Chapter Fifteen
Over the next two weeks Mana and the others found significantly more bodies. The first body they found was a man named Spike. The killer had left him in the same spot near the YMCA where the very first victim, Angel, was found. And then the next was Drusilla. She had been killed in the same spot Sheila was, in an alley near the café. And then a couple was killed, Tara and Willow, near the courthouse and the Mayor's house. And the killer's latest victims were another couple, Rupert and Wesley, who were found near the Post Office.
"What the fuck is wrong with this guy?!" Mana exclaimed the next day. In a rare turn of events Mana, Percival, Theseus, Tierney, and Tina all met at Mana's private eye office. Usually they refrained from all meeting in person but the killer had dropped 8 more bodies in the span of two weeks so it was pretty important. And the private eye office was considered by both mobs to be mostly neutral territory. Mana did run her business out of the office but Tina also worked there full time so it wasn't as partisan as it could have been.
"He's batshit crazy." Tierney said dryly. "I thought that much was clear, considering we have, like what? 10 bodies."
"Yeah, I got that, thanks. I was more referring to the fact that he keeps killing people even after we resurrect them. Like I would have thought that he would have given up." Mana rolled her eyes.
"You seriously thought that he would just give up all because his victims keep coming back to life?" Tierney asked blandly.
"Well of course not but I thought that he would at least slow down and not speed up." Mana huffed. "I also hoped that we would have more to go on by now."
"But we don't and he didn't." Tina pointed out.
Percival and Theseus opened their mouths to retort but Mana held up her hand and their mouths snapped shut. "This isn't really helpful, we should get down to business."
"To defeat the Huns?" Tierney half sang half asked.
"Well yes, but no. I was talking about getting down to business to figure out who the fuck is killing all of the townspeople." Mana said.
"Do we have anything new to go off of?" Percival asked.
"Not that I heard from any of the victims' ghosts." Tierney shrugged.
"What about the discord?" Tina asked.
"Nothing." Theseus sighed. "The only thing that we learned was that the killer had a backpack as well. Most of the discord is all of them arranging meet ups. Apparently Angel and Spike are now dating and Drusilla and Sheila are also dating."
"That's gay." Tierney interjected.
"Anyway," Theseus continued as if Tierney had not spoken. "As far as we know nothing new has come from them."
"I have an idea." Tina raised her hand.
"Tina, you don't have to raise your hand. We are all adults here." Tierney pointed out.
"I know that." Tina blushed hotly and lowered her hand and fell silent.
"What was your idea?" Percival asked after it became clear that Tina wasn't going to elaborate.
"We should write everything down that we know up on the board or something so that we are all on the same page. And maybe we could put up some crime scene photos or something. We could even get a map!" Tina exclaimed.
"You want us to make a murder board?" Mana asked incredulously.
"I don't know if I would call it that-" Tina trailed off.
"What else would you call it?" Percival asked.
"I don't know." Tina shrugged. "Not that."
"Well we can't do that anyway. We don't have crime scene photos, as that would kind of defeat the purpose of keeping this under the radar." Mana pointed out.
"We could probably still write everything down that we know. And get a map. Who knows, maybe we'll figure something else out." Theseus shrugged.
"Ok, yeah, fine. We can consolidate our knowledge. But it might take a while for a map. I don't think we have one in the office." Mana sighed. "Percy, we have a big notepad in the back. We can use that."
"On it boss." Percival nodded and went to the storage room to dig for the giant notepad. It only took Percival about 10 minutes to find the giant notepad. And when he returned they all got down to work writing down everything that they knew. Of course it wasn't a very long list even when they added all of the names that they still hadn't crossed off. "Well," Mana said when they were done. "I guess it's not a lot but there it is."
"So, what do we do now?" Tierney asked.
"We still need a map!" Tina exclaimed.
"That's going to take a hot second because we don't have one in the office." Mana replied. "But honestly there's not really much we can do besides keep an eye out for this guy."
"What are we even supposed to look for? Some middle aged guy who isn't creepy?" Tierney snorted.
"We could always ask Newt to try and find him." Tina suggested. Theseus glared at her and she shrank back. "Or we could not do that."
"That's what I thought." Theseus nodded sharply.
"Theseus you need to chill. No, we are not talking about this again." Mana held up a hand when Theseus had opened his mouth to retort. "I guess for now we can all go home."
"I feel like we should be doing more." Tina grumbled unhappily.
"There is nothing more we can do. Furthermore, we aren't the police. We don't have an obligation to actually find this guy." Percival pointed out bluntly.
"I know that." Tina said defensively. "Why are we even looking for him then?"
"He's bad for business." Mana said bluntly. Tina opened and closed her mouth but no sound came out. She didn't really have a response to that, no one did. Soon after that they all dispersed for the night.