Silver Spoon sat on the bed reading a short book about the historicity of Golden Feather. Diamond Tiara lay on the bed next to her, fast asleep. They agreed to sleep in shifts. Diamond Tiara would rest for the first 4 hours, then hold watch for the remainder of the night.
She believed that she would learn more if school were nothing more than her getting to go to the library and read whatever she wanted. In retrospect, she could have just skipped over high school entirely. If she did her homework, she would have been one of those ‘prodigy’ kids who got into college at age twelve.
Even back then, she knew that would be a stupid idea. Her friendship with Diamond Tiara held infinitely more value than any college degree or news story about how smart she was. Even from a strictly utilitarian point of view, having an in with what was sure to be the richest pony in the world twenty years from now wasn’t something to give up lightly.
Besides, this would be the only time in her life where she could just hang out with Diamond Tiara and not worry about anything. She didn’t wish herself stuck in the workforce. All those ‘prodigies’ who gave this up weren’t nearly as clever as the media made them out to be, in her opinion.
That was, if she survived through tonight.
As if in response to her thoughts, the intercom blared. Silver Spoon didn’t even know this place had an intercom, but now she wished it didn’t.
A hideously loud and obnoxious screech filled the hotel, shook Silver Spoon to the point she worried her glasses might shatter. Silver Spoon tried to shelter her eardrums by shoving both pillows over her ears, yet the noise pierced straight through it.
The sound went on and on for two minutes non-stop until Silver Spoon was certain it’d continue until somepony threw a stick of dynamite at the source. Why did they even make intercoms this loud?!
And just like that, the noise cut off entirely.
Diamond Tiara still lay on her back. She let out a loud snort but didn’t open her eyes.
How did she sleep through that?! She’d always been a heavy sleeper, to be sure.
“Attention, ponies!” a voice came on over the intercom. The voice sounded gravelly and distorted in a way that made Silver Spoon certain it came through a voice changer. “It seems nopony mentioned to you that there’s a curse placed upon this land!”
A curse?! If Silver Spoon heard what the curse was, she’d be subjected to it at its full power. She desperately looked around for something to plug her ears with. The pillows? No, they already failed her once.
“You can’t leave this hotel unless you murder another pony! Have a nice night!”
It blurted out the conditions too quickly for Silver Spoon to react to! Now she wouldn’t be able to leave?!
To make matters worse, the power went out at that exact moment. The one lightbulb died, then even its pitiful protection was gone. The room submerged into total darkness.
Thankfully, Silver Spoon already prepared for a power outage. She had a candle and match within reach and quickly relit the room. No way the power just happened to go out at that exact moment.
Silver Spoon had to test the claim immediately. She dashed to the window and threw it open. The rain remained, but the wind had long since ceased, allowing her to open it without getting wet.
She tried sticking a hoof out to find it pressing up against an invisible barrier.
“Drat! It was true!”
Silver Spoon jumped back onto the bed to be reminded of her friend. Diamond Tiara groggily opened her eyes, slowly beginning to stir with all the grace of a zombie.
This was the one time Diamond Tiara sleeping like a brick came in handy! If she didn’t hear the announcement, she wasn’t fully cursed! She could still leave.
There had to be some way Silver Spoon could turn this around. The only way to leave was to kill another pony? That reminded her of a certain novel she’d read once.
The door slammed open, and Snails rushed into the room, panting.
“Dudes!” he called out. “There’s been a murder! Grease Trap was stabbed to death in the kitchen!”
“Seriously?!” Silver Spoon let out an exacerbated sigh. “Somepony killed one second after hearing that? I already had zero faith in ponies but holy crow.”
“Get ready to have even less faith, dude.” Snails shook his head. “Cause that murder happened about a minute before the announcement. They didn’t even wait for a motive.”
“Before?” Silver Spoon blinked. “That changes things.”
The announcement happened right after Grease Trap was killed? That couldn’t have been a coincidence either.
Diamond Tiara managed to get to the point of ‘mostly awake’ by now.
“What happened again?” Diamond Tiara rubbed her sleepy eyes. “Please tell me it was Ms. Cheerilee who got killed.”
“Oh!” Snails began. “Uh, Grease Trap got stabbed and you can only leave if you kill somepony cause that’s the cur–”
Silver Spoon screamed and jumped across the room to tackle him a second too late.
“You idiot!” Silver Spoon violently shook him. “Now Diamond Tiara is stuck here too! You don’t tell ponies about the curse! That’s like – they teach you that in kindergarten.”
“Did you seriously curse me again, Snails!” Diamond Tiara stood up on the bed. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t kick you off the team!”
“I can make it up to you, I swear!” Snails took out his notebook. “I went out looking for clues before this started. I have all sorts of good stuff.”
“Let me see that.” Silver Spoon took the notebook from Snails. Diamond Tiara leaned up against her to read too.
True to Snails, his school notebook had no notes in it except for this and the corn maze incident. Thankfully, she was familiar enough with his terrible writing to interpret these scribbles. He’d even managed to write down what looked like useful information for once.
“So Deathblow was on one side of the dining area,” Silver Spoon began, “and Sonata and Grease Trap were inside it. On the other side is a dead end with a single window and the secret passage as the only exits. And you saw Rainbow Dash and Silverstorm entering the secret passage just before.”
“And he died fifteen minutes after I saw him,” said Snails. “Cause the popcorn popped when I got there!”
“Then it has to be Sonata,” Diamond Tiara concluded. “She was the one in the room with him!”
“We can’t conclude that yet.” Silver Spoon shook her head. “In fact, it seems unlikely as the killer must have known when the secret passage was opened. I doubt this Sonata pony could have known that.”
That left Diamond Tiara scratching her head.
“Snails,” said Silver Spoon. “There was water underneath the window, meaning somepony opened it at some point, letting some rain inside as well. But was it just at the end of the hall or did you see any water leading down the hall?”
“Nah! It was just one puddle. I think.”
“That narrows it down to two possibilities. Either somepony exited out that window or Rainbow Dash entered through it.” Silver Spoon closed the book. “I suspect the latter as it makes no sense to escape before the murder happened. They wanted to sneak into the secret passage, so they went outside their window and re-entered below.”
“Why are those two sneaking around here, anyway?” Diamond Tiara asked. “There’s something up with this place, isn’t there?”
“That much is obvious at this point. I doubt they were just bumbling about in the boiler room and stumbled upon that secret passage. I’ll wager the two of them came here intending to find whatever’s hidden on the other side. The timing of everything is too good. From the popcorn, we can deduce that the murder happened within fifteen minutes of Rainbow Dash and Silverstorm entering the secret passage. Then the announcement and power outage immediately after that. It’s hard to dismiss them opening that door wasn’t a trigger.”
“I bet it leads to a subbasement,” said Diamond Tiara. “Where Lazy Eye keeps his dead body collection.”
“That might not be far from the truth.” Silver Spoon nodded. “The secret passage leads to something dangerous. Entering it sets off an alarm. Lazy Eye hears the alarm and makes that announcement to trap us all. It seems the most likely scenario given what we know.”
Silver Spoon snapped the book shut. No. It still didn’t make sense.
“But why would he kill the fry cook?” Silver Spoon asked herself. “If anything, all the employees would be in on it. Right?”
“I bet he knew too much so Lazy Eye offed him!” Diamond Tiara smacked her hooves together.
“Unlikely,” said Silver Spoon. “He’s already gone past the point of no return from the sound of things. I’d need more information to make a definitive conclusion. For now, I think we need to treat everypony who works here as a threat.”
Silver Spoon closed her eyes and tapped her temple. Thinking of the staff brought up another good question.
“Where are all the adults anyway?” Silver Spoon asked. “You’d think one of them would try to be responsible and come check on us. Maybe we’ll have to go check on them.”
“Why is it always up to us to solve the mystery?" Diamond Tiara asked.
“If by always you mean that one time.” Silver Spoon shook her head. “Let’s see if we can get to the lobby. Snails. You stay in front.”
“Got it!” Snails gave his axe a few test swipes.
“But Snails.” Diamond Tiara put a hoof on his shoulder. “It’s very important that before you attack anypony you shout ‘they’re coming right for us’ as loud as you can. That way we can claim it was self-defense if it ever goes to court.”
Snails nodded.
They pushed open the door and crept out into the dark hallway. Snails held his axe, Diamond Tiara held the candle, and Silver Spoon kept an eye out behind them. Nopony lingered in the hallway. She did notice a few doors hung wide open.
It could have been that ponies simply didn’t close them all the way, but with the only defense to a rusty chain, that might be all the wreckage a forced entry left.
Already, Silver Spoon could tell ponies were downstairs. A faint glow of came coming from below.
They stopped at the top of the stairs and took stock of who gathered there.
Deathblow remained in his spot, eyes closed, and forelegs folded. About half their class huddled close together on one side of the lobby. Three disgruntled guests complained to two of the hotel staff. Finally, Lazy Eye appeared to have taken charge to corral the other students.
“Where’s Ms. Cheerilee?” Diamond Tiara whispered. “Did she take five of us and book it?”
“How would she have done that?” Silver Spoon asked. “More importantly when? Anyway, down there looks safer than up here.”
The loud creaking stairs announced their presence as they returned to the lobby.
“That’s twelve and–” Lazy Eye turned toward the creaking stairs to smile at the three. “Why if it isn’t my three favorites! How wonderful it is to see that you’re all safe and sound. With fifteen of the twenty-six accounted for, that means not even a full half have gone missing! Not a very good job overall. In my day, a killer wouldn’t have let any of them escape.”
“Wait.” Silver Spoon walked into the lobby. “So the others are missing? Ms. Cheerilee too?”
“Oh? I thought you were fast on the uptake,” he said. “But yes. And a number of my own staff have gone missing as well! It seems only three of us remain.”
A coordinated effort? Likely what happened. Silently, Silver Spoon suspected the staff had taken the rest of her class somewhere.
Silver Spoon looked at his remaining staff – one maid and one butler. She noticed that suspicious Sonata Dusk pony wasn’t here, either.
“I’ll send them off to see if they can find any more of your little friends.” Lazy Eye extended his foreleg and the two of them left. Then he turned to Deathblow. “Oh! But we do have a professional here. I don’t suppose you have any light to shed upon this dark night?”
Deathblow remained silent.
“Guh! He won’t say anything unless we pay him a billion bits!” Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. “But we have Silver Spoon right here! She’ll solve this mystery in ten seconds flat!”
“Oh?” Lazy Eye tilted his head. “I should like to see that.”
“I suppose you would,” said Silver Spoon. “All the evidence points to foul play on your part. Did you make that announcement?”
“Of course not. The intercom room showed signs of being broken into when I got there.”
“Anypony who knows about the curse should be trapped here,” Silver Spoon went on. “You must have been one such pony.”
“Indeed. I haven’t left this place in fifteen years,” he said. “But the curse has always been in effect. That’s why leaving our hotel is slightly inconvenient. Hm? Though of course, you’re mistaken in one thing. A pony who heard about the curse outside could have come here and only recently gotten stuck.”
“You realize that even if you’re not the killer, you’re still in a lot of trouble, don’t you?” Diamond Tiara asked. “You’re getting sued out of your mind for letting me get cursed! I’m not spending my whole life here.”
“Oh, it’s not as bad as you fear, I assure you.” Lazy Eye smiled. “Yes, I have thirty years of experience with this. We just hook one pony up to, shall we call it, an electrocution chair. At once we all press a button to send a small amount of electricity towards him which combines to be just enough to stop his heart. That way, we can all say we’ve committed murder and go home.”
“Yeah, and who’s gonna volunteer for that?” Diamond Tiara asked. “You?!”
“Oh yes. I take full responsibility.” Lazy Eye ran a hoof across her cheek. “Of course, I will volunteer for the electrocution. I’ve done this thrice before. The paramedics are professionals at resuscitating me. And yes, it still counts.”
Diamond Tiara kept her frown, but she didn’t yell any more than that. Lazy Eye reached behind the counter to grab one of his candles.
“The only problem, of course, is that we cannot electrocute anypony, let alone myself.” Lazy Eye frowned into the flame. “Not until the power comes back on.”
“How convenient,” said Silver Spoon. “I noticed a lot of convenient coincidences, you know. The power outage, that announcement, everypony going missing, Grease Trap getting murdered… they all happened almost immediately after Rainbow Dash entered that secret passage. Do you care to tell us where it leads?”
“Oh? So we really are playing detective now?” Lazy Eye clapped his hooves together. “Forgive me children, but I’m far too old for such games. I have no obligation to answer these questions or entertain your delusions.”
“You’re only making yourself more suspicious!” Diamond Tiara pushed herself up on the tips of her hooves to be the same height as Lazy Eye. “Tell us where it leads!”
Silver Spoon looked around the room, considering her options. She needed to know where the secret passage led but going inside it was too dangerous. One possibility came to mind. Deathblow glanced at them with brief curiosity, finally opening his eyes.
There! The clue she needed.
“Don’t bother, DT.” Silver Spoon adjusted her glasses. “It doesn’t matter if he tells us or not. I’ve already deduced where the secret passage goes.”
Everypony turned to her now.
“Huh?” Diamond Tiara blinked. “How could you possibly know that? We haven’t even looked at the entrance yet.”
“The only clue I need is right there.” Silver Spoon pointed to Deathblow.
The other two turned to him, but neither of them knew what she was talking about. To Silver Spoon, it was as clear as Deathblow’s eye.
“His eye becomes irritated when a worthy opponent is around,” Silver Spoon reminded them. “But right now, it’s clear. That means Silverstorm and Rainbow Dash left the building entirely and before the announcement was made. The secret passage leads somewhere outside. Likely to another facility. Likely underground because Rainbow Dash’s actions suggest there’s no other way in.”
The two of them finally caught up with Silver Spoon’s logic and their faces lit up. Lazy Eye scowled behind them.
“You’re a genius, Silver Spoon!” Diamond Tiara cheered.
“Of course I am.” Silver Spoon looked over to Lazy Eye. “And based on your reaction, I’d say I’m pretty good at playing pretend, huh? How about you confess before I figure out the rest?”
Lazy Eye finally shut up, keeping his jaw clenched tight.
Three slow claps behind them caught their attention.
“An interesting turn of events,” Deathblow spoke. “Silver Spoon, yes? I intended to ignore your existence, but perhaps you’re just clever enough to do me a favor.”
“What are you talking about?” Silver Spoon asked.
“You see, there is more than one curse upon this land,” Deathblow explained. “If you can uncover how that fry cook died, we can all leave this place safely. But I can say no more on the matter.”
Deathblow folded his forelegs and closed his eyes. Silver Spoon realized what that meant. Some other curse had affected Deathblow. He couldn’t tell her what that curse was, though, less it affect Silver Spoon as well.
She glanced at Lazy Eye. Why wouldn’t he just tell her if he could incapacitate Silver Spoon with that same curse?
Either Lazy Eye was innocent (unlikely) or Deathblow’s refusal to talk related more to the conditions of breaking the curse. Yes. Maybe solving the mystery would break this unknown curse. She concluded this was the most likely scenario.
“But how he died?” Silver Spoon only just now considered the question.
“Stand back, dudes!” Snail pushed the others aside and stepped forward heroically. “He was stabbed by the knife!”
“No!” Diamond Tiara bonked him on the head. “Obviously that’s not the case, you idiot!”
“But if he didn’t get stabbed how’d the knife get there?” Snails asked.
“The implication is that Grease Trap was stabbed after he died,” said Silver Spoon. “We should go look over the crime scene.”
“You don’t have my permission to go snooping around my property like this,” Lazy Eye warned.
“They have my permission,” Deathblow spoke over him. “Being Rank S, I can deputize whomever I wish, and this murder warrants an investigation. I’m granting Silver Spoon the right to go wherever she pleases.”
Lazy Eye’s frowned briefly.
“Very well.” Lazy Eye smiled at them. “I suppose you want me to show you around that secret passage, hm? I’d be happy to lead the way.”
He smiled too wide. Something horrible waited for them down there. No point in asking him what, either. He’d just lie.
“No,” she said. “You can wait here. I’m just going to look at the body.”
“As you wish, deputy detective.” Lazy Eye bowed, keeping his good eye on her. “But do be careful.”
Silver Spoon kept an eye on him as her team moved to the kitchen.
Grease Trap still lay there, face down on the floor in a small puddle of blood. The kitchen felt incredibly hot and stuffy compared to the others. Bright, too. The propane stoves had yet to be turned off. Grease still boiled all around them.
While Silver Spoon went to the corpse, Diamond Tiara went off to find the biggest butcher knife she could get.
Silver Spoon knelt next to the smear on the floor to study it. Holding the candle over the blood revealed the truth to her.
“Just as I thought.” She stood up. “This isn’t even real blood. It’s just some ketchup and syrup. The body was stabbed after he died, which is why he hardly bled at all.”
“What?” Diamond Tiara returned with a massive cleaver in her mouth. “If you can tell that so fast, how could the killer have thought they could fool the police with this?”
“A good question.” Silver Spoon tapped her chin a few times as she pondered the question. “The only sensible answer is that they didn’t think they could trick the police.”
“Then why bother?”
“To buy time,” Silver Spoon concluded. “They don’t care if they get discovered tomorrow morning, as long as they don’t get caught tonight. This trick would be enough to keep us from finding the truth if we were all a bunch of narcs like Ms. Cheerilee and refused to investigate the body.”
“But what did kill him?” Diamond Tiara looked all over him, not finding any wounds.
“Only one way to tell.” Silver Spoon sighed. “It might be a chest wound. I’m going to have to flip him over.”
As Diamond Tiara cringed in disgust, Silver Spoon sucked it up and crouched down to grab the cadaver. Before she could even flip it, she noticed something that made her gasp.
“His body!” Silver Spoon stood up and shook her head. “It should still be warm, but it’s ice cold.”
“Cold?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“He’s almost frozen, even,” said Silver Spoon.
“Are you saying he froze to death?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Potentially.”
“But how do you freeze to death in a place like this?” Diamond Tiara pointed to a boiling pot of grease. That stuff surrounded them, making the area unbearably hot.
“There is one way it could happen.” Silver Spoon closed her eyes and nodded. “The main cause of hypothermia.”
Diamond Tiara got it.
“Another ghost?!” Diamond Tiara planted her hoof on her face. “How many times are we going to run into one?”
“I shoulda known it was ghosts!” Snails clicked his tongue. “It’s always ghosts!”
“A ghost would explain a lot.” Silver Spoon paced back and forth as she revealed her model. “The mystery ghost ate Grease Trap, freezing him to death. She then planted a knife to make it look like he was stabbed to death, hoping nopony would notice the blood was fake for a few hours. By the time the police would arrive, the ambient heat would have warmed his body back up to room temperature, and then it would take days for them to tell the actual cause of death.”
“Heck yeah!” Snails cheered. “Case closed!”
“We don’t know where the ghost is yet!” Diamond Tiara reminded him.
“Oh, right.”
Did Lazy Eye have a ghost in his employ? Even criminals rarely associated with ghosts. Given their addiction, ghosts were liable to slip up and freeze even one of their friends to death. If true, that suggested Lazy Eye posed a greater threat than a normal pony – was confident no ghost could kill him.
“All the pieces don’t fit yet,” Silver Spoon concluded.
“What do you mean?” Diamond Tiara asked. “It seems straightforward to me. Some evil ghosts lived under the building. Dash went to go beat them up. One of them escaped and had a snack on the way out.”
“Perhaps. But Deathblow implied figuring this out would break a curse or something to that effect. It doesn’t look like that’s happened. We may need to find the ghost itself.” Silver Spoon considered where to look for this ghost. A ghost could be hiding anywhere, even underneath their very feet. “Our best lead is to try and find Sonata Dusk, who may have been here at the time. She might have even seen the ghost itself… if she’s still alive.”
She flipped the body over just to make absolutely sure there were no more wounds. She found nothing obvious.
“There’s one more thing I need to check here.”
Silver Spoon opened the door to the long hallway. She didn’t need to get far before discovering what she wanted.
“I see.” Silver Spoon bent down and ran her hoof across some of the water halfway through the hall. “It looks like somepony entered through the window after Snails left.”
But that only raised more questions. Silver Spoon knew a ghost froze Grease Trap now. Yet a ghost wouldn’t have had to come in through a window. They certainly wouldn’t have dragged some water in with them either.
For now, she could only shake her head.
“Come on. Sonata’s room is right next to Rainbow Dash’s.”
Sonata Dusk’s door wasn’t one of the ones left open. Silver Spoon knocked.
No answer.
“Sonata!” Silver Spoon called. “We need to talk to you. I’ve been deputized and I have the authority to enter any room. If you don’t come out, we’ll come in.”
No answer.
She turned back to the other two, getting a nod. Then she took two steps back and rammed the door. That flimsy chain got blown off its hinges with almost no resistance.
The three of them stepped inside, brandishing their weapons. Yet Sonata was nowhere to be seen. The three teens split up, carefully searching through the room just in case. Snails opened the closet, finding nothing.
“Sonata?” Silver Spoon called out.
As Silver Spoon rounded the corner of the bed, she jumped back in surprise.
Sonata Dusk!
The pegasus lay slumped back against the side of the bed with wires tied tightly around her neck, her hooves limply clutching at them. Her head hung back, and her tongue lolled out. Her eyes rolled up into their sockets.
The others screamed at the sight of this. Silver Spoon remained calm and noticed one other detail the others missed– her hair was soaking wet.
“She’s been strangled!” Diamond Tiara gasped. “Or wait. No! Is her corpse cold?”
“No.” Silver Spoon pressed a hoof against Sonata to confirm it. “Hm. But not warm, either. She’s room temperature.”
Yet something even more curious revealed itself when Silver Spoon boked her. Sonata felt off – too plush. Even after that, it took Silver Spoon another minute of poking to realize what was truly wrong with this ‘body’.
“Wait.” Silver Spoon stepped back. “This is a doll!”
“Huh?” The other two charged over to begin poking at it, suddenly less afraid.
“It seems so real,” said Diamond Tiara. She tapped on the eye. “But you’re right. That’s so creepy! Who owns a life-sized doll of themselves?”
“Of course!” Snails nodded to himself. “It’s the old ‘carry around a life-sized doll of yourself so you can fake your own death’ trick. I’ve seen that one a million times, dude. Case closed.”
This raised a more important question. The wheels in Silver Spoon’s head spun.
“Wait!” Silver Spoon’s eyes widened. “Get back!”
They still didn’t understand why but trusted her enough to back away.
“Uh. Why?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Sonata Dusk didn’t have any luggage with her when she showed up,” said Silver Spoon. “So how did this doll get here?”
The others shared a look but couldn’t figure it out themselves.
“I think Sonata Dusk is the doll,” Silver Spoon explained.
“What do you mean she is the doll?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Don’t you see?” Silver Spoon shook her head and pointed at the doll. “There’s a ghost on the loose and a life-like doll that looks exactly like Sonata Dusk? And ghosts love possessing dolls, don’t they? Sonata Dusk brought that doll inside by possessing it herself and simply walking in.”
The doll sprang to life, Sonata suddenly jumping to her hooves. The three teens backed into the corner and got ready for a fight!
This was bad! None of them had a weapon that could harm a ghost. Their best bet was Snails’ magic, but he was a complete idiot! Silver Spoon needed to think of some way to fight her.
But instead of attacking them, Sonata clasped her hooves together pleadingly.
“No, no!” Sonata pleaded with them. “I’m not a ghost! I just have a skin condition that makes me feel like a doll!”
“And what about not needing to breathe?” Silver Spoon pointed to her neck, still being strangled by wire. “Is that part of your skin condition?”
Sonata looked at her neck, then back at Silver Spoon.
“Yes?”
Sonata quickly realized her lie wouldn’t work and pulled off the wire around her neck.
“Okay, fine! I’m a ghost. You got me.” Sonata came out of the doll. Her ethereal form looked curiously similar to the doll beneath her. “But I’m not a bad ghost! So don’t go telling Rainbow Dash I’m evil, okay?”
“Oh, please! There are no good ghosts!” Diamond Tiara pointed her knife at Sonata as though it could do anything. “You all have an addiction to body heat. If you hang around the living long enough, it’s only a matter of time until you kill. You know? The exact thing that happened tonight?”
“Is that what happened?” Silver Spoon asked. “You gave in to your addiction and froze Grease Trap?”
“No! I didn’t kill that guy, I swear!”
“Grease Trap was ice cold when we found him,” said Silver Spoon. “Are you claiming there’s another ghost hiding here?”
“Yeah!” Diamond Tiara stepped forward, unafraid at the cowering ghost. “You lost control, froze Grease Trap to death, then stabbed the body in hopes we wouldn’t notice before it warmed back up!”
“Well?” Silver Spoon Raised an eyebrow? “Do we need to tell Rainbow Dash that you’re a murderer?”
Silver Spoon still didn’t know why but based on her previous comments, Sonata had some concern for Dash’s opinion of her. She could use that.
“No, no!” Sonata waved her hooves rapidly. “Okay, fine! I did eat his body heat.”
“Ha!” Snails pointed at him. “Case closed, baby!”
“But I didn’t kill him!” Sonata added quickly. “He was dead when I found him! You don’t know what it’s like being a ghost surrounded by so many predeads. The urge to suck the delicious heat right out of you becomes unbearable after a little while.”
“Yeah. That’s why you guys are auto-banished.” Diamond Tiara pointed at her. “Because you can’t control yourselves!”
“You’re not wrong. I needed to feed off somepony to keep it together. I saw this dead guy and he was still warm, so I was like ‘Hey! He’s not using his body heat!’ and I just dug in. It seemed like the perfect way to get control back. It would have gone to waste otherwise.”
“What?” It all clicked with Silver Spoon. The wet hair, the pony who came in through the window. She was near-certain Sonata wasn’t the killer. “Where were you when he was killed then? We know you were in the kitchen just before”
“I wanted to leave when the rain stopped,” said Sonata. “Remember that pause for a few minutes? I only got outside a little bit, then it started pouring again. When I came back, he was dead.”
Exactly as she suspected.
“And you left through a window at the end of the hall?” Silver Spoon asked.
“The way that Deathblow guy was looking at me made me sure he knew I was a ghost,” said Sonata. “I was too scared to walk by him again! But now I can’t leave unless I kill somepony, but if I do kill somepony Rainbow Dash won’t want to talk to me! Gah!”
“That’s your only hold-up over killing a pony?” Diamond Tiara asked. “I still say she did it! She’s lying!”
“No. Her story checks out,” said Silver Spoon. “That’s where the water in the hallway came from.”
“Right! So you’ll tell Rainbow Dash she can trust me?” Sonata smiled toothily at them. “I only take body heat from ponies who just happened to die recently. That’s my gimmick. They call me still-warm Sonata! All the other ghosts make fun of me for being a goodie four shoes, even!”
“I’ll promise not to snitch on you if you help us,” Silver Spoon offered. “Allegedly, we can break all the curses on this place if we can discover who killed Grease Trap and how.”
“For realsies?”
“Yes. But I don’t have enough evidence yet. I want you to tell me everything that happened down there. How did you know he was dead?”
“I can smell heartbeats.” Sonata pointed to her nose. “I knew he was dead before I even went back into the kitchen because I couldn’t smell his heart.”
“How do you smell a heart beating?” Diamond Tiara raised a brow.
“It pumps your warm blood around,” said Sonata. “Ghosts don’t feel hot and cold. We smell it.”
“And what did you see when you came back into the room?” Silver Spoon asked.
“He was collapsed on the ground. I just assumed he had a heart attack.” Sonata shrugged and smiled a little too cheekily. “You know! Those who live by the grease die by the grease? Then I froze him and stabbed him to hold off the investigation till he thawed just like you said. But then I got trapped here! Guh!”
“So the killer was the donuts, huh?” Snails rubbed his chin. “And this whole thing was just one big PSA about eating healthy! Dude, this is the craziest plot twist I ever heard. Case closed.”
“Oh, please!” Silver Spoon shot him a look. “You expect me to believe he just happened to suffer total heart failure the second Dash went through the secret passage?”
“Maybe they told him about the bust and he couldn’t take it?” Diamond Tiara suggested.
“Maybe. But…” Silver Spoon shook her head. Things still didn’t fit. “Did you really just assume he died because his heart stopped beating? You know they can resuscitate ponies, don’t you?”
“No, no! I’m one hundred percent sure he died!” Sonata put her hooves up. “It’s like – look, it’s harder to explain than the heartbeat thing, but you can’t fake your death to a ghost. We call bodies that didn’t produce a ghost a ‘blank’ cause we can even tell that much.
“And hey, if the curse makes it so only a killer can leave can’t we just throw everypony outside and see who bounces?” Sonata asked.
“If we can find everypony, perhaps,” said Silver Spoon. “We don’t know where they all are.”
Silver Spoon hummed to herself. She watched Sonata with brows lowered, unsure how much of this story to believe.
“Don’t look at me like that!” Sonata shrank behind her hooves. “Okay, okay. Look, if solving the mystery is the only way I can run away crying, then I can be a big help! I got ghost senses, you know? Like! I know where all your missing friends are!”
“You do?” Silver Spoon raised an eyebrow. “I see! Because you can smell where a living pony is, right?”
“Uh, huh!” Sonata floated over to the window and pressed her muzzle against the invisible barrier. “There’s like a shed or something out there. I can smell a bunch of ponies out there. They aren’t dead.”
Silver Spoon squinted, but all she could make out was a wall of impenetrable darkness.
“Ghosts have dark vision,” Sonata reminded her. “That’s like a bright, clear day to me. I can see it all.”
“Could that be where the secret passage leads?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“I doubt it’s far away enough.” Silver Spoon shook her head.
“What’s this about a secret passage?” Sonata asked.
“Oh! Rainbow Dash found a secret passage in the boiler room!” Snails answered. “Right behind the big one in the corner.”
“She did?” Sonata shifted her eyes. “I see.”
The moment Silver Spoon turned her suspicion on her, Sonata broke out into another one of her helpful panics.
“And I can smell other stuff!” she offered. “Like – Grease Trap’s wasn’t the only one whose heart stopped beating. I smell a few other bodies that are still warm, but got no pulse. I’m not sure when it happened.”
“You might have led with that one.” Silver Spoon sighed. “So now there’s no doubt a pony is around with the ability to somehow destroy a pony’s heart instantly. I wonder.”
A certain type of pony would possess such a skill, but still…
No! Now that she thought about it, one other pony could have known when Rainbow Dash left the building! Silver Spoon was nearly certain she’d pieced everything together!
“I’m going to make a prediction now,” said Silver Spoon. “If all of the ponies killed in this manner were staff members, then I know who the killer is. Show us where they are.”
“You’re not gonna say now?” Sonata waited briefly for a response. When none came, she sighed and went back into her doll. “Okay! We’ll be dramatic.”
Sonata led them through the hallway and around the corner. In the end, she brought them to a room close to the very end.
The door looked curious. It’d clearly been boarded up until recently. A few planks of wood lay scattered and broken on the floor. Half of one plank still hung limply from the door’s frame.
“In here.” Sonata pointed to the door. “There’s two on the other side.”
Sonata pushed open the door and looked around inside. Her ears ticked in curiosity at whatever she saw.
Silver Spoon and the others quickly followed her in, shedding light on the dark room with their candles.
Sure enough, two ponies lay limp on either wall. It looked like these two had been flung to one side. Based on how they were dressed (that was, that they wore clothes at all) and where they were, Silver Spoon decide these were likely staff members.
Silver Spoon no longer had any doubt.
And yet the room’s strangeness distracted her from announcing it just yet.
A single projector played an image of the lobby downstairs. At least, Silver Spoon assumed it was a live feed based on the scene. Though normal ponies didn’t have access to this type of technology.
Perhaps more curious were the tanks of red liquid, each big enough to hold ten gallons, that lined the walls. The drawers were stuffed full of the same liquid in clear, plastic containers.
Silver Spoon picked one up to study it.
“Blood bags?” Silver Spoon muttered to herself.
Silver Spoon turned back to the projector. She could no longer see Lazy Eye on the screen.
“Ah, yeesh!” Sonata groaned. “They’re not vampires, are they? I hate corporeal undead! They’re always harshing our mellow, you know?”
Silver Spoon looked back to the door. Sure enough, Lazy Eye and the two remaining members of his staff were there.
“Yes. It seems you’ve found our little secret.” Lazy Eye opened his mouth and his fangs popped out. “It turns out we were all vampires the whole time! And there was no way you could have possibly known this.”
“What?!” Diamond Tiara cringed.
“Okay, cool!” Sonata scooted slowly across the side of the wall. “Cool! We found the secret! Don’t like corporeal undead. I’m just gonna um… go find that hidden passage. Bye!”
Sonata made a break for it, rushing past Lazy Eye. He made no attempt to stop her, keeping his eye squarely on Silver Spoon.
“So it was the butler whose name we don’t even know!” Snails pointed at him. “What a twist, dude! He sucked out all the blood and that made it look like that other guy’s heart stopped!”
“Oh, please. Don’t assume such things.” Lazy Eye waved to the butler who took out one of the blood bags. “We haven’t killed anypony, remember? They can make soy-based blood products these days. Apparently, the heme chemicals extracted from soy root would have been enough to sustain us all this time, but somehow nopony thought to do this for centuries until now.”
Snails took a closer look at the package.
“Oh, hold up!” Snails pointed at some part of it. “Yeah, this is the same brand of those soy lattes I get. See this? That little symbol means it contains soy, dude. This is totally legit.”
To be sure, Snails swished some around in his mouth and nodded approvingly at the taste of soy.
Silver Spoon didn’t bother to look. It made no difference either way. She kept her eyes locked onto Lazy Eye.
“See the soy?” Snails held the package in front of her.
Silver Spoon pushed it away.
“I know who did it,” said Silver Spoon. “And who’s guilty.”
That got Lazy Eye worried.
“The butler?” Snails guessed one last time. “Like, he killed for soy?”
“No. Deathblow is the killer,” Silver Spoon concluded. “I have no doubt about it any longer. The heart is the only vulnerable part of a vampire. You’ll rapidly recover from any other injury unless your heart is removed, in which case your body becomes a lifeless husk until returned.”
Lazy Eye clenched his jaw.
“He would have known when Rainbow Dash left because his eye would no longer be irritated,” said Silver Spoon. “He’s the only one fast enough to have taken the rest of our class outside and assassinate most of your staff in under fifteen minutes – all without making a noise. The curse alone stopped him from ‘getting’ all of us. He would have had the skill to rip a heart out of somepony’s chest, leaving it lifeless but rapidly recovering on the ground.”
“Silence!” Lazy Eye shouted at her. “You have no idea what you’re doing, child!”
It was already too late. Three slow claps alerted them to the assassin’s presence. Deathblow leaned against the threshold as though he’d been there all along.
“Excellent work, Silver Spoon.” Deathblow came walking into the room. “Yes. I’m the one who killed all the staff and took your classmates.”
Silver Spoon nodded. She understood perfectly now.
“What do you mean?!” Diamond Tiara trembled as she backed away. “He was the killer?! But then–”
“And now–” He brandished his claw blades.
Silver Spoon hardly had time to blink before Deathblow already crossed the room. He stopped between the two fillies; the blade of his large sword pressed hard against Silver Spoon’s neck.
Silver Spoon winced, then slowly opened her eyes and confirmed what she knew. Deathblow held a broad sword in his mouth. One end of the blade rested against Silver Spoon. On the other end, Lazy Eye’s mouth clamped down.
His wings, adorned with wing blades, spread protectively over the other two. The butler and maid bit on them in a similar fashion.
Lazy Eye’s maw had transformed completely in that instant, becoming full of fangs. The two remaining members of his staff were in a similar state.
Judging from their positions, they’d come lunging at the three teens’ necks, Deathblow blocking them at the last second.
Deathblow swung his sword, sending Lazy Eye and the others across the room.
“But I thought you didn’t protect anypony unless they paid your ridiculous price!” Diamond Tiara said.
“If I’m not mistaken, Rainbow Dash already paid you, didn’t she?” Silver Spoon asked him.
“Indeed!” Deathblow dug his sword into the ground. “I was hired by Rainbow Dash to protect you all during the mission. But it seems my opponent will not be worthy of my waving the fee. A pity.”
“This whole thing was a sting operation against these vampires from the beginning,” Silver Spoon said. “They came here specifically to take them out. Deathblow didn’t actually kill Grease Trap but incapacitated him by removing the heart.”
Deathblow lunged forward. Lazy Eye jumped back, but the butler and maid were both caught by him. Deathblow planted his hoof on both of their chests and dug the blades in. He flipped backward, pulling back hard.
When he landed, both vampires collapsed, and Deathblow held their hearts in his hooves.
Not even a single drop of blood spilled. Because he was a vampire, his wound was already slowly healing. Before long the hole in his chest would be completely closed.
“As you can see, I have a particular skill that makes me especially effective against vampires.” Deathblow threw the hearts behind them. “The heart alone is vulnerable in vampires. Even now they aren’t dead. Dash requested I take as many of you alive for questioning as possible. And now that you’ve broken the curse on me, no one here can pose a threat to me.”
“Bleh!” Lazy Eye hissed. “It was the perfect system! One curse to keep you from leaving unless you murder somepony. Another curse to keep you locked in place if you do commit murder. Never before has anypony gotten through both lines of defense before our master arrived!”
“So solving the mystery did break the curse.” Silver Spoon smirked.
“But you are mistaken on one account, Silver Spoon.” Deathblow pointed his claw at Lazy Eye. “These pathetic fools hardly deserve my presence. No, all this is merely to buy time down below, where Silverstorm will confront their mistress.”
“Their mistress?” Silver Spoon’s mind blazed with all the possibilities. Was there a much stronger vampire around here?
“Yes. I’ve been forced to humiliatingly survive off this disgusting soy-based blood for decades now.” Lazy Eye snarled. “A pox upon all soy-based products! Vampires are no longer feared enough to feed off you however we please! Our mistress promised to drag you all back into the dark ages. I would be able to do whatever I pleased once more!”
“It seems you alone will be dragged into the darkness.” Deathblow grabbed his broad sword once more. “I shall give you ten seconds to surrender. You’re no match for me.”
“Nor are you a match for my mistress!” Lazy Eye snapped back. “Go right ahead. Rip my heart out or whatever you please. It will come to nothing in the end, I assure you. She will arrive shortly and then this will end.”
“We shall see.”
Deathblow grabbed the hilt of the sword with his mouth. With one solid motion, he threw it, sending it spinning rapidly through the air. The blade sliced clean through Lazy Eye’s neck, decapitating him, then stabbed into the wall behind.
Lazy Eye fell limp to the ground. His body still twitched, slowly recovering, but for now he was incapacitated.
“Bleck!” Diamond Tiara gagged. “This was way more gruesome than our last mystery!”
“Spare me,” Deathblow grumbled. “I’ve been watching decapitations when I was half your age.”
“And you really couldn’t have taken us out of here sooner?!” Diamond Tiara complained. “Like, as soon as you showed up?!”
“They might have been putting us in more danger by tipping whoever this ‘mistress’ pony is early,” Silver Spoon noted. “Though I’m curious if we’re safe even now? Who is she?”
“I suppose you’ve done well and earned the answers.” Deathblow nodded. “You’re likely safer here than anywhere else, for nowhere in Equestria is safe tonight. That alert you heard earlier was issued through the entire nation, urging all of Equestria to take shelter.”
“What?” Diamond Tiara backed up behind Snails. “What could possibly be in the basement that everypony in the entire nation needs to hide?”
“What else do you think would warrant such precautions?” Deathblow shook his head. “Beneath the secret passage is…”
“The secret passage,” Sonata whispered as she pushed through the hidden wall and into the tight corridor on the other side.
The whole was not pega-friendly. Sonata had to keep her wings lifted slightly to push through the narrow crawlspace. The passageway quickly became shrouded in total darkness, but that only made it easier for Sonata to see.
“Rainbow Dash?” Sonata called out. “Aria down here?”
Sonata escaped the tight crawlspace into a more reasonably sized hall. Immediately a gun to her face greeted her, pointed right between her eyes.
She took a step back, then realized a moment later nopony held the gun. It hung from the wall via a wire, suggesting it’d been set up as a trap. If that were the case, it was disarmed now as the gun never fired its round.
She walked past a series of broken alarms on the wall. That made it look like Dash was in no way friends with these ponies.
At the end of this hall stood a single elevator shaft, one of the old-fashioned types with a lever to make it start and stop. Frankly, she preferred these. Sonata never trusted those ‘self-driving’ elevators.
Though she doubted any pony in their right mind would trust this elevator. It tilted slightly to the side, making her wonder if it could move down the shaft at all. The gate rusted badly enough that it might just fall over at any moment. Most worryingly, metal spikes jutted out from the ceiling of the elevator.
Then the floor of it was nothing more than a flimsy cage of metal bars.
Even the lever was half-eaten by rust. Sonata couldn’t be sure if it could be pulled down without snapping in half.
That thing was a death trap, possibly a literal one.
Yet there wasn’t anywhere else those two could have gone. Sonata didn’t exactly have to worry about fall damage, either so who cared if it crashed?
Sonata stepped into the elevator and grabbed the lever. The rust coating it made so she had to pull with significant force. She pushed with all her weight for a solid minute, then suddenly it gave way and the whole thing flung forward so hard it reached the bottom and the handle broke off.
The elevator went straight into freefall. No, it was even faster than that, like a pair of rockets fired, shooting her down the shaft.
The force threw her up to the ceiling, slamming her doll into those spikes. Thankfully, she felt no pain from what would have been a back-breaking collision to a normal pony.
The elevator kept going down and down, barreling through the shaft in rapid free-fall. Sonata’s body kept pressed up against the roof the whole time. The thing fell for so long she began to wonder how deep this thing could possibly go.
Was she going to the center of the planet? She listened to that click-clack noise for a solid minute but still she couldn’t see the bottom of the pit. Frankly, she was getting bored at this point and began to look forward to the sudden crash at the bottom.
She stood up on the ceiling and looked down at the floor.
“Huh! This is kinda neat.” Sonata smiled at it.
And then, finally, she could see the bottom of the dark tunnel. She still must have had a thousand feet left to fall even then, but in absolute darkness like this, her eyesight was incredible. She did notice a door to exit through, which was good. However, she also noticed even more spikes below. These lined up perfectly with the grating of the floor.
“Uh oh.”
She could only hope the spikes didn’t go all the way up to impale her. She’d have to repair her body if that was the case!
The elevator finally crashed, halting immediately as the short spikes came up through the floor.
Sonata’s body collided full force into the floor. She impacted the ground with so much force that she bounced up to the ceiling and rammed into that with yet another killing blow.
The jolt had enough force behind it to throw her straight out of her own body. Her ghost form got flung up above the elevator ceiling while she listened to her body bouncing around below. She didn’t know how many times it bounced, but the noise stopped soon enough.
“Please don’t be too damaged,” Sonata silently begged her old body.
She flew back down and repossessed her body. Looking herself over, it seemed she mostly survived the impact. Yet she did sustain visible damage.
Her joints frayed from the blows, stuffing bursting out of her damaged seams. She needed to pop her eyeball back in too.
“Yep! That was meant to kill me.” Sonata frowned at all the rips. This would take days to fix.
No way to hide her doll status now.
The elevator door finally opened, revealing the hidden chamber.
“What was that?”
Sonata heard Rainbow Dash’s voice! She was down here!
Sonata looked around, but there was nowhere to hide.
Instead, she crawled forward to get a better look at what lied beneath.
She saw a wide-open area with a domed ceiling and roof. Wires littered the floor so completely that walking about would be impossible without stepping on them.
Hundreds of projectors filled the space, projecting images onto every inch of the walls and ceiling. All of them showed cities each one different. She recognized Manehattan and Las Pegasus but struggled to identify them all.
In the center of the dome stood Silverstorm, in the middle of a blue circle drawn on the ground. Her entire body shone with magic in an awesome display of power. That was something Sonata had seen before – yet only ever from a witch.
Rainbow Dash stood behind her, doing nothing important as far as Sonata could see.
“I’m still only at eighty percent of the network,” said Silverstorm. “You’ll have to check it yourself.”
“I swear,” said Dash. “If somepony was stupid enough to pull that deathtrap lever, then this was their own fault.”
Dash turned and started back to the elevator. There was nowhere for Sonata to go!
Quickly, she leaned up against the wall in a forced casual position, trying to hide her stuffing as best she could.
“What?” Dash winced at the sight of her. “You’re that reporter?”
“Oh, yeah!” Sonata nodded but averted her gaze. “Sunny Side Gazette. We take investigative journalism to a new level. Apparently.”
“Look, you have to get out of here right now!” Dash pointed to the elevator as if getting it to go back up was that simple. “We might only have a minute or two before–”
They didn’t have nearly that long.
A large portal opened directly in front of where Silverstorm stood. Then a hundred smaller portals appeared all along the dome, covering the walls completely. From the small portals emerged a hundred guns, each shrouded in blue magic and pointing at the center.
From the large portal came a single pony, wielding the largest gun of them all.
Sonata heard the jingle of bells and in that brief second, she recognized one of the ponies on her mistress’ to-kill list. A blue unicorn wearing a witch's hat…
It was the witch Minuette who emerged from the portal! Sonata really had stepped into it!
Then that split second was over. Minuette brandished her gun, pointing all one hundred of them at Silverstorm in the middle. At once, they all fired.