//------------------------------// // Five-O // Story: Supernatural | Burning Ghost // by DerpymuffinAuthor //------------------------------// “Found it.” Rainbow announced, pulling Sunset’s attention from the paper mural on the wall. “Sapphire Mask, lives at Oxfern Road, 229.” Sunset took a quick peek at the familiar handwriting. “Alright. Well, let’s go. Time to go play reporter.” Sunset grabbed her leather jacket, pulling it on while Rainbow closed the notebook and set it down on the bed. “I’ll go check the map.” “I’ll be out there in a second.” Sunset reassured, watching as Rainbow slipped out of the motel room towards the car. Honestly, a shower sounded oh so tempting, but Sunset didn’t have the time. Instead, Sunset checked her pockets for her phone. She frowned, noting her phone was absent. She glanced around for her phone. It took the phone vibrating with an incoming call for her to realize she had been blankly staring at it on the dresser. She picked it up. “Hello?” “Take off. They found me.” “What?” “The cops. They’re out here and they’re looking at me. Take the Impala and get to Sapphire Mask’s place. I’ll meet up with you later- Hey officer-!” Sunset jotted to the door, cracking open the door. There were two pairs of police officers. One pair was standing with the motel owner, next to one of the two cruisers, and the other pair was talking to Rainbow. “Where’s your partner?’ “Uh- partner? What partner?” The officer, which Sunset recognized as Officer Tang, frowned. “Can’t believe I believed that Deputy Marshall bull. So, you got a fake ID, fake credit card… Do you got anything that’s real?” Rainbow grinned, that cocky smirk that Sunset could recognize a mile away. “Yeah; My dick.”   Sunset flinched away from the door when Officer Tang grabbed Rainbow by the arm and spun her around to handcuff her. Sunset shoved her phone into her pocket and sprinted into the bathroom. There was a window above the toilet, wide enough for Sunset to squeeze through. Sunset locked the door behind her before jumping on top of the toilet, pressing her hands on both sides of the window frame and shoving, her thumbs pressing down on the latch release. The window creaked as she pushed, up until it suddenly snapped open, briefly offsetting Sunset’s balance. The exit led to a dark, barren strip of dirt between the motel and a line of concrete. No one was around to watch as Sunset pushed her upper body through the window. The landing wasn’t graceful whatsoever. Sunset’s back hit the ground with a thud that she felt through every bone in her body. Fortunately, the ground wasn’t wet, and the dirt was easy to brush off her jacket once Sunset scrambled to her feet. She jogged around to the other end of the motel and peered around the corner. Officer Tang shoved Rainbow into the back of his cruiser before getting in with his partner and pulling out into the road. The other pair approached the motel rooms, the motel owner leading them to Twilight and Shining’s room. The door opened with a click and the officers entered the room, hands on their holsters. Sunset took a deep breath and speed-walked over to the Impala. The driver’s door was unlocked, as Sunset discovered with a tug on the handle, and the keys sat in the seat. A map of Hollow Shades, presumably from the motel’s She snatched up the keys, jamming them into the ignition as she slid into the seat and shut the door behind her. She flinched at the noise, the hum of the engine filling all the silence before. Her heartbeat suddenly accelerating at the sight of the officers’ shadows shifting around inside the room, Sunset pulled out of the parking lot with all the grace of a rock and sped off  in the direction of Sapphire Mask’s home. Sapphire Mask lived in a small house in a very quiet portion of one of the tiny neighborhoods that made up Hollow Shades. There was a middle-aged woman across the street watering some very vibrant flowers as Sunset pulled up in front of the house, double-checking the address Twilight had written down and cross-referencing it with the mark Rainbow left on the map, before slipping out. She had found a notepad in the glovebox and there was a semi-functioning pen clipped to the notebook. So, Sunset  went under the guise of a reporter. The woman was tall, thin, and older than her neighbor across the street if the gray roots and wrinkles were accurate to her age. “Can I help you?” “Uh, yes. I’m a reporter for the Equestrian Globe. I’m writing a piece about the Sunny Charge case and I was hoping I could ask you a few questions?” “Well, I didn’t know the man much. Never wanted to, truly. Why ask me?” “I understand your daughter was one of the victims. Jade Welsh?” Sapphire’s face paled and she swallowed briefly. “My daughter…” “You don’t have to talk about it, ma’am, I understand it must have been… Traumatic.” “No, no… It’s just… I have time for a few questions.” The woman resolved, stepping aside and opening the door further. “Come in… I’ve just made some tea.” “Thank you.” Sapphire Mask brought her to a tiny table and gestured to the seats. Sunset awkwardly settled into one as the old woman walked over to her stove. “I’ll try not to take too much of your time.” “Don’t worry about that. I don’t have much to fill it with.” Sapphire Mask carried over a tray with a kettle and two mugs. She set them down on the table before pouring the still-steaming tea into the mugs and handing one to Sunset. She took the only other seat across from Sunset. “What's your name?” “Phoenix Streak.” Sunset said, taking a sip from her tea. She winced at the surprise sweetness of it. “Well, Phoenix, what would you like to ask me?” “Well… How about… What did you know about Sunny Charge?” “I only ever saw him a handful of times around town. I don’t know where he worked, frankly cause I didn’t care… I should have asked… Maybe I would’ve realized sooner.” “Was he a friend of Jade’s?” “Well, I saw them chat a few times. They didn’t act close. She never talked to me about him, even when I asked… The police were the ones who told me his names.” “What was Jade like?” Sunset asked, noting the way Jade’s eyes shifted to the floor. “Quiet. At least, at first. She was a sweet girl, she just got… She got in with the wrong crowd, I suppose. She liked to pick flowers. Every summer, our house would be full of ‘em. She’d get all sad whenever they withered up and run out to pick some more.”   Sunset smiled at the image it gave her. “Do you have any photos of her? I noticed the one in the article they made when she disappeared looked like a yearbook photo.” “Oh, only a few. She never liked to take photos. You know, typical kid behavior. They can’t stand still long enough to set up the camera. It was odd, that she never had any baby photos.” “She never had any baby photos?” “Oh, no. All she had were the clothes on her back when she arrived.” “Arrived?” “I adopted her. I was alone and I could -- Well, I could never have kids of my own.” “How old was she?” “About eleven years old. You’ve heard about the old buildings down near Centennial, right?” “Yes, the ones that burned down?” “She used to live there… Poor baby…” Sunset nodded, taking a hesitant drink of her tea again. The sweetness still hit her taste buds by surprise. “Would you like any photos for your article?” “Oh, no! Ma’am I wouldn’t ask to take any of these photos.” “It’s quite alright… I’m just clinging to them.” “Well, then I can ask for you to send us one to put in our article, if that’s not too much trouble?” “Not at all. Oh, one moment!” She set down her cup and walked away. A minute passed, then another, before Jade returned with a book. A Yearbook. “So… Did Jade have any friends?” “Well, she kept to herself. She only had a couple of friends over ever, which I was okay with because they seemed like such sweet people.” Sapphire supplied, taking a sip of her tea. “Oh… She was so close to graduating, too….” She abruptly shook her head, handing the book to Sunset. It was opened to Jade Welsh’s class and Sunset found her photograph easily. It was a small class. Sunset noted the false smile, recognized it from her first yearbook photograph in Canterlot High School. It was a haunted look that Sunset recognized whenever she looked at another hunter’s face long enough. They were all messed up, somehow, and they’d never be able to recover.   Jade’s wasn’t nearly as haunted, of course, but it was enough to notice. “Then she started hanging out with some bad eggs. There aren’t that many in Hollow Shades, of course, but there’s always some. You understand, right?” “Absolutely.” “Well, she started… She started drinking, staying out, who knows what else… I tried to help, of course, talk to her like any good mother… But she didn’t want my help, kept it to herself... And then she went and hitchhiked from some boy’s party. They moved out of town years ago. I always told her not to, cause you don’t know who is nice and who isn’t, but she didn’t… She didn’t listen.” “And then they found her, in Sunny Charge’s trailer?” “Parts of her.” Sapphire corrected, voice choked. Sunset  felt the shudder go down her spine and into her stomach. The tea was an isolated patch of warmth. “Parts...?” “I don’t know where he buried her… None of them do… He kept her there for months… And then the bastard went ahead and got his way out of his goddamn sentence-!” “He deserved worse for what he did.” Sunset agreed, letting the heat spread into her tone. “Exactly! He- He took my little girl away from me and didn’t even have the guts to face the consequences!” Sapphire set down her cup, taking a shuddering breath as tears began to roll down her face. “No… No one should have to endure that.” “No, no one should… But it’s an unkind world we live in, isn’t it?” Sapphire asked, smiling bitterly as she looked back to Sunset. “The world’s full of awful shit. Every time we kill one of those things that hurt people? I like to think we make it a little better.” “Yes… Yes it is.” The sun was starting to crawl below the treeline when Sunset finally got out of Sapphire’s house and back in the Impala. It was typically around this time she’d be eating dinner with Moondancer, but listening to a grieving woman give her daughter’s life story to who she believed to be a reporter was enough to kill whatever appetite Sunset could have. It was a little frightening, how easy she fell back into the lying. Sunset dialed up 911. She tried not to think of how easy it was for her to fake a slightly shaky voice as she claimed she heard gunshots on the other side of town from Centennial. Next she drove, barely conscious of the road signs. She parked outside the Sheriff’s station. She didn’t know if Rainbow had gotten out quick or was still inside. It didn’t help the anxiety any more than hoping Twilight and Shining were still alive. It was maybe fifteen minutes after Sunset placed the call that her cell phone rang, and she quickly answered it. “Rainbow?” “Fake 911 call? That’s pretty illegal, Sunset.” Sunset swallowed down her sigh of relief. “Just cause I gave up hunting doesn’t mean I forgot everything.” “Yeah, yeah- Whatever, anyway, Sunset there’s something important.” “What?” “The cops. They had Twilight’s journal.” A beat of silence. It felt as if Sunset had just opened one of the windows to the November chill. “Twilight’s journal?” “Yeah, and- she left these coordinates on the last page.” “Where’d they find it?” “I don’t know, they wouldn’t tell me. It couldn’t have been their motel room, though.” “Do you know where the coordinates lead?” “I think it might’ve been the next hunt. I’ll have to check it, though.” “You can wait on that. I talked to Sapphire Mask.” “Figure out where she’s buried?” “That’s the issue. No one knows. They didn’t find all of her, she could be stuffed in some tree for all we know.” “Morbid. But, you’re right… Why don’t you come grab me and we head over to her old house, or what’s left of it… You do have her address, right?” “Yeah. I managed to get it before the woman burst into tears.” Sunset said the last part with a little more menace than she needed. It wasn’t really Rainbow’s choice for her to play journalist for a grieving on woman, although indirectly it was her fault. “... Right, well, I’m just a couple turns away from the Sheriff’s department. I’m outside some kind of antique store. I think.” “Okay, which direction did you go?” About eight minutes later, Sunset managed to find Rainbow standing in a dusty phone booth just outside of a dingy looking shop. It had a colorless sign that read ‘Closed’ taped to the inside of the door. No one was around as the Impala pulled up to the sidewalk except for Rainbow and a few birds scattered along a telephone line overhead.            Sunset didn’t say anything as Rainbow slid into the passenger seat, breathing out a sigh of relief. She patted the dashboard. “Told you I wouldn’t be gone long.” “You can make out later, we’ve got a ghost to handle.” “You’re just jealous.” Rainbow shot back, although she didn’t smile. Sunset started the Imapala towards Centennial. “You think we’re gonna get to grab our stuff from the motel room later?” “Probably not.” Sunset groaned, resisting the urge to brain herself on the steering wheel. She hadn’t lost anything recently. She hadn’t dealt with any police in a while, either, and she really didn’t like the idea of being tied back to a case when she got back to living a normal life in Canterlot. “So, how was being arrested?” Sunset could vividly recall Rainbow asking that to her after pulling her out of the police station in Lusitanaton, but the question rang hollow now.   “They were pretty mad about me faking in this case. They weren’t lying when they said this was a pretty intimate town. They acted like I spit in their drinks or something.” “Well, we’re gonna get out of this town soon. Just gotta grab Twilight, Shining, stop this ghost and and leave.” Of course, this plan did not account for the possibility of having to pull a fresh salt and burn for Shining and Twilight’s bodies. “How do you salt and burn a body you can’t find?” “You don’t. Or you find it, I guess. All I can guess is find some object she’s attached to at her place.” “What about Sunny Charge’s place?” “Place got bulldozed two years ago. You didn’t read any of the articles I got, did you?” “No.” “It’s called research, Sunset, you and Twilight would never stop riding my ass about researching” “Cause you kept running in with your gun half cocked and almost getting yourself killed!” Rainbow’s mouth snapped shut. The engine’s roar seemed to get louder. “... You okay?” “Yeah, i’m fine. I just… Forget it. It’s nothing.” “Right,” Sunset’s voice was tight. “Save the sap, Sunset. It’s fine.” Before Sunset could interrupt, Rainbow turned on the radio.