Bats, Bones and Fungi, Oh My! (Closed to Bones)

Ace was in a taxi on his way to L.A, on his first actual mission *Finally a mission, an actual mission, Not recruiting new sentinels, a real mission*, Ace shouldn't had been to excited. It was just a investigation, apparently this detective guy needed backup, they told him his name was "Bones", Ace presumed it was a nickname, he was obviously so old he could be a skeleton by now, Ace chuckled at this thought *A living skeleton, that's rather far isn't it*

Ace arrived at the LAPD, the smell of spray paint and several types of drugs filled the air, L.A was very different to San fransisco, atleast to Ace it was. He went inside "I'm here to see Detective Bones"
"Ah, Yes you must be his partner for this case" said the receptionist "take a seat, il buzz him in"

Ace took a seat in the room, the seat was comfy, but he still couldnt shake the fact that he was in a “Prison”, Ace didn't like prisons, they made him feel uncomfortable, he didn't like police either, he didn't really like anything that restricted his control over a situation, he only really joined the sentinels to have more control over any situation. The receptionist was buzzing away, dialing in numbers like crazy, Ace was left wondering what the detective was up to. 

Back when he was a private investigator, about a year or so after getting out of his grave, a nervous LAPD secretary had called his number. He had moved into the city and was basically living in a poky apartment. No one was taking the walking skeleton all that seriously with his claims of, “Solving any Mystical or Magical Problem.” To be fair he didn't even take it seriously that much himself, until every now and then he'd get called to handle some odd little anomaly or put a damn magical creature back in its place. It was a hard time in his life, especially when he found it difficult to regular bone suppliers and even proper fitting clothes or equipment. Equipment being guns. One late night as he sat morose in an armchair he had found in an alleyway he got a phone call from a nervous secretary from the LAPD police department. Apparently one of the beat officers had heard about him and even saw the skeleton once get into some pretty vicious fisticuffs with what seemed to be an anthropomorphic alligator from the sewers.

“Bodies keep going missing,” She said shakily, as if speaking about it was going to make hers disappear. “From the morgue; it was only a body here and there,” There was hissing from someone on the other end of the line, “And the damn Coroner hid that until suddenly five bodies were going missing and then every single draw was empty.” Frankie had asked her to stop for a moment as he opened his notebook and jotted down a question, which he asked softly and soothingly in his best Con Man voice obtained through years working with the Mafia. “Thirty.” Was the reply, which was a pretty big number when you thought about it.

He said he'd be right there.

To make a long story short, it seemed that there was a spattering of body disappearances almost fifty years prior to this little incident and then there was a local legend fifty years prior to that of people going missing from the grave yard, all the way back to late 17 hundreds when LA was first founded. Of course, the only reason no one else had made this connection was the long period of zero activity as whatever was doing it either was barred from this plane of existence or was in fact sleeping off its hard earned meal. Suffice it to say Bones actually enjoyed doing this one, even if it was a bit morbid to find the false wall in the boiler room, even if he found the half gnawed bones of two or so centuries worth of dead people what seemed to be a horrible mockery of Frankies own form. It had flesh but it was sunken and paper like, eyes having pickled in its own head to blackness, its teeth sharp and its belly pressed clearly against spines.

From the brief conversation he was able to have before killing it, Bones discovered the creature was a Wendigo.

Now there's a point to this tangent of history; since then the LAPD had basically allowed Bones to use the room as his own private storage room. All of his files went there, or at least all the legal ones. There was also an In tray for officers to put some of the weirder case for him to take a look at. He was never officially in the force, but he might as well have been. But that came with draws backs it seem, as he was visited by the chief one day and then given a buzz on the phone. Straightening a black tie he made his way to the little room where he would be meeting his partner on another gruesome case, one that had continually stumped Frankie. As he entered the room, he was holding a file full of information, but he stopped as he lifted his head and blinked.

”... Your a kid.”

"And your a skeleton, which one do you think is more far-fetched?" Ace asked the skeleton detective "Detective Bones I presume?" Ace held out his hand to shake "I'm Ace by the way"[/color]. *He seems more surprised about the fact that I'm a kid than the fact that he's a skeleton* Ace thought it over for a second *Wait but he would know and be used to the fact that he's a skeleton so- Great now I have a headache*

Ace looked at the detective "So what's the case Detective?" Ace looked at Bones (Sorry if it's too short, didn't know what to say)

Oh great. So not only a kid, but an impetuous one. Great. Fantastic. With a firm grip, or what was firm for a skeleton without muscle or sinew, he gave the... was Boy the right word to use? Nah. Kid'll do. ”I'll have you know it's a skin condition,” He joked dryly as he dropped the case down on the desk. ”I don't like to talk about it.” Frankie sat first, pulling out the chair and settling down into it. His elbows were propped up on the table as he opened the case and turned it around, pushing it towards the Kid. The top few items were pictures of desecrated graves. Bodies, not really fresh but not fully decomposed, had been plucked out from the ground and had their gooey rotting bits licked off the bones. Here are there some flesh, untouched by the ravages of decomposition, had been left completely untouched.

With a critical eyeless socket, he inspected the Kid for a moment or two, to gauge his reaction to the images. And then he said softly, ”Th'names Frankie. Frankie Brokedell. Consultant Detective. You are?”

The Skeleton spoke with a tone that Ace had only heard in old detective movies, for a moment he expected the environment to go all black and white and soft saxophone music playing in the background, But none of that happened and Ace was just standing there watching the detective. The detective sat down at the table, Ace pulled up a chair on the opposite side and he was shown the case photos. They were gruesome, nothing Ace couldn't handle but he did cringe at them. Bones stripped of their skin, it wasn't natural, and some of the fresh skin was left in place, odd. "Im Ace, Ace-" Ace paused " Just Ace, Im your partner for this case." Ace looked at the skeleton, he assumed he was looking back but it was hard to tell as he had no eyeballs. "So do you have any idea what has happened? Correct me if i'm wrong but this doest look like a case of grave robbery"

”Ha.” He leant back in the chair. ”Just Ace helping with the Case. Okay, fine.” He shrugged off the momentary question of a last name, which was not necessary he supposed but still irritating for someone who had to work close with someone else. Instead, he simply nodded his head and divulged the information he could. ”Over the New Year, numerous graveyards around LA were apparently dug up. The coffins were dragged out of the grave and broken open by what appeared to be large claws. The same marks were in the ground and some of the tombstones.” As he said this he pulled the pictures out of the file and put them on display. Each one seemed to be snapshots of various graveyards. ”We've had some of the animal guys look over the marks and they are big. Very big. Dinosaur claws big.”

He let that sink in for a moment as he withdrew his cigar case from his pocket and chomped down on it.

”The bodies removed are a few weeks old. They apparently have to be in the gooey stage of decomposition to provide any kind of sustenance. From what I've been working on, I'm thinking some kind of wild animal of the supernatural variety. However I'm stumped on just what exactly. This kind of behaviour is just odd and damaging to their whole secrecy thing.” He carefully lit the cigar with a match, which he struck slowly and then lifted to the end. If Frankie had lungs he would have breathed in around it to make sure it stayed light up, but the best he could do was pretend that he did and still puff anyway.

”What's your expertise with the supernatural anyway? Like, what dynasty and what creatures?” He spoke casually. This wasn't the first time they had pulled in other “consultants” like him.

The Skeleton created a rhyme, Ace was going to make a question of who died and made him a certain children's author before considering that he'd probably heard it before. He explained that recently, graveyards have been broken into by something much bigger and much more dangerous than humans *Wait, if these things are so big and scary why are they taking the already dead*. Frankie showed him the photos of the claw marks, deep grooves cut into the stone of the tombstone like it was butter. "Its lucky their already dead then isn't it" Ace joked nervously "Because if this thing went up against a regular human it would rip them to shreds"

Frankie put a cigar in his mouth "Thats bad for your health" Ace stopped for a second to think about what he just said, "Err Never mind". Frankie described his theory about how the bodies had to be decomposing to have these creatures come after them, and how he thought it was a supernatural wild animal. Frankie asked him about his experience with the supernatural "Well i guess that depends on what you call supernatural, 2 of my friends are aliens and thats about my extent of the supernatural, unless you count superpowers then I've got a fair bit of experience in that, i lead a team of young superhumans" Ace said "So what do you suggest we do first detective"

Frankie nodded his head as the kid made a smart observation; large creatures like this could tear a man in two, but they seemed to be only after the dead. That was good. That meant he was working with someone who wasn't severely below him on the intelligence ladder. The next sentence however began to sow the seed's of doubt in his mind as he dryly looked across the table, cigar bright. The genuine surprise that Ace seemed to have that he said something like that made him laugh a little, though, pulling the cigar out of his clenched jaw to ash it on the desk away from the files.

But he was not pleased to find out Ace had absolutely no experience in Bones' field. The aliens thing was interesting and now Bones was aware that he was most likely a superhuman, but his brow had descended and the passionless skull seemed to irradiate out dissatisfaction. ”Okay, so you're not an expert on things that go bump in the night. And from your age I'd say you're too young to actually be that much of an established Hero. So who are you? How did you get yourself assigned to this case?”

He crossed his stick thin arms in his well maintained, dark grey suit, leaning back in his chair as he lifted a twig like leg to fold it over the other one. He was not happy, judging from the way his teeth were cutting their way into the base of the cigar.

Ace was surprised at the skeletons next question, he asked him who he was and how he got assigned to the case. Ace looked the skeleton in the eye, or at least where his eyes would be and opened his mouth to say something, before realising he didn't know what to say "I don't know who i am" Ace said in whispered tone, he averted his eyes away from bones gaze before snapping back to them "Honestly i don't know who i am, i don't remember my parents and i wasn't given a nave by my parents, i was given one by the orphanage, apparently Ace was the only one they didn't have double ups on" Ace explained, "I discovered i had powers when i was 12 by accidentally teleporting to a phone booth on the other side of town. Anyway i eventually learn how to use my powers and my town was destroyed" Ace skipped over this part, he didn't like talking about it "And then in an event with a GPS system trying to get to somewhere where i wasn't in danger i teleported to New York. I helped people out as a street-level hero before going for a holiday to California where i saved the state with Sim and Blackout and formed the Sentinels, I don't know why i got assigned this case, maybe because i'm one of the guys that helped save a damn governmental body" Ace stopped and took a breath. "I hope that answered your questions, now Mr Brokedell if you don't want me on the case i'm fine with that just say so"

The skeleton drummed his twig like fingers on his non-existent bicep. He was critically watching the movements of the Kid's face, trying to map everything out, trying to read him as if they were playing a game of poker. From what he could tell, Ace was either being completely honest or he was an expert liar. Frankie didn't figure him as an expert anything. But he made a note to look into the Sentinels and Ace's role. He did pause though, as a name struck a memory in him. Blackout. Blackout had tried to help Bones break a couple of hostages free of some maniacs control. They got a lot of them out but there were still one or two who ended up going Boom. And the skeleton had kind of lost control after that and almost ended the Villains life.

He was brought back when he lifted his skull lightly and then dipped his head, as if nodding. Frankie realised this might look bad, as if he had just told Ace, ”Yeah I don't want you on this case.” He sat up and instead slid his fingers in the files, looking for the map. When he found it he folded it out and smoothed over the creased lines with a gloved hand. Here and there were red stickers dotted about on the map of LA, almost all in Graveyards. However, there was one outlier to them all it seemed; out in a park of all places.

”There's only one lead we have so far but I doubt it's going to do much good.” He paused to ash the end of the cigar once more, head tilted down to look at the map, but his eyes locked on Ace's face from under the brim of his fedora. ”The first body dragged out of a park. Construction crews were renovating it and someone must have snuck a body out there hoping it would be landscaped over. When it was dragged out it was gooey like the rest of them, but they left behind some identification which is being traced as we speak. We can find out who the person is, work out why they were killed and if that has any link to the creatures. But it's a long shot.”

At the end of Ace's rant he flipped his head back behind the chair, his dark brown hair flipping on his neck. Ace did this when he was stressed, he was doing this quite often but it seemed his rant had worked as the skeleton started explaining where his leads were.He pulled out a map, it was littered with red dots, like a young child with chicken pox. A park of all places, if TV shows were anything to go by, a park is generally the only place for a supernatural occurrence, either that or a forest, Turn out someone had tried to hide a body in a construction site in the park, that obviously worked.
While the skeleton was explaining Ace was listing the supernatural creatures that could have done this in his head, Ace had a good idea about what this might be, A Werewolf, But if it was a werewolf then all the attacks would have to line up with a full moon and Ace doubted that werewolves would go after the dead. "Do we have any reason that these, things would only go after the dead not the living?" Ace asked, he doubted he'd have anything but it was worth a shot.

Bones stood as he shook his head. He began to collect up the pieces of the file and slide them back in place, before he closed it and lifted it up. ”Not a clue, Kid. I really have no idea.” The skeleton shrugged his bony shoulders and looked almost glum for a second, his head bobbing down on the thin twig that was a neck. But then he kind of stepped back and indicated with his head that they were beginning to move. From his pocket, he removed what seemed to be a mobile phone, which he tapped away at with a bony finger. A request for the information he wanted to be waiting from him by the door so they could jump into the Buick and be there in no time at all. He looked up from his head to give the Kid a sidelong look. ”The betting pool is, among the normal cops, it's some kind of sick homeless person and an attack dog. Among the more inclined, a werewolf has been mentioned once or twice but I don't know. Werewolves don't work on this pattern. They like the things they're eating to be moving.”

He took a few steps out of the room and checked the kid was following him, before he moved a little faster through the halls of the precinct. ”Wendigo is out because they like to find dark holes and decaying bodies close by. They don't go on city wide grave plunderings and they don't leave a mess.” Franklin sounded actually worried as he left a trial of smoke behind him, pulling his car keys from a trouser pocket and swinging them around on a finger tip as they made their way through a busy station full of struggling criminals and loud women who seemed to be wearing only floss. Out by the doorway, a rookie stood with another file like the one Bones was carrying.

With his eyes on Ace he paused to swap the two of them and then descended the steps into the bright Los Angeles sun. It's always sunny in LA. They turned around the building to the department's garage, where a large polished and rather swanky looking Buick '51 Special sat. Bones pushed the files over the roof of the car and nodded his head at them, indicating Ace should take a look as Franklin slipped into the car. ”Who's the guy then?”

The Skeleton had know idea why they they were attacking the dead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out what seemed like a cell phone. He explained what the other cops thought "I don't think an attack dog could do this type of damage". He also addressed the theory on werewolves, solidifying Ace's theory on them tending to eat living things. The skeleton got up and brought the file with him, he started walking out. Ace got up and followed him.

He explained that Wendigo's were out swell, they didn't like walking very far, traveling was not a wendigo's way. He sounded worried, like this case was something he didn't get. they continued walking to the outside of the building, the sun was shining, ever since moving to San Francisco he had gotten used to the overly sunny weather. They walked up to quite an old car, ok quite is lying, very old, so old that Ace thought it didn't have seatbelts, Even though it was old it was pretty. There was a man in a uniform next to the car, he handed the skeleton the file and took the other one, he gestured for him to read it.

Ace picked up the file and started reading "His name's Andrew Monroe, ex-priest, I say ex, because he' went missing a mont or so ago, Turns out his body was the one found in the park" Ace explained "\. Apparently he wasn't like in the community, people think god is punishing him and all that mumbo-jumbo." Ace continued, he couldn't care less about religion, as long as you didn't shove it down his throat it's fine "So it looks like we have our first lead then"

Bones closed the car door, fished out his keys and slipped them into the Buick's Ignition. The engine purred to life as his head was tilted down looking at his lap. Priest not liked by his community huh? Wonder why they called him cursed. Gloved bones closed around the wheel as he waited for the kid to get and then he pulled out of the precinct slowly. ”Well, hope yer not jewish Kid.” He muttered around the cigar in his mouth, the small compartment being rapidly filled with the smoke of tobacco. And then Frankie put his foot down and the black car shot forward through the LA traffic. The car was fast. Very fast; the original speedometer's needle shot all the way to one end and then ached to keep going as the skeletons arms jerked from right to left. Ace was wrong about the lack of seatbelts. They were new and put in to stop the inhabitants of the front seat (which looked a lot like a comfortable bench) from bouncing into each other every time there was a sharp turn.

Traffic laws were broken. Corners were taken at speeds Corners should not be taken at. And at one point, Bones had dropped his cigar into his lap which then bounced down to the floor of the cab which he chased by telling the kid to take over holding the wheel. It only took him a minute or two to find the offending nub that was promptly dusted off and stuck back between bone jaws. Then he retook the wheel, almost rear ending a cab in the process.

Frankie might not have been the most legal of drivers, after all how would you do a breath test on him or get him to walk a straight line touching his nose, but it was only less then fifteen minutes before they were pulling up in front of a church downtown. Buildings stood over it on all sides but the little model of a seventeenth century church had withstood the march of time. Or at least weathered it; windows were barred and in some places boarded, graffiti lined one wall (although the Christian iconography painted into it was okay; an image of Jesus on a cross took most of it up but someone had panted maharajah into one of his hands) and a thick iron fence surrounded it, with thick iron doors.

Parking in front of the church he pulled his keys from the ignition and stepped out to the warm pavement, looking the door behind him. ”Come on Kid.”

Ace was wrong about the seat belts, they were there, and Ace was never so happy for seat-belts in his life. Not only was the car an obvious health and safety hazard, Ace assumed no one wanted to mess with the guy who was dead. The car ride to the church was thrilling and horribly terrifying at the same time, Ace cursed repeatedly under his breath whenever he slammed into the handle of the door when Frankie took a turn too fast. Ace was sure he was going to throw up when he finally got out of the car. Frankie headed out and Ace hesitated before stepping out, his head hadn't felt this bad since he had a run in with some thugs who smashed his head into a wall, lets just say they were in severe need of medical help afterwards.

Ace stepped out of the car and steadied himself on the ground, trying to get his bearings. He stood out the front of the chapel, it looked like it had seen better days, much better days, there was graffiti on all the murals, Ace was sure that was a blasphemy of some kind. Frankie looked like he was waiting, though it was hard to tell, you know, his face was kind of missing. Ace started walking up the steps and pulled open the door, it was unlocked. Ace could hear footsteps coming towards the door, he echo of the chapel enhanced them until a small man in white robes came into Ace's view. He was about Ace's height, mid 50's to early 60's, Balding, pudgy, he smelt of soap and spoke with a heavy tongue. "Hello child, how may i help you on this glorious day?" The Priest (Because he was obviously a priest) asked excitedly.
"Glorious day? What's so special about today? Is there a holiday i'm missing?" Ace asked, genuinely confused, the Priest scrunched his face up, It looked like a bruised plumb.
"My child" The priest spoke, splattering Ace with spit "It is sunday, God's day of worship, surely you must know that." Ace wiped his face with his sleave
"Oh yeah, sunday, god's day" Ace skimmed over, trying not to piss this guy off any more if he could "anyway, me and my friend here we're wondering if we could use your facilities" Ace opened the door wider so he could see Frankie. The priest's eyes widened when he saw him and a curse escaped his lips "Jesus Christ" he whispered before fainting and falling to the floor. Ace looked back at Frankie,
"Well that was easier than i thought, lets go find evidence. That's what you guys do right?" Ace asked "Detectives that is, not skeletons"