Dead Boy Detectives |The Endless Case|

Part 7 | The Case of the Child Snatcher|

"So stop beating yourself up over one of Edwin's pretentious douchie comments!"
An evil smile spread across, "yea, they are pretty douchie, huh?" She giggled,
I joined her, "so douchie."

    Neither me or Crystal spoke much while the boys attempted to rescue the little girl from the witches house. I think we were both just nervous. Time was running out, and Esther could be back any minute.

    "God, what is taking them so long?" I sighed, anxious bouncing my leg.

    Crystal leaned against a post, "I don't know." For the first time, she peeled her eyes off the house to look at her watch. I saw a flicker of fear in her already worried eyes as she tapped her watch.

    I looked over and noticed the hands spinning around and around at a constant pace. "Shit." I looked at Crystal, "not good... we better go get them... like, now."

    Crystal nodded at me without a word, and we both went over to the eerily quiet house.

     We had just walked under the archway, when we heard a voice ask, "it's taking a while, don't you think?"

    I froze before slowly turning around. I hadn't known Esther for long, and we definitely weren't friends - she sees me as a threat - But damn it if she didn't have a recognizable voice.

    "Esther," I elongated the sound of her name, "hi." I grinned awkwardly, elbowing Crystal in the side.

    "Hi." She sounded as stunned as I felt.

    "It was kind of rude for you to break into my house, but the post office... that was cute." Esther actually sounded impressed.

    "Yeah. I don't know what you're talking about." Crystals tone would've been convincing to any other regular person, but Esther was not buying it.

    "Oh, come on now. What are your little dead boys looking for in there?" Esther pointed at the house with her cane, "and better yet, what are you doing here."

    "Oh, you know me, just showing my new friend around," I laughed nervously.

    "You could've just asked me nicely Y/N. maybe I would have... I don't know, given it to you. Help a friend out," she slowly paced toward us as she spoke.

    "There's, um, a girl missing, and-" Crystal started.

    "Crystal!" I hissed, elbowing her harder this time.

    "Oh, I see. Never mind. I could never give her away. I'm a... I'm a collector." Esther was getting too close for comfort, but Crystal stood her ground. So I did too.

    "Little girl collector?" Crystal sneered. 'How is this mortal girl so much braver than me?' I thought to myself, judging my humanly cowardice.

    "Yeah!" Esther took pride in Crystals comment, "I mean, I love a lot of things. Japanese whisky, tobacco, a good record, birding. I'm a big fan of birds. But I really, really..." she placed her pipe between her teeth, "love girls." She finished, sucking in smoke, before blowing it into our faces.

    A harmful act as second hand smoking is horrible, but made even more horrible by the fact the smoke was somehow laced with something.

    "Well this is exhausting, the waiting," Esther commented.

    Crystal grunted, trying to speak, but clearly whatever this stuff was, it was much stronger on humans.