“So, a homicide.” The middle-aged detective scratched his beard. He sighed next, narrowing his gaze towards the window before turning to the doorknob at his side. “No signs of forced entry. Neighbors heard nothing but a grunt in the middle of the night, followed by a loud thud… The victim presumably died thereafter.”

He froze, tilting his head, and reinspecting the vases surrounding the dead body on the floor. Swallowing his saliva, he turned to his partner who waited on his call. “This has the same MO as one of the Leblanc’s; Tom, what did the others say?”

“The guards of this apartment, Lt. Higgins?” Tom fixed his blue jacket and straightened his back. “W-well I’ve… I went door-to-door… and all of them claimed they did not know the man much. When the first respondents determined that this case seemed magical in nature, they immediately pulled out and turned it over to us. We only had the victim's name to work with."

"Yeah, I remember," Lt. Higgins grumbled and gave his attention back to the room. He raised his foot wordlessly a second later, but he hesitated and pulled himself back.

Tom, too, swallowed his saliva at the moment Lt. Higgins clicked his tongue as he retreated. It allowed both of their eyes to be dragged towards the body. The victim had the body of a man with nothing left to show except his legs. He was wearing a pair of gray jogging pants and slippers of the same color, and everything from his waist up was gone. The rest of his flesh was reduced to a pile of ground meat that dirtied the carpeted floors as well as a part of its walls in a cone.

“Have we evacuated the civilians out of the building?”

Tom glanced at Lt. Higgins and clenched his teeth. Other than the white ceramic vases and the few plastic ornaments that resembled dragon and tiger heads decorating the room, it was odd that his attention was always spiraling back to the dead body on the floor.

Lt. Higgins held his breath. Unnerved by this sudden silence, Tom scratched the back of his head and blurted, “W-we did, but are we really sure about this. I mean—”

“We aren’t,” Lt. Higgins shook his head. “But I’m not going to step inside and die just to prove a point. We can only do so much with this investigation. We need to examine the body, but we can’t just waltz in there now that this scene smells like it involved spatial divination, probably Feng Shui.”

Tom crossed his arms. He found himself squinting at the dead man's laptop resting on his table. “So, Leblancs?”

“Possibly, this type of magic is user-friendly but it’s such a bitch to set up; it apparently needs a lot of catalysts to redirect and use the earth’s energies and whatnot. That explains the vases.” Lt. Higgins let out a nervous chuckle and scratched his neck before adding, “It looks like it went wrong too, given that half of his body is gone. Say, what do we know about the victim again?”

Tom knitted his brows. “Greg Dimapilis, a forty-three-year-old Asian man. Unemployed, no immediate family… and no prior listed relationships either. If the list of nos goes on, we’d reach ‘no buts, no cuts, no coconuts.’ He’s the kind of dude that sticks out of society pretty well. We don’t know if he’s debt-ridden yet since they called us at first light, but we’ll get more details once the bank opens later.”

“Someone who's isolated and who's probably debt-ridden... See, they’re oddly close.” Lt. Higgins gave Tom a smug smile. “Asians have become common, but their magic practitioners are at an all-time low; this narrows down our suspect’s list to three or four.”

“Let me guess,” Tom shook his head. “as I’ve said, Leblancs?”

“Sure, given they’re recent activities.” Lt. Higgins squinted before looking away with a faint laugh. “Well, this might be just a normal case of murder. Did you find anything with their security?”

“It's...” Tom cupped his chin in defeat. “It’s empty. No one entered the room yesterday according to the CCTV, except for Greg, while carrying a bag full of plastic Tiger and Dragon heads. I’ve already coordinated with the rest of the team to investigate the shops around town. They promised to give us what we need by the end of the day."

“See, I might be right, but this is something we should not be happy about.” Lt. Higgins sighed. The room still looked the same, but it was unnerving that his eyes were being dragged towards the body. “We could wait around for the rest of the team to turn up, but it won't hurt us to know more. Let’s just call for Penelope at the Tea Shop to get this over with.”

“Actually, sir,” Tom looked down and smiled to himself. “I already called them...”

“Good job taking the initiative, Tom.” Lt. Higgins tapped his shoulder. “What did they tell you?”

“They told me to fuck off…” Tom winced when Lt. Higgins’ smile devolved into an ugly frown. “I specifically asked for a kabbalist’s help since she could just snap her fingers, but the manager told me that he had Penelope working at an event in a different state; he’s sending Rosemarie to help us instead.”

Lt. Higgins let out a long breath through his nose. “They have massive balls for denying us, but still,” he turned to the vases once again. “sending a witch might work.”

“I actually said those words since you told me to be firm, Lt. Higgins.” Tom let out a nervous laugh as he played with his fingers. “He laughed at me and told me to shut the fuck up before giving me a heads up for another girl named Verdell Silbert; he dropped the call after that. I had her looked up, of course. She’s a Mythos Specialist that would be working with them as their intern for about half a year starting today."

Lt. Higgins scratched his neck and gave Tom a nervous glare. “I see…”

“I gave the guards outside a heads up, too, so they should be coming here at any moment now.” Tom looked at the body once again, but this time, he wasn’t able to turn himself away.

Tom raised his foot and placed it by the door. Feeling as though he had snagged an unseen string, he squirmed and jumped back to Lt. Higgins. A moment of silence came, but when they thought they could relax, a wave of green ethereal hands appeared and dragged them towards the room from the hallway.