//------------------------------// // Case One, Chapter Six: Blood in the Dark // Story: Ponyville Noire: Tails of Two Private Eyes // by PonyJosiah13 //------------------------------// Painter’s Way was a narrow cobblestone street near the northern borders of Ponyville, where the city’s roads and edifices intersected with green pastures of farmland. Number Nineteen was a brown and vibrant golden cottage, sitting on a small patch of green grass. A concrete walkway lined with flowers spanning every color of the rainbow led up to the door. Daring set Phillip down in front of the walkway and they both sprinted for the door. Phillip pounded against the white door. “Shifting Tone!” he called. There was no response. Without waiting, Phillip turned about and brought his hind legs up. With a grunt, he kicked the door open. The force of his kick tore the door right off its jamb and sent it smashing into the wall. “Or you could’ve looked around for a key,” Daring sighed, following him into a sitting room featuring a low white table surrounded by violet cushions and a carpeting the color of freshly-turned dirt. “This is faster. Shifting Tone!” Phillip called into the house. Again, there was no answer. Phillip sprinted up the stairs to the second floor, with Daring right on his tail. They turned a corner at the top and found themselves facing a closed door. A chill ran down Daring’s spine; she had been here before, and she knew what was on the other side of that door. Phillip pressed forward and seized the doorknob, and she flinched, preparing herself for the death that awaited on the other side. The door swung open, revealing a bedroom colored in subdued tones: creamy whites, pale tans, and dark blues. A double bed with blue sheets sat in the center of the room, the bedding neatly folded. Bookshelves spanned one wall, while a dresser stood against the other. There was no sign of anypony. Daring let out a long exhalation of relief. “Where is she?” Phillip asked, looking around the room. He shook his head and took a breath, forcing himself to focus. He slowly turned in a circle, sweeping his gaze across the room. “Bed’s made. Newspaper in front lawn. She’s been gone for two days, since the ponies started dying.” His eyes panned over to a framed photograph on the dresser. It depicted Shifting Tone with the same dark brown white-maned unicorn from her cubicle; the stallion in the picture had a sprig of mint leaves for a cutie mark. Phillip picked the picture up and examined the stallion. “Hmmm…” “What now?” Daring asked. “You look around and make some brilliant deduction and we head off to wherever she’s hiding?” “No,” Phillip answered. “We take the easy route.” Taking the photograph, he turned and exited the room, descending back down the stairs. Daring followed him out of the house and back out onto the street. Phillip walked over to the cottage next door, a dark blue building with rose pots in the windows, and knocked at the door. After a few moments, a middle-aged unicorn mare answered the door. “Yes?” she asked with a pleasant smile. “Can I help you two?” “We’re with the police,” Phillip stated. “Do you know Shifting Tone?” The mare nodded, her brow creasing in concern. “Oh, yes, since she moved here. Is she in trouble?” “That’s what we’re trying to figure out ourselves,” Phillip replied. “Have you seen her recently?” “Oh, no, I haven’t seen her all day today...or yesterday, for that matter,” the mare replied. “She seemed fine when I last saw her.” Phillip held up the picture that he’d taken from the bedroom. “Do you recognize this stallion?” he asked. The mare nodded. “That’s her coltfriend, Jamie Mint. He’s a bartender, he lives on Nightlife Way.” “Thank you, ma’am,” Phillip said, tucking the photo back into his vest. “C’mon, Daring!” The cry was barely out of his mouth before Daring grabbed him underneath the forelegs and flapped up into the air. A short flight to the east brought them to the mouth Nightlife Way, a one-way street leading to a cul-de-sac, like a river of paved stone leading to a pond. Humble houses lined both sides of the street. From the air, Daring’s sharp eyes spotted a mailbox with “Mint” painted on it in white-green. She swooped in and landed in front of the door. Phillip knocked sharply. After a few moments, the door opened to reveal the white-maned unicorn, his hair in disarray. “H-hello,” Jamie Mint stammered, blinking rapidly. “Who are you?” “We’re detectives,” Phillip answered. “We need to talk to you about Shifting Tone.” Jamie’s eyes widened. “Oh, come in! Come in!” he cried, gesturing them to come inside. They followed him into the house. He led them into the living room, which featured several tall stools, a polished wooden floor, and a modest but respectable bar in the corner. “Anything to drink?” Jamie asked, going behind the bar as if on instinct as Daring and Phillip settled into chairs. “You got any Manticore Rare?” Daring asked before Phillip could cut her off. “I need a glass, neat.” “One Manticore Rare, neat, coming up,” Jamie said, grabbing a bottle of dark reddish-brown liquid and an old-fashioned glass in his magic and setting to work. “And for you?” “Early for me,” Phillip grunted, glaring at Daring. “When did you last see Shifting Tone?” “Face to face, two days ago,” Jamie said, pouring out the bourbon and sliding the glass over to Daring. “She was in a pretty good mood. We spent the night out walking along the Maresippi.” He smiled faintly. “She loved the river at night.” Daring knocked back half of her drink in one go. “Ah, I needed that, thanks,” she sighed, shaking her head and pointedly ignoring the dirty look that Phillip was giving her. “You said face to face. You’ve heard from her since?” “Yeah,” Jamie said. He pulled a folded sheet of thin paper that rustled like dry leaves when it was held out from underneath the bar and gave it to Phillip. “This appeared on my bar this morning.” “Appeared?” Daring asked as Phillip unfolded the paper. “Yeah,” Jamie nodded. “I taught her a spell for sending short letters and notes back and forth.” The faint smile appeared on his face again. “Sometimes I’d wake up and there’d be a note waiting for me on the bedside table…” Daring hesitated, then reached out and patted Jamie on the shoulder. “We’re gonna find her, all right?” she said. Jamie shook his head sadly. “You know, when I realized when she was missing, I thought about calling the police.” He made a face. “Like that would’ve helped.” His eyes misted over, and he wiped them with his foreleg. “I appreciate you trying, but…” He turned his head away and fell silent. Daring glanced over and read the note over Phillip’s shoulder. Jamie— The likelihood is, when you read this, I will be dead or about to die. Don’t try to look for me; you won’t find me, and you’ll probably get hurt. When they do find my body, know that I gave my life for a better purpose—fighting back against the fat cats who grind us under their heels. Please tell Scribbled Note’s, Aesthetic Tone’s, Gentle Brush’s and Pristine Touch’s families that I didn’t mean for them to die in my place. I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend more time together. I will always love you. —Shifting Tone. Reading the message, Daring began to understand why Jamie had given up. “‘Gave my life for a better purpose?’ She sounds like a zealot or something,” she commented quietly. “And we know how those usually end up,” Phillip agreed, examining the ridges of tears along the edge of the note. “This was torn out of a book.” He turned the note around. There was a set of printed words on the other side: Good News Journal Given from: Dedicated to: “It’s from a Good News copy of the Covenant Journal,” Phillip declared. “Gee, that narrows it down,” Daring said dryly, taking another long sip of her bourbon. “Ink’s barely faded, no dust or fading on paper,” Phillip muttered to himself, apparently ignoring her. “It’s probably never been opened.” He rested his chin on his hoof for a few moments, lost in thought, then asked Jamie, “You said this was delivered by her magic?” “Yeah,” Jamie nodded. “I saw it appear right in front of me.” “Good,” Phillip nodded, tucking the note into his vest. “Because that means that we can track it. Daring, we need to head back to the precinct.” Daring nodded and finished off her drink. “We’ll find her, Jamie,” she said, her tone filled with what she hoped was more than drink-fueled conviction. Jamie managed to smile again as they departed. Once more, Daring grabbed Phillip underneath the forelegs and took off into the sky, soaring up to where the gray-streaked rain clouds were beginning to gather. By the time they landed in front of the police station, Daring was panting. “Okay,” she huffed, reaching back to massage a kink in her back. “No more flights today.” “Good,” Phillip said. “I like having my hooves on the ground.” Daring straightened out her spine with a crack. “Geez, you should lose some weight,” she grunted. Ignoring her, Phillip pushed open the door and entered the lobby. Daring followed on his tail as they pushed across the lobby, retracing their steps through the hallway and down the stairs to the basement laboratory. Twilight Sparkle and Doctor Suunkii were still right where they left them, as if they had never left the laboratory. Suunkii was currently bending over a microscope, dictating notes to Twilight as she scribbled furiously on a notepad. A string quartet was sobbing out of the radio in the corner. “G’day,” Phillip called as they entered. Both lab ponies looked up at their entry. “Hello, Phillip Finder, Daring Do,” Suunkii said calmly. “How is the case coming?” “We may have a lead,” Phillip said, pulling out the letter and showing it to Twilight. “This was teleported via magic by a suspect. Is there a way to trace the magic back?” Twilight puckered her lips in thought, gently taking the letter in her magic. “There might be something I can do,” she mused, turning the paper over and over. “Whenever a pony uses their magic on something, they leave traces of their energy on the object and in the surrounding environment. Also, whenever an object is teleported, part of the magical energies from the place they were teleported from remains on the object. If I can extract the magical energies on this paper, I can create a spell that will cause the paper to glow when it gets close to the source of those energies.” She took the paper over to what looked like a fume hood lined with lead sheeting in the corner. Her horn lit up with a purple aura and she began to direct magic into the hood via a tube that connected the inside of the hood to the outside. Arcs of violet lightning danced around the paper, which began to glow faintly blue. “What’ve you found out about that dust?” Phillip asked Suunkii. “Funny that you should ask,” Suunkii noted. At that moment, the door opened and Trace Evidence walked in. “Hello, Phillip,” Trace greeted him coolly. “I heard a funny story from a security guard at the August Art Gallery. Somepony set off a stink bomb at the gallery, and you and your partner were seen there.” “Quite a coincidence,” Daring commented, hopping up onto a table to sit. Trace Evidence glanced at her, then sniffed the air. “What smells like onions?” “Her lunch,” Phillip answered. “If I may get back to the matter at hoof,” Suunkii interrupted, pulling a slide out of the microscope. Sitting upon it was a sample of the white dust that Phillip and Daring had recovered from the previous crime scenes. “This is not dust,” Suunkii declared. “I have found that it is organic and infused with magic. After several tests, I have identified some of the components as petals from an Asphodelus plant and root from a burning wormwood.” “Okay…” Trace Evidence said slowly. “On their own, both of these plants are innocuous,” Suunkii explained. “Combined in a potion, they serve as the chief ingredients of a drug that can put a pony into a dazed, almost trance-like state where they are highly susceptible to suggestion. It would be a simple manner for a killer to bring a drugged pony into a room and get them to hang themselves.” “How hard is it to make this potion?” Trace asked. “It is very complicated,” Suunkii reported. “And neither of these plants are easy to raise, especially in this climate; as a matter of fact, the burning wormwood is only native to the Everfree Forest.” “So, once again, somepony good with plants,” Trace commented. “I did it!” Twilight suddenly shouted, causing everypony to jump and look around, glaring at her. Twilight flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I finished the spell. The paper should glow when it’s close to where it was teleported from.” “Except where are you going to look?” Daring asked Phillip as he retrieved the paper from Twilight. “Do you have any idea how many Covenant Journals are in this city?” “But I’m going with the most likely option,” Phillip replied. “Knowing there were ponies after her, this mare would go someplace quiet, where she could hide. Someplace where the first thing she turned to in order to write a note is something that she found in her room: something that came standard in her room.” “You think she’s hiding in a hotel room,” Trace Evidence concluded. “Probably,” Phillip nodded. “We should get some officers to help, there may be trouble.” “I’ll call in a patrol car,” Trace said. “Red’s got a migraine, so I’ll go with you two.” “Good. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover,” Phillip said. “C’mon, Daring.” With a sigh, Daring heaved herself off the table. “I should’ve kept the bottle,” she muttered to herself as she followed Trace and Phillip back out of the lab. “Good luck!” Twilight called after them as they ascended back up the stairs. The sun had long set, but their search continued determinedly. A police cruiser trundled through the streets of Ponyville’s dockside district, its headlights piercing the encroaching darkness. The dark waters of the Maresippi lapped at the bank to their right, the reflected images of the stars shivering as though in fright. “We’ve been at this all day,” Officer Star Cluster complained from the driver’s seat. “For all we know, she’s dead already.” “We still have to make sure,” Officer Flash Sentry replied from the passenger seat. “And if it turns out that she’s still alive, then she’ll need help.” “Kid, you obviously don’t know Silvertongue,” Star Cluster grunted. “There’s next to no chance that she’s still alive.” “Enough,” Phillip grunted from the backseat. “Ponies have died, and more ponies may die if we don’t solve this. Now put your hoof down.” “Yes, sir,” Star Cluster growled, accelerating through a green light. “You really think that she’s in a hotel, sir?” Flash asked. “It’s the best theory,” Phillip replied. “And don’t call me sir.” “Sorry, sir,” Flash replied, then winced. “I mean—” “Flash, do us both a favor and stuff it,” Star grunted, pausing at a stop sign just long enough to be considered a full stop, then cruising through. Phillip glanced up in the rearview mirror. A light golden-brown Hayson Commander was following behind them. He could see the slightly blurry images of Trace Evidence behind the wheel and Daring Do in the passenger seat. He looked up as they approached a small motel. A flickering red neon sign that read “Vacancy” stood next to a short dirt road. At the end of the road stood a low, long, pale green wooden building set at the top of a sloping hill that led to the river bank. Suddenly, the paper in his hoof began to glow a faint blue-green. “Hold it. We’re here,” he called. Star Cluster turned down the road towards the motel, with Trace following. They pulled up to the motel’s parking lot and disembarked. “You two, go around to the back,” Trace ordered Star and Flash. Flash saluted and bustled around to the back of the building, with his partner reluctantly following. Still holding the paper, Phillip walked through the motel’s front door, with Daring and Trace on his tail. The lobby was a small, dark room with peeling wallpaper. A fat earth pony stallion sat behind the counter, snoring loudly. Ignoring him, the trio walked up the hallway. The paper continued to glow, becoming brighter and brighter as they continued past several doors. Once they reached door number twelve, the paper glowed almost as bright as a flame, then went out. Trace knocked at the door. “Shifting Tone? This is the police. Open up.” There was no answer. “Allow me,” Phillip said, stepping forward. He turned about and once again, bucked backward with a grunt. With a resounding crack, the door flew open. The motel room consisted of a single small room with chartreuse carpeting that smelled faintly of mold; the sound of a leaky faucet came from behind a closed door next to the entrance. A desk with a chair stood against one wall, next to a large, old radio and a lamp that, along with a light in the ceiling, provided illumination. A small bed was pressed against the opposite wall. A small cyan unicorn mare with curly blue locks was sitting on the bed, hugging her knees. She looked up as they entered. Her aqua blue eyes were streaked with red. “So you found me first,” she said flatly. “We’re not going to hurt you,” Phillip said, standing in front of her. “We need to take you somewhere safe.” “There’s no point,” Shifting Tone said, shaking her head. “I’m lucky to have hidden for as long as I have.” “Enough with the melodrama, okay?” Daring interrupted, walking around Phillip and sitting on the bed in front of Shifting. “This is about Silvertongue, isn’t it? He killed your friends, and now he’s after you.” Shifting stared at Daring for a few moments before slowly nodding as though she couldn’t quite figure Daring out. “So tell us what happened,” Daring pressed. “Then we can stick it to that smug bastard for you.” When Shifting still didn’t answer, Daring leaned forward a little, her face softening. “At least so Jamie can understand why,” she said in a quieter tone. Shifting Tone bit her lip in thought, then lowered her gaze. “I stole something from Silvertongue’s gallery,” she reported. “Something that all five of us were working on.” “Was it this?” Daring asked, taking out the photograph of the necklace and showing it to Shifting Tone. She nodded in affirmation. “It’s a necklace from the Haycraftian era,” she explained. “Silvertongue uses his galleries to smuggle weapons and contraband, including enchanted items. We found that this necklace had a powerful luck enchantment on it: anypony who wears it is blessed with good luck.” “And you stole it for yourself?” Trace asked. Shifting Tone shook her head. “I gave it to a friend,” she replied. “Somepony who can fight back against Silvertongue and all the others. But Silvertongue didn’t know which one of us stole it, so…” “He decided to be thorough and kill all of you,” Phillip nodded. Shifting Tone nodded, tears leaking from her eyes. "I didn't want them to die..." she whimpered. "We knew what Silvertongue was doing, what he was, but we were never involved in it...I thought if I could just do this one thing to help, then maybe..." “Who did you give it to?” Trace Evidence pressed. Before Shifting could reply, the lights suddenly snapped out, plunging everypony into darkness. “He’s here,” Phillip hissed. There was a shift and a click as Trace Evidence drew his service pistol and cocked it, rising to his hind legs; the holding strap for the .50 caliber pistol was secured snugly around his left foreleg and he gripped the weapon itself in his right hoof, preparing to push against the trigger at the slightest movement. In the dark, Phillip tapped Trace’s shoulder, then pointed into the corner of the room. Trace squinted, but then he spotted it: an air vent set against the wall near the floor. He aimed his pistol at the vent, his horn glowing with a faint golden aura. Daring moved closer to Shifting Tone; she could feel and hear the mare's heavy, shuddering breaths. But the attack came from the doorway. There was a flicker of movement, then a sphere of purple light flew into the room and detonated in a blinding flash. All ponies yelled in surprise and pain and staggered, raising their forelegs to cover their faces. Her vision covered in a wash of white light, Daring struggled to refocus, concentrating on her other senses. She reached out with a hoof and grabbed a hold of the edge of the bed. There was the sound of hoofsteps from the doorway, then she felt a wave of energy rush through the air, accompanied by a shock of static electricity that made her coat stand on end. Phillip and Trace both cried out, then she heard them slamming into the wall behind her. The hoofsteps came closer, and Daring heard the snick of a switchblade opening. She lunged forward and felt Shifting Tone's cold flesh beneath her hooves. Grabbing her torso tightly, she dived backward, using her wings to propel herself. But she was too slow: Shifting Tone jerked violently in her grasp and screamed right into her ear, and she smelled blood from the wound. Collapsing to the floor, Daring blinked rapidly to try to get her eyes working again. Vision returned slowly, in a blur of colors; she could just make out Shifting Tone sprawled on top of her, her eyes closed and breathing ragged. Quickly rolling around on top of her, Daring spotted the bright red of blood against her blue coat. She pressed down against the wound; the blood was shockingly warm and sticky and smelled of copper. She spotted two other ponies next to her, laying against the wall. Trace was sitting still and appeared to be stunned, while Phillip was shaking his head and trying to get up. Turning to look over her shoulder, she spotted a unicorn in a black hooded sweatshirt and a ski mask walking around the bed. A switchblade knife, the blade stained red with blood, was clutched in their hoof. But then, a blur of brown and green tackled the figure, knocking the knife from their grasp. They rolled out of the room into the hallway, their hooves scrabbling against one another. The unicorn managed to get his hind legs underneath Phil and pushed him off; Phillip rolled when he hit the ground and got back up on his hooves, using the wall for support. Squinting through the darkness of the hallway, he could just make out the shape of the assassin getting back up to their hooves. Lighting up his horn so that he could see, the assassin turned towards him and lunged forward with a straight punch to the face. Phillip weaved underneath the blow, sending a quick jab to his opponent's lower ribs and immediately following up with a straight shot to the chin that sent him staggering back. Thanks for the light, wanker, he thought bitterly as he seized his foe in a clinch and fired off a knee strike to the gut. The assassin recovered quickly, blocking the knee strike, then rushing forward while Phillip was off-balance, slamming him into the wall. Phillip grunted in pain, momentarily loosening his hold, and the assassin responded with an upwards headbutt against his chin. Phillip felt like he'd been hit in the jaw with a bowling ball; stars exploded across his vision and his head spun. He felt the assassin's hooves clutch his throat. Instinctively, he pushed his forelegs up and out hard, breaking the chokehold and pushing him away, and responded with a vicious kick. His hoof went into his attacker's gut and he heard him double over, wheezing. His vision recovered in time to see the masked pony leaning against the wall. In a motion that he'd practiced a dozen times, Phillip's right hoof went to a pocket on his vest, retrieving the object within, then snapped downwards. With a clicking noise that was music to his ears, the extendable baton snapped open, extending to its full eighteen-inch length. He raised the baton to prepare a finishing blow, but the unicorn suddenly looked up, his horn brightening. His spell struck Phillip in the chest; Phillip's entire body was momentarily alive with pain, like he was being electrocuted. He screamed in pain and fell to the floor, dropping his baton. The unicorn moved forward to finish Phillip off but was distracted by movement out of the corner of his eye. Trace Evidence had recovered from the heavy blow and was quickly retrieving his pistol. Deciding to cut and run, the unicorn pushed Phillip to the ground and sprinted for a door marked “Emergency Exit.” “Come back here!” Trace shouted, sprinting after him. The assassin pushed through the door and out into the night, only to run into Flash and Star. “Halt!” Flash shouted, raising his foreleg at his target. The barrel of his .38 service revolver, mounted securely atop his foreleg via a loose strap, snapped to the unicorns' forehead and the intruder hesitated for a moment. Flash merely had to push down against the trigger that jutted out in front of the weapon assembly and it would be over. Suddenly, Star Cluster stumbled, knocking into Flash and bringing them both to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs. The unicorn sprinted past them, reaching into a pocket in his sweatshirt and pulling out a dark red crystal. He tossed it up into the air; it hovered above him and began to spin rapidly. Tendrils of dark red energy flew from the crystal, dancing around the unicorn. Trace Evidence burst through the door and took aim with his pistol, quickly firing off a shot that missed wildly. Before he could correct his aim, there was a flash of dark red light. When it cleared, the unicorn and the crystal were both gone. “What was that?” Flash asked as he and Star untangled themselves from each other. “A teleportation crystal,” Trace grunted, holstering his pistol. “He’s long gone.” He gave the two officers a glare. “What are you two doing on the ground?” “Sorry, Detective,” Star Cluster said nonchalantly, dusting himself off. “I tripped.” "He pushed me!" Flash snapped back, glaring at Star from the ground. Star Cluster glared at Flash, his eyes flashing dangerously. "You insinuating something, boy?" he growled. Flash gritted his teeth and pulled himself up to his full height, but before a fight could erupt, both of them were pushed away from each other by an aura of golden energy. "I don't need this shit, and you two don't either," Trace grunted, his horn alight. "The vic's still alive, but hurt. Call an ambulance." "She's alive?" Flash said, his mouth dropping open. Star Cluster just grunted and started to run back to the cruiser, with Flash following. Trace Evidence huffed out of his nostrils and walked back into the motel. Phillip was picking himself up off the floor, rubbing his chin. “You okay?” Trace asked him, helping him get back to his hooves. "I'm fine," Phillip nodded, retrieving his baton. "Guys! Fucking help me!" Daring shouted from the hotel room. Trace and Phillip both dashed back inside. Daring was still crouched over Shifting Tone, her bloodstained hooves pressing the pillow from the bed against the knife wound in the younger mare's back. Shifting Tone coughed heavily, blood flying from her mouth and nostrils. "Keep pressure on that," Phillip instructed as Trace used his magic to rip the sheets from the bed and tear them into strips. Phillip snatched up the sheets and began to wrap them tightly around Shifting's torso. Shifting Tone let out a wail of mixed pain, fear, and despair. "I don't wanna die!" she sobbed. "You're not going to die," Daring replied, her voice calm even as she continued to press the pillow down on the injury. When Shifting didn't answer except to let out another sob, Daring placed a hoof on her shoulder. "Hey, Shifting, look at me." The younger mare looked up at Daring, her eyes shining with tears. "You're not gonna die," Daring repeated. "We're gonna get you to a hospital. You're going see Jamie again. You're gonna be fine." Shifting let out a quiet whimper and nodded. Daring grasped the victim's hoof and squeezed tightly. "I'm right here," she reassured her, her voice soft. "I'm not going anywhere." Phil finished tying off the makeshift bandages and then unzipped his vest, placing it over Shifting to keep her warm and stave off shock. He took Daring's place at Shifting's side, pressing down directly on the wound. "Phil, look," Trace said. Phillip looked up to see the detective using his magic to place the dropped switchblade knife in a clear plastic bag. He smiled grimly. We've got you now, you wanker, he cursed the assassin. We're coming for you.