The Mercury Palace

Chapter 2: The Demonic Elf on the Shelf

-Aiden-⚕️

     My alarm promptly woke me up at 3:45.

     In the morning.

     I groaned and rolled over in bed, blindly grabbing for the alarm clock on the nightstand. I found it and pressed the off before quickly dozing off again.

     The alarm went off again ten minutes later. Instead of risking the chance of accidentally hitting the snooze button again, I simply threw the clock against the wall, effectively silencing it.

     Probably for good.

     I was starting to fall asleep again when Nilly came over and began to walk around on my bed.

     "Wake up!"

     "Good morning to you too," I grumble. "Now go away." There was no way I was going to get up this early after driving until midnight last night.

     My phone decided now was a good time to start ringing. Everyone was out to ruin my morning, weren't they?

     "It's too early for this," I sleepily complained as I picked up the phone.

     "Hello?" I answered the call.

     "Good morning Aiden."

     Detective Wells. I briefly debated hanging up on him, but he started talking again before I could.

     "Did I wake you up? You're slacking Aiden! Normally you'd be up by now!"

     "It's four-oh-fucking clock!" I exclaimed. "Unless they're Nilly or they're crazy, most normal people would still be sleeping right now!"

     Wells chuckled. "We need the two of you at the office. We got something big last night."

     "Like what?"

     "Ben."

     "Ben?"

     "Drowned."

     I froze. "Oh shit, you got him?"

     "Sure did. Caught him red-handed. We're containing him here for now but they want to transport him to a maximum security facility in a few weeks. We have to get all of the information we can out of him before he goes. I got my hands on a few good interrogators, but the top guys are still full of superstition and won't give us too much support. It doesn't help that they want to keep this whole thing on the down low. They're making it nearly impossible to get the things we need. But anyway, get over here, there's more to brief you on. Quite a bit more, actually."

     "Alright, I'll be there soon." I hung up.

     "What was that about," Nilly asked, sitting cross-legged on my bed. "If I didn't know any better, that sounded like Wells. We haven't talked to him since the case with Cassy. What did he want?"

     I sighed and got out of bed. "We're helping him out for a little bit. We struck a little deal last night and he agreed to do a few things for us if we give him some insight on the case he's working on." I spoke as I began my morning routine. The house Wells had provided was tiny and bleak, but it would work.

     "What the hell? Why am I only finding out about this now?" Nilly asked.

     "Because it only became relevant now," I made my way downstairs. Nilly followed to keep the conversation going.

     "Relevent how? And what did he say he would do?"

     "They caught Ben. Wells is hoping we can get some info from him, but I doubt it."