Chapter 52 Culprit

“You said what!? Soldier Ray? How? What happened?” Major Clockburn asked holding the messenger on the shoulders.
“I don’t know! One minute he was following me for the interview, then when I called he wasn’t there anymore. I searched everywhere, but…”
“It’s the same thing that happened to the villagers...” Clockburn observed. “Change of plans. Everyone! We are going to divide and search for Ray. Each of you… Grab a tracking bracelet inside the vehicles!”
A tracking bracelet was made with a bond of blood between two holders. It worked similar to Watt’s bloodbound power, two people bonded to use the power: the holder and the vessel. They both cut a small drip on the wrist. The vessel wears the bracelet around his wrist and the blood of the holder reacts whenever he points his wrist in the direction of the vessel.
Major Clockburn was the holder of several bracelets inside the carriages. This way he could track the soldiers of his squad.
Too bad the soldiers weren’t using the bracelet after they left the vehicles, otherwise he would know where the missing soldier was.
This time the soldiers were encouraged to search on their own rather than be restricted to a certain area. Major expected some of them to have an idea of searching, so it’s better to trust the people’s hunches.
Josiah ran to the place where soldier Ray was told to be missed.
By what his partner said it was a wide and calm street with a huge flower field on the side. They were near a small wooden house. It didn’t make any logical sense for the soldier to have disappeared in such an open place like that.
“It should be somewhere around here…” Josiah muttered as he approached the said house.
“Me and you had the same idea.” He heard.
Josiah turned back.
“Lenny!”
“Let’s look around together.”
Josiah and Lenny came over to the entrance of the house and inspected the grass around. There was absolutely nothing on the ground to track.
“Now what this means?” Josiah concluded: “Either someone very strong carried him in the arms, or he is inside the house.”
“Couldn’t he have walked on his own?”
“Without saying anything to his partner? Nah…”
“What do we do, then?”
“I kinda want to get in…” Josiah stared back at the house “But I’m nine…”
“You are a corporal. They have to let you in.”
“True, but… Even if I come in and start asking questions… IF they have him in they’d just lie.”
“I know! Himozelles!”
“?”
“They can sense the blood scent. We catch some and bring them here.”
“Is this really gonna work? I’ve heard those insects sense blood but never saw they actually being drawn to it.”
“They are if we bring a lot. Let’s go to the forest, see if we can find any.”
Lenny began running to the forest right past the field.
“Hey, Lenny! Wait…”

After a while, they were both doing Lenny’s idea.
“I still think you just wanted some excuse to catch butterflies.”
“Himozelles.”
“We kinda need to get back to work, you know?”
“We ARE working, Joe.”
“How much do we have?”
“Together with mine and yours… six? Seven. Will it be enough?”
One of the flying insects managed to escape through Josiah’s fingers and flew to the direction of a big tree.
“Oh, sh…”
“Hey, don’t let them get out!”
“It’s not my fault if they are trying to escape so violently, hey look!”
Josiah observed that all the insects on his hand were being drawn in the same direction. He and Lenny glanced at each other:
“You think there’s something there?”
Josiah contoured the huge trunk of the tree and stared at its other side.
The scene was sickening.
A deep red trail of blood painted a stream in the middle of the trunk, following the stream up, he spotted the body hanging from the tree. The torso was traversed by a thick branch. The blood flowed from the hole, but now it wasn’t flowing anymore.
It was soldier Ray’s body. The tree branch had pierced through his armor.
Josiah looked at the grass. The trail ended near a big bush, right on the front of the tree.
Lenny came running to the spot where he was. She saw it and stood there speechless for a while. Josiah broke the silence:
“Well. He is not inside the house, then…”
Lenny nodded.
“They are crazy… Doing this to an army officer…”
Lenny nodded again.
“It’s funny how it doesn’t smell at all. We needed the Himozelles to find him. So much blood ran out that it has stopped flowing despite the size of the hole. Down below that bush, there must be a really thick pool of blood, so we must have felt something…” Josiah crouched and proceeded to try and move the bush’s leaves with his hands so that he could find anything.
“That bush you’re stirring is kipseed. The kipseed smell spreads everywhere. Our noses probably ignored the scent because the kipseed’s is stronger.”
“You sure know a lot about your stuff,” Josiah commented as he still tried to set some of the bush aside so that he could check the foundation.
“Come,” Lenny said. “We need to warn the others.”
“Wait!”
“?”
“There’s a big hole in here!”
“A hole?”
“The blood doesn’t flow to the ground. It falls in this pit right here. The bush leaves is actually a cover. They grow from a kipseed plant under the tree and extend it to here, but in the front, there is a big pit. Wow, look at that.”
Lenny approached to see. Josiah was setting the leaves aside, leaving a huge hole partially uncovered. The width seemed to be able to fit two or three people side by side. It was so dark they couldn’t measure its depth with the eyes.
“Now we ‘really’ need to warn the others.”
“No! Let’s go in!”
“What? Joe… that could be dangerous. We need to call the army.”
“We ARE the army. Also… Think about it: if we discovered the entrance, whoever made it probably already knows. If the culprit is inside that hideout, it means he is waiting for us to step back so that he can run away.”
“In this case, one of us stays here and the other warns the others.”
“No. The culprit did this to a soldier. He can do this to one of us.”
“…”
“We are stronger when we are together. Plus, we have the tracking bracelets on, the army can reach us at any time. We should go in and snatch the culprit.”
“…Ok.”
Josiah measured the depth approximately by dropping a small stone in. The sound of contact with the ground was clear and fast, so it couldn’t be too deep.
Carrying Lenny on his arms, Josiah used the rapier power to strengthen his both legs and then jumped in. He fell with both legs on the ground, and the impact was absorbed by the bloodbound power. Then he let Lenny go.
“Nice trick.” She said.
“Yeah, I learned it this year. This rapier does wonders.”
“Mind you, the only bloodbound weapon I possess is my knife.”
Lenny won a knife during the time she was inside the army. Wounding the enemy with it could alter the state of the enemy’s bloodflow, most probably winning the fight. But she had to actually get a hit in, in order to make it work.
They both began walking in. The pit led to a large tunnel carved under the forest’s ground. It was so wide they could both walk-in while standing, side by side, without touching the walls. But it was too dark to see anything.
“Now… Do you think the one responsible for that is really here?” Lenny asked.
“Whatever the answer is… I’m sure this is a witch hideout.”
“How so?”
“They were performing the rituals above here. They wouldn’t do that to Ray for nothing. It has to have something to do with the beliefs. Thus, I’m betting this is one of those hideouts where they do their thing.”
“You’re right.”
The voice was of a man. It came from about ten feet to their left. Josiah and Lenny instinctively turned their heads to the general direction, although they couldn’t see a thing.
“This is a hideout. MY hideout.” The voice proceeded. “And that’s why it should be kept hidden.”
“Who is this?”
“The quota has already been met, but I’m going to have to silence you two as well…”