Shadowrunning (Dropped)

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – An Unusual Case

 “I like you. You get straight to the point. That will help a lot.” He stuck his thumbs into pant pockets. “It’s like this. Singh, the owner, he found a human arm out back.” Firefly straightened and narrowed her eyes at him. He appeared to notice her movement because he said, “Yup, a human arm clean detached from any human body. Not a pleasant sign for anything. However, that’s not all. There’s been animals going crazy all over the place, mostly devil rats and hell hounds. We’ve got a barbed wire fence surrounding the place, I even helped Singh put some of it up years ago, and the animals have been throwing themselves at it and dying.

“The worrying part is that they’ve managed to almost build a path of bodies to get through the fence. We stopped them the first time they rushed this place, but I can’t guarantee Singh a second time. That’s why I called you guys in.”

They all nodded and Firefly’s mind whirled into action. There wasn’t much of a network out here but she was still able to connect up and flick through general search results about the animals in question and discover their normal habits.

Mr. Johnny pulled a hand out of his pocket to scratch his head. “It’s been bringing back some old memories about a case fifteen years back. That was one I’d hoped to forget, but it’s hard to when the case was so gruesome and unusual. A murderer mage went crazy and summoned an evil spirit which killed people by summoning hordes of animals and dragging the victims to pieces.”

“And you think this is similar because of…?” Bobby trailed off suggestively.

“It’s the animals, see? The ones here were definitely not acting normal and there were too many of them for it to be natural.”

“Unnatural indeed,” Firefly murmured.

Tree leaned sideways to look at the girl behind our new box. She, in turn, edged further back around his legs.

Looks like their intelligence is about on the same level. She didn’t let her laugh out of her mouth, though. Now wasn’t the time for it. Instead she refocused on the man.

“How did you become involved?” she asked. “You aren’t the owner of the farm or an employee.”

“Singh and I go way back so we have an agreement of sorts.” He shrugged which Firefly took as the end of that line of questioning.

She switched tactics. Leaning to the side like Tree, she tried to catch the girl’s eye. “Who are you?” Firefly kept her voice soft but cheery as if she was trying to lure a stray cat. The girl, however, didn’t respond.

“You’ll have to forgive her,” Mr. Johnny cut in. “She can’t speak.”

Firefly straightened up but she didn’t take her eyes off the girl. “Was she born mute?”

“Well I honestly don’t know. I rescued her from going in child services about fifteen years ago and she hasn’t said a word in all that time. It’s probably the trauma of what happened.”

Fifteen years ago? Firefly exchanged a glance with Bobby. It appeared that he was thinking the same thing as her. The child must have been involved somehow in the murder case. Also, shouldn’t she be almost an adult? Why is she acting like a child?  Something about it niggled at the back of Firefly’s mind, but she couldn’t get a grasp on it before it flitted away.

He patted her on the head. “Now she’s my adorable adopted daughter.”

She transferred her gaze up to his face for a moment before resuming staring at Tree and now Firefly.