After a solid twenty minutes, Adrastea was done going through her gear, and everything was okay before she chanted a few words, casting a cloaking spell. She then summoned the Aether with a spell and was soon a hundred meters just shy of the warehouse.
Scouting the area, she was just in time to see the helicopter take off and three SUVs beginning to leave the area. Another short spell confirmed whatever magic redundancy devices they had activated that previously prevented her from engaging was disabled. She then summoned the Aether once again and jumped up to twenty meters away from the broken doors.
In the parking lot, there was a heavily damaged van, and three other SUVs that were left behind as the enemies left. She then approached the destroyed van wherein on closer inspection she could smell blood and soon enough she was able to see a pool.
However, that wasn't the only thing she saw when she approached and got a closer look. There was also a device dropped in the center of the van. It had a beeping sound and a red dot that went on and off at intervals matching the beeping sound.
Adrastea immediately chanted a spell as her eyes grew wide. She was barely back at her original spot when the vehicles and the warehouse both erupted in orange flames.
'Damn it!'
They now made her job more complicated. Returning her attention to the vanishing helicopter, she picked the nearest building and gave a brief chant before she instantly appeared atop it. The helicopter now much closer than before was headed for the city's outskirts.
After seven jumps and ten minutes later, Adrastea stopped following them. She had only two possible guesses as to where they could be headed. Outside the city there was a M.A.R.S branch which handled almost all matters of the supernatural in Argo, while their headquarters was located further inland, roughly seven hundred and fifty miles away.
Having nothing else to do, Adrastea made several jumps back to the warehouse and found a lot of humans furiously working on quenching the raging flames. While still cloaked, she crept closer, again back to the first spot she had begun her initial investigation.
On closer inspection with her senses she was able to find a few drops of blood on the asphalt. The rest of the burning cars were destroyed beyond recognition. Scooping up a smear, she tasted it and found the blood to be human. Muttering a small spell, she was able to gather more details. The human was a mid-twenties male, blood type O-positive. Blonde hair, average height and in a perfectly healthy condition.
That's was as far as one could go with a Spell of Revelation. You mostly got physical, mystical and physiological details with a drop of blood. Anything past that like a name and address wasn't possible as it wasn't connected to the victim's biology.
Moving on she found other faint traces of blood, and all gave the same results. Her final vehicle appeared to be the white van, at least that was the color the last time she checked. There Adrastea found five people in uniforms and three others in casual clothing but spotting on badges.
They had one more person crouching with plastic tubing and a cotton swab as he scooped from a sizeable pool of blood before putting it in the plastic container containing clear fluid inside. Adrastea moved closer and carefully at the edge of the pool, she dipped her index finger and tasted the blood. It had a robust acidic taste with a strong ozone scent. She immediately knew who the blood belonged too. Raising up, she then recognized the two casually clothed humans to be the detectives that grilled Raymond just less than a week ago.
This wasn't going to end well. It's at moments like these that Adrastea missed the old days where she could easily pop up, scare the shit out of the poor souls prompting them to run and leave her behind to cover up the mess. These days you almost always ended up getting shot at as the first reaction. Humans were annoying little creatures that got smarter with their ever-evolving technology.
Luckily for her, she didn't have to overthink before an idea popped into her mind when the humans began talking.
"I've got enough for analysis; the rest can be cleaned off." The crouching guy told the three standing humans.
"What's your theory?"
"Judging by the large number of shell casings, I'd say there was some serious fight. My initial thoughts were gang-related but considering the amount of cover-up applied. These guys were professionals."
"You think they could be military."
"Makes sense, the explosives used are military grade. Also, the shells are untraceable. I'm guessing they have plenty of resources for your standard local gang. The question is, which group was going after the other, cause that's a lot of firepower that you mostly found in a group versus group gunfight."
"Later, buddy. What I want to know is where they took the bodies, including their enemy's. I can understand their own guys, but grabbing all the bodies is very unusual. Like this guy, that's a lot of blood for anyone to still be alive."
"They took them probably, or they are burnt to a crisp in there." He pointed at the burning warehouse. "But it doesn't matter; I have five different samples that I will be running through the database. I should be able to ID them in a few hours. Let the guys finish up with the warehouse. We'll probably find more to the story from whatever is left."
The Forensic Expert then picked up his bag and went to his van where he deposited the few samples he managed so far. Adrastea saw her opening and patiently waited for him to leave shutting her inside the van with his samples.
Sooner than she expected, he was done and out of the van. She then carefully opened the mini cooler and extracted the familiar blood sample, it was marked, but she didn't need that. She easily followed the ozone smell and found the blood she was looking for.
Glancing at the blood sample, she muttered another short spell before the blood in the glass tube briefly boiled then cooled. She then placed it back in the rack and left. So far so good. Now all she needed was prepare for her briefing with Athena. Athena will decide whether they would save Charles or not, but knowing how much he meant to Raymond, Adrastea had a feeling he would likely push it until Athena gives in.
After making sure everything was in place, she then chanted a short spell and blinked back to the mansion.
The first thing Adrastea noticed was the smell of burnt wood, metal, and plastics, the large chandelier in the living room had exploded together with the side lamps. The study that was next to the staircase wasn't left alone either. With the wide-open door, she could see smoke rising on all five computers and a good portion of their backs melted.
"Raymond!" She groaned in between gritted teeth. He was having a temper tantrum without a doubt.
Adrastea heard a loud scream before she hurriedly sprinted up the stairs to find out what was happening. On reaching Raymond's room, she saw the seven other nymphs surrounding their fallen comrade who was on the floor, thrashing around in agony.
On closer inspection, Adrastea saw the poor nymph had her entire left arm charred, and a strong smell of burnt flesh saturated the entire corridor.
"What happened?"
"It's Mistress Athena's guest. He burned her with lightning."
That wasn't possible. The room was enchanted by Athena herself in case something like this ever happened. "How?"
"We were trying to combine our magic and cast another Sleeping Spell when a bolt shot right through the doorknob. Hecuba was the closest to the knob and it hit her on her left arm."
'Damn! He had grown stronger.'
"Let me out of here!"
Adrastea heard Raymond scream in rage a few seconds later. This wasn't going to end well. "Why didn't you call Lady Athena?"
"We did, she said the enchantment would hold. We had only one job to do, to calm him down and to stop interrupting her she is in an important meeting."
Well, it was just like Athena to leave them to fend for themselves. She never was a sympathizer for the weak, nope, she reserved that only for the brave and strong no matter what adversary you were about to face or in their case trying to contain.
Slowly Adrastea approached the door separating her and what could possibly be a fuming Raymond. She went for another Sleeping Spell and was amused when it didn't work, then again it never works when your target is experiencing strong emotions. It was quite a stupid limitation to a very handy spell.
"Raymond…it's me Adrastea. You remember me?" She asked, imploringly.
Adrastea was met with silence. She wanted to go in and talk to him, but she was afraid she was only going to escalate the situation into a further violent nature. The doorknob, was half melted, and you could still see the molten bronze dripping to a small pool of cooling metal.
The silence in the hallway lasted for about a minute before Adrastea could start feeling a little chill permeating her body and a slight shift in the air. That was impossible, he couldn't have mastered weather control this fast. But something else at the back of her head reminded her that Ray could be doing it subconsciously as a result of his emotions.
An angry Zeus tended to cause a lot of catastrophic havoc, so this situation even though minor, was still possible. Adrastea just hoped things wouldn't get out of hand before Athena came back.