This article, Death Uncovered, is property of Albus Chase. Please do not edit without permission. |
Sameth Waltham was not quick to judge others; there was no room to be judgemental in his line of work. But still there was something to be said about clients who preferred to meet close to midnight, away from their own homes. The best way to be inconspicuous, he thought to himself as he parked his car outside the cemetery, is to act normally about the whole thing. There's nothing normal about meeting in a cemetery at midnight. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was nearly time, and sighed at the thought of dealing with yet another inexperienced 'collector'. Just as he was about to leave the car, a woman started knocking rapidly on the passenger-side window. Her auburn hair was starting to grey, and Sameth could see a sterness in her eyes.
"Hello," she started before he could even finish rolling down the window. "Are you Sameth Walth-"
"Don't," he interrupted with a glare. "Open the door. Get in the car. Roll up the window. Don't speak."
The woman raised her eyebrows and, for a second, didn't do anything, so he just sat in silence and waited for her to follow his instructions.
"Alright," Sameth began with a sigh once she was seated in the car. "Ms. Webb, is it?" He didn't wait for a reply. "The first rule of bounty hunting, or 'collecting' if you want to make it sound nicer: never mention my name outside. If we are meeting in your home, or speaking on my secure line, then feel free. But otherwise- just don't. Are we clear?"
"This isn't my first 'collection', boy," Ms. Webb said snidely. "And if you expect payment in full then you will address me respectfully, as you should all your elders. I did not come here to be spoken down to by someone who barely passes as an adult."
Sameth knew when to bite his tongue, and so decided not to tell her exactly what he thought of his elders.
"Well, why did you come here?" He asked instead, unable to hide the sarcasm covering his following words. "After all, as you so rightly pointed out yourself, I'm one of the youngest bounty hunters in the field. Why come to me when you could ask one of my more experienced elders?"
Ms. Webb sighed and turned to face him in her seat. "To tell you the truth, young Mr. Waltham, I come to you out of dire desperation. The only reason this is not my first 'collection', so to speak, is because all of the preceding bounty hunters that I have hired have been unable to get me what I want."
"Ah so you're one of those fanatics who want specific demigods, like that son of Poseidon that everyone is still trying to capture. Well, I'm terribly sorry Ms. Webb but I don't condone extreme hunting-"
"No, no, you misunderstand me," she interrupted, and Sameth could tell that she was beginning to get irritated. "I'm not after the 'perfect specimen for my collection', or whatever those people call them. I'm after my son."
Sameth, who was in the process of turning the key in the ignition, paused. It had been nearly a year since he had had a job that was really interesting, and capturing a demigod son for his mortal mother definitely had potential.
"I see that I have your attention," Ms. Webb remarked, gesturing to the key in his hand; he didn't remember taking it out of the ignition. "Which is good, because we do not have time to waste. He has to pay for what he has done."
"Go on," Sameth prompted, although he was sure it had something to do with the death, or perhaps severe injury, of a loved one.
"He killed his sister," she said monotonously, and Sameth realised that she wasn't doing this out of a personal vendetta; rather, she was using the personal vendetta as an excuse. "And it's my duty to stop him," Ms. Webb continued as if reading his thoughts. "A monster like that should not be allowed to live. He's an abomination...if I had only known..."
She lost herself in deep thought, and Sameth let her so that he could assess whether this job was worth the trouble.
"Would this be an apprehension or an elimination?" He asked after a moment.
"He needs to be put down," Ms. Webb replied with no hesitation. "Now do you want the job or not? I'm not going to satisfy your curiosity by telling you everything only to have you decide not to take the job. Like I said, this isn't my first 'collection'."
For a moment, they just stared at each other. Sameth had had a range of clients before this; some wanting demigods for experimentation, others for show, and others still to raise their own private armies. But never before had Sameth got the sense that his client was doing this because they genuinely believed it was the right thing to do. It's not like he felt good hunting demigods, especially since they looked human and were generally teenagers, but it paid the bills, and it was all he knew how to do.
"I'll take the job," he started, and before Ms. Webb could interrupt he continued. "For £50,000. My one condition is that I recieve half the payment now and half when the job is done."
"Of course," Ms. Webb answered solemnly, and moved as if to open the door. "I will wire £25,000 into an account for you by tomorrow evening. You will recieve everything you need to know about Timothy in an email within the hour. Good evening, Mr Waltham."
"Ms. Webb?" Sameth called as she got out of the car.
"Hm?"
"Next time you want to be inconspicuous about a meeting, avoid doing it in a cemetery."
"Will do," she answered with a humorless smile and shut the door.
"...but really, what kind of airline 'runs out' of headphones?" Elijah Mun said to his associate, Gina Solano, as they followed the mass of passengers down to collect their luggage.
"Eli," Gina replied with a sigh. "Just because you can talk about their bad service for about half an hour now, doesn't mean you should."
She glanced at the bags rotating on the conveyor belt and, after making sure that none of them were hers, turned to face Eli.
"Let's instead talk about the fact that we're actually in London. How can you be so focused on bad service when we're actually about to explore the city your dad is from?"
Eli smirked before saying, "I mean technically the city my dad is from is Seoul, although it's a nice thought."
Gina rolled her eyes and replied by hitting Eli's arm.
"Anyway," he continued, his eyes scanning for their luggage. "We're here on business not to explore the city- Oh here come our bags."
As Eli pulled their small suitcases off of the conveyor belt, Gina rummaged through her carry-on for their passports. Once she had found the them, Eli handed her her suitcase and they made their way through security, before swiftly walking through the double doors labelled 'Arrivals'.
"I wonder who's meeting us," Gina wondered to Eli, looking at the sea of people holding up signs in front of them.
He shrugged in reply. It took them a few minutes before they caught sight of their names, hastily scrawled on a large whiteboard. They made their way over to the woman who accompanied the sign and introduced themselves. She had short, dark hair and brown skin, as well as a lingering smile on her lips.
"Good evening, officers Mun and Solano," she said with a nod. "I'm Inspector Kumar. I trust you had a good flight?"
"It was good, but tiring," Gina replied before Eli could jump into his tale of bad customer service.
"That's to be expected, what with it being a seven hour flight and all," Inspector Kumar said with a chuckle, before gesturing for the two of them to follow her out of the airport.
After a brisk walk to the end of the car park, they placed their suitcases in the trunk of the Inspector's car and settled into the back. Eli immediately started to feel uncomfortably warm, but opted not to say anything. Kumar didn't speak until several minutes later when the car stopped behind a large traffic jam on the highway.
"So, I assume you have the documents?" She asked, turning her head slightly to face the two of them. "We technically shouldn't be speaking about this until we make it back to the station, but this traffic jam looks like it might take a while to clear."
"We have them," Eli answered, unbuttoning the top button on his shirt instead of opening the window because he did not want to be the first to do so. "And I've actually been wondering about that. I haven't been a cop long so excuse me if I'm wrong, but isn't the usual protocol when a suspect is spotted overseas just to transfer the relevant case files? Why was it necessary for Gina- I mean officer Solano and I to come personally?"
"You're right, that is the usual protocol. But this isn't a usual suspect, or case for that matter."
Gina pulled out a piece of paper with the suspect's information and photograph on it, but didn't speak until she was sure that Kumar was not going to elaborate.
"That's what we thought," she started, her eyes darting towards Eli. "So we did a little digging on the suspect, this-" She glanced at the paper. "-Sameth Waltham, but he isn't in our criminal database? For the first few weeks after being told about this trip, he seemed like a regular twenty-two year old; we knew next to nothing about him. All we knew was that-"
"He's cute," Eli supplied, but after a glance from both Gina and Inspector Kumar realised that perhaps this was not the time.
"He travels a lot," Gina continued, acting as if Eli hadn't said anything. "Eventually, using a few - I'll admit - unconventional methods, we stumbled upon a website where he was listed as a 'bounty hunter'."
"Let me stop you there," Inspector Kumar said as the cars ahead of them started to move forward. "Assuming that your 'unconventional methods' are what I think they are, perhaps it's better if we don't bring them up again. There's something you should know about this case."
She waited for a few minutes until they turned on to a side road before continuing.
"Have either of you ever heard of 'demigods'?"
Eli immediately sat up straighter, and turned to see Gina staring at him conspicuously.
Kumar, who had been glancing at them in the rear view mirror, let out another chuckle.
"I take it from your reactions that you have, which is good because it saves me the trouble of explaining what they are. How much do you know?"
Eli cleared his throat before he replied, but when he opened his mouth, he found that no sound came out. He had not been expecting to be blindsided like this, and closed his mouth before it became noticeable. It's alright, he thought to himself. There's no way she knows.
"Enough," Gina answered, and Eli shot her a grateful glance. "We know there have been a lot more rumours recently about their existence, but I don't know if there's any truth to any of them."
Inspector Kumar parked the car in front of the police station before replying.
"Oh, there's definitely truth behind those rumours. Demigods are real, Sameth Waltham is hunting them, and we want to know why."
Sameth had only just walked through the front door of his flat when his phone buzzed in his hand, notifying him of the email containing information about Timothy Webb. He hadn't been expecting much; he assumed there would be a few pages detailing his character, perhaps along with a page or two concerning his recent whereabouts. What he was not expecting, however, was for there to simply be be a single street name- not even with a postcode.
Sameth scoffed as he took off his jacket and hung it on the coat rack beside the door. Either this job was going to be easier than he thought, or this really was all the information Ms. Webb had available. I don't even know what this kid looks like, or who his godly parent is, he thought to himself as he scanned the email one more time, searching for anything that he might have missed.
When he found nothing, Sameth placed his phone on to the dining room table and put himself a plate of leftover pizza from the night before. He quickly changed into more comfortable clothes, set his computer up on the table, and got to work. One quick Google search told him that the street Ms. Webb had provided him with was in London, not too far from where Sameth was right at this moment. Seeing as he had no more information to work with, he decided to investigate the address in the morning, and spent the rest of the night watching old tv show reruns.
The streets of London were even more crowded than usual the next morning, and Sameth had to literally push people out of his way to even make it down a road. By the time he had got himself a latte from the coffeeshop a few streets away from his apartment, he had already been out of the house for almost an hour. He eventually managed to get a taxi - paid for by cash as he knew better than to leave a trail - to take him to the address, and was shocked when they pulled up in front of a hotel. Sameth thanked the driver, made his way wearily past the 'Alcroft Hotel' sign above the door, and strolled up to the reception desk.
"Hello, sir, do you have a reservation?" A young woman behind the desk - her name tag said Bela - asked him with a grin, and Sameth was quick to flash a coy smile at her.
"Well, Bela," he started, and he saw her eyes widen slightly at actually being addressed by name. "I almost wish I did have a reservation, if only so that I could talk to you again. But unfortunately, I'm just here visiting a friend."
Bela blushed ever so slightly before saying, "I wish I could help you but for that you would have to go to the security desk." She pointed to a small desk at the other end of the lobby. Sameth thanked her and wandered over to the security desk, which a young man named Charlie stood behind.
"I've been told that you can help me, Charlie," Sameth announced, giving Charlie the same coy smile he had used on Bela. "And you definitely look like you can satisfy me."
Charlie blushed even more profusely than Bela, and stammered a reply about helping in whichever way that he could.
"I'm here to visit a friend," Sameth continued, making sure to glance at Charlie's lips every so often, a fact that the flustered security guard did not miss. "Perhaps you know him? His name is Timothy Webb and he might have a reservation here?"
It took Charlie a minute to register what he had just said, but when he did Sameth saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes.
"Oh, you're looking for Timmy?" He asked, tapping away at his keyboard. "Of course I know him! He's one of the best guards in training we have here. Although I will admit he's slightly odd...always wearing those gloves, even indoors!"
Charlie quickly scribbled something onto a piece of paper before continuing.
"According to the logs he just left to go on his lunchbreak, which means he's probably still in the underground car park with Amy - that's another of our guards in training, she always drives him - so I think you could still catch him if you walked fast enough! The car park is down those stairs."
He gestured to a staircase a few meters away, before handing Sameth the piece of paper he had been writing on with a wink. Sameth unravelled it and although he wasn't surprised to see a phone number, he couldn't help but smile at Charlie and return the wink. Sameth thanked Charlie for his time and made his way towards the staircase. He hoped that this 'Timmy' wasn't his target, because otherwise he could never use the number - it was a personal rule of his to never get involved with a target's acquaintances - and it had been a long time since he had really had fun.
Eli couldn't stop thinking about how close Inspector Kumar had been to discovering what he was the night before. After she had led him and Gina into her office at the station, she explained to them just what the suspect - Sameth Waltham - was wanted for. He was a demigod bounty hunter, and every time the Inspector said the word 'demigod' during her explanation Eli would flinch, so that by the end of the night she wouldn't stop staring at him with a suspicious look in her eyes. It wasn't until Gina had excused them both under the guise of really terrible jetlag that Eli could breathe again, although he refused to talk about the issue, much to Gina's annoyance. She was so annoyed, in fact, that in the morning she headed to the police station alone, delagating the role of shopping for groceries and returning them to their hotel room to Eli.
And that was how Eli found himself driving aimlessly around the underground car park of the Alcroft Hotel for over twenty minutes before he eventually found a spot. As he was getting out of the rented car, two people walked through the double doors leading up to the lobby.They didn't look older than eighteen, and couldn't be more contrasting as they walked side by side through the car park. One was a girl with dark skin, her brown braids tied back behind her, and the other...the other was a dark-haired boy who looked so pale that it was surprising he was walking around and not in the morgue. But the most surprising thing about them, something Eli could only tell being a son of Athena, was that they were demigods.
He couldn't help but stare as they made their way to his end of the car park, but quickly glanced away when the girl noticed him. It was so surreal seeing demigods because Eli had never seen others like him out in the real world. He had never given much thought to demigods outside of the US because there was never a reason to, but now his mind was racing with questions. How had they survived for so long by themselves? Was there an equivalent to Camp Half-Blood here?
Eli's train of thought was interrupted by a sudden loud bang that his months of training let him recognise as a gunshot. He instinctively crouched and peered through the rental's window towards where the sound came from. From his hiding place behind the car, Eli could see a man with presumably the gun that was fired standing at the car park entrance. He could also see the two teenagers, crouching as he was behind one of the cars in front of him. Eli unholstered his own gun, keeping his eyes on the man at all times. He looked young, barely older than Eli himself, and had a handsome - and somewhat familiar? - face. Eli would have thought him attractive if not for their current situation.
"Listen kid," the man started calmly, and Eli still couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen his face before. "I know that this isn't the first time you've been through something like this, so I'm not going to explain why I'm here. All I am going to do is tell you that that was a warning shot."
The man continued to search every row of cars, getting nearer to the teenagers - who Eli realised must be his targets - with every minute that passed.
"Trust me when I say that this will be easier if you just come out. Hell, I'll even let the other demigod that you've dragged into this go; I'm not after her anyway."
Eli's eyes widened as he glanced once again at the teenagers in front of him. The man was Sameth Waltham! That's why he looked so familiar. Eli know knew that he had to act quickly; the man he had read about was a ruthless bounty hunter, and he would be no help if he stayed hiding behind this car. Without hesitation, he stood up and and aimed his gun at Sameth.
"NYPD, freeze!" Eli yelled, not taking his eyes off of Sameth who quickly aimed his own gun at Eli.
"You're far from home pretty boy," said Sameth with a smile. "What, they run out of criminals in New York?"