Aefia clicked her tongue to get the duchess attention instead or actually intervening to make sure she wasn't interrupting. "What is it? Do you not feel that this punishment is right for them?" The duchess spoke as she folded her arms and looked down at her. "Then suggest another and much better punishment since you were the one to catch them first."
Aefia looked up at the Duchess's eyes, standing right next to her, she was just shoulder height. "I don't want them to die just yet, because the boss I killed wasn't the top of it all." She spoke as she looked at the officer. "I believe there has been a name going around, and it's something like the Banshees?"
The officer was taken aback for a few seconds. "I am afraid yes, they are a group of people we were looking for." He spoke while slowly nodding his head up and down. Aefia continued with her words, "and it is possible that they are the the Banshees subordinates." She spoke as she held out her hand, a faint red glow displayed a phone that fell onto her palm.
"This is the phone of the person that was found dead a few days ago. He had informed the six others who are currently imprisoned here, that there was a person who needed to be killed in front of the restaurant and that was me." She spoke while flipping open the phone.
"And if you check every single one of these contact lists, you will find at least one or two with the name 'friend gang', a dozen with the lable 'master gang' and just two more called 'the great Banshee and Boss'. Now officer, what comes to your mind when think about these names and contacts?" Aefia handed the phone over to the officer.
The officer looked up at the duchess, but she shrugged and stayed silent while looking at the phone instead. He hesitantly took it and scanned through the list of saved phone numbers. "They are all just written as gangs." He spoke while looking stressful.
"That's right! Turns out that the Banshees are indeed just a group of Mafias and bandits around the city." Aefia spoke as she noticed the prisoner start to shake in fear. Today is the day, you will learn to never mess with a former Mafia subordinate. Think you are the only ones with intelligence in this sector of business?
She smirked at the prisoner and glanced over to the other members in their cages. They looked as if they had gotten a huge amount of scolding from either the police or the first prisoner Aefia had met. She stopped in front of one of the prisoners. "What do you consider yourselves? Friends or masters?" She spoke to the person behind the bars.
The officer followed over and so did the duchess. Hesitantly enough, he gave up to speaking. "Friends. We were new and did so for money." Aefia nodded at those words as she asked one more question. "And they caught you working hard, thats when they offered you that job, didn't they?"
"Yes." The prisoner replied back. He looked to be quite young, and depressed about his current situation. "Does your family know about this?" Aefia asked after a short while of observation. "You have family don't you? Or did they kill them?"
"They killed my only family member, my grandma." He jumped over and clutched the bars of his prison while looking towards the officer, which caused all other polices to hold out their guns. "You need to believe me! They killed her after I joined! I didn't think it would be much of a mistake, so I did the job they asked me to do!"
"I don't know, it depends on her since she was the one who caught you all." The officer shrugged and moved one step back. The prisoner looked towards Aefia with a hesitating glance. She looked towards the others first, and then let out a breath. "Let him out for one hour a day until I can finish thorough inspection on his background." She walked towards the other cells.
"In greek mythology, Banshees are said to be a female spirit who can be seen crying or screaming before a family member dies. Explains why a lot of these members have lost at least one family after joining the group." Aefia spoke while returning to her place next to the duchess. "And after that, I guess I have lost interest." She closed her eyes.
"Fine then. So what do you plan on doing next?" The duchess spoke as she slowly looked towards the prisoners. "You can't just leave this case at this small stage and walk away. What final step do you want to pursue."
"The Banshees is the next step I want to take." Aefia spoke with bright red eyes at the first prisoner as she extended her hands and strings appeared at the ground of the person's cell. She tightened the strings st his thumb and it fell to the ground right below him. "The leader is the step I will pursue as a step that leads me to them."
Aefia spoke as she sealed the thumb with her strings that turned into a tight knot and snapped her finger to make it dissappear. "Do you understand what I want to do next?" She looked towards the duchess with clam black eyes like nothing happened. The duchess smiled back as she looked towards the officer next to her. "Do as she says. This is her case and she is allowed the permission to lead it."
There, a grin resurfacing on her face as she spoke to the officers. "Well, honestly the first step I want to take would actually be that I want them to participate in community services. Make them shovel snow from day to night it maybe even have them work for the restaurant they wanted to 'renovate'." Aefia spoke as she looked around the prison.
"That isn't fair! We all have a status to keep young girl!" The first prisoner spoke as he rushed up in front of his cell bars and grapped onto them. "You will be forced to pay for this! Otherwise we will cut your throat and display it in our museum!" He spoke while cracking his knuckles.
Aefia stared at the prisoner with a cringed face. "Do you think that made you look scary?" She spoke while stepping back and covering her mouth to avoid any one from noticing her silent laugh. "Honestly I can do that too."
"Do what?" The prisoner seemed humiliated. Aefia used her bandaged hand to crack her own knuckles and the officer and duchess followed along with her with smiles each. "Everyone can do it, so what? Do we seen scary to you?" She spoke while adjusting her top hat on her head.
"Anyway, I can't delay the process and I have other things to complete too. So let's get this finished as soon as possible so that we can move on with the rest of the day. I believe even the prisoners need to prepare for the next step." Aefia spoke while looking at the duchess to ensure she had anything else to say before moving forward.
The duchess didn't look back. She just stared at the prisoners for one last time and walked towards the end of the hallway which led to the staircase. Aefia let out a breath of relief as she continued to thing of whether the right thing was done.
***
"This is terrible! Why are we being forced to clean the sewers!" One of the prisoners shouted while holding his own nose. "Who knows what is in this drain waters, I just found a termite climbing up the wall!" Another one shouted as more started to add on with their conversations.
They blabbered on about their work, complaining and sometimes speaking about the benefits. At the end, they all agreed that thanks to this punishment, they were outside the prison walls and out of torture and death. "Honestly, I think we are being fed more then we were back at the prison. And contributing to nature is actually a fun thing if you are working with your peers or league." The first prisoner spoke while scooping out plastic bottles.
"Yeah I find it true. I just thought that since both the duchess and the young girl seemed evil, they were going to do something worse than this. But maybe they were just trying to teach us something?" Another one slammed his hand onto the first prisoner's shoulders.
They all turned towards the teenager who hadn't spoken for a long time. One of them asked while walking over to him, "what is the matter? I thought we were enjoying the job? Do you find it a little forcing?" He spoke while rustling his hair.
"No, I was just thinking about what the young girl beside the duchess is currently planning. She did say she wanted to go after the leader of The Banshees." He spoke while straightening his back and flashing a smile. "My concern is...will she be able to go past them? The Banshees are smart with their methods too."
The others stared at him with shock while also realizing how he just spoke the truth. The man next to the teenager spoke while smiling as he patted his back. "Yes, she might have to go through a little bit more trouble, but she is as smart as The Banshees. If she got us here, there is enough evidence that she is using us, but honestly I think I know where this is going. If she truly is the daughter to the duchess, she is as smart as her too."
The others nodded as they seemed to agree with what the first prisoner was saying. They all continued into their work while discussing what might be happening next or sometimes speaking about the banquet if the conversation flowed a little too deep and serious.
A very long time had passed as if it were short, and slowly but surely, footsteps could be heard coming towards the direction of where the prisoners where working. It came from both directions and within seconds, the lights blinked and one prisoner's muffled voice was heard before he went missing.
"What was that?!" A prisoner shouted as he looked around for a source. "A beast or a monster? A human? I don't know!" Another shouted as there was a second muffled voiced heard and they too went missing with a blink of an eye.
One by one, all of them dissappeared until only the teenager was left standing along with the first prisoner. They both ran towards the opposite direction and looked for the exit of the tunnel. But people were already present there and one grabbed the first prisoner's arms while another hit his head and blood fell onto the ground.
The teenager immediately turned around while rushing over to help, but he was pushed over towards the water and fell into the rushing stream which dragged him away. His last blurry vision was of the other prisoner being dragged away and out of the tunnel. The sight made him want to fight back but his consciousness slipped away as a faint wave of magic caused his body to fade away.
***
A slap was felt on his cheek as he immediately got up and found himself by the river. He got up to his sitting position and coughed out water droplets. The teenaged prisoner glanced up to notice a guard checking on him. "He is awake, and weak." The guard confirmed.
The teenager looked towards his right side and found a standing figure wearing an almost same uniform as the day he had met her right next to the duchess. She looked at him with slightly red eyes and spoke out a word, "Name?"
The teenager stared with a shocked face and itched his eyes while speaking his name "Cedric". And immediately afterwards, he asked. "Were you the one who took the others away?"
"If I had taken them, you would have seen them alongside you. The only person who I was able to save was the prisoner you were trying to escape with, do you want to meet him?" Aefia spoke while pointing towards the man sitting on the ground with his head being bandaged.
Cedric immediately got up to run towards him, but his legs felt fragile. He glanced down to look at his leg, which was perfectly intact. He looked up at Aefia with a questioned look, but she seemed to not know the reason and walked away after telling a guard to help him get over there.
The prisoner looked at Cedric as he noticed the limping teenager. He raised his hand to show that he was alright and that eased his worries. Anyway, he went over to the first prisoner and set down beside him on the ground. "I told you that the girl is a very clever person." He spoke while showing his thumb.
"Hold on, didn't she rip it off?" Cedric looked with a little joy about getting back with a supportive colleague. "Yes she did, and she also returned it. I have no doubt about what she is going to do next, there is a high chance she will search for the rest of the prisoners before she actually met with The Banshees."
"Hopefully. But she is a strange human after the incident that just happened." Cedric stared into the river with deep thoughts.
***
The cover around the faces of all four prisoners were removed as they looked at the familiar room and glanced at their leader. "Look at my subordinates! Dumb enough to not be able to outshine a young girl's intelligence." He slammed his fist onto the table's surface.
"But I have done a huge favour for all of us now!" He laughed like a maniac as he glanced towards the prisoners sitting in front of him. "Aren't you all grateful that I saved you from that humiliating environment? No workers of mine does such a nasty job."
"But it was better then actually working here." One of the prisoner spoke as a gun was lowered upon his forehead. Before they could pull the trigger, the glass silently shattered as they all diverted their attention to it. The leader spun around to look at the dead body laying next to him and looked out the window.
Cedric stood with a sniper in his hand, outside the boundaries of the estate. He stood with a fierce face and dressed as a butler, which raised awareness among everyone else in the room except of the leader himself.
"Welcome back to where you will die next." The leader told himself while smiling.