“You feel it, don’t you?” Said the grey lady to Sigfrid, “something dreadful happened in this apartment, something dark, something arcane. The air itself feels wrong.”


    “We call that mold,” Sigfrid said in her usual monotonous voice, “it tends to appear in the living spaces of people who can’t look after themselves.”


    The lady in grey let out a hearty but succinct laugh, “you ARE special after all, officer!”


    Sigfrid shrugged, “if you say so.”


    The apartment itself was small and dark, and indeed something about it smelled off.


    They had found it by interrogating the witnesses from the incident that had happened earlier that week, but only went inside after making sure the renter was out and not coming back. Why? Sigfrid didn’t know, but the case reeked, they had a new suspect, except the evidence didn’t align at all with the witnesses’ accounts, and what’s more, the gray lady, whoever she was, had wiped the records clean of Ella Grimsdottir existence. Whatever was going on was crooked, and she was neck deep in whatever ‘it’ was.


    “Light up this place,” the lady in grey said and continued; “what do you see here?”


    “Bread crumbs.” Sigfid said upon pointing her light at a tiny table sitting solitarily in the dark. “And blood.”


    “The spell caster’s first meal as a living weapon.”


    “How do you know this is what she ate the day of her awakening?”


    “See how she attempted to claw her way to the bread across the table, even though it was within reach? See enough scenes of awakenings and your gut will start telling you when something just has no explanation.”


    “It could have been a psychotic outbreak.”


    “Does not match the suspect’s psych eval.”


    “How is it that we have a psychic evaluation on a random teenager?”


    “You wouldn’t know, since you transferred here about a year ago, but it only took me a little bit of asking to find out that the day Ella murdered a violent criminal in self defense was the day this little town was shaken to the very core.”


    Sigfrid frowned.


    “Why yes, it is very upsetting. When that happened, our suspect was but fifteen years old.”


    Sigfrid sighed, “well, and when are we going to catch this girl?”


    “Don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to change the subject, but I’ll let that slide. The reason we don’t go after her right now is because it’s just not convenient for us.”


    “What do you mean?” Sigfrid asked, struggling to keep her poker face.


    The lady in grey patted her in the shoulder, a habit that Sigfrid had already begun to hate, and smirked at her, “you’ll know… Once we can trust you.”


    <hr>


    The room was gaudy, in the centre of it were six men of different ethnicities, heights and endowments. Facing them was a tacky golden throne, and sitting on it looking dejected was Ella.


    “Sigh, this will just not do. King!” she said in an authoritative tone and clapped.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    An androgynous person in a glittery butler outfit came from a door behind her and said, “why these are some of the best call boys we have on offer.”


    “I can see it’s only ‘some’, look at me and tell me with a straight face, would you fuck any of these men?”


    The person called King cracked a sassy smile, “well, no, I wouldn’t. But that says nothing of the quality of our services, it’s just not my inclination~”


    “Smartass…” Ella crossed her arms and looked grumpy.


    “Why maybe you would like to go for some of the girls instead~?”


    “I’m not in the mood for that. Just get me some blow and a vibrator.”


    “Right away my queen,” King bowed, “and your accommodations?”


    “You already know… Most expensive room you have, and make sure it has the minibar stocked.”


    She had been at it all week, never drunk enough to get her horny, nor high enough to feel like she did back then. She remembered the look on Felix’s face, when she commanded him like he was her’s, and she would shake, enraptured.


    “...The hell’s wrong with me…” She would ask herself as she browsed fancy shops without any real interest.


    She ate in every restaurant and drank in every bar she had greedily lusted after when she was poor. She rejected every prostitute in town. She bought dumb shit that she didn’t need and didn’t even want.


    And only when every avenue for pleasure seemed exhausted, it was then that she remembered, “I’ve got friends!!!” She got excited for the first time since highschool and went through her phone’s contact list. The list itself was humble, ‘but it’s filled only with the real deal,’ she thought.


    The first number was Amanda, she didn’t even remember the last time they spoke. Surely she would be glad to get a call from her dear friend. She rang her number.


    “Hello? Who is this?” Ella heard from the other side.


    “Hey, Amy, it’s me, Ella, from the same class?”


    “Oh… It’s you… Are you going to pay me back what I lent you last year?”


    “Bitch, I’m rich! I’ll pay you back with interest!”


    “Yeah, right. You are rich AND drunk. Call me back when you are actually going to return me my money, or better yet? Don’t call back, EVER” she said and immediately hung up.


    “B-but, but…! I have money…!” She began to cry, it was the first time she did since that presence had appeared before her. The tears flowed like a river and her cries were so loud, people were starting to get up and move somewhere away from her. And then, suddenly, the tears stopped. “Hmmm, well, whatever.” She dried her tears and smiled again, “let’s see who’s next!”


    She spent the following fifteen minutes going through the exact same routine, until the only contacts she had left were Selim and King.


    She frowned, the crying felt fake by that point, “I guess King might want to hang out?” She rang their number.


    “Why, if it isn’t my favourite customer~ Did you wish to hire our services~?”


    “Not really, I was more thinking if you wanted to come have a drink with me or something?” She said and smiled in anticipation.


    “Haha, of course… Not~! Baby, at this establishment we don’t mix business with pleasure, ironically enough~ Call back when you want to get laid, toodles~” and they hung up.


    Ella’s smile quickly turned upside down and she mumbled; “as if I wanted to share a drink with you of all people…!” She closed her fists and shook with rage. And after all her strength left her, she looked back at her phone and thought, “well… Only one number left…”


    She opened Selim’s profile and her finger lingered over the ‘call’ button for an uncomfortable amount of time. “I shouldn’t…” She closed his profile, then looked back at her phone. “Or maybe I should…?” She rhythmically tapped the tip of her fingers on her lower lip as she pondered. “Yeah, just a friendly call. A call of friendliness.” She opened up his profile, “wait, no, he might misinterpret.” She thought and closed his profile again.


    She sat on a nearby bench, it was cold out, but she was dressing in puffy clothes, so she didn’t feel a thing. She sighed and her breath formed a very visible white cloud. Then, her phone suddenly rang. She got startled so bad she let it fall on the ground, and when she picked it back up she could barely tell it was Selim calling through the broken screen.


    “Oh, hey,” she said. “Wanna meet up- er, I mean, what’s up?”


    “Something’s up, I can’t tell you over the phone. See you back at our place, as soon as you can.” And then he hung up.


    Ella sat still for a moment. ‘He sounded really worried’, she thought. It was probably too much to ask for a quiet life after what they have done. She grumbled. ‘Whatever, whatever!’, she thought so loudly people several meters away could hear her.


    After sitting still for a bit with her mind blank, she finally thought; ‘well, might as well see what’s up.’ And she got up and picked up the pace.


    When she got to her usual place, Selim was slouching over the railing, overlooking the sidewalk. She got up to him and stopped when she noticed he was shaking. She lifted one of her arms to pat him on the shoulder, but somewhere along the way she stopped, and instead said; “what’s up?”


    He turned around, “some one’s after us.” He was covered in cold sweat.


    “You are gonna catch a cold,” she answered, and the covered him with one of her many coats.


    “Didn’t you hear me?!”


    “Yes, and you didn’t say anything I wasn’t expecting you to say.”


    He started to scream incomprehensibly, tears running down his face. Until at one point, she grabbed him by the shoulders and said:


    “I can’t ask you to calm down, this is my fault, but I can ask you this; ‘believe in me.’”


    “Believe in what? What are we going to do?!” He was still crying, but at least he was calm enough that she could understand what he was saying.


    “You are not going to do anymore than tell me what you know, and then I’ll handle it.”


    “Handle it?” He said with a puzzled look on his face, “handle it how?”


    “You said people were after us?”


    “Yes, and…?”


    She let go of his shoulders and grabbed him by the face, the look in her eyes was filled with paternalistic emotion, and her voice was dead serious when she answered:


    “And I’m going to kill them.”