The cold

Unknown

Damien was literally shouting at the guards for slacking off, sleeping when they were supposed to alert, in mid afternoon too, when the news came. Another murder, in a gruesome fashion, another fey dead. These murderers were becoming more and more bold as time went by. It wasn't like they weren't trying, they had even tried to detect signatures. All fey had their own brand of magic, the signature or traces left by magic used by any fey unique. Even the feys that had singular gifts left a signature when they used it, the equipments used for reading such signatures usually cost a king's ransom. It was like something was disrupting the process the equipment made every time it found a trace. The traces were there but they couldn't be read, it was frustrating to say the least. As far as Damien Knew there was no spell that could do this, the only idea his mind came up with was that one of the fey had the gift of obscuring traces, it was the only thing that  made sense, or perhaps there were a few ancient spells that did the trick, such spells were rare to the point of being unused, the knowledge lost. Such spells were so dark that it ate away a part of one's soul when one used it, in fact technically it  wasn't even a spell. Most of them served the purpose of summoning some of the dark demons of the Obyss , the ones that stayed in Ement,  the demons of the place banned from attaching themselves to petstones or interfering with fey life , for a very short period, generally a single act.  He even knew of a spell that served the same purpose as his gift, travelling through shadows, that actually involved summoning his grandfather Miorag. Miorag in return generally took a person's sanity as payment, a rather heavy price  , but the person only knew what he'd lose after the whole thing was said and done, Miorag was deceptive that way. There can be no contract without consideration, quid pro quo, and this was something people often forgot. They simply assumed a summoned demon did what it was told to do, some of them not even realizing that the demon had taken something from them. 

After the first surge, before Lady Legasus took to the throne, Queen Lumanda had destroyed most of the books that held such spells, convinced that such power in the hands of anyone meant disaster but like all things real, there was probably a loop hole, the wicked ones of the obyss must have found a way to pass some of the knowledge on, perhaps influenced a soul to save a few of them, or found ways to make contracts without summons, but eventually, even if this was the case, a demon couldn't be the one behind the murders, merely because such contracts in the least needed the conscious and full acceptance of a fey, it had to be a fey calling the shots till it was time to pay up, all this assuming such a spell was used. 

If the Demons of Ement were actually given a free reign in this world, they would probably take over, enslaving both human and fey alike, exactly why they were banned to come into contact with feys, the contracts were the only loophole in the whole thing, the one thing which the king of Obyss couldn't find a way to counter, the one thing which even Lumanda couldn't do away with, the demons in Ement far too sly and sneaky for that. 

Abbadon entered the room looking quite irritated. "Another bloody publicity stunt, Henrietta too, and still no bloody fingerprint, no traces , no nothing, I can almost feel those psychotic idiots behind this sitting in a corner and laughing, hmmph" Abbadon ranted. Damien figured he just had to get that out of his system. They even tried looking into the past, trying to see any sort of connection between the dead, not a load of good that did. The victims here were powerful, power was all they had in common, and that literally meant nothing , there were about a million powerful fey in the world, the only thing that piece of information did tell them was that the fey behind these kills were quite powerful.

Neil and Nerezza  entered the room noisily, "Lighten up fellas, Brownies ahead!!! " Neil exclaimed before blinking and looking down embarrassed, that was rather uncalled for. It did at least bring out a chuckle from Damien and a small smile from Abbadon, Nerezza just staring at the boy like he grew another head. Loki popped out of no where, holding a hand out for one of said brownies, it wasn't like Loki actually needed to eat anything , Loki could probably survive the rest of his rather long life on a few well placed pranks and an endless supply of whatever he was in the mood for, perks of being from Obyss.

"Saw a blood fey today, she was standing among the crowd that had formed in front of the murder, just thought you people should know" Nerezza said, chewing on a brownie for a second time that day. "She was real creepy too , that lady! She had this loony smile on her face when we bumped into each other, totally gave me the chills for some reason." Neil added , nodding his head twice for emphasis. Abbadon found this rather interesting, the presence of a blood fey at the location of the crime, it could be a coincidence, after all, what killer would stay at the place of crime the next day waiting to be handcuffed. An extremely confident or psychotic one, perhaps. It was worth looking into even if she wasn't related to the murder in any way, she was still quite powerful and it was safer to keep a close eye on such people, especially when they were so close to home.

 "Any additional leads on the murder?", Nerezza asked Abbadon, hoping the answer would be a yes for a change. "Not yet, I've given them until midnight to find something useful, imported a few experts from outside . Hopefully that'll make a slight difference, any small news would be an improvement at this point."