Phil walked slowly from the road back towards the garden, following the trail of blood. He wondered what it meant, and why it ended so abruptly. One would expect the blood to slowly trail off, not just... stop. Theories raced through his brain.
"Eewww... beep." Robo Squirrel said, approaching Phil.
Phil looked up. "Hey, guys," He said. Robo Squirrel and Victor Reilly had appeared next to him.
"Robo Squirrel detects trace amounts of a fuckload of blood."
"It's just blood," Victor replied. "Surely you've seen it before."
"Well, there's not usually this much..." Phil answered, his eyes following the trail back to the house. His eyes lingered for a moment on the woman sitting in a police car, wrapped in a blanket. He quickly looked away when she looked up and met his eyes.
"It's terrible, what happened to this family..." Phil said. His voice was choked up for a moment, as he remembered the vivid mental imagery he'd gotten from the mother.
Victor watched Phil react. He'd initially been shocked by the incident, yes. But that had since subsided. Now he saw looks on his teammate's faces that he guessed translated to sorrow, to empathy, to vengefulness.
"It happens," Victor finally said, shrugging. He walked off to find Adem.
A moment later Adem was approached by Victor, and then by Robo Squirrel and Phil.
"What do you make of this?" Phil asked, pointing at the blood trail on the road. Adem walked towards it, a curious expression on his face.
"Did you get a description from the woman?" Adem asked Phil as they walked.
Phil projected the mental image he'd gained into Adem's mind. Plastic gloves, black and white suit, demonic face, white eyes.
"What about the hair? You get anything on the hair?" Adem asked.
Phil stopped in his tracks, picturing the image in his mind. "No. There's just... a white void where the hair should be."
Adem nodded, and kept walking, stopping when he reached the point on the road where the trail stopped.
"What do we think? Flight? Teleportation?" Phil asked.
"Not sure yet..." Adem replied.
Meanwhile, back at VE headquarters, Ozzy Baxter was sitting on the couch with a beer, watching the soccer on television.
"God, I'm bored..." He said to himself. "I'll bet those other guys are out doing something interesting..."
