slayers_desire | the case of the disappearing daughters ((Ed thread))

Ed nods slowly. "That's what usually happens when you lose someone you love," he agrees, quietly. He knows that pain too, from losing his mother seven years ago. And knows that he'll feel it again in the near future, when Izumi dies. He glances up at Lorne, picking up on his hesitancy, and asks, voice quiet, "Would you be more comfortable telling me about it in private?"

"Come luv... lets go get you a cup of tea." Spike gets the hint quickly. It seems odd for him to take this role, but then again he cared for his elderly mother when he was human.

Diane leaves with him. Lorne takes a deep breath. "He sang his sorrows of finding her body in the morgue. His little girl, dead. Taken."

Ed lets out a quiet shudder. "The police found her, then..." he says. "Taken... as in by death, or... kidnapped...?" He doesn't know if Lorne was able to pick up that much detail or not, but it can't hurt to ask. The more details he has, the better.

"Taken from her father. In death." Lorne can't tell if the girl was kidnapped or not, just by the song that the father sung.

"There are more..." April whispers from the doorway. A small demon child is at her side.

Ed looks up at her, and grimaces. "Then tell me what you can, please," he says, "so I can get to the bottom of this." He's using manners... that's how serious the situation is to him. People's children are being taken away from them. Parents shouldn't have to outlive their children.

"There were eight taken in the last month. Two a week. All girls." April glances down at the Demon child. "And not just humans either."

Ed lets a tiny little growl slip out. He hopes this isn't what it's sounding like. (Which is to say, it sounds like the work of a sexual predator—a supernatural sexual predator. As if the human ones weren't bad enough.) "I need as much detail as possible," he tells April, gently. "Did they all disappear the same way as Natasha—just up and vanished without warning?"

"Her sister was the first to disappear." April notes the child at her side. Who looks like she has been crying ever since.

"We thought hunters." The child whispered.

((bed time for me))

Hunters, it could very well be. Ed watches the teary-eyed demon child for a moment, rises to his feet, and comes over to her to pull her into a gentle hug, entirely unafraid of the fact that she is a demon. In both his reality and April's, he's well aware that not all demons are evil, and that some can, in fact, be very peaceful and non-violent.

"I'm sorry," he tells the child quietly. "I know what it's like not to know if someone dear to you is safe or not." He pulls away and says, "But I promise you... I'll do everything in my power to bring your sister back home." It's not a guarantee, he knows, but he's not sure if her sister is still alive, and if she isn't... he doesn't want to break any promise he makes. This is the best he can promise her, and still know that he can keep the promise—that he'll make every effort.

The child carefully hugged him back. She didn't think any of the humans cared about her family. But here was one that did.

"Thank you."

Ed stands up again, and he's got his Determinator face on when he does. "We need to find whoever or whatever's doing this," he says. That's his Determinator tone of voice too. He falls silent, thinking for a moment. "Given that they're preying on members of the supernatural community, safe bet they're a supernatural themselves. Maybe a hunter," he adds, nodding to the girl, "But also maybe something else."

"The next step is usually finding commonalities between victims. They're all girls—human or demon doesn't seem to matter." He's thinking out loud right now, bear with him. "Natasha is still a teenager, from the sound of things..."

Ah. There's another thing that might connect the victims. The perp might have a particular age preference. He turns back to the demon girl. "How old is your sister?" he asks her, gently.

"How old..." The child frowns in confusion, looking up to April.

"Their demon race doesn't mark age like humans do."

"She hadn't gone through the Maturity Ritual yet." The child hopes that is helpful.

Ed mentally facepalms at himself. "Right. Longer lifespans, usually..." He will take that information as meaning the sister is not yet of age—equivalent to being under 18 for a human. "I'm going to assume that's basically equivalent to a teenaged human... When was the last time you saw her?"

He's vaguely aware of the fact that... well, he's starting to sound a little like a detective on one of those police procedural shows (a few of which he does happen to enjoy, so it's not necessarily a bad thing). Might as well go the extra mile and go as detective-y as he can. He removes a little notepad and his fountain pen from a trouser pocket and writes down the information he already has.

"Months ago." The child is at least able to relate time to something he will understand.

"And while a demon going missing went unnoticed by the humans, the demons did note when the other humans went missing." April noted softly.

"We kept track. In case they blamed us."

Ed writes that down too, shaking his head a little in dismay. "Eight of them. All relatively young?" he asks. He's starting to get angry at whatever's doing this, but he manages to keep it down and off his face. He'll start raging as soon as he's away from the victims' families. And when he finds the culprit, there will be a smackdown.

"We do not know their ages." The human year is confusing to the young girl. "We just know girls."

Ed nods and sighs a little, but gives the girl a kind smile. "That's okay. You've been very helpful, sweetheart. Thank you."

The fact that only a specific group of people are disappearing rules out hunters for Ed—if it were hunters, why would they only target specific young female demons, instead of the entire community? And why would they target human girls too? It's inconsistent, unless he's missing something. No, this is likely something else... something that preys upon women (presumably young women).

"If we need anything else, we will find you." April knows that the girl is anxious to return to her family.

Ed smiles and nods. "I appreciate that. Thanks for your help."

Once the girl leaves, Ed turns to Lorne and asks, "Do you know of anything that likes to prey on young women like this?"

"Sure, there are a few demons who are specific like that." Lorne replies.

Ed nods. "What can you tell me about them?" Notebook and pen are at the ready. I've really got to get a dedicated journal for all of my notes on the various realities I've been visiting...

Edited 2013-02-28 20:43 (UTC)

Lorne looked at Ed for a long moment. "About every Demon that could be a possibility? It would be wiser if you just went over to Wes, and picked up one of his books."

"Fair enough," Ed replies with a shrug. "You know where Wes is right now?"

"At the bar." Spike replies, he gestures for Ed to follow him. April follows behind, but Lorne stays to ensure that Diane is comforted.

Ed nods and follows Spike, tucking his notebook and pen away. He's quiet for most of the walk, processing what he knows, trying to solve the mystery. But... he can't really do that without more information, so for the moment, he's stumped.

((Working on plotting out Laura's trip to Munich with Ed and Al, and I was wondering... at this point (the trip's going to be a few weeks at most after the training session we played out), has she discovered her heat vision yet? If not, I was thinking it could first manifest during the adventure :).))

Edited 2013-02-28 21:52 (UTC)

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