Incompatible Means (Completed)

Chapter 24

"I think maybe you two should be alone for this conversation," Declan says after my declaration. I give him a harsh look as if to say that I still had words I would have with him. He mouths the words "Later" as he leaves the room.

"So you have found your benefactor?" Roderick prompts after we stood there a while staring daggers at each other, well I stared daggers at him while he looked at me calmly. It pissed me off. I began to pace thinking of how to phrase how I was going to put this where I had a shot at him believing me.

"So when I first started the investigation I had Hugo, that's my computer guy--" I said but Roderick interrupted.

"I know who he is," he stated plainly. I shot him a look that both voiced my displeasure at the interruption as well as warned him away from my friend before I continued as if he hadn't spoken.

"I had him try to find the person that hired me by tracing the money back to the source, I figured that would be the easiest solution. Then I tried to do what I could here, in person, to find out who was behind it all, so when I snuck off the property and saw Marko kill that woman in the alley I thought I had my answer."

"What?" Roderick asked standing up from behind his desk and moving towards me, he seemed genuinely angry. Maybe he would want to know that Marko was bad so I spared a moment to explain.

"I followed Marko because he seemed to want me dead more than most of the vampires here and hid it behind being loyal to you. So I followed him and found him in an alley but I was too late, the woman was badly beaten, her bones broken, she had obviously been raped and he was on his hands and knees over her about to do god knows what else to her before Silas showed up and took me away." By the time I was done with the story Roderick looked relieved, which pissed me off all over again. "How in the hell can you be relieved at me telling you that story?"

"It is not what it looks like, you do not understand," he said trying to placate me.

"Then make me understand!" I yelled at him. He didn't seem ruffled by my yelling, he came over to the other side of his desk and leaned back into it.

"Marko is a Grimm. He feeds from the dead in a way," he put his hand up to stop me from interrupting. "They almost always hold the job of a Reaper, when a soul is about to die a nearby Grimm will feel the pull and find the soul. They go to the person dying and then ferry the soul to the afterlife once they are dead. The Grimm does not feed on the soul from what I understand but the soul leaves a powerful residue, like a last burst of energy when the soul departs the body. Marko is the only Grimm I am aware of that does not work for the Reapers. So I have made an arrangement with the local Reaper that is mutually beneficial. She does not like Reaping the violent cases, the more gruesome ones, so she will call Marko and he will go to be with the person in their last moments, feed on the death, and then the Reaper will find the soul close to the scene and ferry it to the afterlife." I had so many questions, I wanted to know more about these supernaturals I had never heard of before but I needed to stay focused so I kept pacing. Roderick seemed surprised I had more to say, he probably figured that is where I would stop that I thought Marko had done it.

"So it turned out to not be that easy because the money wasn't traceable and not in the way that a hacker covered the trail so well that Hugo couldn't find it, he can find anything. Hugo called the money smoke, it just appeared. Then when people started to try to kill me I thought that whoever had tried to kill you was tying up loose ends and trying to get me out of the picture so they had hired a human to try and take me out. So I once again asked Hugo to look into the finances of everyone I had given information about. The day of my second attack he sent me an email red flagging the guard that attacked me, showing that he too had money appear in his accounts twice the same way it had in mine. But it took a conversation with Silas to figure out what or should I say who could do such a thing."