Chapter Text
Lucy’s back hurt.
That was her only thought in the cab drive to the crime scene. Any other thoughts, such as when she tried to examine the brief she’d been given, tried to prepare herself for what she was about to see, were washed away by the feeling of a phantom knife wedged between her shoulder blades. She needed to pull herself together, otherwise she would be receiving a lecture from Ari for certain. Those were the worst.
But as she stepped out of the cab, those trivial complaints of aches and lectures were immediately overtaken by the sickly sweet aroma that filled the air. It assaulted her nares and made bile rise in her throat, but she pressed on. She could see the tall silhouette of Ari in the distance, standing over the carnage as tall and upright as ever with her pure white outfit that looked so incongruous amidst all the chaos, not a speck of dust to be seen despite the setting she stood in. Lucy didn’t need to see her face to know she was staring on with the same apathetic calculation she always wore. But it still unsettled her to see her completely level face as she began to approach the crime scene and see for herself what had happened in the night. She supposed it was only natural that age had hardened her heart, especially as the city’s Surgeon General.
‘These..poor people—‘ Lucy started as she moved to stand by Ari’s side, but she was swiftly interrupted.
‘Yes, peasants. The lot of them. Burned to death after the explosions caused by The Raven no doubt.’ Ari only spared her a glance.
The previous bombing a few weeks ago carried no casualties, and deductions of the surroundings showed The Raven must’ve gone through painstaking efforts for it to have ended that way. But this?
It was a bloodbath.
How Ari had managed to discern any form of identity for these people was beyond her, because there was nothing to discern. What lay before them were blackened skeletons, lay in puddles of blood that had since cooled and blackened from a boiling point. Only small scraps of flesh managed to cling onto a few of the victims, and even then it still wasn’t enough to indicate any sort of useful information. But with the severity of the sight before them, Lucy didn’t care about useful information. Her only thoughts were wondering how they were going to careful and respectfully extract the bodies, wondering how on earth they were going to find and inform the families, wondering how they were going to bury these souls with the dignity they deserved.
Wondering how The Raven could sleep at night knowing they did this.
The next time Lucy attended Church, she would pray for all these people. The Lord would show them more kindness and mercy in his kingdom than they were ever shown in this life. And she would continue to pray that The Raven will never know peace after all they’ve done.
‘A single bomb caused all this..? What kind of explosives is this person able to access?’ She couldn’t help but mutter to herself.
‘It matters not, the rest of the coroners will be here shortly to take the deceased. You have permission to search the scene for any hints of an identity or a location.’
‘Of course, I’ll get on that now..but while I’m here, what is that smell?’ She knew it was risky to ask, but her curiosity got the better of her.
‘We are stood before a pile of charred bodies. What do you expect, detective?’ Ari raised an eyebrow in a rare display of an expression. It was brief, fleeting even, but it still made Lucy’s stomach turn somehow more than the scene before her.
‘But I’ve smelled a burn victim before!—‘ she began, but then quickly coughed, trying to force her voice to remain steady, ‘This smell is nothing like that, it’s too..sweet.’
‘Ah. So you’ve caught on.’ Ari seemed to sigh as she folded her hands behind her back. ‘What you’re smelling is simply a perfume the coroners insisted on using to douse the place. They told me they have apprentices among them this time, and fear the reactions their stomachs may have to a scene as large as this might contaminate the scene.’
‘…Right. Ok then—‘ she couldn’t help the face she made as she took a hesitant step away, heading straight to where she could only assume the bomb had detonated. Gunpowder samples could be sent to a lab, and with luck may lead to a supplier of some sort.
As the coroners were beginning to wrap up the scene, Lucy couldn’t help but notice something peculiar. While the bodies weren’t hers to examine, her keen eye caught a glint of colour amidst the blackened rubble. She looked around to see if any of the coroners were going to pick up on this, even though she knew they most likely wouldn’t. Then she simply invited herself over to investigate.
The object was squished between two burnt carcasses, completely unidentifiable. She whispered a quick prayer beneath her breath as she careful extracted the material from between the two. It was easy enough, it was positioned like it had simply fallen in the crossfire. All she had to do was swipe at it gently to be rid of the soot and dust, otherwise it was in completely mint condition. Brand new, if anything. A ticket that looked like it was trying to be golden, but instead was a horrid almost-green colour. It was to a speakeasy on the east side, notorious for being the more ‘dodgy’ part of the city as Gabby would often say. A speakeasy that branded itself so openly was a jackpot for a criminal underworld, often times those establishments feared no authority because they bribed their way to safety. The Angels would not be kind to this place. For to be so unharmed, this had to have belonged to The Raven, she reasoned. But then the doubt began to creep in.
Even if this did belong to The Raven, if it was dropped during the explosion, it still should’ve been damaged. The only way it could be so clean was if they had returned after the explosion and it was dropped then. But what business did The Raven have to return to the scene? Did they initially forget to leave their calling card, and this just happened to fall out of a pocket? Not impossible, but highly improbable. The Raven was deliberate and cunning, as much as she hated to admit it. She didn’t doubt they planned every single step they took in advance and with incredible caution from the moment they left their lair to the moment they returned. For 3 years, 5 months and now 28 days, no one had caught even the briefest of glimpses of this mastermind. She doubted that they wanted that to change, so for such an obvious piece of evidence to be left in plain sight..
All things considered, it had to be a red herring. A trap of sorts. The Raven didn’t do ‘accidents’, especially mistakes so significant and careless as this. It just wouldn’t make sense when all factors were taken into consideration. It had to be planted, it had to be fake. In fact, they were probably hoping for her to take the bait, to bring every Angel the city could offer just so they could butcher them like lambs to the slaughter. But Lucy was too clever for such a simple plot. She wouldn’t do that to her own people. She refused to—-
‘I see you’ve been meddling where you don’t belong again.’ Ari’s stern voice startled her out of her inner monologue, as she scrambled to make sure the ticket didn’t slip out of her grasp in her surprise.
‘Surgeon General! Its just, I uh..I couldn’t help but notice this—-‘
‘A ticket?’ Ari hummed, still a strange sound on Lucy’s ears every time she heard it even after knowing her for almost all her life. ‘A good find, I must commend you on your appreciation for the finer details. Hand it in with the rest of the evidence, we’ll get a warrant signed.’
‘But—-‘ she went to warn, but was cut off by Ari’s cold and unforgiving gaze that actually seemed to soften slightly after a brief moment.
‘Hm? Did you say something, child?’
She hated when Ari called her ‘child’. It was her way of asking her to leave without explicitly saying it.
‘…Nothing, Surgeon General. Take care.’ She feigned a smile.
‘You too, Lucy. Take some time off after you hand that in. Gabby tells me you’re exhausted, you know as well as I do that your way of working is detrimental to your health.’
And with that, Ari simply turned and left to go speak with the senior coroners on scene.
She trusted Lucy to hand it in to evidence. It’s what she should do, the right thing to do. If her superior believed it to be a legitimate piece of evidence, then she should trust them. Yet with every step her body took closer, her mind screamed at her that this was wrong. She wondered just how much the smell must be messing with her cognitive function to make her think this way, to make her doubt her own mentor of all people. She couldn’t excuse her actions enough to erase the guilt when she simply pocketed the ticket and hailed a cab to take her back to the station. She was grateful to have fresh air fill her lungs for a change, she felt like she could finally think clearly again.
And the first clear thought that occurred to her was that her back still hurt.