//------------------------------// // Whispers in the Whitetail Woods Part Six: Revelations in the Woods // Story: Daring Do: Shadows Over Equestria // by PonyJosiah13 //------------------------------// “She’ll be fine,” the unicorn doctor explained as he finished setting a cast around Daring’s right wing. “The bullet went through the wing bone, but it didn’t damage any major blood vessels or nerves. She’ll need some x-rays over the next few weeks to make sure the bone’s healing properly, but once it knits, she’ll be back to flying in no time.” “Bloody good to hear that, doctor,” Phillip nodded from the front of the hospital room. “Yes, glad to hear it,” Cold Case added next to him, her lone eye appraising Daring neutrally. “Things like this happen often to you, Professor Do?” “Not as often as some of my students think,” Daring nodded through a pained smile, raising her foreleg. A plastic tube ran into her arm, allowing a gentle flow of fresh blood into her veins. “Ow!” she gasped as a shot of pain went through her wing. “Sorry,” the doctor apologized as he applied the last of the plaster. “Once your transfusion is done and you get your blood sugar back up, you should be free to go.” “How’s Cabbie?” Daring asked. “Doctors have him hooked up to an oxygen mask and they want him to stay overnight to make sure there’s no bleeding in his throat,” Phillip reported. “He was asking about you.” Daring smiled. “Good to know.” “Doctor, if you’re finished here,” Cold Case stated. “I am,” the doctor announced, removing the intravenous tube from Daring’s arm and cleaning and bandaging the wound. “Now stay off that wing until it fully heals, all right?” “Yes, doc,” Daring grumbled, frowning at the injured limb. The doctor excused himself and disappeared from the room. “Now, please go over the whole story from the beginning,” Cold Case stated, levitating a notepad and pen out of her saddlebag. Daring lay back on the bed and paused to take a long drink of water; the painkillers that the doctors had fed her were making her head spin slightly, like a pinwheel in a gentle breeze. “Everything started with that box in the Whitetail Monastery…” For the next half hour, she went over her and Caballeron’s investigation, with Phillip and Cold occasionally interjecting with a comment or question. She recounted their discovery of the idol within the box, the spying pony and her meeting with Phillip (though both ponies declined to mention her stealing a sample of the strange drug), the trek through the woods and discovery of the other boxes and idols, finding that the last one was on the Knoll country club, speaking to the Knolls, the butler’s betrayal and attack, and the conversation her captors had carried on. “Your turn. How’d you get in there?” Daring asked. Phillip and Cold Case exchanged glances. “Might as well,” Phillip shrugged. Cold frowned but said nothing to stop him. He narrated for Daring what he had uncovered during his investigation into Joseph Knoll’s disappearance and how he and Cold had decided to investigate the Knolls. “Lucky you got there in time,” Daring commented with a small smile. “Where are the other statues now?” Cold Case asked. “Still locked in Cabbie’s Jeep, I hope,” Daring commented with a frown. “You should secure those as soon as possible,” Cold Case answered. “Right,” Daring said, rising from the bed. “We need to find Joseph and get the last idol before–” “We?” Cold Case cut in. “All due respect, Professor, you’re injured and can’t fly. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re a civilian. You’re not coming on this.” “What about Phil?” Daring protested. “He’s not coming, either.” Cold Case cut her off. “You don’t have a badge anymore, Finder, and this is beyond the scope of a private detective. Once we interrogate the Knolls, we will be following up on that lead. Thank you both for your help, but we’ll take it from here.” She nodded to both ponies, then turned and exited. Once the sound of her hoofsteps had faded into the distance, Daring turned to Phillip. He looked back at her neutrally, then the corner of his mouth lifted up slightly. “We’re going after them, aren’t we?” Daring grinned. “Bloody oath,” Phillip nodded. “You good to move?” Daring pulled herself out of bed, all dizziness instantly evaporating as she snatched her coat and pith helmet from where they’d been left on the nearby table. “Let’s go,” she declared to her companion, leading the way out. Flash stared at the ugly black shape on the desk in front of him. The two cracks echoed in his ears; the stench of cordite and the coppery taste of blood clung to him like a disease. He closed his eyes and watched Steady Hooves slump against the wall once more, studied in dread fascination the way the light left his eyes. He shuddered in revulsion, a wave of nausea rising up his throat. Swallowing it back was like trying to stop a rushing river with a single log. “I shouldn’t have shot him,” he gulped down, bile burning his throat. “I know you feel bad,” Prowl asked, approaching with a cup of coffee. “But it was a clean kill. He had a gun and was aiming it at us. You did what you were trained to do, both as a soldier and as an Agent: eliminate the threat before someone got hurt. You did…” She paused, observing the look that the junior agent was giving her. “Well, you didn’t do a good thing, not really. But you did your job and the good guys got out alive.” Flash just managed a small sigh. Prowl sat down across from him. “That your first kill, Sentry?” Flash swallowed and nodded, gratefully taking the cup. The coffee inside was hot and acrid, scalding at his tongue and washing away the taste of bile. “I never even fired my gun at another creature before,” he mused. “First time’s never easy, Sentry,” Prowl said, sitting down across from him. “But the fact that it bothers you is a good sign. It means you have empathy. Don’t you ever lose that, Agent.” “Y-yes, ma’am,” Flash nodded. He stared into the steaming, tarry liquid in the cup. “Does…does it get easier?” he asked quietly, the crushing desire for knowledge outweighing the nausea of reluctance. Prowl took in a deep breath and let it out through her nostrils. “It shouldn’t,” she answered grimly. “It does, sometimes. But it shouldn’t.” Tealove appeared, holding a tray with a steaming pot of tea and three cups held in her magic. “Oi, loves, I’m about to have a chat with the mister and missus,” she declared. “You wanna take a butcher’s, see what this is about?” “Alright,” Prowl said, rising. Flash joined her and followed the mares down the hallway to a wide window. Tealove was looking through the window, still holding the tray; Bumblebee was next to her, taking in slow, deep breaths through his nostrils. On the other side of the one-way mirror, Jeremiah and Leah Knoll sat side by side at a blank table in a blank room beneath the cold, harsh fluorescent light. Their cuffed hooves rested on the table; Jeremiah was holding his wife’s hoof, but neither of them seemed quite able to meet each others’ eye. Flash was quick to note that the two of them were pale and trembling; Leah in particular looked like she was trying not to be ill. “Where’s the other one? Breeze Runner?” Flash asked. “In a holding cell,” Bumblebee replied, keeping his focus on the two suspects in the interrogation room. “Going by his scent, he’s going to be a hard one. These two would be easier to question.” “So,” Flash said. “How are we doing this? Tealove’s the good cop, Prowl’s the bad cop?” “There’s more than one way to get to a pony’s head, cheeky,” Tealove smiled. “Bumblebee, you ready?” Bumblebee transformed back into his pony form in a swirl of flames. “Ready,” he nodded. Tealove unlocked and opened the door to the interrogation room, entering with a charming smile like she was a waitress at a high-end restaurant, not an RBI Agent coming in to interrogate a suspect. Bumblebee followed behind, his expression carefully neutral. “So how does giving them tea make them want to talk?” Flash asked Prowl. Prowl chuckled. “You’ve never seen these two do an interrogation before, haven’t you?” she asked. “Watch and learn, rookie.” “‘Allo, chaps,” Tealove smiled, sliding into the chair opposite the Knolls and setting the tray down in the center. “My name’s Agent Tealove. You’ve already met Agent Bumblebee.” She gestured to Bumblebee, who had positioned himself behind the Knolls, leaning casually against the wall. He smiled and nodded respectfully to the two donkeys. They just glanced at him, then turned back to Tealove. Or rather, the pot of tea on the table that Tealove was currently levitating up into the air. “White tea with just a dash of honey,” Tealove smiled, filling up each of the three cups with a great delicacy and grace. “I thought you’d like that. Might put some color back in your cheeks and help with the stomach.” Both of the Knolls’ ears perked up a bit. “H-how did you know?” Leah stammered. “That’s our favorite flavor.” “I’ve always been gifted that way,” Tealove smiled in reply, pushing the cups towards them. “You look awful pale, chaps. I’d say a cuppa would make you feel a lot better.” The two donkeys hesitated a moment, then raised the cups and drank, their eyes widening slightly at the taste. Some color began to return to their faces and their shivering abated. “Smashin’, innit?” Tealove smiled, taking a sip from her own cup. “I always find a good cuppa makes me feel a lot better. Makes thinkin’ a bit easier, ay?” Leah nodded, a smile teasing at her lips. Tealove put the cup down and leaned forward. “You’ve had a tough past few days, haven’t you? Steady Hooves…” She glanced down into her cup, lips chewing as though she were crafting the proper words. “He seems to have gotten you and your son in a right spot of trouble, ‘asn’t he?” Jeremiah and Leah both stiffened, glancing at each other for the first time. “Why don’t you tell us the full story from the beginning?” Tealove asked. Jeremiah swallowed and looked down at the cup before him as if trying to divine a path forward from the steaming liquid. “We were barely acquainted with this…cult,” he protested. “We gave them some money a few times; he told us that it was for a charitable group. That’s all there is to it.” Bumblebee flicked his ear twice, cocking his head to one side. “He’s lying,” Prowl commented to Flash from outside the door. “You sure?” Flash asked. “Hard to lie to a changeling, rookie,” Prowl stated. “Especially one that’s spent the last five minutes getting a good taste of your emotions. Just watch Bumblebee. If he doesn’t react, then they’re telling the truth.” Tealove sighed and leaned back in her chair, folding her forelegs. “Chaps, I want to help you, I truly do. But there ain’t much I can do if you’re gonna feed me porkies.” Jeremiah swallowed, suddenly going stock still. Leah grasped his hoof again, then slowly turned to the agent. “It started when we were making expansions to the club grounds early this year,” she explained. “Some of the workers that were cutting down the woods and digging up the roots found a box with that…” She and her husband both shuddered in revulsion. “That…thing inside. The idol.” Bumblebee subtly leaned forward a bit, his eyebrows narrowed as he sniffed lightly a few times, head cocked slightly in puzzlement. Tealove glanced at him and he retreated, frowning pensively. “We placed the box into storage and, at Steady Hooves’ insistence, placed the statuette in our sitting room.” Leah chuckled once, an entirely mirthless sound. “It made an interesting conversation starter if nothing else. “But Steady, he, he was obsessed with the damned thing,” she continued. “Kept adjusting it, obsessively kept it clean…I swear, I heard him talking to it more than once. And we heard him at night, always muttering nonsense in his sleep...” "And that's when he brought over that pegasus," Jeremiah added. "Breeze Runner. Steady explained that he was doing some research into the statuette and met up with Breeze, who knew about...it. An...ahuizotl." He swallowed, looking mildly ill at the mention of the name. "Breeze Runner talked to us about the statuette, and what it symbolized...and said that he wanted to perform an experiment with us. We..." He rubbed his forelegs, shivering despite the warmth of the room. "We sat around the idol and he lit what he said was incense. He claimed that it would...clarify things for us." "Steady was eager, but...we just thought it was an amusing diversion," Leah butted in. "We didn't expect anything to happen." Bumblebee scratching his nose was entirely unnecessary. The lie was about as subtle and nuanced as a marching band of yaks parading through the room. "Really?" Tealove cocked an eyebrow. "Make for an interestin' night, that." Jeremiah and Leah glanced at each other and sighed. "All right, we...we also had heard the idol whispering to us," Leah admitted. "And we'd had some strange dreams about it. Steady and Breeze made it seem like we could get some genuine answers about what we were seeing." "But it wasn't what you were hoping, was it?" Tealove asked sympathetically. Leah closed her eyes and shook her head. "We saw...we saw that thing. Dead. Sleeping. Hungry. Waiting. And it looked at us back..." She curled in on herself, shaking. Her husband wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back. "It was a terrible experience," he said. "But Steady was enthralled. Said we had to try again. We tried to put the kibosh on it, but what we saw, it stuck in our minds like a splinter. And truth be told…we just wanted more of that damned drug. So Steady came back again and again, and again and again, we tried that incense. And again and again, we saw those things. Sometimes more blurred, sometimes clearer and closer. It felt like were test subjects in an experiment, but we couldn't care: just wanted more and more." "Was anyone else involved?" Tealove asked. Jeremiah shook his head. "Just Breeze Runner." He looked up pleadingly. "A few times my wife and I tried to protest, but Steady always made it seem like if we went to the police, we'd all get in trouble and our son...our son would never be able to see us again. I shouldn't have listened, but..." He trailed off helplessly. "Addiction can make it hard to think clearly, chappies. You'll hear no judgment from me," Tealove said kindly, taking some notes. “So why did they start snooping around the chapel?” “Well…it wasn’t really until the Sisters moved in and started cleaning it out,” Jeremiah explained. “We had a...clearer vision than normal a while after. We saw three more idols and a book made of gold. Breeze Runner and Steady were certain that it was related to the monastery and they started spying around it. That's when those two archaeology professors became involved." Tealove glanced at Bumblebee, who remained still and silent as he met her gaze with an affirming look. “That clears a lot of things up,” Tealove smiled, jotting down some notes as she refilled her guests’ tea with her magic. “Feels better getting that off your chest, don’t it?” Leah and Jeremiah both nodded faintly, gulping down more tea. The warm beverage seemed to calm them further, as their shoulder slumped and their trembling abated once more. “There’s just one thing we gotta clear up,” she continued, placing her hooves together. “Where’s Joseph?” Both of the donkeys glanced at each other. “We…we don’t know,” Leah protested. Tealove raised an eyebrow, not even bothering to look at Bumblebee. “Thought I made it clear that I can’t help you if you’re gonna lie to me.” “He hasn’t done anything!” Leah protested, rising from her chair. “There’s no reason to go after him!” Tealove blinked, taken aback. “What makes you think that we’re going to go after him?” Bumblebee asked, walking around in front of the Knolls. Leah stared open-mouthed for a few moments, then sat down and curled in on herself, turning away from her interrogators. Bumblebee sat down, his nostrils dilating. “I understand,” he said quietly, leaning forward. “You want to protect him. You know he’s made some bad choices and you think he might be in trouble." He thought for a moment. "He participated, didn't he? Is that why he stole the last idol?” Tears started to glimmer in the Knolls’ eyes and they held hooves once more, nodding numbly. “He…he had also heard it whispering and wanted answers, but he kept it to himself," Leah admitted. "We...tried to keep him away from all this, but Breeze Runner talked him into participating in one of their…prayers to the idol once. He…” She shivered. “He wouldn’t talk about what he saw, but…he could barely sleep for days after.” Bumblebee quietly sniffed a few times more. “He felt that this was wrong…and deep down, you knew this was wrong, too. But you felt like it was in your best interest, his best interest, to keep playing along with this. You thought that he’d get in trouble, too, right?” Tears ran down the subjects’ faces. Leah chewed on a hoof and nodded without looking at her interrogators. “So he stole the idol and ran away,” Bumblebee continued. “He had to stop this and didn’t want to get you in trouble anyway. But know Steady’s friends are after him.” Leah and Jeremiah leaned against one another for support, the tears falling freely now. Tealove watched the emotions flicker across their faces: shame, guilt, fear, grief, uncertainty. Beside her, Bumblebee had to close his eyes and turn away for a few moments, taking several steady breaths as he fought to breathe beneath the turbulent storm of emotions. “You know, when he scarpered off, he kept his pipe,” Tealove stated, leaning forward once more and lowering her voice. “That same pipe that you gave him for his birthday. Y’know what that tells me? It tells me that he still loves you.” Jeremiah looked up. “You really think so?” he asked quietly. Tealove nodded. “You’ve made some bad choices and that got you where you are now,” she stated. “But if Joseph still loves you, still believes in you, then that means he thinks you still can make the right choice now. And the right choice now is to tell him where he is so we can find him before the Whisper users can.” Leah and Jeremiah looked at each other, hesitating, like they were standing at the edge of a cliff with the foaming water beneath, preparing to jump. Then Jeremiah slowly turned to face Tealove. “We don’t know exactly,” he admitted. “But this afternoon, Steady got a call from Sapphire Seeker, the pony that was looking for him. He said that he’d tracked Joseph down to Queensport.” “Queensport,” Bumblebee repeated. “Thank you both.” “We’ll get your son back safe ‘n’ sound. Promise you,” Tealove smiled, patting both of the Knolls’ hooves reassuringly before she exited with her partner. Within an hour, a pair of dark sedans pulled out of the lot of the RBI field office and pulled onto the highway towards Horseshoe Bay, red and blue lights whirling through the night. In the flickers of the colored lights, one might have spotted a lone motorcycle with two passengers on it following the miniature convoy, its headlight switched off.