietrich shrugged like he didn't care.
“Stop doing stupid things.” Shawn rolled his eyes at him. I saw that the wounds on both Reece's and Dietrich's hands were already healing, which was good, but that was just not right.
“Dietrich, could this water have been modified? Like with magic, runes, or something else?” I wasn't sure if I was right or not, but it was a theory that had just popped up in my head.
“You mean like, did they use holy water?” He laughed. “That stuff doesn't work. In fact, in my youth, before I hid what I was as well as I do now, I drank holy water in a church to show the parishioners that it would have no effect on me. It was how I got them to trust me and to stop believing that all nonhumans were evil. It was actually a good time.” Dietrich's laughter wasn't helping here.
“Yes, in a way. What if these killers have figured out how to make an effective holy water by infusing it with rune? What if they have a weapon that none of us will ever suspect?”
“I..I don't know if that is possible. But I think we need to figure it out.” Finally, Dietrich was looking scared.
“I want to take this bark for testing. I need someone to see if there is magic or something being used in it. I need to know if they did something to it to make it burn us.” I walked toward the tree then, calling just the claws of my wolf forward. I needed to use those claws like a knife.
Carefully, very carefully, I cut the words from the tree and held it carefully. I didn't want it to burn me at all.
“Here, wrap it up and send it to someone that can test the water on the tree. This crime scene was preserved for a reason, and I think this message was the reason. They wanted us to be hurt by their words, physically and emotionally.”
“That is just sick.” Reece shook his head. “These bastards are starting to piss me off, even more than they already had.”
“I know, Reece, I know. And this is just another reason why we are going to be finding them. We need to put an end to this.”
“Yeah. We will find them. And when we do, we will extract all of their secrets. We will make them tell us what they did and why they did it.” Reece was angry. I don't think it was just because he got a boo boo just now, but it very well could have. Sometimes, men were giant toddlers that let their emotions rule their worlds.
“Come on.” I called out. “We need to get back. I am sure that there is going to be another call soon enough.”
“Yeah. We need to be ready to go.” Shawn said as he took Dietrich's hand. Dietrich, for some reason, couldn't stop staring at the tree. It was like he was thinking very intently about something, and he wasn't sharing it with the rest of the class. I knew he would tell us in time, when he was ready. Still, it was really annoying at the moment. I needed information more than anything here, and, there, he was withholding it.
