Thera was alone in the garden behind her villa with the Nighteye in the sky above, illuminating the area below with its beautiful radiance.
It had been a while since the gardener came around to take care of the plants so they were quite messy and tangled, making for a rather bothersome sight.
However, Thera felt right at home amidst the mess, her expression at peace as she passed her hand over the flowers, enjoying the feeling against her skin.
Suddenly, she paused, a sharp pain surging through her palm causing her to lift only to find that a thorn had found its way into her flesh.
She reached for it with her other hand and gently pulled it out, causing a trickle of blood to leak out.
Thera stared at the blood which was darker than normal, watching as it trailed from her palm all the way to her elbow before it began to slowly drip on the grass below.
She did nothing to stop the bleeding and soon enough, the bleeding stopped of its own accord, almost as though it had run out of blood.
Just then, Thera sensed something causing her to glance back.
There, she found a tall man cloaked in shadows.
He radiated a mysterious aura with a tinge of divinity and stood ever ready for combat.
His eyes radiated a silent killing intent that could be easily missed if one was not familiar with the man’s trade.
"Azazel." Thera addressed the man, breaking the silence between them, prompting the man to speak up.
"I did," Thera said. "I heard you took someone. I’m sure you already know what’s wrong with that statement."
Azazel let out a sigh before proceeding to pull out a head from underneath his cloak and then tossing it at Thera’s feet, the latter of whom then regarded it with an apathetic look.
"A spy. He was working with the man I took. He could have ruined everything before the appointed time."
"I see. Quite unfortunate."
"To be honest, I’m quite surprised you didn’t catch the spy before now."
"He is irrelevant. With a grand purpose such as the one I champion, how can I waste my time and attention on such matters?"
Silence followed before Azazel remarked. "Regardless, I’ve dealt with the situation the best way I can and I’ve destroyed everything that could be problematic. If you want, I can kill the man and send his body back to his granddaughter for burial."
"That won’t be necessary." Thera calmly said. "Put him with the rest."
"That will be all," Thera replied.
As Azazel turned to leave, Thera suddenly remarked. "Wait."
"... The last group will be brought in tomorrow, yes?"
"We only need a few more to have the required number for the ritual, so yes."
"... No, nothing else."
"Then I’ll be leaving," Azazel said before taking his leave, disappearing in the same way he’d appeared.
Several minutes passed by with Thera standing alone in the garden before a voice remarked.
"Just like reading from a script."
Thera said nothing, merely shifting her gaze to the person who had spoken.
It was a woman, a woman who looked like her, spoke like her, walked like her... perhaps, she was her.
For others, it might have been an unnerving sight, but for Thera, she seemed to have expected it.
"We have had this conversation so many times already, just so you know." Thera intoned in slight amusement.
"Which is what upsets me the most. We could end things now. We could deal with this once and for all. We know the cards, we know how they would be dealt... is it not best we take advantage of that?"
"This is the best way and in the first place, any action we take only goes against the desires of our patron."
The other Thera let out a begrudging sigh, unwilling to accept the truth of the matter though giving no choice about it.
"You should prepare," Thera said as she turned to head back into the villa. "There’s a lot to do tomorrow."
After an unsuccessful first day of investigation, Alex returned home with Arwen in a bid to get some rest, hoping to make some headway tomorrow.
As Arwen left to freshen up, Alex headed up to his study to record everything they’d experienced today in his journal.
In truth, he considered whether it was wise to record the case, considering it might end up not being counted as a hundredth, but then, he decided to at least put something down.
Yet, when he opened the hundredth page, he found that it was already filled and what’s more, it was filled with a completely unfamiliar case.
With furrowed brows, Alex read and reread the contents of the page, struggling to recall when he had written them only to pull up repeated blanks.
The fact that the date at the top of the page was yesterday made it even worse because Alex could accept that he had a poor memory if the right argument was made but to the extent he would forget such an important event that happened just a day before?... It was hard to accept.
"Leokhares." He breathed out, almost like he was hoping that saying the name out loud would help him remember it better.
Of course, that didn’t happen, further upsetting him.
Then his attention was drawn to where he had written down the items kept aside as evidence.
Taking a moment to calm himself, he got to his feet and was about to let go of the book, only to pause.
Then, he snapped, exerting his Will on the aether in a bid to utilize Mindscape which protected his mind from external influences.
Once this was done, he made his way to where the evidence was kept within his office and opened it, quickly finding the items that were listed in the report.
A little girl’s dress, a textbook... everything was there and as he came to accept that the words written on the hundredth page were not to be ignored, he loudly called out.