we've been awake all night, shattered dreams all around Who: Jareth Monaco, private eye What: An ongoing investigation Where: All over Emillion When: Starting July 8th, going through today Rating: R because dead kids and violence Status: Complete
19 cancer
The kid’s death had been unfortunate, and even though that part of town wasn’t exactly known for being kind to street kid’s, he’d at least been able to track down the last place of residency by putting out some feelers and calling in some favors. So two days after he’d dropped the body at Hier’s, he was heading down Butcher Street to find an orphanage that a contact said the kid was living at.
(Not sure why he’d leave, the woman had told him. He was a good kid, quiet. My husband had had him pegged to join the fishing crew when he was a little older, but I always thought he had a more gentle soul.)
The proprietress wasn’t the most welcoming person and eyed him with more suspicion than he rightly warranted. Unless she’d heard that he was Fell, and even then, she was pricklier than a fucking cactuar.
“Your kind don’t particularly care about the kids in my care,” she told him, voice cold.
Jareth had to force himself from growling and drawing his ax. This woman was fucking impossible. “Look,” he said, voice strained. “A kid died. A kid in your care who looked like he was living on the streets for a while from the looks of it. And you’re telling me you don’t know shit?”
The woman crossed her arms. “If you think you can come in here and accuse me of --”
“I’m not accusing you of anything, ma’am.” And fuck if that didn’t taste like bile in his mouth. “I’m asking a fucking quest--”
“You have quite overstayed your welcome, now please leave.”
Jareth turned on his heel and stalked out.
There was more than one way of finding out information.
22 cancer
The one good thing about the Tenements was that people tended to mind their own fucking business, and a hulking guy dressed in all black wasn’t an uncommon sight. Even one who had taken up residence against a wall, staring stonily across the street.
He’d been there for a few hours, but not a damn thing had happened. He was about to call it a day when the old hag stepped out of the door, clearly monitoring her surroundings. Her eyes traveled to where Jareth was watching, and he didn’t avert his eyes, ready for the confrontation, but she skimmed over him. Clearly satisfied, she took off down the street.
Jareth followed.
28 cancer
It still didn’t make sense.
Jareth scrubbed his hand over his face and yawned. He’d been up too long, had eaten too little, and there was still no end in sight. Once again, he lifted his notes on the case about the dead kid. Lillith had suggested talking to the other orphanages, seeing if they also had missing kids, and he’d followed up on it, but only two had, and both of those kids had simply run away - after he’d started looking into them, he’d found them without any trouble.
And they were alive. One was hiding in the Red Light district and one had gone back to the charred remains of his old house.
It was the girl who’d been watching the kid who’d gone to the whorehouses that had given him the tip he was puzzling over. “Rumor has it someone started up another brothel,” she’d said. “Specializing in underage kids. Last one was run by Wilde, but new leadership nipped that in the bud. No one’s tried it since.”
It was possible that two weren’t connected, but he couldn’t get Hier’s autopsy report out of his head. The legs were pried open and held apart.
He frowned and opened his desk drawer. Cat looked up at him sleepily and meowed, so Jareth scritched behind her ears for a moment before removing the original case report, skimming the witness’ account. Two men yelling that they’d lost one of them.
It didn’t make sense at the time, but the sickening feeling in Jareth’s gut was telling him that it would.
1 leo
Patrol was quiet, fortunately - gave him time to think. Well, it would have if a kid hadn’t rounded a corner and crashed right into him, a grown man on her heels. The girl looked up, terrified, and tried to push away until she saw the badge on his belt, then she hid behind his legs.
“There a problem?” he asked the man, who looked pissed. And well dressed in finery fitting for a noble. Or at least the servant of a noble house, at any rate. A noble wouldn’t sully themselves chasing a street kid; that’s what they had servants for.
“No, officer. I was just trying to…” the man trailed off.
The girl whimpered. Jareth glared. “Trying to what?”
“She had run into the middle of the street,” he replied smoothly. “I simply wished to impart that she should look where she was going.”
“Noted.” When the man didn’t leave, Jareth’s glare intensified. “Let’s give her a lesson at the guildhall.” The man paled and took off, leaving Jareth to scowl. He could chase the guy, but that would leave the kid alone. He turned and scooped the girl up, heading back towards the guildhall. She was shaking and Jareth felt wetness on his shoulder.
Shit. She was crying.
A moment of panic engulfed him as he tried to figure out how to calm the kid and subsided once he saw an ice cream cart. “How about some ice cream?” His voice sounded desperate to his own ears, but the girl’s shaking stopped and she pulled back enough to look at him, giving him a tiny nod.
Which was how, in the middle of his patrol, he was sitting on a bench watching a little girl - who was ten, she had informed him when he’d asked her for her name, which was Sara - eating ice cream. What the fuck is my life? “So, where do you live, Sara?”
She paused and looked up at him, eyes wide, tears pooling again. Shit shit shit. “I don’t have a home,” she said quietly.
Jareth frowned. “Well, where are you staying?”
“I was living at the orphanage, but then the madam said someone was going to adopt me and take me to a new home.” She was staring ahead. “But they were bad men. They wanted me to do bad things, so I ran away.”
Lead settled in Jareth’s stomach. “Do you know what those men’s names were?” She shook her head. “How about what orphanage you were at?”
This time, she looked at him and nodded. “Butcher Street.”
5 leo
He’d hit a fucking wall. Sara had given him some vague idea of where she’d been kept, but by the time he’d finally found the place this morning, it’d been cleared out. Not a damn thing was left. Every corner of the warehouse had been swept clean, leaving Jareth with just as much information as he’d had when he’d stormed the damn place.
None.
14 leo
“Give it up, Monaco,” Mendoza said. “We’ve got enough shit on our plate that a dead homeless kid shouldn’t be getting as much attention as you’ve been giving it.” He reached over to pet Cat, who hissed and swatted at him.
“Fuck off, Mendoza,” Jareth replied. “That kid’s got just as much a right to having their murder solved as anyone else.”
Mendoza sighed. “It’s not like anyone even gives a fuck,” he argued. “It’s a waste of resources, I tell you. A dead orphan is a dead--”
Jareth was up and pinning Mendoza to the wall by his throat before he could get the rest of his sentence out. “An orphan,” Jareth hissed, “is still a fucking hume.” A gasp drew his attention and he saw Lillith and one of the other officers standing in the doorway, watching. Jareth let Mendoza go and stalked out of the office, Cat trotting behind him.
20 leo
He still had nothing and was running out of leads. His last big one had been the warehouse, which he’d been staking out for the last two weeks. He’d tried talking to Sara, who had been taken in by one of the other orphanages, but she couldn’t tell him anything other than what she’d already told him.
Which left him with the only angle he hadn’t gone down yet - the fucking idiot who was chasing Sara. He remembered what the guy looked like, and if he could find him, maybe he could track him down. He should have taken the guy in back then, but he’d been too worried about the kid.
That was fine, though. Nobles had a way of making themselves known, and Jareth was good at finding people.
1 virgo
He’d been on patrol in the Nobles district when he saw him. The guy who’d been chasing Sara. The extra shifts in this fucking district had finally paid off. Calmly, Jareth continued walking, making note of everything around him, including the manor that he was in front of. The man caught sight of him and paled, but Jareth kept going, nonchalant.
When he got back to his office, it took less than five minutes to find out the asshole’s employer.
Lord Miliona.
4 virgo
“We don’t have anything to pin to him, Monaco,” Yasika said. The interim head of the EKP was tired and overworked, trying to catch up on the shit that had fallen by the wayside when Thornton had stepped down, and Jareth could hear sincere frustration in her voice when she spoke. Yasika wanted to take down Miliona as much as Jareth. “We can’t even bring him in without his consent.”
Jareth sighed. “There’s gotta be some loophole we can exploit.”
Yasika shook her head. “Not how it works, and you know it. Look, if this is the bastard who’s doing it, then I want to nail him as much as you, but we’ve got a process. You need to have something solid. Our hands are tied.”
He nodded and stood, waiting for her to dismiss him.
If they needed more evidence, then he’d get it. Somehow.