Case Twenty-Three, Chapter One: Manehattan, Manehattan
“‘Fourth Heartless Body Found,’” Strider read aloud from that morning’s copy of the Manehattan Times. He snorted and looked over at his companions. “Leave it to the press to make it sound like a damn thriller title.”
“Four ponies with their hearts ripped out and magic symbols etched all over their bodies and dumped out in the open for everycreature to gawk at. Why the hell weren’t we called in earlier?” Daring groused, glaring out the window of the train as it rumbled along the tracks. Outside, the sun rose over Manehattan Bay, golden light glittering across the water. The Statue of Harmony shone like a second sun as it stared out to the east, watching over the ships that were already floating in and out of the massive bay. The cityscape of steel, glass, and concrete reached up to the overcast gray sky as if trying to pierce the low-hanging clouds: a display of ponykind’s hubris.
“I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get permission to bring you in; not everypony in the Bureau is really open to the idea of asking for help from outside consultants. They think it makes us look bad or something,” the RBI agent explained. Strider’s eyes scanned down the front page before locking onto one line. His scowl deepened and he let out a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a frustrated groan. “Oh. That explains it.”
Phillip’s ears twitched and he sat up on his seat, pushing his trilby back to reveal his eyes. “What is it?” he asked, clearly dreading the answer.
“Listen to this,” Strider replied. “‘Assistant Special Agent in Charge Swampfire made a statement at the scene that the RBI was continuing to look into suspects and advised homeless citizens to seek shelters and inform the police if they saw anything suspicious. ‘The only way we’re going to catch this guy is if we all work together,’ he said.” He scoffed. “At least he got demoted to ASAC.”
“How’d that idiot get sent to Manehattan?” Phillip sighed in disgust. “Thought they kept him in Neigh Orleans so he couldn’t cause trouble.”
“Don’t ask me,” Strider replied.
“That was your SAC in Neigh Orleans, right?” Daring asked. “When you fought that swamp witch?”
“Yeah,” Strider said sourly. “And he hates us both for taking his credit and making him look stupid.”
“Doesn’t need anypony’s help to look stupid,” Phillip replied, drawing snickers from his companions. He looked out the window to watch the great granite walls of Grand Central Station approaching. “Important thing is, we’re here now.”
“Oh, and look who it is,” Strider grimaced as the train began to pull up to the platform.
An ash gray earth pony built like a tree, his red-green mane cut down to military length, was waiting on the platform, wearing a black casual suit jacket and a scowl that could cut through steel, orange eyes filled with loathing.
Strider sighed and stood up as the train came to a halt. “All right. Let’s get this over with,” he grunted, gathering up his bags.
Phillip and Daring followed him down the hallway of the mostly empty train car and out onto the platform. “G’day, Swampfire,” Phillip said to the stallion on the platform, his face and tone as sour as though he were being forced to suck on lemons.
“Special Agent Swampfire to you, Finder,” the stallion spat back before turning to Strider. “And you. Don’t see why you’re so eager to stick your nose into this.”
“Four ponies have been murdered and it’s pretty clear that you guys are in over your heads, just like in Neigh Orleans,” Strider replied coldly. “These two have lots of experience with cases like this. And you know that they would have just gotten involved on their own eventually anyway.”
“Only reason we didn’t come sooner is because Strider here insisted that we do it the official way,” Daring griped. “We’re here, whether you like it or not. The more you help, the sooner we can catch this asshole and the sooner you can get rid of us.”
Swampfire let out a huff. “Fine. Let’s just get this over with.”
He led them through the massive, bustling hallways of Grand Central Station and out onto the main street just as the great clocktower was striking eight in the morning. Ignoring the line of taxis eagerly waiting for disembarking passengers, Swampfire headed to a waiting dark green NeighSoto Custom Commuter.
“Bags in the back,” he grunted, opening the driver’s side door and popping up the trunk.
“Worst limo service ever,” Daring commented as they deposited their luggage into the trunk. “I’m definitely giving this guy one star.”
Strider had to stifle a smirk behind a wing. “Enough,” Phillip hissed to both of his companions. “Don’t piss him off more than he already is.”
Strider took the shotgun seat while the detectives got into the back seat. “I’ll get you to your hotel so you can drop your bags off, then take you to the field office. It isn’t far from here,” Swampfire declared, sounding quite relieved that he wouldn’t have to deal with them for long as he pulled into the bustling traffic of Manehattan, the slush swishing beneath his tires.
They paused at a Neighgency Hotel not far from the station just long enough to drop off their bags before heading on to the Manehattan RBI field office. Twenty-five minutes of awkward silence later, they were pulling into the lot of a tall steel and glass edifice that sat on its own plaza, towering over the nearby buildings. The rising sun was reflected in its lower windows, burnished orange and gold.
“More impressive than the Neigh Orleans office, that’s for sure,” Strider said admiringly, tilting his head back to look up at the top of the building.
“Could’ve flown here in less than half the time,” Daring groused, stretching her wings out as they exited.
“Not all of us have wings, Daring,” Phillip said with a feeble smile as he followed his wife, proceeding past a sign with the RBI’s shield logo proudly displayed upon it.
A small cluster of creatures was loitering outside the office, tending to cameras, notebooks, tape recorders, and microphones. As the group approached, a hippogriff photographer pointed at them, jaw hanging open. Like sharks scenting blood in the water, the horde of press descended upon them, thrusting cameras and microphones into their faces and barraging them with questions like machine gun fire.
“Detective Finder, are you here for the murders?”
“What do you think of the arcane symbols etched into the victims?”
“Is this the Plague Doctor’s work?”
“No comment, no comment!” Swampfire declared, pushing his way through the swarm to the front doors of the office with the others on his tail. He held the door open for them to enter and ducked in after them, closing it behind him with a scowl. “Fucking locusts,” he snarled beneath his breath.
The gray lobby of the RBI field office was thankfully well-heated, banishing the chill of late winter. A Netitus security gate blocked entry, manned by a small group of RBI Police security officers.
“Hey, Dawn, Jimmy,” Swampfire greeted two of the officers, a yellow-orange pegasus mare and a dark green griffon.
“Morning, sir,” Jimmy nodded, eyeing his guests. “Guess that’s them, huh?”
“That’s them,” Swampfire said stiffly. “Let’s get ‘em through so I can bring ‘em upstairs.”
The security officers efficiently brought Daring and Phillip through the gate and scanned their belongings. Dawn, smiling bashfully, handed them both a visitor’s security pass, which they placed upon their vests.
“Okay, okay, let’s move,” Swampfire grunted, calling an elevator with a ding.
“Keep your mane on, we’re coming,” Daring rolled her eyes, following the others to the elevator. “And his eyes aren’t on that end,” she called over her shoulder to Dawn, who let out an embarrassed squeak and averted her gaze from Phillip’s rear, her face turning bright red.
“Only I get to stare at your sexy butt,” Daring smirked, lightly bringing her wing down on Phillip’s flank and drawing a startled nicker from her husband.
“Daring, please,” Phillip groaned, glaring at a snickering Strider.
Swampfire rolled his eyes and pressed the button for the twelfth floor. The doors closed and the elevator headed up.
The doors opened with a ding onto a huge floor of cubicles and desks, separated by walls with great glass windows. Agents rushed back and forth, talking on the phone, grabbing faxes, tacking photos and notes up on billboards, and comparing notes with one another.
“Welcome to the Equicide Unit,” Swampfire declared, proceeding through the teeming maze, giving nods to some of the agents that he bumped into.
As Phillip and Daring walked down the hall, a wave of stunned silence followed them. Heads turned to track them, eyes widening and jaws dropping. Awed whispers followed behind them. Swampfire folded his ears back and let out a low growl.
Towards the back of the room was a large office with a name painted on the frosted glass window: SAC Swift Judgement. Swampfire knocked at the door.
“Enter,” a voice said from within. Swampfire opened the door and gestured for his guests to enter.
The office proved to be well-equipped, with a bookshelf up on the back wall, opposite a window that overlooked the city beneath. Behind the desk was a blue unicorn mare, her mane an equal blend of black and white. Her cutie mark was a gavel and a set of balance scales. Her desk was sparsely populated; the main decoration was a photograph of the SAC posing in front of a vivid yellow Neighzer Manehattan.
She put down the report that she was scanning and swept her eagle-like golden eyes over the visitors.
“Detective Finder, Detective Do, Agent Strider,” Swift Judgement declared, rising and offering her hoof to shake. “Thank you for coming in.”
“Pleasure,” Phillip said. “Just here to help you find your killers.”
“We could use the help: that’s why I agreed to bring you in as consultants after the third body was found two days ago,” Judgement agreed, looking down at the report with a frown. “Too late for the latest victim, though. She was found in an alley by a Manehattan PD patrol at four in the morning. And of course, the press picked up on it,” she added sourly. “Damned vultures.”
“Yeah, we saw the paper,” Daring commented. “And got ambushed on the way in.”
“Just tell us where to start,” Phillip said.
“I’ll have Swampfire give you the case details,” Judgement said, giving her junior a meaningful glance. “And I’m sure he’ll give you his full cooperation in these difficult times.”
Swampfire ground his teeth together, looking as though steam might start billowing from his ears at any moment, but said nothing.
“Where are you staying, so I can get in touch with you?” Agent Judgement asked.
“The Neighgency near Grand Central,” Daring reported.
“Yes, I know the place,” Judgement nodded, jotting down a quick note. “If you need anything, I have an open-door policy.” The SAC smiled at her guests. “I hope that you can finally shed some light on this before somepony else dies.”
“It’s what we do,” Phillip said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Sure,” Swampfire groused beneath his breath, earning a reproving glance from Judgement.
“Get to it, then,” Judgement said, dismissing them with a nod.
Swampfire led them into a nearby conference room. Set up on one wall was a whiteboard with photographs of the four victims and notes drawn beneath them in marker; another wall bore a map of Manehattan with several pushpins tacked up onto it. Notes, photographs, and reports were spread across the long conference table, organized into neat stacks.
Daring froze as she studied the pictures up on the wall, her stomach doing somersaults at the sight of the corpses. Two males, two females. A unicorn, a thestral, a hippogriff, and an earth pony. The blood had soaked into the four victims’ coats so deeply that at first glance, she couldn’t see the strange symbols that had been carved into their skin. The hieroglyphs were of no language that she knew, but the blasphemous script looked vaguely, horrifically familiar. All of them had their faces frozen in screams of agony and fear.
Of course, the most eye-catching detail was the massive holes torn into their chests. Their ribs had been hacked open, exposing their organs. Their hearts had been ripped away, arteries and veins violently severed and left dangling into the empty space where the vital organ had once been.
Daring Do turned aside and had to take several deep breaths to settle herself before entering the room fully. Swampfire gave her a small, condescending smirk from the head of the room.
“Four victims,” the ASAC began without preamble. “Minnie Moondust, Frost Dance, Snowfall, and the latest, Citrus Harvest. All of them homeless and living on the streets. The first victim, Frost, was found one week ago here,” he pointed to a red tack on the map. “Then Minnie here, five days ago. Snowfall, three days ago, here. And finally, Citrus this morning, here.”
Phillip, the color slowly returning to his face after the sight of the mutilated corpses, looked over the map. There appeared to be no pattern to where the bodies had been dumped: they were all miles apart from each other, spreading across the entirety of Manehattan.
He then turned to the autopsy reports on the desk, running a hoof down each of the four lengthy reports. “Crikey,” he mumbled. “They were alive when they got carved up.”
Daring shuddered, her stomach doing more flips. Strider swallowed down a mouthful of bile, his face going even whiter than normal.
“Limbs were chained down,” Phillip continued. “Traces of slate on their backs. Altar?”
“Because every good cult needs a good old-fashioned altar for all their sacrifices,” Daring commented.
“And the carvings changed with each victim,” Phillip added, looking over the photographs. “Like they were…experimenting.”
Daring and Strider both shuddered. “And dumping the bodies out in the open makes it look like they’re trying to create fear,” Strider concluded.
“We sent photographs and notes of the symbols to the Royal Academy of Magic in Canterlot,” Swampfire grunted. “Waiting on their analysis.”
“Hmm. Each of them had sleeping pills in their system,” Phillip said, his hoof running over stomach content analysis. “And they all had eaten some kind of soup before they died.”
“Wow, I’m so glad that you’re here so you can point out things we already knew about,” Swampfire stated, dry sarcasm biting into every one of his syllables.
Phillip ignored him. “You figure out the victims’ last movements?”
“As much as we can figure them out,” Swampfire replied. “The homeless creatures in this city aren’t known for cooperating with police, and the vics were all loners who had few friends.”
“Question remains where that soup came from,” Phillip mused. “Food shelf?”
“We already thought of that,” Swampfire declared with the tone of a weary teacher trying to explain to a particularly thick student that two and two are four. “Manehattan PD is checking them, but do you have any idea how many food shelves are in this city?”
“Hearing a lot of excuses and not many results here, chief,” Daring commented before she could stop herself.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, Manehattan is a lot bigger than Ponyville,” Swampfire snapped back. “And we’re not all great detectives who can solve cases like this in our sleep!”
“Okay, what’s your issue?” Daring snapped.
“My issue is that we have to resort to vigilantes and arrogant, inexperienced agents who stick their noses in everycreature’s business to do our own jobs!” Swampfire snarled back, rising. He stormed out with a huff, slamming the door behind him.
“I was going to say that he hasn’t changed, but he has,” Strider grunted. “He’s gotten worse.”
“Forget him,” Phillip rolled his eyes. “Be better without that wanker looking over our shoulders.”
“So what’s the plan now?” Daring asked.
“Want to go over all this with fresh eyes,” Phillip said. “Go over everything that they have, visit the crime scenes, talk to the witnesses. Might find something that they missed.”
“And hopefully, we can find our potager,” Daring said.
"Our what?" Strider asked.
"Soup chef," Daring replied. In response to Strider's blank look, she added, "I like reading, okay?"
She forced herself to swallow down a breath and looked back at the autopsy photos, trying to focus on the arcane glyphs and not on the blood. “What’s all this for, anyway?” she asked herself. “They wouldn’t be going to this much trouble just to freak ponies out.”
“I’m pretty sure that anything that involves tearing ponies' hearts out of their chests can’t be good,” Strider said quietly.
Once upon a time, the aroma of the carrots, lenten rose, and spices would have evoked vivid memories of his grandmother, her kind rose-tinted eyes beaming at him from the kitchen.
Now they only made him think of screams and blood and corpses to be dumped in alleyways.
He sighed as he stirred the bubbling pot, watching the carrots and rose petals bubbling within the orange broth. The churning motion only aggravated his own stomach, which was twisting and heaving like he was on the deck of a sailboat in a typhoon. The only reason he didn’t vomit was that he hadn’t eaten anything since last night.
Turn the heat down to low. A few pinches of paprika. Stir. He lifted the spoon up to his beak and took a sip. The flavors only barely registered on his tongue now. And why bother? The only thing that mattered was that it was warm and had a strong enough flavor to hide the sleeping pills that were now sitting atop the cabinets over the stove.
If his grandmother knew what he was using her recipe for, she’d be spinning in her grave over at Hooflawn Cemetery. It was small comfort to him that she couldn’t possibly know.
Not for the first time, he considered just dumping the entire pot into the sink and running. What was he doing here anyway? He’d been going to Saint Goldleaf’s since he was a child, working the food shelf as long as he could remember, spooning out grandma’s soup to a small fraction of the needy and hungry of the city.
The changes had started coming after Father Paterissa died two years ago. The new priestess had taken over and began to initiate a few…changes to the services, strange rituals and odd chants that none of them understood the purpose behind, but she assured them were completely harmless. Then the disappearances of those who questioned her teachings. Private conferences with the elders amongst the congregation. Invocations to different gods, prophecies of dark days, and promises of power to those who proved themselves truly worthy. And now here he was, an accomplice to murder and aiding and abetting a terrorist.
Dead pony stirring. Even if the feds wouldn’t throw him in prison for his crimes, the rest of the congregation would hunt him down if he went anywhere near the police or the RBI. He brought a hoof to his eyes and shuddered. Bronze, Sirius, Mushroom…creatures that he’d known since he was a boy, played with at the church picnics, sung with in the choir, served on charity missions with…their faces and names were the same, but it was like they were complete strangers. What had that bitch done to them?
And what was he going to do?
The ringing of the phone nearly made him jump out of his skin. Leaving the pot to simmer for a bit longer, he proceeded across the single room of his apartment and grabbed the phone off its cradle. “H-Hello?” he stammered.
“The Stormbringers are here,” the voice on the other end hissed.
The name made his heart skip a beat. The Stormbringers. The priestess had warned them that they might get involved and that they had a knack for interfering with well-laid plans. The master had given them kill-on-sight orders.
Which meant…
“They are staying at the Neighgency near Grand Central,” the voice on the other end continued, whom he finally recognized as belonging to the church’s mole in the RBI. “The entire congregation knows what to do; if you get the chance, kill them.” And they hung up with a click.
He had to sit down to think. The Stormbringers, here. If the Plague Doctor couldn’t kill them, then what chance did any of them have? They’d find the church sooner or later, and then all of them would get caught in their wide net. Including him.
But then again…was that really a bad thing? If he couldn’t go to the RBI or the police…
The soup began to bubble over the pot, the gas flame hissing in protest as the broth rained down upon it. He stood and hurried over, turning the flame down and giving the pot a final stir, plans already being constructed in his mind.
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11344967
Glad I’ve found the time to start reading again. Still just as interesting and well written as always
11345670
Very glad to hear that! Commenters like yours keep me going. I look forward to reading your thoughts!
11346008
I’ve come to like Tempestflashlight too, primarily through the work of Miyathegoldenflower, but this ship kinda felt natural for this scenario.
11345996
I was debating what to do with Coin for a long time. I finally settled on keeping him alive in case I thought of something else to do with him.
11349112
11349047
Was wondering if anyone was gonna comment on the shout-out.