The Wolf Among Us: Season Two

Episode 1: Chapter 4

A rapid and loud knocking echoes from Bigby's door, causing him to wake up much earlier than usual. Rubbing his eyes after getting up from the single chair that sat in his living room, he paced over to his apartment door, slightly irritated and very tired. "Please stop leaving your phone off the line when you get home, it would make telling you urgent messages much easier." A female voice snapped the second Bigby opened his door.

"Good morning to you too, Snow." He sighed in response, agitated from being woken and then immediately yelled at. "What's the urgent message this time?" He asked, silently praying to himself that it wasn't another murder.

"Someone burned down Toad's apartment building." The ebony haired women replied matter of factly, clearly enraged about the issue. The rage quickly spread to the sheriff.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Yes, of course, this was all a joke, just wanted to keep you on your toes!" Snow says sarcastically. "No! Of course I'm being serious and you need to get over there right now."

"Do the mundies know? I thought the building was officially Toad's." Bigby asks, following her down the hallway and toward the elevator.

"A building partially outside of Fabletown territory burned down, of course they know! The fire station was called by nearby mundies and some of the residents didn't even have glamours. This is the nearest we've been to complete exposure! It is his, he paid it off like 200 years ago but even if it's not mundie property they're still going to be curious." She rambles on, a confusing mixture of pure anger, fear, and anxiety.

"Well, that's not true, there was that one reporter back in '28 who threatened to expose us in the papers." Bigby reminded her, his botched attempt at calming her agitation which was bound to be a failure. Attempting to make Snow feel better when she's angry rarely works, it typically just adds to her anger.

"Yes, but then Bluebeard killed him and covered it as a suicide. What do you want us to do? Kill the whole block? Or maybe we can use a mass memory wipe spell, that'll only cost a few thousand dollars that we don't have." Snow replies, reassuring him that his attempt had indeed failed. "Just go down there and try to find out what caused it and, if the case, who caused it. If it was a person bring them down here immediately; risking exposure of the Fable community can be punished by up to 200 years in prison."

"Will do." The sheriff sighs, walking out the front doors of the Woodlands and towards the burned down apartments.

When he reaches the building, it's worse than he possibly could have imagined. Over half of the slum was burned down to nothing but a few deeply scorched wooden planks. The other half was still partially standing but completely burned over and far past salvaging. The yellow exterior had turned to a dry and dusty powder that had turned reddish black. Glass from fallen window panes littered the sidewalk before the front door. Everything in the area was dripping wet from being sprayed down by the mundie firemen and a large huddle of over fifty people stood on either side of the building lot. A murmur arose among them as the sheriff stepped near.

He walks over towards a small group of Fables speaking to one another filled with people he doesn't quite recognize which means he most likely hasn't spoken to them in over a century. "Did the mundies see anyone out of their glamour?" Bigby asked, possibly his most important question.

"Hmph, hope not." One of the men slurs, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"I-I don't think so," A woman in the group speaks up. "But it came pretty close. A lot of them are hiding in back alleys right as we speak. They came, put the fire out, then rushed back off. We already know who started it, though."