Mission Log, Day 17, Sunday, September 19th, 1999
I have had to suspend my actions upon Jackson White since my last log entry. The small matter of a murder takes precedence, especially when it appears to be the work of my old enemy Arnu, Demon of Dismemberment.
Oh, by the way, Jackson's courtship of Melanie took an unusual turn. After dinner and a movie, Jackson took her back to his room. He seemed up to his old tricks, but I held my breath until just the right moment...only he didn't bring out the flask, and she said "No," and he accepted that and took her home. Color me shocked! He obviously wanted her, could have just taken her, but perhaps guilt, or at least fear, were having the proper effect on him. So not all is lost. But I definitely needed to continue working on him. Just for good measure I followed him home, screeching and cackling at him as he passed by and generally scaring him into a froth. The crowning glory of the evening was lurking on his back porch, staring and hissing at him, divebombing him as he fled into the house. Ha, ha! You cannot escape me, you fool! But that was enough fun for one night.
After another fruitless search of the murder scene, I came to the disappointing solution that this required an angel of alternate skills, perhaps one with a penchant for floral conversation. I set off to find the rest of the Boulder angel contingent, particularly that darn Matt.
But my wings took me to the Pearl Street Mall. In the pre-dawn gloam, I found Arashiel sketching various scenes in charcoal. She even drew me, a decent likeness, and pocketed the image as a gift at my request. Arashiel is very nice. It's easy to forget she wields a sword of light which can sever limbs without effort.
So I asked her if she knew anything about the murder. She took a long pause to consider, very irritating, and I finally changed the subject and asked where the Lilim was. She suggested I look at her home, to which I replied, "Well, she's probably doomed to die since she's no longer under the Tether's protection."
Okay, I thought I was being honest and forthright, but even I noticed how callous it sounded after it escaped my lips. So I changed the subject again, back to the murder. "I think Arnu's behind it."
"Why? The woman was a waitress at Bob's workplace. What would he possibly want with her?" She headed back to the Painted Pot, and I rode along on her shoulder.
"Well, that makes even more sense. The only angel Arnu knows is with me is Bob, since he saw us together and asked if he was a Malakite. And Bob's death was definitely not Arnu's style. Arnu probably doesn't even know Bob is dead, and as per standard operating procedure has tracked down his role and gone after the nearest helpless victim, some poor woman who may or may not have even known him."
"I don't think so. I think it's the Game Triad, trying to win the War by going after those we care about."
"Why her? We don't care about her, and now she's dead, so it's too late to bother."
Ouch. Second callous statement in less than a minute. I needed to get that under control before this very sanguine angel decided to take offense. Time to change the subject again. "Maybe Matt could find out more about the killer if he spoke with the grass."
Arashiel nodded sagely, didn't say much until we arrived at the store, and only then to say conversationally, "I felt an odd 'loomy' feeling when I left this morning."
Now 'loomy' is not a word that I associate good things with, assuming it is even a word at all. But she seemed quite blasˇ about the whole business, seemingly confident that this was nothing to be concerned about, and I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary, so I nodded as if she were commenting on the weather and we went inside.
Rook and Jael were there. Damn my eyes if something isn't going on between those two. They were polite enough to me and to each other, perhaps icily so, but still generated celestial sparks between them. I admit I stayed as far away as I reasonably could. Matt headed our way, Adrienne in tow, so I deliberately made myself scarce and listened at a distance to his discussion with the plants.
Although hard to come by, the answers were interesting of themselves. Apparently a man and a woman came by. They seemed amiable enough, talking normally, although the woman's arms didn't swing, as if held behind her back. Then without warning the man gutted her. I bet he was calm as could be, perhaps even smiling a little, but plants could hardly notice so much detail on a human face.
Time to take action. Enough confusion, enough ambiguity, enough ignorance. I spoke briefly with those away from Adrienne, then flew to Denver to pay a visit to Issan, Elohite of Fire and criminal psychologist for the Justice Department.
I wasted much of my time trying to find her. A lost Ofanite is a pitiful thing, for it's about as natural as a Malakite who backs down from a fight or an Elohite who laughs at jokes, and no more shall be said of that. When I did finally find her at home, the sun was on its way down and she lounged in her backyard, typing. A carefully hissed name established her identity, and I asked her what she knew about the woman murdered in Boulder Friday night. Strangely, she knew very little about that, but knew quite a bit about a few other questions on my mind. For example, I mentioned seeing Arnu at the new Tether to Death ("Ah, yes, Demon of Dismemberment, worded in 1703"), mentioned he saw me and now my friend is in Trauma and his coworker has been brutally murdered. Then she mentioned that he definitely was not gunning for a position as Seneschal of the new Tether (worded celestials rarely give up their hard-earned word to babysit a Tether), so why was he there? For that matter, was I sure it would become a Tether to Death and not some other demonic word? She had me there. So I asked her opinion on the prophesy Gabriel gave me, about Neutrality and Chaos and the Seller of Souls. She suggests a Lilim might be into selling souls, or a Shedite. In fact, a Lilim was in town recently, and coincidentally taught at the high school before the two boys went on the rampage. "Which Lilim?" was the next question, since the only Lilim I knew was Adrienne, (and Millicent, but she'd never leave her Tether in Colorado Springs). If Adrienne were the Lilim Issan spoke of, she could be working with Arnu and I would classify that as Not Good. Issan knew all this because she'd done some counseling at the school, but she'd never counseled the two boys (which left me wondering, who did?). And she mentioned offhand that the police recently discovered another decapitated homeless man in downtown Denver (another?--as if one wasn't enough?), even showed me where they found the body on a map. Lots more questions arose than answers, but I felt much closer to understanding how all these disjointed events fit together in the grand scheme, so I begged her to get me more information. I know in my gut these are clues to Arnu's plans, or to the prophesy, or the intentions of the Game Triad, and a big chance to foil Hell's plans for once instead of playing into them.
Investigating this decapitation would be the next logical step, but it would be nice if I could mingle with the humans as one of them. Unfortunately, my human vessel was hardly in any shape to wear out of the house, battered and vomit-smeared and naked as it was. Issan helped me there, too, loaned me the use of her facilities to get cleaned up and gave me old clothes and some sandals to wear, plus some money to ride the bus around.
The downtown ride was a bust, the murder scene too old to glean anything from and the people too forgetful. So I've had a long bus ride back to Boulder to think about what she said, and what the plants said, and try to formulate some plan for what to do next.
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