He wanted to voice his thoughts to the only person next to him but held back, refusing to be the first to break the ice. The investigator had proceeded to move and inspect the details in the room. His mind began to wander again.
The pneuma was recent, left there about three hours ago, Gary's death was nine hours ago, Sarah's death ten hours ago. If the person had been aware of Sarah's valuable and intended to search for it, wouldn't it have been done earlier? The way he saw Gary die, he was sure the valuable had been on him when he was attacked. Or there was another to be added in?
He looked around carefully, skipping over the investigator and realisation dawned on him. What the old couple had said, Sarah's fiance had been in the room! Ener....? ....nol? Nold? Ernold?
While ruminating on his name, it had unconsciously slipped past his lips and Doran heard. He walked closer to the younger with a smile, Alexus opened his eyes to see the older encroaching his personal space of four feet in diameter.
'I wanted to consider if there was another angle to this case.' The detective understood why the investigator had seeked his skill, he was ready to jump one step ahead of the situation from the start. He dissipated his anger and let things be. 'What angle?'
Doran's eyes brightened, finally forgiven. 'I'm not not needed in Gary's case anymore, and we know who killed Sarah-'
A thud came from the other side of the wall and they both turned to the side, staring in silence at the east wall and then hurried pitter-patter followed. A door opened and shortly, the door to the room they were in burst open.
Although shabbily dressed and looking sickly, Alexus was looking at Sarah with waist length auburn hair. She seemed to have trouble breathing and leaned heavily on the door to stay up right, her eyes were shaky and dilated but her frown was set and determined.
'Who- who killed her? Who killed sis?!' she spoke in between gulps of air. Alexus was not impressed and walked up to her, she eyed his form slowly and suspiciously, her reflexes retarded due to her condition. He raised two fingers to her sweaty forehead and hesitated, suppressing the need to recoil and touched her humid skin. 'Somnus.' The whispered spell took effect immediately and her eyes rolled up into their lids. She fell forward and Alexus side stepped not eager to have her sweat come in contact with his clothes, although she was caught in between Doran's arms who had swiftly come to her aid.
'What did you do?' He asked tentatively, relieved that she was still breathing. 'I put her to sleep, so come on, get on with your explication. We can't be here all day.'
Doran sighed, and laid the weight in his arms gently on the parquet floor. 'I was saying, there wasn't any real reason for me to be here honestly, I work on intuition but it came to a pause in that dining room, I had solved the case there wasn't anything else to do. Yet, I felt unsettled, and this is where my instinct, a very foreign feeling, made me seek something I couldn't see. I didn't come here with anything specific in mind, up to a moment ago I was thinking I would end the day here kicking myself for wasting my time. But here in this room-'
His eyes roamed over the disorganised space. '-This seems like a good hint, no?' His eyes returned to the detective and he beamed. Something about the investigators' sincerity irritatingly rubbed on Alexus and he decided to let his thoughts flow. 'Someone was looking for something in Gary's apartment, and someone was looking for something here. They're not the same person but had the same objective.'
'Sarahs character is quite questionable because of this right?' Doran added his conception. Alexus hummed, 'She had something quite valuable that's costed lives. We still don't know what that thing is. Our next course of action is to find who are the people after it. One has slipped from our fingers, but we have another chance here.'
The detective, caught on that he had used 'we', wasn't it supposed to be just him? It didn't go unnoticed by Doran. 'Only her fiance has been in here, it's safe to say he's our lead. Now we just have to find him, but I won't want to tip off Sarah's parents by asking them.' They stayed in silence contemplating the next course of action.
Alexus looked down at the girl resting in Doran's lap and got an idea. He rummaged through the inside of his coat and brought out a small purse, inside were strapped vials each containing various materials. Carefully, he lifted one out of its pocket, it was a dull purple powder, to be double sure it was the right material, he slowly uncorked it and sniffed the cork then nod in certainty.
'Lift her.' The investigator had no idea what was about to happen but reserved his scepticism, he raised the entity in his lap to lean on his chest upright. With a tiny flat birchwood, the detective scooped a bit of the purple dust and lifted it under the girl's nose, she breathed it all at once but sneezed right after. Alexus aimed for the dustbin and threw the stick in, Doran prayed desperately that this wasn't illegal.
Then he positioned his left thumb upside down and rested it in the middle of her forehead and pressed firmly. With pinpoint concentration, he began to chant, his body tensing and sharpened eyes. From beneath his clothes his chest glowed and his pneuma began to flow like the trickle of a stream towards his thumb, the point of contact between the pad of his finger and her humid skin had a small illuminated pattern forming.
'....sensum excita et magnifacit effectum....' Doran couldn't make heads or tails of the spell but he was sure that at some point the spell changed and it was shorter than anything he had been hearing before.
Then Alexus came to an abrupt stop, the spell was completed, the patterned ring had formed a full circle. The girl's eyes opened slightly with the balls rolling in their sockets. Doran broke in cold sweat, feeling uneasy but genuinely curious of what will happen next.
'What does Ernold do?' Without breaking contact of his thumb and her forehead, the detective began his questioning. Mumbling at first, he patiently waits for the girl to become clearer.
'-or, he just goes on, and on, and on-' She paused, her eyes were now fervently rolling, Doran swallowed dryly coming to realise what was happening. A detective of the law just drugged a person in front of his very eyes, and he was going to turn a blind eye because he had everything to gain from this. He felt increasingly guilty, was this what it meant to turn morally grey?
'Ernold, he....?' Alexus continued to incite her. 'He won't even give her- so stingy....' she mumbled off again but the detective had done this enough times and knew patience was key when prying into people's minds.
'He should give her the.....' '.....the brooch, sister liked the brooch, yet...give it back....' The investigator and detective stared at each other knowingly, but he couldn't be too sure. 'And he also gave her.....?' '... it's a cute little pony.....eats so many apples.....'
Alexus doubted the pony was the cause of all this trouble so he doubled back for Ernolds whereabouts. 'Lets go to the pony, where's the carriage going?'
Both of them leaned closely not to miss anything she was about to say. '.... see...street, straight for Hedgins hill... stupid house....' in between the inaudible maundering, their ears perked at the mention of a location they were aware of.
'Finally.' Doran whispered, feeling thrilled to be able to get a move on the situation. Alexus nod in agreement then motioned with his hand towards the investigator, He couldn't speak casually while he was still linked to her, anything he said was to stimulate a reply from her. Was there anything Doran would like to hear from the girl?
Doran thought it over, and nodded. 'Diary.' He whispered.
Alexus took a breath and felt his stomach rumble, his breakfast was gone.
'Sarah's diary. Let's find it and prank her.' The girl muttered between giggles. '... pillow case...'
The detective looked towards the bed and without breaking concentration of his current spell, lifted the pillows on it and turned them over till he found one which had the outline of a book hidden inside the cloth. Satisfied with the outcome, Alexus ended the spell with a short chant, and the circle pattern faded out of existence. The girl's eyes fell closed again.
He stood up and stretched, his stomach rumbled loudly in protest much to his chagrin. The clock on the wall struck 2:00pm. Lunch was long overdue.
'I'll return Nathalie to her room.' Alexus turned, wondering who he was referring to, and his eyes slid down towards the girl in his arms. Doran casually cradled Nathalie and proceeded to return her to the next room where she had come from.
He sat on the bed and took the book from the pillow while ignoring the tempting embrace of slumber kindled by the softness of the bed beneath him. A passing thought came to him, and wondered if Nero also kept a diary, does she write about him? A faint blush crept up his nape.