Thomas sat behind a large wooden desk, his chair half reclined and his feet on the table. The afternoon sun streamed in from between the slats of the old aluminum venetian blinds.
His crusade was long over and he had settled down in Rushford, Pennsylvania, starting his own business called Thomas’ Private Investigator Office for the Supernatural and Mundane, a bland and unimaginative name that cluttered the front door.
His business was on the second floor above the main shops outside, a narrow staircase between two stores leading up to it. Clients could simply walk in, but his shop was quite hidden so most people never even knew it was there.
After all, the door was on the right hand side after going up the stairs. Even if someone stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up, they wouldn’t be able to see the door or the name printed on it.
“I’m home.” An icy voice rang out as the entry door opened.
Senna strolled in through the open door before scrunching up her nose upon detecting a foul smell. Thomas was sitting with his feet on his desk, a lit cigarette in his mouth and half full ashtray nearby.
She was wearing school uniform which consisted of a dark navy skirt, white polo and black blazer. She also had black dress shoes as per the school policy that clacked on the ground as she walked.
She pulled off schoolbag that was slumped over her shoulder and threw it on what could only be the vacant reception desk before storming over to Thomas.
“I have told you countless times not to smoke inside…”
“What does it matter? It’s relaxing.”
“It stinks!”
Senna plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and put it out in the ashtray before throwing the contents, ashtray included, out of the window beside his desk. The sound of glass shattering briefly resounded from the alley below.
The layout of the shop reception was quite simple. There was a small reception desk directly opposite the entrance, whilst Thomas’ desk sat in the back corner of the room beside a window that looked into a narrow stone paved alley between buildings.
There was a three-seat couch and a couple of single sofa chairs around an old wooden coffee table, on which was a couple piles of old magazines and newspapers. Each item of furniture were clearly second hand though, and completely mismatched as if they had just been grabbed from wherever was convenient.
The corners of the desks were rubbed back and the wood itself had lost its sheen whilst even the fabric on the waiting chairs was considerably faded.
Antique cabinets and other furniture filled with trinkets decorated the walls alongside some old fashioned but stylish iron and frosted glass ceiling lights gave off a warm glow in the room.
“Hey, you will get me in trouble for littering if someone complains about that,” Thomas lamented with an aggrieved expression.
“Then don’t smoke!”
“Sigh, since when was my daughter so strict?”
“I’m not your daughter!” Senna slammed her hands onto Thomas’ desk, causing the aged wood to creak under her strength.
“Of course you are, but you don’t even call me dad anymore. Where did I go wrong?”
Senna huffed before sitting down at the reception desk and turned on the QPC, the name for the modern day quantum computers that turned all former products obsolete. The holographic display hovering over the desk and responded to her hand controls.
“Thomas, if you are forcing me to go to school, at least pick up the phone when someone calls. You have three voicemails.”
“Us old folk don’t understand modern day computers, that’s what you young’uns are for,” Thomas chucked while imitating an old man’s voice, despite only appearing in his late thirties.
Senna had taken the role as receptionist for his business when he opened it a year ago, eventually having to take care of all the paperwork whilst he lazed around. It was only six months ago that he forced her to attend school like a normal girl. Thomas wanted her to meet new people and make friends just like a human now that they were no longer traveling the world, but she knew that was never an option for her.
She held no interest in being friendly with humans and already thought it was benevolent of her to not simply kill them. She had already developed her willpower to be as hard as steel when she met Thomas, but he had trained her very strictly over the past decade to control herself even further. This was to stop her giving into her impulses and sin, causing her to further degenerate into a fallen fae.
School was just the latest trial for training her willpower.
Senna played the first voicemail.
“Tom, it’s Oswald. I’m calling about Senna. Today, she broke-”
“Message deleted.”
The unworldly beautiful girl immediately pressed the delete button on the message whilst glaring at the phone.
Oswald Grey was a rare Foundation Establishment urban cultivator and the principle of the private school she was attending. He was acquainted with Thomas and the person who helped her attend school, knowing the background of the two.
She was in fact immensely stronger than him, but whenever a problem occurred, he always reported it to Thomas whom she never defied. Senna secretly vowed to teach him a lesson whilst pressing play on the next message, ignoring Thomas’ judgmental gaze on the back of her head.
“Good morning, my name is Gladyce Harper. I am calling to ask about your supernatural services, My son has recently been charmed by some monster and I need help. Please call me back on (541) 745-8802.”
“Message deleted.”
Senna wrote down the details of the caller before erasing the call. She would call them back tomorrow and discuss pricing. This type of client was quite common. There were a lot of people who had various degrees of superstition, and neither Senna nor Thomas held any qualms with taking their credits.
The third message was completely blank, the person hanging up without saying anything. It was a bit odd as the automated phone service should have detected the message as being blank and not saved it, but these kinds of bugs occured.
“How was school?” Thomas asked, causing Senna to deliberately face away from him.
“It was fine.”
“Hmm? How are your studies going?”
“…Fine.”
“Have you gotten a boyfriend?”
“What!?”
Senna turned around in anger and glared at Thomas who was looking at her with a mischievous grin.
Before Thomas could tease her any further, the door opened and a middle-aged woman with cropped brown hair nervously walked in.
“Excuse me, are you open…?”
She was apparently very nervous, but her eyes were filled with worry and fear. She tightly clutched her purse and watched what appeared to be a high school girl and a man who was clearly too young to be her father.
“Of course, of course, come in and have a seat. Tell me what services you require. Senna, please make some tea… or would you prefer coffee?”
“There is no need.”
“Tea it is then, with milk too! Senna, get to it~”
Rolling her eyes, Senna left the room for the kitchen.
Thomas kept all the work furniture in the main entry room, but the property was also his and Senna’s home, with another small living room, kitchen, bathroom and even three bedrooms. It was a cozy lifestyle, even if the bedrooms were a bit small.
Despite the size, it was an extremely valuable property and burdened Thomas with a steep mortgage.
“What services of ours are you interested in?” Thomas asked while having her sit in the visitor seat on the other side of his desk.
“It’s… my son, he has been missing for two weeks now.”
“Is that so… This appears to be quite a serious matter. Shouldn’t you be taking it to the police?”
“I have, but they haven’t been able to help at all. I’m worried… I know my son is in trouble, I can feel it. He needs help… There is no mother who wouldn’t know when their child is in danger.”
Senna returned with a silver tray in her hands. Atop were three cups, a gravy boat full of sugar, and a boiling pot of tea ready to be served. There were also a couple of deserts that she intended to eat herself.
She placed it on Thomas’ desk and gracefully poured three cups of tea before taking a seat on the side to join the discussion.
The woman didn’t miss her pointed ears and winced as the fae girl tucked her hair back to keep it out of her face. She clearly held some aversion to supernatural creatures due to commonplace rumors, but she maintained her expression and didn’t say anything rude or offensive.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” Senna calmly said whilst taking out a pen and writing in a notebook, “How about you introduce yourself first.”
“O-of course. My name is Arianna Nikolic. My mother moved over to America in the late 21st century, just before the Departure of Machine.”
“I see. I am Senna, and this is Thomas… he is the owner of this business. Despite his appearance, I assure you that he is very competent at what he does,” Thomas chuckled innocently whilst Senna cleared her throat and understood that addressing her grievances right now was not good for business. “Tell me what you know about your son’s disappearance.”
“My son… Adrian… went over to his friend’s house for a sleepover nearly two weeks ago, or at least that is what he told me at the time. I normally wouldn’t have let him go as it was a school night, but he had been working very hard in school so I allowed it… I shouldn’t have, I really shouldn’t have… I don’t know what happened after that. There was apparently no sleepover, and he never returned home.”
“How did you find out about this?”
“The school called me the following day, saying he hadn’t turned up and hadn’t been notified that he wouldn’t be at school that day. I called his friend’s parents and they thought they were staying at my house. I spent all day looking for him before reporting it to the police.”
Thomas pulled out a cigarette and was about to light it when Senna snatched it from his mouth and crushed it in her hand to powder. He looked at her like a wounded animal, but she showed no remorse of her actions.
“Please go outside if you want to smoke… No, don’t smoke anymore, it is a bad habit. Miss Nikolic, we can take up your request to investigate the whereabouts of your son. However, you must understand that our services cost.”
“Really!? That’s great! Please, what will it cost?”
Thomas counted on his fingers before stating, “10,000c.”
“20,000c. Paid upfront,” Senna immediately interjected and overwrote Thomas’ price, giving the latter a glare that warned him not to refute. “If we cannot fulfill your request, we will refund 50 percent of the value.”
Arianna was shocked at the cost and bit her lip nervously. Senna calmly picked up a slice of strawberry cream cake and nibbled on it whilst waiting.
“Does it have to be… paid up front.”
“Yes,” Senna stated while getting straight to the point. “The outcome of these types of events sometimes aren’t a happy ending. If we find your son, but he is dead, would you be willing to still pay?”
“That…”
“Miss Nikolic, you wouldn’t, just like many others. This is why this type of request must be paid upfront, to ensure we are paid for our work.”
“…”
“I can assure you however, we will save him if there is even the slightest possibility to do so. In the worst case scenario, you will at least be fully informed of the what happened to your son, rather than the possibility of never knowing.”
“I understand… Do you take checks?”
“We accept bank transfers, international and credit cards.”
“We also accept bitcoin,” Thomas added on whilst making a greedy for money sign with his hand.
He had recently been learning about electronic currencies and block chains. He was naturally interested in playing with them, even as volatile as the e-currency market had proven to be through history.
Arianna eventually paid via credit card and Senna printed out a receipt for her whilst opening a case file for her request. The mother left while praying that her son was safe and alive, Thomas promising to keep her updated on the case.
By keeping her updated though, he meant Senna sending her email reports as the investigation proceeded.
Thomas didn’t even bother asking Arianna if she made a request to the Protectorate as he knew a bit about the circumstances involved. There were only so many heroes, and they were made available to deal with situations that the police were not equipped to, not replace their jobs.
If the Protectorate or any other organization was to be involved in the case of a missing child, it would only be after the police have determined the matter to involve unnatural circumstances or beyond their ability to safely handle, at which point the country’s military would likely also get involved.
This wasn’t to say there wouldn’t be a righteous hero nearby who had spare time on their hands.
It was just highly improbable.
“20,000c is a bit too much, isn’t it?” Thomas asked while looking at the beautiful half fallen fae, who pursed her cherry lips and harrumphed.
“You may not pay any attention to this, but we are two months behind on our bills and mortgage repayments, not to mention all the other people you owe credits to. You paid a ridiculous price for this run down property and now have to pay it back. The bank have called several times this week alone! If you hadn’t gambled all our credits away last time, we wouldn’t be in this predicament!”
“I was confident I would be able to pull out all the copies of that new EX character and get her to max level.”
“6,000c! You spent 6,000c gambling on a game for nothing but images of cartoon girls!” Senna’s chest begun heaving as her anger boiled.
“Hahaha, well, I got all 21 copies needed of her in the end, didn’t I? I am now back in the top ten on the server.”
Thomas boisterously laughed while thinking of the new Joan of Arc character in the online mobile game, Age of Heroes. It held a gacha system where you had to summon characters and would constantly run various events to keep people spending credits on the game.
Each character had their own unique strengths and weaknesses, able to buff, debuff, heal, deal large amounts of damage, or cause a myriad of effects to enemies.
Characters were graded into C, R, SR, SSR and EX depending on rarity and power. Higher rarity characters could be upgraded to higher levels than the previous ones too.
One copy of a character was enough to use them, but more copies were needed to upgrade them. An EX rarity character required 21 copies on top of the original one in order to unlock them to the maximum 13 star rating, whilst it was rumored in the game that would be further increased to allow all characters to be increased by a further two star ratings soon.
Thomas had been addicted to this game over the past year and couldn’t control himself from splurging credits on it in an attempt to be the best.
“What is it?” Thomas asked after seeing Senna looking down at her lap, her hair stopping him from seeing her expression.
“…I’m hungry.”
“Didn’t you just eat?”
“Not that type.”
“Oh? Is it that time already?”
“It’s not, but I’m still hungry…”
“There is no need to be shy, come have your fill.”
Thomas extended out his arm for her to bite into. Senna was still a fallen fae, even if only half, so she required to consume blood in order to live. The cakes and other sweets were just to help stave off her hunger in between her feedings, which was typically anywhere from once a week to once a month.
Ignoring the arm extended before her, she silently sat herself atop Thomas lap and tightly hugged his body. With her face buried in the crook of his neck, he felt all the wonders that came with a mature woman’s body pressed up against him.
Thomas felt her hot breath tickle his skin whilst the scent of her shampoo filled his nose.
“Come now, you’re not a little girl anymore,” He gave her a tender smile while stroking the back of her head.
Senna’s mouth moved as she softly muttered, “Shut up and don’t misunderstand. The only reason I am still here is to use you for food and as a shield.”
“The same as always, right?”
Thomas felt her breath on his neck as she opened her mouth and revealed razor sharp teeth. Other people would be absolutely terrified of this sight, but he instead pushed her mouth against his neck.
Senna immediately sank her teeth into his flesh, slowly and rhythmically sucking out his blood as she drank it. Her face flushed crimson as her body was filled with an exhilarating warmth all the way to her marrow.
This wasn’t just consuming his blood, but the small amounts of soul Thomas fed her using his blood as a medium. It nourished her body and made her stronger, both physically and mystically.
He didn’t do this for no reason. Having a powerful soul helped her maintain a calm mind and fight of the instincts that came with degeneration into a fallen fae, thus halting the degeneration process. However, the growth of her former infantile body had been an unexpected side effect from the inflation of her soul over the years, something that nobody could have predicted.
Even after she finished feeding, Senna didn’t move. She shifted her body to be more comfortable and closed her eyes whilst digesting the blood, not a trace of which was left on her lips.
“Come on, you still need to have a shower and do your homework,” Thomas stated with a casual smile.
“I told you to shut up.”
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