Thank you to Wolflover235 and StyxxsOmega for reviewing on the last chapter
"Glad you boys came in," the officer says to them, hands going into the pockets of his jacket, "Don't really see what this has to do with our other cases though. They're all completely different MO's."
"Well, we don't want to leave any stones unturned," Gath responds with a smile, "We thought we might as well come scope it out while we're in town."
"Well, you're free to go give it a look. We've got someone from the Coroner's Office on the way to pick up the body, so that gives you two about thirty minutes."
"Thank you," Sam says politely, before turning with his friend to head into the next room. "A cereal factory, really?" he whispers to Garth. "What are we dealing with here? You never told me what the first death was either." Sam frowns at the shorter man as they enter the room with the heavily industrialized Fruit Loop production line.
"Oh?" Garth says as he glances around the room, gazing past the large machines and conveyor belts toward an area that is blocked off with yellow police tape. "Okay so the first death was the owner of this toy store, right? And I mean, it didn't seem to be our kind of unusual when they found the body, since he was beat to death," he says as they approach the restricted area, "but then I pulled the security footage. He was attacked by a bunch of the dolls. It was weird, like some Night of the Living Dummy stuff, except with American Girl dolls."
Sam cannot help but let out a quiet laugh at the image in his head, but quickly shakes it off as the steps underneath the yellow tape, followed quickly by the other hunter.
"And so I thought it was may be an evil spirit in the store, or the dolls were possessed, or something. But then the second incident happened. This one was really weird. Apparently some banker had all of the money in his personal account replaced with monopoly money. The security cameras didn't show anyone entering the vault either, and since it was technically theft, it got reported and I managed to look into it. ."
At this, Sam stops and turns to face Garth. "Are you kidding me?" he asks incredulously, "What does this have to do with the murders?"
"I have a theory okay?"
Sam sighs quietly as he steps closer to the vat of colorful cereal, staring down into the container. "And what's that?" he asks.
Inside amidst the vibrant colors of ringed cereal lays a man, seemingly drowned in the sugary breakfast food. It fills his gaping mouth, overflowing as though it had been shoved down his throat to suffocate him.
"Well I figure that-"
"Garth," Sam cuts off his friend with a nudge as one of the other policemen walk toward them.
"You two ever seen anything like this?" the officer asks as he approaches them.
Garth turns toward the policeman as he speaks, glancing back to Sam. "Not exactly, but we've seen plenty weirder... Do you have any security footage from last night?"
The policeman shakes his head slightly, "All of our systems bugged out, like some kind of static, maybe a power surge or something."
Sam glances back at the dead man in the cereal, noticing quickly that there are other foreign objects among the food.
"What are these scraps of paper?" Sam asks as he reaches down to pull a red wrapper from the mix.
"Candy bar wrappers," the officer replies, "We were pullin' a bunch of them out earlier. There had to be at least fifty of them." He reaches into the pocket of his jacket as he pulls out a plastic bag. "Found this in there too," he adds, handing the baggie to Sam, "Whoever did this must've left it for us."
The faux FBI agent stares down at the piece of paper that is in the baggie, reading the writing on it.
Catch me if you can ;) XOXO
"We need that," Garth blurts out as he looks at the paper. Then he turns to grab a few candy bar wrappers from the basin of cereal hurriedly.
"Pardon me? You boys can't take it. It's evidence. It belongs to the county sheriff's department-"
"Would you like to call our director and explain that to him?" Garth cuts off the older man quickly as he takes the bag from Sam and slides the candy bar wrappers into it.
"Well no-"'
"Then we'll get it back to you real soon. Come on agent." The lanky man nudges Sam as he makes his way toward the exit hurriedly, followed quickly by Sam.
"Garth," the younger hunter hisses quietly as they make out of the room, "What are you doing?"
"All of the candy! And the teasing! It's obvious Sam! My theory was right!" A wide smile is plastered onto Garth's face as he heads out of the building.
"Slow down," Sam urges, "What are you talking about?"
"I know what we're hunting."
"A trickster?" Sam scoffs quietly, "I've never heard of them." He frowns at the other man as he watches Garth crush up the summoning ingredients into a mortar.
"Really?" Garth asks in disbelief, looking up from his work. "Well, they're sort of like demigods," Garth explains, "I read about them in one of Bobby's old books once. They have the ability to warp space and time, making illusions and stuff. They use their power to pull pranks on people, sometimes killing them."
Sam stares down at the stake in his hands, dipping it in the first victim's blood which they had retrieved from the morgue after leaving the crime scene. "And you're sure that's what this thing is?"
"Yep!" Garth exclaims without hesitation, "I mean, I wasn't at first, but the candy bars kind of gave it away. Tricksters really like sweets." He smiles as he dumps the contents of the mortar into the fire burning in a cauldron on the table, muttering a few words in Latin. "Now we just need something that it's touched," he says, picking up a handful of candy bar wrappers along with the note from the crime scene. "Be ready with the stake, okay? It could show up as soon as I drop these in." With a brief nod of approval, Garth is letting the paper fall from his hands and into the fire. "Careful," he mutters, "These things are really strong."
The taller man frowns at the fire before glancing around the room. His hand tightens on the wooden stake, feeling splinters from it pressing into his palm. The fire flickers out suddenly, leaving both of the hunters in silence.
"I don't think," Garth muses after a moment, "That's suppose to happen."
After a moment more of silence, a quiet hissing begins to fill the air. A bright red smoke seethes from the cauldron, spreading around the room and filling the air.
"Garth," Sam rasps out quietly, trying to hold his breath through the smoke. His eyes widen as he watches the other hunter pass out and fall to the ground. "Garth!' He yells, before shutting his mouth quickly to avoid breathing in the smoke. He grabs the smaller man by the shirt, trying to tug him toward the exit door only to find that it will not open.
His hands continue to scramble at the door handle until his vision goes black.
Thank you for reading again! and we're finally getting into the case. :D
Please leave me a comment if you are enjoying this story. I haven't really been getting a lot of feedback and it's very disheartening.
What would you like to see in future chapters?