Riley Nyt and The Mortal Order

Chapter 1 - Home

Like most attempted murders, drowning hurt.

Riley had not expected her cousin to try and kill her but, considering how her day had been going, she was not surprised that it had happened.

Being a detective in the mortal world had never been Riley's calling. Sure, she was good at her job despite being much younger than her colleagues, but Riley had once been a fearsome young warrior, favoured to take over her family's empire. Of course, that had all been abandoned when Riley and her girlfriend had runaway as a murderer and a traitor of the vestral people. Now, Riley was a mediocre detective, or at least she had been until five minutes ago.

"Detective Nyt."

Riley glanced up, "Chief Amos," she greeted the heavy-set man who paused beside her messy desk.

Chief Amos was the head of their small detective's precinct and had been Riley's boss for the past three years. Chief Amos let out a weathered sigh, moving his bulk to rest against the side of her desk and scratched his bushy grey eyebrow.

Chief Amos held out a dark, calloused hand and Riley shook it, "I admit that I was sceptical about hiring someone so young..." he smiled sadly, "but I'm proud of you kid, I'm grateful to have had you with us."

Riley's heart sunk, what Chief Amos had said meant a lot to her but, it also finalised the notice that she had received that morning, she was officially fired. They all were.

"Thank you, sir," Riley replied and Chief Amos's thick lips stretched into one last rare smile before he heaved himself upright and moved on to the next pair of desks.

"He seems pretty proud of someone who drove him insane," Thomas remarked. He was Riley's detective partner and potentially, her only friend in New York. "He must be nuts to have enjoyed having you around!"

Riley rolled her eyes, "I'm very charming."

"I've met roadkill more charming than you."

Riley threw an empty file at Thomas who laughed as he easily caught it. He chucked it into the overflowing trashcan next to their desks and it glanced off the top, clattering to the floor, and neither of them bothered to pick it up. What would be the point?

"So, what are your plans now?" Thomas asked as he began to pack away the action figures that haphazardly roamed the piles of paper on his desk.

Riley shrugged. That morning, she had coincidentally received a summons letter to return home. It must have been urgent because her parents had always respected her choice not to return to the vestral world, to return to her sacred home. Riley and her girlfriend, Cassidy Zane, had been cleared of their charges three years ago, as per the plan Riley had come up with six years ago, when the Head Supreme, Tobias da Silva, had been murdered in the Supremes' Palace of Justice and Order. It had all been very complicated and Riley had come to enjoy the simplicity, albeit boring, New York lifestyle.

"Cass and I are going to go away for a while," Riley replied as she began clearing her desk too.

"Ah," Thomas nodded at one of the two personal items Riley had on her desk, an old fashioned, gold gilded picture frame, "Another epic vacation?"

Nestled in the frame was a brightly coloured photo of two beaming girls on a Spanish beach. When Cassidy had graduated from college, Riley had saved up her pay checks to surprise Cassidy with a trip to the south of Spain. It had been a memorable trip for a variety of reasons, the main one being the skincrawler sous chef who had tried to kill them on their third day. It was just their typical luck that even on vacation, they attracted trouble. Most annoyingly, the attack had been the same day as their beach day and Riley's bare brown arms bore fresh, thin scars from the tussle whilst Cassidy's usually olive skin looked pale in the summer sun, a sign that she had used her vesence to heal the worst of Riley's injuries.