The Angel (Earth) (Open)

[seth]

"Another one," Mark said, tossing the newspaper aside.

"I presume they're giving the same excuse?" Seth asked.

"An angel told them to do it through the TV," Mark replied. "Same as all the others."

Detective Inspector Mark and Detective Sergeant Seth were sat at their desks in the office they shared, trying their hardest to make sense of the recent wave of violent murders in London. All of the murders had begun on the same estate and spread outwards, in each case the murderer was a different person but with the same ludicrous alibi involving an angel speaking through their television sets.

Another common factor was that the victims were all of questionable morality, none of them were criminals guilty of any crime aside from anti-social behaviour in some cases, adulterers and swindlers were the most common targets. Unknown to Mark, Seth had also checked the areas of strange energies or magical traces but found nothing, the undercover immortal couldn't inform his partner of his suspicions because the man was unfortunately oblivious to such things.

"Alright, I've gotta head down to one of the crime scenes anyway. Keep looking, we'll find something." Seth said, standing up and grabbing his jacket on the way out.

"Yeah, sure." Mark muttered without conviction.

Seth was dressed in a work suit and tie, the tie had a red and black chequered pattern. Getting into his silver ford he revved the car and set off in the direction of the latest crime scene where he would meet with a few specialists he'd sent for. After he'd scanned the area for anything out of the ordinary, he'd been convinced it was worth looking into and so he'd sent a message to Dragos Midnight to send a team of investigators undercover to help him out.

Pulling up outside a house in Mayfair of all places, Seth stepped out of the car and then took to leaning on it waiting, looking at his watch a few times and frowning because they were late. His mind turned to wondering who would be sent, if it would even be anyone he recognised and not just one of the teams he didn't know.

[makvhug]

Makvhug stepped out of the shimmering green portal, sealing it behind him. He'd put out the call for Dragos to come if possible, but it wasn't urgent.

All he knew is that Seth had called them here, due to a crime of a supernatural nature. Of course, such matters called for the presence of Dragos Midnight, as the supernatural was their specialty.

Folding his wings tightly, he used a little of his power to shroud them, hiding them from mortal eyes. He didn't want to arouse suspicion. "Hmm... perhaps some new clothes as well. This armour kinda stands out."

Lighting a cigar, Makvhug proceeded to turn the corner, entering a street called "Mayfair" or something. Using his shroud, he had twisted his cloak around him, and now appeared to be wearing a pure black two piece suit, with a Dragos logo on the collar.

Seeing Seth leaning against a primitive automobile, he made his way over, puffing a few rings out of his cigar. "So, what have we got?"

[sundavar]

A brief flash of light in a nearby alley indicated Sunny's arrival. He glanced around, ensuring no passer-by had seen his entrance, then once satisfied stepped out onto the street. As he walked, his eyes darted around, taking in everything he could from his surroundings.

He unconsciously changed his appearance to become less conspicuous, his wings disapearing from view and his golden eye assuming the same blue-black of it's partner. A black leather coat formed over his light armour, which in turn changed to appear as a grey jumper and dark jeans.

Satisfied, he approached the pair and nodded in greeting to Seth before turning to Makvhug.
"Hey Mak, long time no see. Multiverse been treating you alright?"

He settled against the wall of the house nearest them and took a small knife from his coat, the blade purposefully blackened to prevent light from shining off it, and began tossing it between his hands.

"This one's bound to be interesting..."

[seth]

Seth pushed off the car when Makvhug arrived, quite impressed by his two piece suit that had the Dragos Midnight emblem on the collar, made him look fairly suave. His head turned again when Sundavar arrived too, wearing a black leather coat over a jumper and some jeans which made him look like a civilian, the knife gave Seth a slight twitch in the eye.

"Put that away in public, I'm a police officer you can't be waving knives around." he said, not wanting his cover to be blown or to look like he might be a dirty cop either. "As for what we've got... well I'll show you."

Turning around he led the pair into the cosy house, very middle class and pretty on the outside but on the inside it was a wreck, smashes vases fallen books and several shelves off the bookcase smashed on the floor. There was a body left on the floor being looked at by forensics, the boss of the trio came up to Seth and greeted him with a handshake while the other two continued their work.

"You must've drawn the short straw to get this case Seth, nasty business." he said, looking back at the body and then at Makvhug and Sundavar. "Who're these?"

"Specialists." Seth replied, looking at the man. "Could you send you and your team step out a little while, Rich? I've been told to let them have a look around."

The man looked at the pair again and then gave Seth a small but disapproving nod, the forensic team left and Seth then moved and knelt over the fairly battered body. The woman had clearly been battered to death, Seth placed his fingers on the woman's chin and turned her head to either side, bleeding from the ears indicated there'd likely been a massive blow to the head which was likely what killed her.

"Blow to the head killed her, she's bruised all over though... overkill just like the others." he said, then stood up again and moved over to the television. "Every victim has been killed by a different person, none of them know each other except in a few rare cases and they tend not to know the victim either. They all have the same story, they claim they were watching evening television and an angel spoke to them telling them to 'punish' the victims."

He tapped a hand on the television he was next to, facing Sundavar and Makvhug. There was no strange energy in the area or on the television, nor traces of magic that could explain what was going on.

"I've checked all the crime scenes now, nothing out of the ordinary. We checked the channel the television was on when turned off, and even asked the murderers but in each case the channel was different... so we can't trace it to somebody working at any particular tv station." he explained, giving a small shrug and taking out a notepad, taking a few notes before slipping the notepad away again. "So I sent a message for a Dragos Midnight team to help. Questions?"

[sundavar]

Sundavar eyed the body with obvious distaste before turning to Seth.
"If you're sure it isn't the TV station, do you think whatever's behind this could be sending messages to the attackers directly?"

He crouched down close to the body but was careful not to touch it. Tilting his head, he examined it closely, searching for anything that might be a clue.
"There must be some sort of pattern to the killings, i'd guess to the killers too. No sense in mindlessly bumping off people on a planet that still drives cars like the one out there."


He reached out to touch the head wound but seemed to think better at the last moment, pulling away and standing up.
"You have any other leads yet?"

[makvhug]

"Sounds similar to a crime wave I saw a few centuries back, but that involved books..."

Makvhug took a look at the corpse and TV, pondering for a moment. Both seemed perfectly normal, well as normal as a corpse and TV could be. There was no hint of residual magic energy.

"Look around the room some more. There may be more to it than just a TV. Look for odd looking books or strange artifacts. Even if they have no magical residue. If they look odd, show them to Seth."

Makvhug opened a cabinet and began checking the shelf. "Were there any witnesses? Might be worth interviewing, Seth. And Fred, do me a favour and search the bedroom and its cabinets. Look for artifacts or strange looking books."

[sundavar]

Moving into the house's main bedroom, Sunny paused to find the light switch before beginning to examine the rooms contents.He couldn't shake the feeling that he was intruding by rummaging through someones privacy, despite the fact that someone was dead. If anything, that made it worse when he felt the residual emotions clinging to objects everytime his fingers brushed them.

The room was relatively simple; Bed, wardrobe, drawers, a couple of shelves. He began with the latter, wanting to put off searching the victims clothes if at all possible. The search seemed futile however; the only books were fairly typical mortal novels, the only things with the faintest chance of being magical artifacts tacky gift-shop style ornaments. He was just about to give up when he noticed some sheets of paper partially hidden under a jewelry box.

Moving the box aside, he picked up the papers and knew immediately he had found something interesting from the strong mixed emotions he felt emanating from them. Of course, that didn't mean it was useful, but it was enough to make him hopeful. Turning the pages over, he saw that each one had a rough sketch of what was unmistakably an angel. Some were more clear than others, but as he flicked through them he noticed that none of the figures had faces, but were drawn in hoods ans robes that concealed any features.

He knew that many mortals had fascinations with immortals, particularly angels, but it seemed too much of a coincidence. A brief search of the rest of the bedroom confirmed that there was nothing else of interest. Leaving the room, he returned to the body and waved the pages at the other two men
"Nothing obviously magical or evil, but i did find these."
He held the pictures out to Seth for him to examine.
"Could be nothing, but seems a little odd to find drawings of angels belonging to this particular victim doesn't it?"

[seth]

"There were no witnesses. The house is detached so nobody heard the struggle that caused this mess," he said, indicating around the room at the state of it.

There was the sound of ringing all of a sudden and Seth placed a hand inside of his jacket, taking out a mobile phone and sliding it up to answer the call, placing it to his ear.

"D.S. Sanford... Mark, what have you go for me?" he asked.

Turning away from Makvhug while Sundavar was rooting around upstairs, he frowned at the information being conveyed to him by the man on the other end. While he was on the phone he went about looking around the room some more, clearly able to focus on the phone call and the investigating easily, giving small responses to show he was still listening and then finally he came to a halt.

"Right, thanks Mark that's actually quite relevant." he said, then paused. "No, I'm not going to explain how it's relevant, I'll tell you when I get back to the station. See you later."

He hit a button on the phone and flicked it down again, replacing it inside his jacket and then returning to the body, kneeling over it and looking at the left hand which had a wedding ring on it, nodding a little he stood back up again and turned back to Makvhug as Sundavar came back in and announced his findings. Taking the sketches of the angels he looked down at them, going through them and then looking at the pair.

"This isn't the victim's house, actually it's the killer's." he said, holding up the sketches as a point of interest. "The woman was a door-to-door saleswoman, which suggests the puppet master has some sort of minor foresight, or else access to a lot of random and odd information."

He adjusted the sketches in his hand so he could look at them again. "These being here makes sense, religious person believes in angels, an angel tells him to kill someone and he does it."

Walking closer to the victim again, passing the sketches to Makvhug on the way so he could look at them better, he knelt down beside the body. "My partner says she was an adulterer, but more interestingly her marriage was a civil partnership, which means that while the killers might be religious to be manipulated by the notion of angels... the puppet master him or herself may not be religious because he or she accepts same sex marriages as binding like any other marriage."

[sundavar]

Sunny folded his arms and nodded at Seth.
"Makes sense if this is an immortal, right? Seems they're more likely to stick to a personal concept of morality than a religiously enforced one." He peered at the body again

"Starting to sound like someone's waging there own little crusade. The righteous being encouraged to strike out against the unworthy." He gestured towards the general destruction about the room "This much damage looks more like anger in the attacker than a struggle from the victim. One thing i don't get..."

He moved to kneel beside the body again.
"There are plenty worse people in the universe than this. Why here, why these people? It doesn't seem consistent."

[rainak]

A sudden dark violet flash would be seen out of the corner of the trio's eyes, encasing a man whose features were slim and slender showing he was a little... off from being Human - despite his normal ears.

As the smokey flash dispersed, he would be seen wearing a casual, short-sleeved black shirt - top button undone and untucked; a red and black, diagonal striped tie hung loosely around his neck; dark black loose-fitting jeans - looking a lot like chino's, though the denim stitches giving it away; and on his feet would be a pair of plain black coloured and laced canvas shoes.

He would quickly raise a hand, holding it palm flat towards them, a half-burnt cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, "Hold your fire, it's just me," he said simply, raising his head in an upward greeting motion. "Mak', Seth... Fred."

Slowly stepping forward he would stand inbetween Makvhug and Seth, his hand now lowered and arms crossed, puffing the smoke out from the corner of his mouth farthest away from the cig, and looking down at Sundavar and the body, "Sorry, only just got your call, I was, eh... busy. So, what've I missed?"

[thia]

The echoed noise of heels clicking along the bricked path could be heard from outside the house belonging to a rather small woman with pigeon red hair, tied fashionably into a bun with her fringe aloft to one side of her heart structured face. Her pale skin was flustered along her high cheek bones as she doubled her steps to close the gap between her and the building. Finally reaching the door she pushed it open poking her head around to see the group, her lips spreading into an apologetic smile.

"Sorry I'm late... " Stepping from behind the door was none other than Thia, dressed in a pin-striped pencil skirt and red shirt, the collar neatly folded back with two buttons left undone at her collar. Pinned to the right side of her chest was a small silver name tag, coupled with a pencil draped over her ear. Closing the door behind her, Thia stepped inside catching her breath as she clutched a clipboard to her chest, tucking some loose strands of hair behind her ear. "I was dropping my kids off to school and you have no idea how much of a nightmare they can be-.." Her sentence stopped midway as she realised her company was people she knew, making her feel a little more relaxed. Though she'd visibly tighten her muscles as she stares at the body, nodding her head to try and convince herself around the horrific sight. To take her mind away from the corpse, she stared down at her clipboard edging along the wall towards the men.

[sundavar]

Sunny raised an eyebrow as Rainak appeared "You know the guy who let us in saw two specialists, right?"
He stood and started to step back, but quickly corrected himself to move to the side as Thia walked in, narrowly avoiding walking into her.
"...Right, right. I forgot. We're Dragos, we don't need rules."

He smirked a little as he looked at the others."Ah well, the more the merrier...." He glanced at the body and shook his head a little.

[makvhug]

Makvhug nodded at all the new arrivals.

"I'm glad you all recieved my message. Or Seth's message, whichever reached you first. Now then Dragos, lets look into this case properly."

Makvhug rubbed his chin as he checked the drawings of Angels in the book. Crudly drawn, but it was still clear they were angels. "These angel pictures look like no immortal species in any realm. I think whoever it is, they're frauds. Not really angels, but using the image for their own gain. Rainak, run this by the Underworld library, and see if these pictures match anything in Underworld records."

[seth]

Seth stared at them all with a mixture of amusement and surprise, he hadn't expected his simple message to attract this many of Dragos Midnight's most influential members, or any of them at all for that matter. He raised his hands to them all to stop speaking, wanting to speak himself because he had to made a few things clear, particularly because he was not a member of Dragos Midnight himself. Seth was a Reaper, an elite agent that was responsible for reaping the souls of the dead to send them to the afterlife, but they were also sent on covert operations that required deep cover.

"I'm undercover here and I have to work with my partner, Mark, or else it'll look suspicious. I'm going to be making out you lot are MI:5, investigating because of the prospect all of the murders were orchestrated by the same puppeteer in the capital," he explained, lowering his hands to his sides. "Mark will be present sometimes, so try to keep the immortal lingo to a minimum."

He walked over to the window and saw a car pulling up which Mark stepped out of, but he got caught up talking to the forensics team that Seth had sent outside when they'd first entered the house. He turned his head back toward the ground, "Sundavar's right though, only two specialists walked in. Rain, Thia, you'll need to head out the back way."

For some reason Seth couldn't stop looking out the window, it was as though he could see something out there, or was suspicious of something. Across the street a man likely in his forties or so in a black hoodie was standing in the street, in the other direction a young woman was walking and Seth couldn't keep his eyes off the man, naturally suspicious he was right to be so as he saw the flash of a knife the man was carrying as he began walking toward the woman.

"Fuck no!" he yelled, taking off out of the room and practically knocking Thia and Sundavar aside in opposite directions in the process.

He went barrelling out of the house and ran right past Mark talking to the forensic team, his partner swung around to see what the hell was going on, and then immediately began following when he saw who Seth was running at and the knife he was carrying. The woman screamed as the man saw Seth coming and began running at her rapidly, with a look in his eyes as though he wanted to get the deed done before he was caught, even without being immortal though the man was unfortunately not nearly as fit as Seth and was rugby soon landing face first on the ground and being disarmed.

"No! The angel will be angry!" he screamed, almost insanely as he tried to struggle.

"Well it's fortunate I'm a devil and don't have to give a shit what the angel feels then, isn't it." he snarled, cuffing him and yanking him up as Mark threw a sucker punch and knocked the man out cold. "Well that was unnecessary."

"Yeah well you called yourself the devil, I get to punch him. Fair is fair mate." he replied, his thick london accent coming through.

[sundavar]

Sunny followed Seth outside as soon as he realised what was going on but hung back, knowing Seth coul easily catch the man and not wanting to get in the way. he flinched when he saw mark throught he punch, muttering under his breath, "Oh, i can just tell i'm going to love this guy...."

Now that the man was incapacitated, he shouldered his way through the forensics team and ran towards Seth, stopping to get a better look at the would-be killer before glancing in the direction of his target.
"Well since we can't get any answers out of this guy just yet, Might be an idea to find out a bit more about her..."

He glanced back at Mark "Oh and for the record, you shouldn't do that, police brutality."

[thia]

Thia squeeled at the sudden commotion, raising her clipboard above her head twirling out of the way stopping to stare at the open door. Her lips curled into a frown as she looked back at the others, then back to the door noticing the scuffle.
"Eh.. Right, I'll head back outside and loop around? Make an incospicuous enterence, Rainak I think it best you do the same." Pulling her clipboard back down to her chest she stepped around the mess of the room towards the backdoor, gently pushing it too before going to make her way around the back, careful to not draw attention to herself. It's best to show up in a professional manner and act like she knew nothing at all.

[rainak]

Rainak leant back onto his left foot slightly as he took the drawings from Makvhug, turning his head to see what the comotion was about. Once the man was down, however, he leant forwards and straight up once more, giving a firm nod to Makvhug, "A'ight."

Turning his head at Thia again, he nodded, simply dissapearing in the violet flash he had appeared in, returning back to the Underworld in order to run the pictures through. Yielding no results, he simply appeared once more, this time in the same alleyway Sundavar had appeared in, walking out and making his way up the road - turnng the corner into Mayfair casually.

[sundavar]

Leaving Seth to deal with the culprit. Sunny approached the woman he had attacked, moving to put a hand on her shoulder and speaking in a calming tone.
"I know how you're feeling right now, but I need you to be calm for me. No one else is going to hurt you, but if you can my co-workers and I would like to ask you a few questions."

Glancing back, he looked towards Seth then looked back into the house, shouting "Agent Mak! Some help might be needed."

[makvhug]

Makvhug paced calmly over, getting a notepad out of his pocket, a Dragos logo on the front of the notepad.

"Ma'am, do you recognise the man that tried to attack you at all? Or perhaps know anyone that might want you dead?"

Makvhug was careful to eye the woman for odd reactions or attempts at deception. He also pondered why Fred would still ask for help after all this time. What a pansy, he thought.

[seth]

"I've never seen him before," the woman replied, naturally looking confused and frightened.

Seth was in the process of hauling the dead weight of the unconscious man to Mark's car, shoving him in the back and closing the door behind him. Mark and Seth seemed to exchange a few words before Mark got in his car and drove off, taking the cuffed man with him back to Scotland Yard to be questioned after he eventually came around. Seth returned to the frightened woman, now being questioned by Makvhug and Sundavar.

"No need to worry, miss. He can't hurt you while he's locked up." he said, smiling at her reassuringly. "These gentlemen are just going to ask a few questions, some may sound strange but I assure you soon as they're done you can go."

The woman nodded at Seth, seeming more at ease thanks to his reassuring smile. With a nod to Makvhug and Sundavar, Seth set off down the street a bit to where Rainak was coming toward them. "I'm going to make a wild stab in the dark and guess you didn't find anything of interest?"

Seth peered around for a moment, looking for Thia coming up the road again too, once she had joined them again he gave his sister a smile. "Right, while Mak and Sun finish up here, why don't you two go to some of the other crime scenes and see if you can find anything I missed." he said, handing them a pile of files that had the addresses for some of the other crime scenes.