"You got it," Cooper says reflexively as he makes for the kitchen, wanting to get something of his own to settle his grumbling stomach. Doing magic tends to take a lot out of you, and he is no exception. He makes a beeline for the refrigerator and sets to picking through the contents in search of something edible. "Hans, I'm raiding your fridge! I owe you some food, probably!"
As he wanders around the house, he tries to keep an eye out for anything that might seem out of place. As tempting as it may be to pull his Third Sight on again and look around, he does not know the place at all. Who knows what sorts of horrific deeds have been committed in the past within these walls? So, for now, mundane sight will have to do.
There is nothing obvious as you move around the room, but there are the faint remains of a chalk circle on the floor in the kitchen. It is a small circle, only a couple of feet in diameter.
On the kitchen counter is a copy of the Complete Annotated Sherlock Holmes. It is open to "A Study in Scarlet," and underlined in red pen is the part where Holmes explains that Rache is German for revenge.
Cooper blinks in surprise and quickly furrows his brows, moving to crouch beside the chalk circle. For the moment, he does not try to touch it in the least lest something useful can be gleaned from all that. But when he stands and notices the underlined book off to the side, he quickly moves to pivot and yell out again.
"Guys! I think I found where the guy was casting from! There's a book here, too!" With that, he looks back to the book and leans over it again without touching the pages. Revenge? Who wants to take out Hans? Or are they gunning for all of us?
"Hans, have you got anybody that really wants you dead?!"
You softly hear 99 Luftbaloons being sung in a basso voice over the shower, but no response to your question.
Hailey turns towards the kitchen and the old circle. Squatting down till she can get close to the circle without touching or breaking it, she examines it to figure out what it was for.
"Ugh, god that's a s%*@ty song," Gemma says with a cringe. "I remember I got linked that song by half the angsty guys on the one forums I used to frequent."
She gets up off the couch to check out what Cooper found around the house. She doesn't linger long on the magic circle, that's more for the wizardly folks to worry about, but she does take a look at the passage.
"Wonder if this is Hans' book or if the culprit brought it from home."
Cooper steps up to the book and frowns down at the underlined passage in question. Revenge tends to mean that one has done something horribly wrong to someone else, in his experience. Maybe something to do with Hans's past and how he became a werewolf?
He quickly shakes his head and calls up his will to levitate the book off of the counter. Brows furrow as he works to flip through every individual page of the book as quickly as he can, trying to find any other telltale marks that might be worth looking over.
"No idea. Stoner, take a picture of the circle there? And the book, probably, after I'm done with it."
Nothing else of interest is to be found in the book.
In due course Hans finishes his shower, after scrubbing especially hard after being changed against his will. He heads down to the sitting room in a bathrobe, sweatpants and a t-shirt.
"I am still unclear on what happened to me. I hope I did not go on a rampage or there will be serious trouble. "
At this point Hans realizes that his leash is not on his wrist.
Gemma pulls out her phone, shooing Hailey and Cooper out and away before she even tries to take a picture. One wizard was bad enough, two mortal magicians? Ugh, even worse.
"Out before you manage to fry the screen," she said as she shuffled them out. Once they were several paces off, preferably in the next room, she takes a quick shot of the circle and the page highlighted in the book.
"You tore up more than a couple things," Gemma says to Hans when he comes out. "Including a hospital I think. You got any enemies? Is this your book or did whoever do this bring it with them?" she asks, holding up the copy of Sherlock.
"I am a monster hunter. Let's just say I've been very effective in eliminating a certain demographic. While we didn't leave a lot of survivors, it still didn't leave us very popular in those communities. Also, I appear to be missing my 'leash'. "
Hailey steps back away from Gemma, so she can take a picture. "This is some complicated work. Well beyond my capabilities. It's more something that someone on the Council would use, somebody trained in mind magic, but this?" Hailey shakes her head grimly, "This is way dark, but it should be enough to clear Hans, if anyone comes poking around."
Hailey bites her lip at the news of Hans' leash, "Maybe we should let the powers that be about it? Hopefully they have some sort of 'brick switch' that can render it useless."
"I don't know that STFU is as understanding as you say. However since I don't even have my leash, we probably have to contact them anyway given how the leash could get me in even more trouble. "
"On it," Gemma says, pocketing her phone and turning her attentions to her little do-hicket that STFU had given her. She tapped at it a few times, shook it a bit, then sighed.
"Pretending I wasn't listening when they explain how to use it... How exactly do you use it again?"
"Well, hold on, hold on. Before we get into any of that, maybe we ought to take stock of what the hell we're doing. Clearly we aren't about to call the cops for probably the same reason we don't want to call STFU." Cooper pauses and peers down at the leash on his own wrist in a brief bout of paranoia. If they can tell GPS positions and listen in through the devices at all times, this could get significantly worse in a hurry.
"So, if we're gonna call anybody we get our stories straight first, right? So, what are we gonna say? Somebody broke into Hans's place while he was napping and took it? They mind controlled him? What?" Coop looks around at the group searching, clearly accepting input from the peanut gallery. As an afterthought, he adds, "Hailey, you got any friends on the Council? Or in the Wardens? It wouldn't be bad to get the word about this out. I don't know about you guys, but I'm really not the magical version of Special Forces."
Hailey lets out a little laugh, "Me, I'm small time, Cooper, I doubt the council knows who I am, much less keeps tabs." She sighs, "Still, this circle is heavyweight stuff. I think they'd be the first people that we should contact. Maybe they can run interference with the STFU?" Hailey shrugs, not really sure what to do.
"While I expect that STFU knows of the council, I don't imagine they particularly care about what they have to say. STFU may have new management, but I don't expect the institution to have changed much. They are very barely accountable. "
"To be fair, most people and organizations in our situations care what the Council says. Even the Courts occasionally give them half an ear before we ignore it," she adds, sticking a tongue out at Cooper.
"But any way it goes, nothing is ever gained through circumventing the people who might be able to help us. There's no story to get straight. Hans was under the influence of magic, evidenced by the circle I doubt he knows anything of, then some s$~~ happened."
Cooper rolls his eyes and resists the urge to make a face back at Gemma, for now, in favor of focusing on the problem at hand. "See, you say that, but things are rarely so cut-and-dried with the Council. To say nothing of how black-and-white the Wardens are. But if you want to be the one to roll the dice, go nuts. I just figure we might want to look into what we've got at our disposal before we jump into one course of action. Speaking of, Hans. Is this your book?" He gestures to the Sherlock Holmes book with the underlined passage.
"No, I generally read in German. "
"Oh. Well. That's convenient. Gemma, you want to see if you can find the nearest chain book store? Let's hope he bought it at a Barnes and Noble or something."
"Don't know the area. Hans? Anywhere nearby? But wait--- What are we going to do? Demand to see their sales receipts?"
"Yes. It is not as if we are police. More like DHS needed really. "
"The council isn't all bad. They'd see this for what it is. He was mind controlled. It's not like they don't let weres run free. Pretty big packs in Chicago and New York already, I think. In any case, we don't have to even have Hans here when we show them the book and the circle. We found some bad mojo, and we're reporting it." She shrugs, "Hell, we could even go so far as to take a photo, and the book to them."
"Sure, we're not police. But have you never seen an action movie? An American action movie," he amends for Hans's sake, before continuing, "I've never seen a German action movie, so I have no idea how things go there. But people do all sorts of things with a little bit of misdirection. We can just distract...whoever with some carefully placed flirting from you ladies. Or Hans and I. It's 2015, I don't judge."
An amused grin creeps into his features as the shell of a plan starts to form, despite being severely outclassed and having no idea what he is doing. Granted, when it is put that way, it sounds bad. But really, he just wants to be a Luke Skywalker as much as anybody else. "C'mon, what's the worst that happens? It doesn't work and we have to call the Wardens and STFU anyway, right? Let's give it a try."
"Whatever. If this fails, I'm vanishing and leaving you to the wolves. Er..." she gives a look to Hans. "I mean cops."
The book is a nice copy and from a 1943 printing, so it is more likely from somewhere like Brattle Book Shop if it came from nearby. That would be a good place to start. It is about half a mile back across the common, just a quick walk away.
Cooper gathers up his things, or rather his jacket and hat since he does not need to carry much around, and looks around at the others. "Well, come on. Let's get to it, lazybones. We've got clues to follow. If anybody else feels like Scoob and the Gang, please tell me so that I don't feel alone in this. I mean, hell, all we're missing now is a Shaggy. Or a Fred, I guess. I haven't got an ascot."
Giving Copper a stern look "Call me Scooby and bad things will happen. ". Then he follows him to the store.
When you get to the store, which is in an old building and has a giant pencil over the doors, you find it closed. There are police cruisers outside, and the glass in the front windows is broken in from the outside. You only see one uniformed cop. You would imagine the others are looking for the bear/wolf.
The shop is closed.
"So much for that idea. "
Cooper lifts his brows in surprise at the sight of the taped off bookstore, but he heads straight up to the officer. It's not as though he is the one that's wanted, anyway. And not too many people are privy to the knowledge that Hans is very au naturale in the hair department every once in a full moon, so that helps. "Hey, officer. What gives? This place didn't get hit by that big gorilla thing, did it?"
While Cooper takes the social route, Gemma simply fades from existence and waits for a chance to get into the book store to do her own investigating.
To Cooper: "You mean the thing over by the hospital? No, none of that has made it over here. Just some vandalism. Someone through a brick through the window. You didn't happen to be here this morning did you, around 4:00? Didn't see anything?"
Gemma slips easily through the broken window. You can see evidence flags where the brick sits on the floor, and broken glass that someone has swept up.
The store is filled to the brim with old books, long stacks of bookshelves, antique posters, and old world charm. It isn't a pretentious place, but a place for people who love books and craftsmanship.
High up on a shelf you see a cat watching you.
"Sorry, guy, I wasn't. Nowhere near here this morning, honestly. They just threw a brick through the window? Didn't even take anything? What a toolbox." Cooper shakes his head with a frown and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Hopefully there's some prints on the brick though, right? Y'know, I'm surprised you're the only guy here. Where's the owner at? You'd think he'd have more of an invested interest in this, wouldn't you?"
Not overly comfortable in the presence of so many police at the moment, Hans gives a curious look and keeps on moving to somewhere a bit away from the hubbub.
Gemma carefully steps through the bookshop, ensuring she doesn't step on any broken glass or anything else the police might consider evidence.
She quickly does a skim over the books, looking for the Sherlock Holmes novels. She keeps her eyes open for anywhere that looks like a book might have been recently removed, such as a gap or missing volume.
While she makes that search, her eyes sweep the rest of the shop for anything else out of place the police might have missed. Maybe a kleenex, or dark magic circle. You know, whatever.
Gemma slips through the stacks, finding the mystery section and Doyle. Indeed, there is a gap in the Holmes collection just where your book should go. Looking around. Unfortunately, this place is pretty low tech. Convex mirrors at the end of the aisles to allow observation, but no cameras even near the register.
Looking around, just in front of the shelves where the book is missing, there is a tiny brown spot on the otherwise clean carpet. Investigating futher, she sees that it is a spatter of relatively fresh but now dried blood.
Officer says: "The owner is inside with the insurance agent, I think."
He is beginning to wonder why Cooper is so interested.
Hailey finds a spot among any bystanders and then tries to see if any of them are paying any undo attention to the place. Usually vandals like to watch their handiwork to see how much chaos they unleash, let's see what I can see.
Could be anyone's really, with all this broken glass. The shopkeeper's, insurance guy's, policeman's... But also possibly the culprit. Wonder if Hans can do anything like track scent...
Not that she could get him in here to try with the cop out front.
Hailey's possibly a wizard thing. I can't tell with that dumb toy gun she uses. Maybe that's the magic thing... Whatever, maybe she can do some magical wizard blood voodoo to track it.
Gemma steps back out the way she cam in and seeks out Hailey, only becoming visible when she's right beside her.
"Blood on the carpet near where a Sherlock book is missing. Could be any number of people's including our mystery culprit. And chance you got some weirdo wizard juju for tracking?" she asks in a hushed tone.
"Ah, I get you, buddy. Say, you know a halfway decent coffee place around here?" Cooper asks the cop conversationally, really just doing his best to look as though he simply wants to chat. Assuming the officer is just standing around for the moment, given that he seems to be the only one here. Policemen are still people too, so there's no reason why he would avoid standing around to shoot the s$+* with the guy. Or so goes his logic, anyway.
Hailey gives a bit of a jump when Gemma pops up right next to her, "Geeze, give a little warning, would ya?" Shaking her head with a grin before answering the question, "I could probably create a finding charm, or something like that, but we'd need some of the blood."