Kit stays crouched outside the Director's office, listening to the rest of the conversation.
"What are you saying?" The Director's voice sounds tense. "A demon? Don't joke around with me."
"I'm not joking! Why would you think I would joke over such a thing?" Kat shouts back.
"I'm telling you exactly what the client told me."
"Hmph! You may not be joking, but how are you so sure she's telling the truth?"
"Because no one in their right mind would lie about something like that!"
"And you think she's in her right mind?" The Director lets out a short bark of laughter. "She hardly looks like it."
"Even then, she's not lying. At least not in her mind. Do you truly think it could all have been a delusion of theirs?"
"I don't know! But what else am I supposed to think? A demon?" The Director snorts. "Be real. If her husband has actually been abducted by a demon, she'd better start preparing for his funeral!"
"But the client–"
"First of all, stop calling them a client. They're not. Not unless we take up their case. And second, the 'client' does not call the shots here, I do."
"But you have to believe them!"
"I don't have to believe anything! May I remind you, just who the Director of this town is?"
There's a moment of silence, and he can imagine Kat's expression at the moment: her mouth opening and closing, looking like a fish.
"B-but," Kat stumbles over her words, "shouldn't we still look into it? Even if it isn't true, shouldn't we make sure of it first before writing her off completely?"
"No!"
"I beg you to reconsider, Director. At least so the BMA will not lose face, if nothing more," Kat says through gritted teeth. "The… woman is part of a very influential family, and I would not recommend getting on their bad side."
Now it's the Director's turn to fall silent. Kit also has to stifle a gasp that escapes him. That woman… is actually someone important? He has to agree with Kat's decision. Even if it's for nothing more than to not antagonise an influential family, the case should be investigated at least superficially.
"Fine! You do it if you want to!" The sound of the Director slamming the top of her desk travels even through the closed door. "But don't you bother me about it anymore! I have no interest in pursuing some lunatic's ramblings when there are more important things to do!"
The sound of a chair scraping against the floor and hitting the floor is heard, and a few seconds later, Kat storms out of the Director's office. When he sees her, Kit scrambles to get into the bathroom, pretending he hadn't been eavesdropping into their conversation, but there's no need. Kat doesn't even notice him, just walking past him without a single glance and heading to the common room.
Kit can only stare, frozen in spot, after her.
Just what is going on here?
~~~
The water turns a pinkish shade from the blood, and Kit watches it, as if mesmerised, as it goes down the drain. Standing in the narrow shower of the office's bathroom, he can feel the weight of everything that has happened today slowly sink in.
This, unlike the slaughterhouse incident, hadn't been an isolated thing. This had been something the entire town had experienced, and most likely, everyone was in a state of panic. It's actually a miracle people aren't out in the street actively rioting. Or perhaps they're too scared to do it.
This isn't something they will be able to explain or cover up. Sooner or later, the Director will have to make an announcement about their situation, and then, Kit can only imagine the chaos there will be.
Once again, the paralysing fear from yesterday seizes him. What is he going to do? He doesn't want to die, but every minute, it seems like that is the only fate that awaits him. They truly are doomed. There's no way he's getting out of this one.
…Could he run away?
As soon as the idea pops into his head, he almost laughs out loud. Run away where? He has nowhere he could go. What would he even tell headquarters? That he was too much of a coward and that's why he left? And he can't just abandon everyone here. His conscience wouldn't allow him to continue living. He would feel as if their blood were on his hands.
Turning off the shower, he steps out of the shower and gets dressed. He managed to clean himself up the best that he can, scraping most of the blood off him, but the scent of it still lingers. Even after washing himself three times, scrubbing his skin until it turned red, the metallic smell of blood can still be perceived. It's not as strong as before, but it's there, mixing with that of the cheap convenience store soap.
When Kit comes out of the bathroom, he's greeted by an absolute silence. The office is empty once again. All the lights are turned off, meaning Jessica has already left. Aster hasn't come back in, and Kat has probably left with the woman she and the Director had been talking about. Mousie and Gnocchi must have gone home; Kit would have sent them if they had been here anyways. It's way past what would normally be closing time. And the Director must have told Jessica to take Dee seeing that Kit hadn't come back yet. He makes a note to give Jessica a call later. For tonight, it might be better that Dee stays with her.
And Baz… Now that he thinks about it, Kit hasn't seen him all day. Well, he did see him just once, in the morning. But just as Baz and Valentine had been coming into the office, Kit was leaving with Dee to take care of a boggart. There had been no time for anything except a quick greeting then, and when they had returned, both Baz and Valentine were already gone.
Outside, a storm has started brewing. The sound of the wind howling, making a hollow whooshing noise, gives the dark office a sinister feel. The branches of the trees in the back hit against the window panes and flashes of lightning only add to the eerie atmosphere. At least this one looks like it will be a normal storm.
Just then, the office's door is thrown open, and the accompanying gust of wind blows in various leaves and twigs. The fragments of a conversation are also carried in.
"—you have to calm down," Aster is saying. "What do you think you're going to achieve going in there like that?"
A sudden crack of thunder drowns out the other person's response.
"And I'm telling you, you have to calm down!" Aster shouts. "Hey! Wait! Don't you dare just ignore me!" From xeir tone of voice, xe is totally pissed.
Whoever it is that Aster is talking to must either be the stupidest or bravest person ever, because they don't pay xeir words any mind. The sound of their footsteps ring through the whole office, their stomping being loud enough to be heard even over the sounds of the storm. Kit can see their silhouette at the end of the hall, and he feels his heartbeat pick up. The person throws open the glass door separating the reception area from the main office too. Kit can only watch in fear as they search for the light switch, fumbling in the dark and cursing loudly. Finally, they find the switch and turn the lights on. Kit blinks against the sudden onslaught of brightness.
"Kit?" It's Baz's voice. "What were you doing there, just standing in the dark?"
Kit blinks the spots away from his vision. "Baz?"
"Yeah it's me," he smiles. Now that Kit can finally see clearly, he is able to make out the strained lines on Baz's face, even with the smile.
So it was Baz the one Aster had been arguing with. Now it makes sense why Aster didn't murder them on the spot. The bonds of childhood friendships ran that deep. Anyone else would have ended up with at least a broken nose. (It had happened to Kit the one, and only time, he had gotten into an argument with Aster back when they had just met.)
"But seriously, what are you doing?" Baz walks up to him and pats his head. "You okay? Nothing happened to you, right?"
Kit can feel his ears turning red, and he has to swallow past a lump that has suddenly formed in his throat before answering. 'N-no. I'm fine."
"Mm. You sure?" Baz pats Kit's head again, this time letting it rest there for several seconds.
Kit only nods this time, not trusting himself to speak without his voice breaking.
"Well, if you say so." Baz removes his hand, and walks past Kit. But before he's taken more than a few steps, Kit calls out after him.
"Baz! You…" Kit fidgets a bit, picking at the skin on his fingers, debating whether to finish the sentence. "Are you alright?"
Baz seems to do a double take. "Me?" He flashes a grin at Kit, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Why are you asking?"
"Well, you… I just heard you and Aster–"
"Don't worry about that," Baz cuts him off, his features going hard. It almost feels like a slap to Kit's face, and he blinks a couple of times. But then Baz is smiling again, and the sting of it fades a bit. "It's nothing, okay? You… You should go get some rest."
"...Okay."
"It's nothing, I promise you. So don't worry about it." He turns away, and walks into the Director's office. Not even a full minute later, the raised voices of both Baz and Fluorite are coming from behind the closed door.
Feeling like an intruder, Kit decides he is not going to be staying to listen to this conversation. Walking out of the office, he bumps into Aster. There's several cigarette butts around xeir feet, and there's another one between xeir lips. Xeir mouth is downturned into a scowl, the furrow between xeir brows pronounced. Standing next to xem is Valentine, the wind blowing strands of hair into her face, but she makes no move to brush them away. Her expression is also sullen. Both of them are quiet, just staring off into the distance, watching the clouds form on the horizon.
"Aster? Valentine?" Kit can tell something is wrong. "Why are you out here?"
Aster's eyes flick towards him, and xe lets out the smoke through xeir nose, the frown on xeir face deepening. Valentine doesn't even glance at him.
"What did the idiot say?" Aster asks him.
"Baz?"
"Unless you know any other, then yes." Xe takes a drag from the almost finished cigarette. "Did he tell you anything?"
"No. He just asked how I was."
"Hmph. Coward," xe scoffs. "Didn't have the balls to come clean then, heh." Xe gives a humourless laugh.
Kit has no idea what that is supposed to mean. Just what exactly is going on? Why is he the only one out of the loop?
Off to the side, Valentine sniffles. At first, Kit is almost sure he must have misheard, until she does it again.
"Valentine?" Kit tries to get a look at her face, but Valentine just ducks her head. Kit grows worried. "Valentine, what's wrong?"
She just shakes her head.
Kit turns to Aster. "What's wrong? What's going on? Aster, why won't anyone tell me anything?"
Aster opens xeir mouth, but before they can even make a sound, a roll of thunder reverberates through the skies. It's so loud, it leaves Kit's ears ringing and his teeth aching. As soon as it has faded, the rain starts pouring down all at once. It's like someone has opened the floodgates, and the drops of water fall to the earth with a viciousness Kit has never seen before. It's like the heavens are trying to wash them out.
Aster tugs at his arm. "Let's go somewhere else. We'll talk there." Aster then takes Valentine by the hand and with their unoccupied one, opens an umbrella over them. "Come on, Kit. The three of us can squeeze under."
With no other options on how to leave the office, Kit is forced to go with them. Being the tallest, it falls to him to carry the umbrella. He walks on the side closer to the road, Valentine in the middle, with Aster flanking the other side. The wind, though not as intense as before the rain started, has Kit gripping the umbrella's handle so hard his fingers will be aching tomorrow.
The heavy rain is washing away the blood, and the streets run with the tainted water. The storm is coming down so hard, the drops that fall against the ground cause the water that has accumulated to splash upwards, and in only a few minutes, the entire bottom half of their clothes are soaked through. But neither Aster nor Valentine have any reactions to it.
Normally, they would be extremely bothered by something like this. Valentine has always been the type to complain loudly and extensively (something she seems to have learned from Baz), but now they just trudge along, clinging on to Aster's side and burying her face in xeir clothes. And while Aster is usually a more stoic and quiet type of person, xe usually shows at least some sort of reaction. Xe would frown, or maybe purse xeir lips. But not this blank stare that xe has right now.
Despite the cold, Kit feels his palms becoming clammy with sweat, and he grips the umbrella harder.
In the distance, Kit can hear sirens wailing. That's the first sign of another life he has had all day. All the streets had been empty, and it felt as if the town had become deserted. It was almost as if everyone had been collectively holding their breath. Objectively, he knows this isn't true. If what Aster had said earlier was to be believed, there had been chaos through most of the town. It was just that the areas Kit was around hadn't been affected by it.
They walk for what feels like hours, until finally, they come to an apartment complex. Now, this is a proper complex, not like the one Kit lives at. One has to crane their neck to see up to the last floor, and the four different buildings are all crammed together, making it look as if they were just one enormous single one. This is only further cemented by the "bridges" that have been built to interconnect them, forming a sort of rectangular box. Between them, there's a sort of plaza, and they cross it to reach one of the buildings at the back. They still have to go up around five flights of stairs; just like at Kit's place, there is no elevator. The stairs are not as narrow at least.
Aster unlocks a door, and ushers them in. The apartment is, just as expected, small. But because there is hardly anything in here, the space doesn't feel cluttered, in fact, it almost feels empty. There's not even a simple decoration on the walls, but instead, they're covered with some flower patterned yellowing wallpaper that looks like it was installed in the past century. The few pieces of furniture there seem like standard bought things, the most boring possible ones that can be found at the store.
"Is this… your house?" Kit asks. For some reason, this is nothing like he imagined Aster's house would be like, yet it fits perfectly with the image he has of xem in his mind now that he sees it.
"Mhm." Aster takes off xeir shoes at the entrance and tosses them away. Xe walks further inside, just leaving the shoes discarded by the front door.
Not knowing if he should also take off his shoes, he waits to see what Valentine will do, but she just walks after Aster without taking her shoes off. Kit decides not to take his shoes off either.
"Come on, Valentine. You should rest. You'll be staying with me tonight." Aster herds Valentine into the kitchen. "Have something to eat, okay?"
Valentine gives a shaky nod, rubbing her hands across her eyes.
When Kit makes his way to the living room, Aster is already making xemself comfortable on a couch. Somewhat awkwardly, Kit takes a seat. "You said we could talk here–"
Aster gestures for him to wait.
Valentine walks out of the kitchen and heads into the bedroom. There only appears to be one bedroom, so that one must be Aster's, yet xe doesn't even bat an eye. Maybe this was a recurring event. Maybe Valentine stays over with xem a lot more often than Kit would have believed. Once again, Kit is surprised, yet at the same time not. Aster waits until the door of the bedroom has shut and the sounds behind the door have stopped to start speaking.
Xe sighs loudly. "Where do I start…"
Almost as soon as Kit had left for the boggart job that morning and Baz had arrived at the office, he and Aster had been called to investigate a similar situation to the dead birds one Kit had been called to later. But instead of birds, it had been the vegetation in the area suddenly drying up and turning black. The people of the neighbourhood, seeing this, correctly deduced it wasn't normal, and thinking it to be some sort of magical phenomenon called the Bureau's office. Valentine, being Baz's second shadow, had gone along.
They'd had to go almost all the way across town, and they ended up in one of the neighbourhoods to the west side. After investigating and asking around, they had arrived at the conclusion that this was definitely the work of the demon. Of course, still treating it as confidential information, they didn't voice these thoughts out loud, but discreetly notified Kat.
But just as they were going to head back to the office to discuss what to do next, they found a trial of what looked like black goo. The evil energy radiating off it was unmistakable.
Aster, after much arguing, convinced Baz to follow the trial, and they discovered a nest of slug-like demonic creatures. These had been the cause of the plants dying. Aster had decided to take matters into xeir own hands, and had killed the entire nest of them.
Reaching this part of their tale, Aster stops for a little while. "Baz…" Aster frowns. "No. Never mind. You don't need to know the details."
Kit can actually imagine how that must have gone down.
After Aster had dealt with the demonic creatures, more trials had been spotted. It turned out there were multiple nests all around. They had split up to cover more ground, and that is when Aster lost contact with Baz and Valentine.
For every nest xe dealt with, another three would appear to spring up, in a way that the demonic creatures seemed to be endless. Just as xe was considering calling Kat again, a bird had fallen out of the sky.
Just like with Kit, its body was starting to decompose, the stench of rotting flesh strong. In minutes, dozens of other birds had fallen from the sky too, and all across the street, the people that had been out and about started screaming.
Looking up to see the cause of the birds' death, xe saw, in the horizon, a black cloud, a jet black cloud had formed. It was like a swirl in the sky, expanding from the inside out. Soon, it had covered the entire town, and then, the drops of blood had started falling.
Rushing back to the office, Aster had found Kat and the Director already heading out. They were to arrive at the root of this blood rain. But like Aster had told him before outside the office, there had been no time for investigating with the majority of the town submerged into mayhem.
When the people had realised it was blood that was falling from the sky, most of them had freaked out. It was as if a natural disaster had struck, which in a way, it was. In fact, the blood rain itself wasn't exactly harmful, per say. It had been the people who had panicked and gone out into the streets that had presented the real danger. It was as if a madness had taken a hold of them, and they were running around, as if possessed. Some drivers also went out of control, their vehicles running people over as if they were objects. In all supermarkets and other large stores where essential goods could be purchased people ran to them, fighting over the last items and trampling over one another. It was as if doomsday had arrived.
In order to prevent more casualties, the Director had ordered them to cooperate with the local authorities, and they had worked side by side with the fire department, paramedics, and rescue teams.
All this time, there had been no word from Baz or Valentine. All the time, Aster was helping around, xe tried to keep an eye out to see if xe could spot them, but it was useless.
Even after things had calmed down, Baz had made no move to contact them. There hadn't been even a single sign of life from either of them. It was like they had fallen off the face of the planet. Aster had grown worried, had even feared the worst.
It wasn't until Kat had left with the woman who had arrived claiming her husband was abducted by a demon that Baz had finally showed up, a very distraught looking Valentine with him.
Astes pauses again. "I don't know what to tell you." Xe shakes xeir head. "I've never seen them, neither of them, looking like that before. Valentine looked like she was half dead. Baz was practically dragging her behind him. And Baz…"
"What happened with Baz?" Kit balls his hands into fists, clenching the fabric of his pants between his fingers. "Aster, what was wrong with him?"
"Kit, can you recall ever seeing Baz angry? Like, actually angry? Not his 'drama queen' act, but genuine, bone deep rage. Can you?"
"I–" He hasn't. As much as he racks his brains, Kit comes up empty. Baz is just not the type of person who gets mad. He is too… easy-going, lazy, if you will, to muster up enough anger. If even Aster, who has known Baz for their entire lives, is saying xe's never seen them in a similar state, Kit can't even begin to imagine. The thought of it makes him feel sick.
"He just came marching up to the door, demanding to see Fluorite and cursing her. I knew he was going to do something stupid, so I tried to stop him, tried to make him see reason, but he just pushed me away."
Kit feels something in his stomach drop. Baz, push Aster away? Never in a million years would he have thought that possible.
"I kept trying to tell him to calm down, but he wouldn't listen." Aster's expression remains impassive, but Kit can make out the worried tone underneath it. "He just kept pushing me away, telling me to get lost. And Valentine… She was frozen on the spot. At this point, Baz had forgotten she was even there. His whole mind was set on going in there. In the end, he managed to get past me. I wasn't going to chase after them. I think they were angry enough that if I pressured enough, he would have thrown hands with me. So I… I just let them go. But I just kept thinking, what could have made him go into that state?" Aster rubs a hand over xeir eyes. "Kit, you asked me what was wrong with Baz, but the truth is, I don't know what happened. I don't know, okay?" Xeir voice wobbles a bit on the last syllable. For a second, Kit is afraid xe might start crying, but then xe takes a deep breath, and restrains xemself. "Kit. Promise me you won't tell this to anybody."
"What is it?"
"I think…" xe looks him directly in the eye, "for the first time in my life, I'm afraid."