Category: True-to-Game.
Character: Pinkhair
“Forty of them, you say? Ah, here they are.” Despite having received quite a number of texts from the man, the sight of Richard Sonnac talking on a smartphone seems vaguely peculiar here in his Temple Hall office.
You recognize one of the reports scattered across the desktop- your own handiwork, poking around in the ancient catacombs beneath Honesty Yard some time back. The others… Your heart sinks as your handler draws a glossy stack of photographs featuring a familiar heart shaped cake from another folder, but the accusatory glare you might have expected does not materialize.
Instead, he puts his phone on speaker, placing it on the desk between you. “You remember DI Shelley, no doubt,” he says. “Apparently, a cake thief has Darkside in terror,” he adds dryly. “And that is… terrible.”
“Oh, we found the cakes, Mr. Sonnac.” You can practically hear Maryanne Shelley’s sunny demeanor shining through. “Burnt Offerings, you know it? Bakery, corner of Æthelburga Row and Pagan Hill. Thirty nine of them, sitting pretty as you like right in the middle of the locked up store. Never delivered.”
As if anticipating Sonnac’s objection, she continues. “Of course, the moment Isabel Rosenbaum’s name came up as the buyer, this whole mess was headed for Agenda 71.”
“The daughter of…?”
“The same. Apparently she had some sort of party to cater. Found an invoice for enough damn cake to fill… Well, just the last batch went missing.” If Sonnac notices your fidgeting, he hides it well.
“There was more, of course. PC Maxwell smelled carrion- nothing too odd, so close to Darkside after a rain, but it was enough to take a look inside. He’s a good one; managed to keep his lunch off my crime scene till I showed up. He thought it was some sort of halal thing he found in the kitchen, you know, the blood drained. Maybe kosher. That’d do for the goat, but dogs are haram.”
Sonnac starts leafing through the rest of the photographs until he finds the scene in question. That one seems to get to him a little, but at least it looks like the animals were killed cleanly. Definitely ritualistic.
“Sacrifice, then?” he asks. “No Cabrit sans cor, at least?”
“Not yet. We found the blood with the last cake…”
“…Underground. Basins of blood and milk, dog statues, inscription, the works. Roman, I’d guess, dug through down under the basement, and that’s about the point where-”
“Wolf,” Sonnac comments, tips of his index fingers lightly drumming on another photo.
“Come again, Dick?”
“Lupa Capitolina,” he clarifies. “The wolf that suckled the founders of Rome.” Giving you a long look, he taps the dark image; a statue wolf standing ankle-deep in a red stained basin. No mention of forty little tables, you note.
“I don’t need or want to know it, Mr. Sonnac. Rituals are one thing. Riddles are another. I’ve pulled my lads, got the tape up, let me know when Miss Rosenbaum can collect her bloody cakes.”