Summon Swat Squad

Ch 6 Friendly advice and song of the sea

It was around two o’clock when I left Avalon and headed back to a portal that took me back to home. Being the early afternoon people where bringing in equipment to set up on the second floor of the building. Second floor was where Vanessa and Andre held their concerts for Siren Street their musical group that makes most of the money for the place. I had been to a couple of the shows and they are pretty good. It was a mixture of dark melodic singing by Vanessa and Andre’s deep voiced lyrics that brought a good mix between rock and rap. Hitting the third floor of the building I went straight to my room and took off the suit. Then put back on my usual street attire of black steel toed boots (just in case), jeans, t-shirt, and my trademark leatherjacket.

“Maybe I do dress too much like an action star.” I said looking into the mirror and seeing Andre come through the door.

“So your date go fine.” Andre said with a wide smile. He was wearing his usual red and black suit. Andre was not your usual rapper he believed that if you dressed like the streets you will never leave them. It also helped with the feel of the stage when he was preforming sort of the mysterious stranger type of deal. From what Andre told me he had lived on the streets of Nocturne for all his life. He was not like they rest of the city’s residents though most people could not give a care about what was around them just trying to get by. Andre was different in the fact that he was building something trying to get somewhere. Sure there was allot of businesses in Nocturne, but they all seemed just trying to get by.

“It was not a date. It was an information gathering mission.” I replied back.

“Max that is what a date is, you talk and find out stuff about each other see if you are compatible and see if there is reason for another meeting.”

“Well we did not talk about each other allot, mostly I was talking to her about the Berserker Blood craze that has been going on in the fighting rings.”

“So you just here to change out then head down to the HQ to tell your boss about it right?”

“Actually as far as the SSS know I am off until the day after tomorrow.”   

“So if it’s your day off then why you working on a case?”

“Well if I let the case grow cold then it will be harder to get things done later, plus if I do well on this I bet that will get me farther quicker in the SSS.”

“So how exactly are you going to continue investing this case?” Andre asked.

I kept quiet for a second I did not know exactly how to answer his question Andre was an old illegal summon fighter who retired with enough cash to make his way. I did not know exactly how he would react to me going to an illegal summon fight epically while off duty.  Andre though never had been dishonest with me and I did not feel like lying to him it just felt wrong.

“Nuri and I are going to go undercover in a illegal summon fight tomorrow night and see if we can uncover some info on the drugs.”

“Tomorrow night Max that is the feast of Dionysus it’s the craziest of all the summon fights all year. Even I avoided it when I worked the circuit it’s full of a bunch of murders and druggies.” Andre said a sudden urgency in his tone.

“Look we are not there to fight we are just going to get some info and go.”

“Max this isn’t servant circle you live in Nocturne proper now you need to understand things here are dangerous.”

Servant circle was the section of the city that was around the center of the city where the richest and the most politically powerful figures in Nocturne lived. The center of the city had a giant building called prosperity tower that is owned by the richest men in Nocturne they used it as basically a place to throw parties for themselves. Around the tower was all the places these people lived and their companies. Then in a ring around that was Servants circle its where all of the people who worked for the companies in one way or another lived. While it was not as nice as the center the rich did send patrols to guard their interests from the rest of the city. The patrols though was not the perfect deterrent it made it allot safer than the rest of the city.