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_ Skywolf Mysteries _

_ Case file #002: Cult of the Saved _

Kailani Skywolf was not happy, nope not one little bit. Things were getting off to a bad start in hir newest case to find the missing chakat cub Dark-Night. The cub's mother had been unable to provide any insight into the cub's whereabouts, which is not good, Chakat's share a very strong empathic bond with their cubs. The mother, Summer-Rain, should be able to give a good idea of where hir cub was. The parents hadn't even been able to track Dark-Night by scent, and chakats and foxtaur's usually have very keen sense's of smell. None of this was adding up. How could a cub just vanish with no trace, obviously the police's forensics' team hadn't found anything noteworthy or they wouldn't have ruled it a runaway. And then there was the old man, the old man who had given no scent, it had been as if he wasn't there. He gave a cryptic message and then vanished like a phantom... "This case will take you down a road to either destruction or happiness, but you can only walk the road of happiness if you grow stronger." Which of course made no sense to Kailani, shi was perfectly happy with the way hir life was going, shi had a great career, a interesting life, and a decent place to live. How could shi possibly be considered unhappy? This was no run away case, someone had taken that cub, could it have been that old man? He obviously knew how to mask a scent. Shi growled as shi walked towards hir office where shi would begin hir investigation, hopefully by now Chris, the squirrel morph who worked in hir office, would have some information on Dark-Night for hir to go on.

Shi walked into hir office looking over at Chris's desk, the squirrel was hard at work already, but the moment he noticed hir presence he looked up from his computer "I take it from your expression that things didn't go well" He said. Shi sighed and shook hir head. "No it didn't, the mother can't sense the cub. Shi knows that shi is alive but can't tell where shi is. The cub's scent disappeared as well when they tried to track hir that way." Shi gave a growl of frustration. "And the cops are no help at all, they are convinced this is a runaway." Shi said and shook hir head. "And worst of all worsts McAndrew is the officer on this case." Chris actually groaned at this news. The squirrel had been witness to several of the two detective's spats. "Yeah I wasn't too thrilled when I saw him either." Shi said shaking hir head. "But the fool actually snapped at the parents for calling me" Shi said with a rueful shake of hir head. Shi looked over at Chris though and asked the all important question. "So what can you tell me about the cub?" Shi asked hir tone more serious now.

Chris actually sighed at this "Okay well let's get the obvious out of the way, Chakat Dark-Night daughter of Summer-Rain and Mattech, shi is 10 years old, according to hir school files shi is friendly, smart, though given to practical jokes but they are mostly just childish pranks. Shi gets good grades in school from what I could dig up. The parents make good money. Mattech is a very successful sculptor. He works with wood, stone, metal, anything his clients want. He is famous for fantasy pieces of old war scenes, knights and dragons that sort of thing." Chris held up a photo that Kailani took and looked down at. It was of Mattech standing next to a very large very life like statue of a two headed dog, the dog looked like a pit bull, If it weren't for the fact that the statue was clearly made out of marble shi would have expected it to start moving. "He certainly does have talent." Shi said and put the photo down. "And the mother? What can you tell me about Shir Summer-Rain?" Chris looked back at his computer screen. "Shi is a skilled baker and runs that cake shop over on Third Ave, you know the one Sweets of the Ages." Kailani was surprised to hear this, just as Chris implied shi did know that shop well. Shi had a rather large sweet tooth and in hir opinion that was the best place to go for pastries and candies. "So that's hir shop huh? So both parents make good money but aren't wealthy enough for this to be a ransom kidnapping. So then why take the cub." Shi said with a frown. Chris shook his head. "This may not be your ordinary kidnapping." He said as he was typing on his keyboard, when he was done he turned his monitor to show several missing children reports, all of them with in the last few months, and even more disturbing was that they were all fur's, not one human child among them. "Do you think this is a anti fur group? Are the kidnapping and killing cubs?" Shi asked the horror at that thought evident in hir voice. Chris shook his head though. "No I don't think so, for one why wouldn't they kill the parents too? Most of these groups want to get rid of all fur's so they wouldn't take the cubs and leave the parents alive. What's more according to the files there have been several sightings of some of these cubs around the city since their disappearances, they were always by themselves and disappeared again just as quickly as they'd been spotted." He looked up at Kailani extremely puzzled, shi shared the bewilderment, this sounded like a runaway case but it didn't feel like one at all. Why were these cubs being taken? If they had run away where were they hiding? And why would Dark-Night Run away too? Hir parents were obviously loving caring parents, they had plenty of money to care for the cub. Plus the empathic bond being blocked. That disturbed her a lot. That shouldn't be possible, but shi had a place that shi could go for info, shi used this source several times during hir last case. "I'm going to go see Doctor Rayne." Shi said with a sigh. Chris simply nodded. "I will keep digging see if I can find any peculiarities in Dark-Night's activities or the parents over the last few weeks." The squirrel said as he went back to work at his keyboard.

Shi exited hir office feeling if possible more frustrated then when shi entered. Things weren't adding up, shi wasn't seeing any threads to pull at in this one. The missing cubs were obviously all connected but the question was how, were they runaways? Were they kidnapped? If so then why were they kidnapped? Shi walked into the parking garrage that was next to hir office waiving to the guard at the front gate. He never waved back, he was always too busy reading the paper. Shi was parked not far from the gate. Shi grinned as shi gazed at hir motorcycle. It was a custom machine, a stretched out chopper style bike. It had been a thank you gift for a case shi had done for the owner of a bike shop. Shi had been able to prove that he didn't rape a girl, that he was accused of raping. That had been another encounter between hir and Detective McAndrew. He still blames hir from interfering even though shi helped capture the real rapist...sometimes shi wondered if he just wanted all the glory for the cases shi solved for the police. The bike was a thing of beauty in hir opinion, the tank was painted with the design of feral wolves surrounded in mist beneath a moon. The rest of the bike was painted in a black and blue two tone theme that matched hir fur. Shi smiled to hirself for a moment before shi removed hir hat and set it in one of the chopper's saddle bags and put on hir helmet. Once shi was on the bike shi revved the machine to life. Shi loved the sound this bike made, it was more of a animalistic roar to hir then that of a machine. Shi pulled out of the garage and turned in the direction of one of the more seedier parts of the city. It took almost fifteen minutes to make hir way to the free clinic that was run by Doctor Rayne, a very friendly male skunk morph who dedicated his life to helping those who were less fortunate then others. Shi parked hir bike and put hir hat back on. Shi smiled as shi looked at the building. Doctor Rayne had given hir a lot of help since shi had opened hir office, he had also saved hir life once when shi had been attacked during an investigation. Shi settled hir hat around hir ears and walked through the front door. Several of the patients in the waiting lobby scowled at hir, always distrustful of outsiders in this part of town. However others smiled at hir, having gotten the chance to know hir. Shi walked up to the nurse's desk and smiled at the female badger morph behind the desk. "Hello again Cindy can you tell Doctor Rayne that I would like to see him as soon as he has a free moment?" Shi asked with a friendly smile.

Cindy looked up from her paper work to smile at the wolfess detective and nodded. "Believe it or not he's been waiting on you to show up for the past couple of days." The badger said this with a friendly smile on her face but there was a nervousness in her eyes. Kailani nodded at this information though it worried hir, for the doctor to be waiting on hir but not feeling secure enough to contact hir meant that something was definitely wrong here. Shi smiled at Cindy though as if nothing were wrong. "Well then as soon as he's done with whatever patient he is seeing right now would you please tell him that I am here?" When Cindy agreed Kailani turned and took a seat in the waiting lobby. Shi picked up a magazine and opened it up, though shi did not read. Instead shi began to examine those in the room with hir. They were a motley bunch that was for sure, two were human and seemed to be a couple, judging from the slight bulge to the female's belly she was in the early stages of pregnancy. Moving on from them there was a female cat morph who was holding a small kitten in her lap who had a cast on his arm, the kitten was being rather noisy playing with a toy fire truck as though he had not a care in the world. Then there was a teenage male fox morph, shi couldn't spot anything wrong with him, in fact he was smiling as though something amused him. His fur was a dark orange red color with black 'gloves' on his forearms. The tips of his ears are black as well, but it was his eyes that drew hir attention, a dark amber color, but they were cold, unfriendly eyes. This was not a pleasant person. Cindy tapped on hir shoulder bringing hir out of hir contemplations. "Doctor Rayne can speak with you now." She said. Kailani nodded and got to hir paws stretching a bit.

Shi followed Cindy to the back of the office and into a exam room. Doctor Mike Rayne was waiting for hir. He was not tall, a bit below average height and rather pudgy, but he had a very kind face that was always smiling, however he wasn't smiling now, no he looked worried to hir eyes. Shi leaned against the bed in the room looking at the skunk with hir arms folded across hir chest. "Cindy said you've been waiting on me?" Shi asked, his only response was a sigh and a nod. Usually he was talkative, that was one of the reasons shi came to him, usually he gave even more info then he realized with some of his ramblings about his patients. Shi narrowed hir eyes, something was very wrong here. "Since I just got this case today, how did you know I would be coming before the cub even went missing? Does this have something to do with the other missing cubs?" Shi asked. He nodded and sat down heavily in his chair looking both worried and upset. "Yes it does, though I am glad that you already know about the other missing cubs." He was fiddling nervously with the hem of his coat and kept glancing up at hir and looking back down at the ground. He felt guilty about something shi realized, but what could this doctor who helped people all his life have to feel guilty about. "A week ago a young ferret morph came in, he couldn't have been more then eleven. He wouldn't give us any information but said that he was very sick. He would not let any of my human staff go near him though. So I had Cindy call child Services while I examined him. He had a cold, I tried to get him to tell me where he lived, finally he told me that he was one of 'The Chosen'. When I tried to get more information out of him he became frightened and ran from the office, none of us could catch or stop him." He pulled something out of one of his coat pockets, it was a folded piece of paper. When he opened the paper it was a missing person's flyer. The picture was of a ferret cub, the name emblazoned across the bottom was Brantly Walls. "When I gave child services the cub's description they gave me this flyer, said he'd been missing a month." His voice was bleak now, shi could see how he could feel responsible for letting the cub get away but not why he was so depressed, but his next words chilled hir to the bone. "Two days later he was found dead in a park two blocks from here, there was a note attached to his body. It said 'traitor'. " Shi understood now, he blamed himself for the cub's death. Shi reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault that he died, but I know you Mike, you've been digging, you have information, I need that info, to keep this from happening to any of those other cubs." Shi wasn't entirely sure what was going on yet but it was becoming obvious that those cubs were all together, and what ever 'The Chosen' was it had something to do with why Brantly was murdered, shi just needed to figure out what 'The Chosen' was.

Mike nodded as he rubbed his eyes. "Your right, I have been digging, and I may have found something that can help you." He got wearily to his feet and stood in front of hir holding up another sheet of paper, this one shi recognized as a map of the city there was a section marked in red along with several white circles inside the red area. "I found out that many of the cubs who are missing have been sighted in this area, the white marks are where the most sightings have been." Shi nodded as shi mentally took in the details of the map, shi knew that part of town pretty well of course, it was close to the school that Dark-Night went to. Shi pulled out hir comm and dialed hir office when Chris answered shi gave him the schools name. "Check the school's student list and cross it against the missing cubs." shi waited for him to do that while shi continued to examine the map. Finally Chris came back on the line. "You were right Kai, every one of the missing cubs is from that school with only three exceptions," Shi nodded and looked at the time, it was Saturday and still early in the day. "Chris is anyone at the school today?" Shi asked, sometimes the schools would have meetings over the weekends when no students were around. The sound of Chris typing filled hir ears for a moment before he spoke again. "Yeah there is a faculty meeting today." Shi thanked the squirrel for his work before disconnecting the line. Shi looked at Mike and gave him a smile. "Don't worry I will find them all and make sure I stop this, if the police happen to stop by, as unlikely as that seems, do give them this information." They both knew the cops rarely came to his office, never noticing that so many of the people that they tried to interrogate were patients at this clinic. Shi turned to leave the office walking back through the waiting lobby. Shi noticed that the teenage fox was gone now. Shi left the office and was moving towards hir bike when shi saw that there was someone standing next to it, a fox girl, maybe fifteen years old by the looks of her. When she saw Kailani she seemed to tense up and begin to fidget nervously. Kailani smiled reassuringly at the young vixen and tilted hir head. "What can I do for you since I assume you were waiting here for me?" Shi asked with a reassuring smile. The girl fidgeted for a few more minutes but finally spoke. "I need your help, I can help you find the missing children, I was one of them." Kailani's eyes widened "You can lead me to them?" Shi asked. Shi started to reach for hir comm to call Chris when the vixen stopped hir. "Yes but it won't be easy, and just you, no one else. H...He has them, he's trying to make them part of his..his Cult." She said clearly frightened now as she looked around scared. Kailani placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Calm down I will keep you safe, I will find and take care of the others too, now what kind of cult is this and who is it that took them." Shi asked in a calm voice hoping that if shi appeared calm it would help sooth the vixen. The scared vixen looked into hir eyes, her own eyes a startling violet color which stood out against her bright red fur. "He calls it the Cult of the Saved...."

To be continued in: Trial by Fire.....