ISIS vs Fey

Chapter Three: Are You Seriously Reading When You Could Be Doing Cocaine? Nerd!

"I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. Is paranormal some kind of brand I'm unaware of?" said Charlotte, chortling, humor dancing in her mismatched eyes (one blue and one green).

Both Rima and Isidora were soaking wet, having walked from their car across the street to the luxury apartment in heavy rain. The weird sensor Isidora always carried around had buzzed again, the name of their second suspect flashing across the screen in bold red letters.

Charlotte Johansson

They met her on the 14 of May. Charlotte was a travel blogger, almost every available space in her house was adorned with photos from her journeys around the globe with dates and places scribbled on the wooden frames.

The housekeeper had shown the detectives into an atrium, where Charlotte was sunbathing under artificial lights, a fashion show playing out on a TV screen hanging before her. A movable glass ceiling protected the chamber from the rain. She looked like something the god of eating disorders and the goddess of breastenvy had spawned in an unholy union. A spirit of Rib-Popping (being skinny enough to have distinctly visible ribs) and F cups, created with the sole purpose of making young vulnerable women feel inadequate.

When the detectives had walked in, she had merely flashed a million-dollar smile at the two women and gestured for them to make themselves at home.

"No, I am afraid we are being quite literal about this," said Rima.

"So like a magic show?" asked the young girl, apparently amused. "I would kill it as a hot assistant or something. Distracting the audience by shaking my money-maker while props are prepared. That sort of thing?"

"No, we are even more literal than that," said Rima.

"So, something like The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina?"

Rima flushed, looking rather embarrassed. "Yes, it does have something in common with the Netflix series."

"I wish my line of work was more along the lines of the original 90s series. But, please can we skip the pretense of ignorance and save us all some time," said Isidora.

Rima gave Isidora a what-was-the-deal look. When the occult detective had announced that the second suspect had been located, Rima had, as politely as possible, demanded that Isidora let her lead the interrogation this time. Isidora had only given her a subtle nod, and Rima knew the deal had been made. Isidora shrugged apologetically, gesturing for Rima to continue.

"Are you quite sure you are not, in any way, connected to something that might be labeled as paranormal? You do not, by any chance, happen to have attended any rituals or ceremonies with friends or colleagues as a joke?"

The ginger looked thoughtful as she crossed one leg over the other and poured white wine into three fancy looking stemmed glasses, one for each of them.

"You two drink, right?"

"Sure," said Isidora, but she refrained from touching the glass. Rima gave Charlotte a polite nod, and wrapped her gnarled fingers around the glass of wine she pushed toward her.

"Well, I do not exactly remember attending some sort of ritual or anything. Gods are fake, so I find religious stuff kinda cringe."

"Interesting," muttered Isidora, absentmindedly caressing the tattoo across her collarbone.

"Do you receive a lot of fanmail?" asked Rima.

Besides working as a travel vlogger and a popular Instagram model followed by tons of people all around the world. She also served as some kind of luxury escort, but only while visiting countries where such things were legal. During other journeys she would make a lot of noise about buying sex herself, claiming that 'female-empowerment isn't longer just for old churchlaides, its also for female johns and part-time whores like me'. Writing semi-pornographic accounts of what she claimed happened. Her followers referred to these sexual activities as her 'fuck quests', and many debated whether they even took place or were just a way of provoking anti-prostitution feminists and conservatives into giving her free advertisment through moral condemnation.

In regards to the question about fanmail, Charlotte smiled devilishly. She didn't say it, but you could read it on her face:"Detective, are you trying to find a discreet way of asking me just how much of a narcissist I am? Was that question a veiled way of saying 'on a scale from Dhali Lama to Donald Trump, how much of a God-could learn-a-thing-or-two-from-me-complex do you have?' Hoping that I'll start blabbering on about how people send me expensive stuff. Anyway, my answer is: not more than any other woman in my line of work,"

"Have any of these gifts ever felt strange in some way?"

Charlotte laughed. "Loners send me expensive crap to get me to sleep with them. What standard of normalcy do you expect?"

Rima shook her head, "I do not mean strange in the sense of being awkward or unusual, but occult or directly supernatural. Or something which might border on that at least."

Charlotte stared at Rima, a frown forming between her scrunched-up brows. Isidora knew she was biting back a stream of sarcastic comments in the style of: No, I haven't received a live pegasus by mail. If I had, it would be all over the internet by now, trust me on that.

"No, I do not recall receiving anything occult or, uhm, supernatural" she said, taking a swig of wine. "Hey, detective Isidora, right? You got something to say?"

"No, she really doesn't," Rima said quickly, shooting Isidora a dirty look.

"Well, then, do you need to go to the bathroom or something? Because you have a weird look on your face."

That was all the encouragement Isidora seemed to need.