Hector tilted his head. ‘You think someone is trying to frame him?’
‘Well, either he did it, or someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look that way. I don’t imagine that Ibai “just happened” to stumble onto this dead body during the very brief window when none of his bodyguards had eyes on him. That would be one hell of a coincidence.’
‘Hmm. But if someone framed him, then how could they have known where he would teleport to? Like you said, that window of opportunity was pretty damn small, and Ibai isn’t exactly predictable.’
‘Yeah, that’s a good point. If someone did frame him, they did it quite well.’
A question occurred to Hector, and he realized that he probably should have asked it earlier. ‘Where is the victim’s soul?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Garovel. ‘It wasn’t here when we arrived, but I did sense that it was in here with Ibai just beforehand.’
‘Wait a minute, what?’ Hector looked over the scene another time. ‘So you know for a fact that the victim was alive and alone with Ibai just before we got here?’
‘Not necessarily alive. Just that there was a second soul with him and that now it’s gone.’
Hector gave the reaper a look.
‘I know,’ said Garovel. ‘It’s rather strong evidence that Ibai consumed the soul. I’m not disregarding that as a possibility.’
‘It kinda seems like you are.’
‘I’m just saying that we should be thorough about this. Whichever way this ends up going, we need to be certain. Or at least, as certain as possible.’
‘Except, if Ibai and the victim were the only ones in the room at the time of the murder, then I don’t really see how anyone else could’ve done it.’
‘Hector. This building is full of servants. People with ridiculous powers. People who would also know to account for the reaper’s ability to sense souls.’
‘You’re talking about the Rainlords. You really think one of them would kill one of their own just to frame Ibai?’
‘We don’t actually know that the victim was a Rainlord, yet. It could’ve been one of Asad’s people. Maybe a staff member here. And the Blackburns seem unlikely to turn on Ibai now, after how far they went to protect him, but almost any of the Sebolts or Delagunas might’ve wanted negotiations between the families to break down.’
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
That window of opportunity was pretty damn SMELL
ReplyDeleteI believe its not "negations" but negotiations.
ReplyDeleteI love this story and its great to have you back at writing.
wanted [negotiations] between the families [to] break down
ReplyDeleteWait a tick: who got Ibai hooked on the idea of the local ice cream? Even if you can't plan for all his randomness, you can still lay the groundwork for patterns that'd get him to the right place...
ReplyDeleteGlad that apparently this came off of hiatus right as I caught up. :)
ReplyDeleteGot 'em, thanks.
ReplyDeleteHaha, fixed, thank you.
ReplyDeleteYep, got it. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteGot 'em, thanks.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that he could have maimed his own corpse and then turned into seemingly innocuous oxgen, I think Parson might have done it personally, if he could have hidden his distinct soul from the Blackburns. Ice cream as a tool of evil certainly sounds like his handiwork.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but with Melchor and Xuan down for the count, Parson probably could have just dropped the hammer on the place, rather than resorting to subterfuge. And while getting the Blackburns to start fighting the others again would be helpful for that, it's no sure thing and waiting for it to work might just delay him long enough for the pan-rozum Rainlords to wake up and be ready for him.
ReplyDeleteNooooooo! Wrong evil! *shakes fist* The real crime here is the misuse of ice cream's job description! *flails melodramatically*
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what I meant. A merely psychopathic villain like Desmond would never see the reason to perform so terrible of an act as to misuse the power of ice cream.
ReplyDeleteEven if she is closer to taking his side, I don't think that Sanko would let him off unsupervised to do something like that at the moment, and if she saw Ibai, there would be questions.
ReplyDeleteI thought this conversation was assuming that Parson shows up at all.
ReplyDeleteThat was just me being stupid. Now that I think of it, yeah Parson couldn't probably show up at all. I can't believe I managed to forget that I was proving that Parson couldn't be in the right place to defend a theory that he was doing something there.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, if I'm wrong about Sanko, he might prefer convincing Asad that the Rainlords are bad guys to risking the other Sandlords coming to avenge him, considering that at least Sair's Sandlords are more powerful than their rainlords and whatever nutso scheme he has to "help" the Vanguard might not work if he turns both factions against Vanguard, but if he can get Asad to spread word that the already apparent traitors were harboring an Aberration that clearly was still evil, even the other Rainlords likely wouldn't lift a finger to help them.