The moment he was gone, Elanius immediately rolled their chair over close to my desk.  “Do you know who that was?”  They hissed.  “He’s a famous philanthropist.  Well, kind of.  Officially he prefers to act through other people and not have his face in the paper much, but people know him.  According to rumors,” they wiggled their eyebrows knowingly at me, “from Town Hall, the mayor was absolutely delighted when he moved to town and wants to convince him to stay.  I bet they are bending over backwards to try to help him make this happen, though I’m kind of surprised he came down himself instead of sending an assistant.”

“Kat said he’s related to fairy royalty,” I murmured under my breath.

They nodded instantly.  “Oh yeah, yeah, that’s true!  I believe he was set to be the next king before the monarchy was dissolved?  His dad was the last king.  Officially, anyway.  A lot of people view Adair Woodson as the last true fairy king, but technically his cousin took over for a while and then dissolved the monarchy shortly before the fairy isle was destroyed.  Lachlan Woodson – or whatever he goes by now – would have been the next king if it weren’t for that.  So yeah, royalty!  Sort of.”

Whoa, the guy would have been a king.  Guess he was a prince and still is, in a sense?  Though I suppose if the monarchy technically doesn’t exist anymore, maybe not.  Kat seemed genuinely impressed.

Elanius and I decided to take our lunch break, so we left the office and headed down the street to a little ramen shop we liked.  Once we were in a secluded corner, they continued.

“I’m presuming that’s why he went into philanthropy – he had a ton of money because of his family, plus they’re long-lived supernaturals so they can kind of invest and gather more money that way, even apart from the royalty stuff, so I’m guessing he’s one of those super rich people.  I honestly didn’t expect to see someone like that just walk into our office,” they admitted while they separated their chopsticks.  “He was more down-to-earth than I’d have expected, but maybe when someone’s into philanthropy, they have to relate a bit better to people than, uh, your typical stuck-up rich person?”

Nah, not all rich people are like that, Kat protested.  I mean, sure, some.  But there were kids at that school you attended that were normal, they just tended to try to stay in the shadows.

Yeah, I agreed.  There seemed to be two types of rich kids there – the entitled brats or snobs and the normal ones.  And the brats and snobs made their presence more known just because they could.

“You’re talking to Kat, aren’t you?”  Elanius observed.  “You pause a bit whenever you do.”  They narrowed their eyes and stared at me intently, then sighed.  “I keep wishing my telepathy could work on you, too, so I could talk to both of you at the same time, but it only works on other gargoyles.”

Honestly, it would have been a little weird to have someone else in our head with us, but I could appreciate the idea of us being able to communicate with someone else at the same time without having to involve a translator, aka whichever of us was “in front.”

“How’s your family?”  I asked, remembering that the previous day they’d made some kind of reference to something going on with them.  “Is everything okay?”

Elanius sighed.  “No.  Yes, they’re fine, it’s just busy stuff.  Work.  Okay, so, there’s this necromancer in Avenglade who keeps track of the dead and summons anyone who’s troubled, then tries to placate them so they can’t be summoned by other necromancers for evil stuff.  It’s something her family has done, and within certain circles the family’s pretty well known.”  They paused as our ramen arrived, then resumed once we were alone again, pausing every now and then as they took a bite.  “Anyway, the necromancer reached out to us because they’ve had a few of our people buried there.  Like, they were originally from Avenglade and wanted to be buried there instead of here in Lyndale, so their bodies were sent back there.  The necromancer is pretty sure we’re dealing with a serial killer here.  They were a bit concerned it might be a Hunter at first, but then they saw similarities with a human victim, too.  So far they said four people recently buried there seem to have died in the same way.”

I was kind of alarmed by that, and also confused about the numbers.  “That many people are buried back there?”

“It was an extended family situation,” Elanius explained.  “Or a community, not entirely clear.  Apparently half of them split and came here, and half stayed, but the older generation of people who moved here wanted to be buried back there.  Which adds another layer to this – if the humans buried are relatives to the supernaturals, they still might have been protected humans.  So it could still be a Hunter thing.  The necromancer said it didn’t seem like Hunters, more like just one person killing people, but it could be a single Hunter, possibly.

“Anyway, my aunt is upset.  Not at the necromancer, she’s glad the supernatural patrol here was notified about something going on and possible Hunter presence, or a serial killer, or maybe just someone within the family killing others?  That’s possible too.  But my aunt is upset because we don’t know how long this has been going on and don’t have a good idea of numbers here, since we don’t have a necromancer here who can check.  She’s thinking of seeing if the necromancer can come check, but apparently that would be a whole thing since we’d potentially have to check multiple graves and who knows how long that could take.  So instead, she’s asked my family to station themselves near to where this has been going on, and she’s also set a few of her officers on the task of trying to see if there are any similarities in known cases, just in case they might be able to link some other cases to those deaths.  It’s hard, you know, when we know they were most likely killed by the same person but we have no actual evidence.  Just the information from the necromancer who learned it from the dead – not exactly something we can take to court.  It’s a mess, but my aunt is hoping that with the family out keeping an eye on the area, maybe they can catch something.”

I was worried about this whole thing, but at least it didn’t sound like they were targeting everyone, just this one area.  “They’re just…hoping to see something?”

Elanius shrugged.  “That’s what gargoyles are often hired for,” they pointed out.  “My family’s done a lot of that for centuries, really.  We get hired to position ourselves throughout town and basically just keep an eye on everything.  Even supernaturals don’t always realize we’re living gargoyles as opposed to statutes when we’re in our dormant external state.”

Elanius had shown us their dormant external state once when I asked.  They resembled a stone bat, just much larger, and they were right about one thing – if I’d seen that on the edge of a building, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.  I’d have thought it was just a stone bat statute/human-created gargoyle, not an actual living one.  It was honestly a pretty cool skill.

“We’ve been keeping in contact,” they added, tapping their temple.  “They’re bored, mostly, but that’s normal.  It can be weeks and months of boredom before you see what you need.  Obviously, we don’t think it’ll be that long – or hoping not, at least – because four deaths in a short period suggests something a little more active.  But we’ll just have to wait and see.”

I’d get so bored sitting around like that, Kat observed.  I guess it’s good they can talk to each other like we can.  It’s easier not to get so bored if you at least have someone to talk to.

Elanius had told us that gargoyles could sit in place for years, though, without moving a muscle, and that seemed very…impressive, I guess?  I couldn’t imagine having the patience to sit still like that for that long.

“What happens if you find them?”  I asked as I finished my ramen.  “Your aunt takes over?”

“Depends.  If it’s a Hunter, the supernatural patrol takes over.  They’ve had training from this group that helps people know how to handle Hunters specifically, so they’re prepared if that happens.  If it’s an individual…depends again.  If it’s a human, the human side of the police force can take over.  If it’s a supernatural, my aunt will head up the task force.”  They sighed deeply.  “My aunt is going to have to brief the mayor on the issue.  She knows he’s going to be mad about it, especially with Christmas coming up and maybe this whole thing with the Woodson fairy guy – having a serial killer in town is not going to be the best way to convince him to stay.”

I didn’t see the point in specifically recruiting an ultra-rich guy to stay in town if he wasn’t bringing jobs/income/whatever to town, which wasn’t quite what a philanthropist did, but maybe the mayor saw some sort of value in having him present regardless.

“And if they see something in the moment?  They’ll be able to protect themselves?”  I liked Elanius’s family, I didn’t want them to get hurt.

To my relief, they nodded immediately.  “Yeah, yeah – we can throw rocks at people during combat.  Or fly and drop them on their heads.  Worst comes to worst, we freeze in our stone form and there’s not a lot most species can do to us then.”

Ha, I’d love to see someone dropping rocks on someone’s head.  Sounds amazing.  Kat was literally laughing in my head.

“Kat wants to see that,” I told them.  “The dropping rocks thing.”

They shrugged.  “Sure, uh, we can have her over for practice I guess?  We sometimes do practice out at my aunt’s place.  Living in the woods has its advantage when we want to fly around in gargoyle form.”

Kat was pleased with this offer and made me tell Elanius thank you, before I also offered Elanius a movie night at our place sometime.  Kat pointed out that it was her turn to pick a movie, but thankfully Elanius was pretty open to watching any movie genre, so we made our arrangements for when they were coming over before heading back to work.

The rest of the day was less interesting.  I learned when we came back from lunch that the lawyer from earlier had shown up just before noon with his revised document and demanded we accept it, then got mad when the clerk who served him also refused to accept it because he was being a jerk still – and his margins were still all wonky and page numbers were missing on half the pages.  Aka it didn’t comply, so we were allowed to refuse it.  He was literally screaming mad that we wouldn’t accept his filing when it was due within minutes, and apparently got confrontational enough the bailiffs removed him.  I was kind of glad I’d missed that, but the clerk in question thought the whole thing was kind of hilarious, especially since he’d just been told specifically that if he was minimally polite to us, we might let things slide more.  And yet he still hadn’t figured that out and was paying the consequences.

The lawyer did return the next day, subdued, but this time he was accompanied by someone who I presumed was a coworker, who made sure things were submitted – this time finally complying with our regulations – and then made the guy apologize to both me and the other clerk and to the bailiff as well.  Probably he was hoping to avoid getting official bar complaints, but I thought the guy was honestly not going to make it unless he was personally supervised like this, which was just not practical, so…yeah, I gave him six months, at most, before he called it quits here.  Or got forced out of practice.

But at least he made the job interesting at times.  I hated the stuff he turned in, because it was always such a mess and so unpleasant to my eyes, but I’d survive.

At least I had a fun weekend planned.