“Are you suggesting we are lying?!” the Sheriff snapped, finally dropping the fake ass smile.
“Suggesting?” Severo chuckled. “Oh, no. More saying than suggesting. I mean, if you had to pick a patsy, picking one of the least violent species of Cryptid… Yeah, not the smartest choice.”
“You! Get out of my office!”
“With pleasure, Sheriff.” With that, he gave them a one-fingered salute and strutted out of the office and building, ignoring the distrustful looks of the men and women working there.
Severo was used to the looks, so they didn’t bother him much. The police in smaller towns tended to not like the CEB, especially if the force there was all human.
Severo slipped into his car. Once seated, he called Cyrus.
“What do you want?” Cyrus huffed.
“I would suggest having the finances of Sheriff Tormd and Detective Liane looked into.”
“So the missing documents and lack of an autopsy was not a simple oversight?”
“They cremated the body. There is no actual physical evidence remaining. It was either lost or went up in flames with the corpse.
“The pictures showed the man was strangled so violently it left indents, along with scratches, and a broken neck from where I’m pretty sure the person twisted his head around fully.
“To add on, our victim was a Cerberus, and the guy was massive. They are seriously claiming a Nymph Seri’s size could win physically against a Cerberus Leal’s size. They are claiming a bunch of other bullshit as well, but don’t really have even a single piece of evidence supporting anything. It screams dirty.
“Honestly, I think we should leave this Seri North alone and focus on figuring out why these fuckers are setting her up. She’s a Water Nymph, Cyrus. While I wouldn’t put it past them having the ability to take down a Cerberus in self-defense, a drowning would have made more sense.”
“And an investigation is happening. Seri North will get a fair trial. Honestly, it sounds like she’ll get off easily, considering they supposedly destroyed all the evidence. The fact remains, you must bring her in.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this. What if it is something other than a simple framing?”
“Doesn’t matter. Rules must be followed. We will know when the threads deem it time.”
“Yeah, yeah, you have fun with your threads. Meanwhile, I get to arrest an innocent person—fun.”
Cyrus growled before hanging up.
Severo sighed—Fates and their threads. Strong, like most Cryptids, and just as immortal, Fates were a mysterious species. A species that existed inside only one family—the Grimm family. Not that they inbred, but…it was tradition to keep or take the Grimm name, so everyone married in. That and the Fates bloodline bred true, where no matter what children they had, they were always fully a Fate even if they had other species traits as well.
No one besides them really knew the extent of their powers. Severo knew they drank blood to survive, and ate food. They could change their age and appearance at will. But as for the rest… Rumor had it that they could pluck a life with a simple pull of those threads they spoke of so often—threads that were only visible to their eyes.
It was said that the Fates were the spinners of destiny—past and present. That they could change anything at will. For creatures having such power, yet able to stop themselves from abusing it, he supposed it was only right that they ran the CEB.
Yawning, he rubbed his face and looked at the time. Ugh, it was already 2pm. He literally hadn’t slept for over twenty-four hours.
Severo had captured a Chupacabra last night around 11pm, caught a late three hour flight to deliver the woman to the CEB branch nearest to the crime in Ohio, before catching a four hour flight back to Kansas. While it had been 10am when his flight landed, he’d stopped by his place to shower and…do his paperwork, just so he could come into the office at twelve and do nothing. Well, he had planned to sit there staring blankly for about an hour, before going to the sleep lounge on the seventh floor for a long nap. Afterwards, he’d have gone home.
But had that happened?! No! Instead, he’d gotten stuck with a bogus ass case. And now Severo had to drive another hour to the airport, take a three hour flight to the nearest shuttle port in California, and once he got there, a six hour ship ride to the closest intermediate spaceport. Then he’d have to wait a few hours before he boarded his connecting ship to Mars.
Based on where the planet was currently in orbit, the flight to Mars would take about seven days. Add in all the waiting times, it would mean it’d be at least thirteen hours before he could attempt to make up all the sleep he lost.
Well, jokes on Cyrus, as he’d gone into the system and upgraded everything to first class after Killian, the Head of the Intelligence and Technology department—and apparently his information source for this case—had given him his flight information!
Hmm…it had been like a year since he’d been placed on a case with the Siren. Lately, he’d just been working with Killian’s random subordinates.
Ugh, the last time he’d been on one with the man, the asshole had told Cyrus about each and every screw up. Just one of the risks that popped up when you worked with the boss’ boyfriend, he supposed.
With a sigh, he turned on his music loudly and pressed the button to start the car. It took a mere second for the elevation stones on the vehicle to activate. The car hovered about a foot upward before beeping once to let him know it was fully ready to be driven. It was funny how his parents were always joking about how long they had waited for flying cars.
Technology had certainly changed since their day. But, of course, that had been the whole point in Cryptids exposing their existence—change.
