Chapter 4-109: Legal Procedures (1/2)

Sama tried to keep the smirk off her face as she walked home.

It was definitely Lily’s first kiss as her new self, so time to teach her a few new things about other matters. Hagchildren were not really attracted to one another that way, having almost physical attraction to certain kinds of males when triggered. But, no need to not do double-duty with the act, right?

Hmm, what were police cars doing outside Master Vrune’s? Gollygeegosh, could be, maybe, possibly?

Nah, they wouldn’t be looking for the last person seen with a young Miss Leslie Vanderbilt, would they?

Sama glided past two uniforms, who jumped to see her skate by them, and stepped right through the forge’s front door.

The multiple heads that turned to see her walking in didn’t disturb her in the least, of course. Sama sifted through her Visual File, putting a name to faces.

“Detective Gossman, Detective Fielders,” she greeted the two leads from the police department, who had the great bad luck to be assigned to cases involving Powered that nobody in power wanted to get within ten feet of.

Somebody had to do it, and the two middle-aged men took the cases on with resigned apathy. A considerable number of said cases were never solved, and there was precious little they could do to close them. Indeed, without Harse’s Inquisitors getting involved, more often than not that was the case...

“Sama Rantha,” the tired-looking black Detective Fielders said formally, straightening up. “We have a warrant for your arrest, as a person of interest in the disappearance of one Leslie Vanderbilt, seen leaving with you yesterday from her school uptown. Are you going to resist arrest?”

He said that with the attitude that if she was, he wasn’t going to force the issue and potentially get killed. He just wanted to know so none of his people got killed, and they could send over someone who might actually be able to do the job.

“Enforcing the warrant is a voluntary action on your part. If you want to question me, go right ahead.”

Fielders looked at the rather chubby, badly shaved Grossman, who just shrugged fatalistically. “Do you admit to meeting the young Miss Vanderbilt?”

“Yep.”

“And where did you take her?”

“I didn’t take her anywhere, as I don’t own a car. We walked to the Hidden Stars, and I left her there in the care of the Sylunar Priestesses.”

Both cops blinked in astonishment at the simple answer. “Is she there now?” Fielder asked eagerly, hoping for a quick end to this kidnapping case.

Sama turned around and looked at the two uniforms standing there.

“Mel, Nancy, go get a cup of coffee,” Grossman said promptly.

Sama turned around and looked at the apprentices, who weren’t getting much work done now that she had shown up.

“Get a drink!” barked Master Vrune, rapidly herding his apprentices out of the back of his shop and closing the door.

When both doors were closed, Sama turned back to the two wary and rather nervous cops, who had the dire feeling this quickly resolvable case wasn’t going to be resolved so nicely anymore...

“Leslie Vanderbilt is dead. She was a Hagchild, whose Awakening was triggered by the arrival of her Hagmother to retrieve her. She underwent the Ritual of the Silver Queen, but the timing was very bad, being the dark of the moon. She did not survive the process.”

Both cops stared at her. “A Hagchild?” Grossman asked carefully, and Sama nodded. “Like you?”

“No, she was greenhag-blooded. I’m an annis-blood.”

The two cops looked at one another, back at me. “You said she died. How?”

“Well, if you fail the Ritual, you turn into a Hag, who happens to be in the middle of a bunch of Sylunar waiting and watching to see if you succeed or fail. What do you think happened?”

Both cops closed their eyes and sighed heavily, visions of paperwork filling their minds. “So, you’re saying she failed this Ritual, transformed into a Hag, and was put down by the Sylunar?”

“Better than having another greenhag running around eating children, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“Can we see the body?” Fielder asked promptly.

“What wasn’t promptly burned to contain the Hag’s Death Curse?” Sama screwed up her face. “I’m sure they can give you a bunch of ashes fresh from a dead Hag, if you have someone who can verify that. However, there’ll be only the most tertiary of links to who she once was, given the power of a Hag’s transformation.”

The two cops looked even more depressed. “We can probably get a test or magical verification of that from another source...” Grossman told his partner, who just nodded.

“And gentlemen, just so you know... greenhags reproduce several ways. The classic way is to get pregnant by a man with a pregnant lover, and swap her baby with the woman’s while in the womb, eating the human child after she births it as a rare delicacy. The other way, that doesn’t involve killing the man, is getting pregnant by him, often by shapechanging into his wife or a secret lover and Charming him... and then using that shapechanging to imitate him, and injecting her baby into the womb of his wife, where it eats his human baby.

“Since both of her parents are alive, and she even has siblings, the latter is probably what happened. So, unless you want to inform her parents that a Hag slept with both of them, and its baby ate their daughter in her womb, which will probably rip their family apart, you might want to talk to the Sylunar about the best way to approach this matter, as they have the most experience in these kinds of things.”

“Fuck!” Detective Fielder swore, as I up-ended all their dreams of a quick and easy case with quick and really horrific instead. “That’s pretty sick.” Sama nodded slowly. “Wait, does that mean, you-?” he asked, looking her up and down.