"Let’s wait overnight," Larissa said. "If Jack or Mira find sothing, then... we will hopefully not have to go there."
Ning raised an eyebrow with a curious look. What could she possibly be talking about? He hadn’t the slightest idea despite all his mories. The best he could think was that she had an informant, which would be rude of him to ask about.
Most cops and detectives kept their informants a secret for the sake of their informants’ safety after all. Ning knew a few of his own informants from over five years ago, but all of them had to have moved on, so there was no point in going to find them.
"She’ll be active at night, so I’ll have the cops on the lookout for her," Larissa said. "In the anwhile, we can follow up on the area surrounding where the death happened and see if any other caras picked up her leaving."
"You found the corpse in the sewer, right?" Ning asked.
Larissa nodded.
"What if she left through the sewer tunnels? Most vampires have their lairs there since they don’t like sunlight," Ning said.
"Only the rogue ones," Larissa said. "And the tunnel system under Limaro is so big that it would be no different than searching through another city. There’s no point."
Ning supposed that was true.
"Then we’ll wait for whatever you have tomorrow."
The two walked out, and as they got into the van, Ning received a call. Looking at the screen, he raised an eyebrow.
"Hello, Miss lly. How can I help you?"
lly Orston sat on the other side with a desk full of paperwork. "Do you have so ti? I need to go over so finer details about the contract."
"You can decide everything yourself," Ning said. "Just have them be in my favor. Thanks."
"Wait!" she quickly said. "I can’t decide this one. I need your help."
"Okay? What is it?" Ning asked.
"How many years do you want the contract to last?" she asked.
Ning paused. How many years was he going to be a hero? Moreover, how many years was he going to stay in Hyrron? Until he found Tritus, right? But how long would that be?
"Let’s do... five years for now," Ning said after so thought. "If I still want to continue being a hero after that, I’ll extend it. Or leave it as is."
"Five years," the woman asked to confirm. "Most heroes do two years so they can renegotiate their contract again."
Ning smiled. "They renegotiate in hopes of getting a better deal, right?" he said. "But I’m already hoping to get the best. So surely I won’t have to be doing any renegotiation."
lly paused for a long mont. "No," she said. "I’ll handle the rest."
"It’s late, Miss lly. Go ho. Be with your family if you have one. Your work isn’t going to disappear," Ning said. "Call when the contract is ready to sign. Oh, not tomorrow before noon. I might have work here."
lly ended the call afterward, leaving Ning and Larissa with a silent ride where neither found anything to say. Larissa didn’t know where to begin, and Ning just liked the quiet.
"Do you know how much you’re getting paid?" Larissa asked.
"I actually haven’t given it any thought. I’m letting the female lawyer handle everything. I guess I’ll find out when I’m ready to sign the contract," Ning said.
"God, you sound so smug," she said. "Can’t you at least be a little interested in your own life? You live in that cheap apartnt. You have no car. No job. How much do you have in savings again?"
"About ten thousand jorans," Ning said. "I would’ve lived another few months on it."
Larissa shook her head. "You’ve gained a new opportunity in life. Use it. Don’t let it go away."
Ning could tell that her anger ca from the part of her that cared about him, so he could only smile at it. "I will," he said. "I absolutely will."
They returned to the station where Larissa got back to work. It was evening already, but she would work for much longer. Ning had nothing else to do, so he sat around as well.
Mira went through the two drow brothers’ info, explaining how they worked at a car workshop so streets down from where they lived. They often visited the bar after hours but had never received any complaints.
They had so minor racketeering and stealing charges from when they were teenagers, but not much once they grew up. They seed to have grown out of that life, so their returning to it made no sense to anyone.
"They were definitely manipulated then," Larissa said. "Hypnosis maybe."
"Should I look up if anyone has hypnosis powers then?" Mira asked, beginning to type before Ning or Larissa could even tell her to. A list of results ca up, with only two belonging to a female vampire.
However, from the image they had of the woman, neither of the two fit the profile at all. One was far too old, and the other one was much shorter. Not to ntion, the power they had could not erase mories.
Jack returned a while later with the forensics data, presenting it to the group. There wasn’t much for him to show, as they hadn’t found much to begin with.
The DNA they had gotten from the bite marks did not belong to anyone they had records of.
"Dammit!" Larissa cursed. "So we have nothing. No cara caught her leaving the area, and now there is no information about her DNA either."
"How many new cases have there been of new vampires being sired?" Ning asked.
Mira searched and ca up with nothing pertinent.
Larissa looked defeated in the end. "Fine. Screw it. Everyone, go ho."
Jack looked toward her. "You don’t want to keep searching?" he asked.
"No," Larissa said. "There would be no point."
She took a deep breath, as if coming to terms with what she was going to say.
"I’ll just go visit the Clairvoyant tomorrow."
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