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Hotel Emperador

Chapter 5 - Alderocobaladrite

By Whitepython.

Xaduardo sat on one of those stylized tables at the same café where he met up with the Wolf to give him the bad news three days ago. However, this table was placed inside the area reserved for employees. He and Alroc were surrounded by boxes which contained countless stacks of paper cups and coffee brewing supplies. He could also spot accessories for coffee machines and several other things that the raptor wasn't sure what they were.

"Can you tell me now what did you found at the security room?" Xaduardo asked. The saurian did his best to remain calm on the outside even if he felt the tension of not knowing what the Wolf discovered devouring him on the inside.

"I was hoping to see McRue walking along the lobby of the hotel carrying anything that could give us any hint, but I ended up with more than I could chew."

"What does that mean?"

"That pitch dark storehouse with the air duct access and the other run-down warehouse. The one with all the antique items and restaurant chairs happened to have hidden security cameras. I had to delete the video of ourselves sneaking into the west wing before Viennomante could see us in the recordings.

"At least those hidden cameras gave me more room to search for McRue. I had to spend most of the time I had deleting the evidence incriminating us and invest the few minutes left on searching for McRue. I got one piece of video transferred into my cell phone. There were no videos from the past week, let alone anything earlier than that. Viennomante checks the video records and deletes everything often. It was a miracle I found this last video with McRue. I'll send you the video right away to your phone. I also want you to scan McRue's logbook with your cell phone and use it as reference to finish this investigation."

Getting access to the logbook meant poking into the privacy of his leader. While Xaduardo wasn't comfortable with the idea, this could mean saving McRue's life. The Wolf took out his cell phoneand got busy with it for a moment. Xaduardo picked up his own phone to get ready.

"Here it goes. Ready to accept it."

The raptor's cell phoneplayed a soft chime to indicate that it was asking for permission to receive the file. The saurian authorized the operation and the file began to transfer. Xaduardo placed his cell phone on the table.

The Wolf set his own cell phone down as well, but the screen was locked. The Velociraptor wasn't able to see anything but the current date and time. Alroc brought himself up to his feet and walked towards the back of the room where several cardboard boxes were laying around.

The reptile observed his demon hunting partner sort out through the boxes. Just like the saurian was sorting through a mess of ideas in his own mind. There were so many things keeping him uneasy.

Viennomante confirmed that Rantego was present during most of the investigation, but the Wolf accused the avian of the opposite. Why was the Wolf so desperate to find McRue to even lie? Was this just for duty?

There was also something about Rantego too. If the avian investigated the hotel along with the lion, this meant that Rantego was in full awareness that the lion was in danger. Yet he refuses to take immediate action.

Talking about the tiger, why on earth is Viennomante asking for help but refuses to handle video evidence that would solve this case once and for all? Why is he deleting everything from his video surveillance cameras? What is he hiding that he wouldn't even allow the maintenance team alone in the security room?

The raptor felt his stomach tensing and a shiver running down his spine. He began to debate in his mind when it would be the right moment to at least get some answers from Alroc. He feared that the Wolf could get upset like he has been doing as of late.

"Before you see that video..." Alroc spoke, and the raptor returned his attention to the Wolf. "You need to see the rest of the items that I have brought, so you understand the final step in this mission."

The reptile saw a cardboard box being placed on one of the corners of the table. The Wolf slid his hands into the box to retrieve a smaller wooden box crate.

The first thing that the Wolf brought to the table was a simple hardcover notebook with dark case covers that were worn out around the edges. Xaduardo didn't need to be told what that was.

The second item that the Wolf took out was more bizarre: it was a skull, by its appearance the raptor supposed that it once belonged to some kind of reptilian creature. It was around the size of Alroc's hand. It had thick protuberances from over its eye sockets which ran along its broad snout all the way down to the tip of its nose which ended in two large holes.

Under the skull, there was a jaw that was stuck in place with several sacred seals made of paper glued to it. Two smaller horns came from the back of the jaw. It had rough, almost spike like cheekbones. It was apparent that when it was alive, it used to have a sharp array of fangs which came accompanied by two large fangs protruding from the front. Even on its afterlife, all of its fangs were in place except for the large one on the right side, giving it an asymmetrical look. The back of the head was oval-like. The top of the head spotted a pair of horns twisted in a circle around the sides of the skull.

The raptor felt confused and disturbed with the item presented before him. Out of sudden, the same chime that asked the raptor for permission to receive the video rang once more. Alroc'shard earned prey was ready to be shared with the dinosaur.

"That skull looks both demonic and sacred," Xaduardo spoke after deciding to leave the video for later. He has waited for this for hours. What else gives to hold on a couple more minutes?

The Wolf opened the black notebook on the table. He spun thenotebook so Xaduardo could read the presented page. It was bookmarked with a napkin with the emblematic cup of coffee that the coffee shop used as a logotype.

"This item is known as an 'Alderocobaladrite.' " The Wolf spoke after pressing his index finger pad over the word he pronounced that was written with the feline's own handwriting. "If this item is destroyed in this world, nothing out of the ordinary happens. If the destruction occurs in analternate dimension, it will release a massive wave of holy energy. More than enough wipe the entire alternate dimension off of existence.

The raptor had read about that kind of items, but he had never seen one in person. He knew that those were prepared with bones and remains of demons under heavy sacred rituals and had different cleansing effects. The saurian supposed that the skull had to be special enough piece if it had the power to destroy an entire alternative dimension. Alroc placed his gray furred hand over the skull before speaking to the raptor.

"This is the page where McRue wrote down that he got this item in secret from a friend of his that works at the cathedral. I have no idea why he wished to keep it a secret but let's keep it that way too.

Xaduardo nodded to the Wolf,and the lupine kept on talking "Once we pull McRue out, we obliterate that other place into nothingness with this. That was the original plan that McRue had. I have no idea if he came up with a better plan because there's the gap between his last update and his disappearance."

"What do you mean by gap? Wasn't he up to date until the night before his disappearance?"

"No, he updated the preliminary information and the events of his first two weeks of investigation only."

That was very strange. McRue was quite a disciplined man, and he wouldn't have stopped to write about his findings.

"What was the last thing he updated?"

"It was his deductions on how the ritual to invoke 'The Operator' was performed. He gathered information from some demon worshipping books he obtained. But like I said, he stopped to update for weeks before he disappeared. You are going to read it with a cup of coffee and stay up all night with me because we're working extra hours."

The raptor hated to pull all-nighters, but he hated a lot more what the Wolf pulled out of his crate next:

The Wolf placed down a handgun on the table. It had a long, silvery metallic barrel and a muzzle that was barely poking from the tip. This was mounted over a dark gray grip with corrugated grip panels and a squared trigger guard. It had a minimalistic rear and front sights. The bullet magazine was loaded in the gun.

He remembered that particulargun well. During the firearms training they both received, the Wolf bragged about it all the time. It was an FXN-1919 handgun.

The Wolf pressed the magazine release and placed the empty gun on the table and its respectivemagazine next to it. The raptor felt his belly going tense and his sickle claws dug on the floor. Every single time he saw a gun,he couldn't help himself.

"Why are you showing me this? Get that thing away from me," Xaduardo complained.

"We're on the final stage of this mission. The next step is for you to fetch your gun from the firearm training we received. And if you have any remaining silver bullets bring them too. I could only fetchfive silver bullets for it instead of the seven the magazine carries. But thesebullets could kill anyone as good as if they were a demon."

"I already explained to you that I don't have a gun. I don't own a single bullet, and I don't plan to own any in the future, and I never wanted one in the past. You shouldn't have one with you either. Theyare illegal."

"What are you going to do if a demon cultist is threatening to kill you, kill McRue or me? What are you going to do if we encounter a strong demon? Are you going to stop him with your whines about how guns are illegal?"

"Guns kill innocent anthros all the time!"

"No Xaduardo. Irresponsible anthros kill other anthros all the time. Period. We explained this to you already in trainingand we are in a pretty delicate situation here. We don't have time for this!"

"That's just..." the raptor said before grabbing his cell phone and bringing himself up to his feet and walking to the door. However,the Wolf was quick enough to pull the reptile back by the shoulder.

"I want to know what your problem with guns is! I don't want your typical evasion you always come up with at the hideout."

"That's none of your business. Leave me alone!"

"It's my business because my life could be on the line or the life of McRue because you refuse to go well prepared to face our enemy. I demand to know what is going on with you and I demand to know it at this instant!"

The raptor didn't wantto go back to that day. He refused to even think about it for a second. The memories made his throat to close and his stomach to ache.

The raptor felt the growing impulse to push the Wolf away and leave the café and never return. But he promised to God that he would stick to this mission. McRue was his mentor and friend,and the lion needed help.

"Look Alroc. I am going to be quick." The dinosaur released a loud hiss as his fist curled up. His eyes turned away from the Wolf before he resumed to speak. "This is too painful for me to remember but we're bound together to solve this case. I know that I won't get you off of my back unless I explain myself."

The raptor took a breath and went silent. It took him a moment to prepare himself to travel back in time in his mind to that dark day when he was eight years old.

"When I was a hatchling, my grandmother took me into downtown to buy groceries with her. Everything was going well until she madethe fatal decision to walk through a street with little pedestrian traffic. From a dark alley, a drug addict came out with a gun and took me hostage and dragged me with him and forced my grandmother follow him.

"She didn't resist the assault and gave him everything, but because we were done buying groceries we didn't have a lot of cash on hand. The maniac threatened to kill me if she didn't handle more money. My grandmother begged and pleaded him to take what we had already handed over. He seemed to understand it in his drugged mind for a moment and-"

His fists curled harderand he ground his fangs as his eyes turned down to the floor. His throat felt even tighter than before. He struggled to speak the last part

"...As we turned around to escape, that son of a bitch opened fire. He killed my grandmother before my very own eyes with his fucking gun, and I tried to..."

The dinosaur shook his head fast, unable to resume with his conversation. He pushed the Wolf away. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. However, the constant struggle made the lock bounce off. The Wolf placed his hands over the raptor's left shoulder to stop him in his tracks.

"Shit Xadu. Look man, I am sorry. I didn't know that you were carrying that in your soul. I'll drop the gun discussion. I'll keep it concealed with me from now on." Alroc had his ears pinned down, his muzzle frowned and his tail tucked between his legs.

While Xaduardo didn't felt like pushing the Wolf away now, he felt quite upset to remember the impotence left in him after such event. The raptor took several deep breaths as he tried to consider his next move. In the end he decided to follow the Wolf back into the room because the lupine looked quite sorry.

"Come, Take a seat. I'll fetch you a lemon refresher."

Xaduardo sat once more on the table. The Wolf dropped the gun and its magazine inside the wooden crate to hide it away where it once was.

"Watch the video. I'll return in a moment." And with that, the Wolf patted the raptor's shoulders and walked to the unlocked door to disappear into the busy café.

The reptile spent a moment alone trying to escape from those memories he has chosen to keep locked. Once he was ready, he pulled out his cell phone to browse for the video. He held his breath before pressing the play button.

The video had washed out colors. The reptile first saw the elevator and the staircase that he went through two days ago once he escaped from that pitch dark room. The strange thing was that he saw in front of the empty elevator tunnel one of those ritualistic tables that he found on the fancy suite that day he explored the last floor in the west wing.

The setup looked like the one he spotted that day, -including all the blood-. The raptor twisted his face in disturbance and repulsion as he remembered the bleeding heart and the skulls he found back then. Out of sudden, the Lion Jantheno McRue walked into the scene.

Xaduardo found a small oasis of happiness in that image. It was nice to see McRue once more even if it was in video. But the oasis evaporated when he noticed the lion was exanimating his blood-soaked hands as he stood between the altar and the empty elevator tunnel.

The 54 years old lion was wearing an old dark trench coat and some regular striped pants that were just noticeable in the video. His head was covered with a pale yellow, white and almost gray mane thanks to his advanced age. The lion was trying to pull something out of one of his pockets, but he wascareful about it. Trying to not to get his clothes dirty with blood. He used his thumb and little finger to retrieve a white cloth from his pocket and clean the blood from his padded hands

The feline turned around to throw the cloth under the table and to resume paying attention to the elevator tunnel before him. When the strange events seemed to have come to an end, a strange shadow appeared from the top left corner of the video. It crawled on all fours like a feral beast. The lion looked at it for a moment before turning his gaze away back into the elevator. The shadow kept on moving along the area, leaving and entering the scene caught in the video as McRue paid no attention to it. After a moment, it was like three or four of those bestial shadows were in the same room. -Something was attracting them towards McRue-.

After a moment of idleness, the broken elevator became alive. A strange light glowed from the empty vertical tunnel. All the lights on the old panels became turned on, but whatever happened next remained shrouded in mystery. The video began to grow in static. The washed out colors lost their tone. The image began to twist until the static took over and the picture of Jantheno McRue became lost forever and the video stopped to play.

The raptor remained silent. Now he could understand why the Wolf wanted him to look at this. Why was McRue performing a demonic ritual? What were those shadows? What happened with the elevator? Viennomante mentioned that 'The Operator' was an entity in charge of the elevator. But the elevator was stuck on the last floor.

The door behind the raptor opened.Laughter and conversations coming from the café reached the private room. The Wolf pushed the door open with his back and entered with two drinks in his hands. He allowed the door to close itself and minimize the sound coming from the exterior as he walked to the table.

"Why... what happened after this?" Xaduardo inquired filled with concern.

"Nothing. The static remained there for around 10 minutes before the image returned and there was nothing at all on the screen." The Wolf placed both drinks on the table before he walked to the entrance door to lock it "It's like nothing ever happened. All the items on the table, the table itself and McRue were gone."

"This means-"

"That day at the presidential suite you were in the middle of an invocation, but I didn't have enough time to look for the video records of that day. I don't know who did it and how they made their way to the presidential suite."

The room where both demon hunters went silent as the Wolf took his seat once more.

The raptor rubbed his face with his soft scaled palms as he tried to keep his confused mind in order. What could have happened to himself if he had stayed in the presidential suite that morning? Would he be still alive? Is McRue still alive? Was the lion executing a demonic ritual with the sole purpose to reach the alternate dimension? The difference of dates in the journal and the date when McRue disappeared have anything to do with the ritual?

"We're facing 'The Operator' Tomorrow Morning" The gray wolf spoke, breaking the silence in the room "We are going to practice the invocation ritual all night long."

"We are not going to..." the raptor shivered "draw things with blood and..."

"Yes Xaduardo. We are going to repeat the ritual tomorrow morning. 6:00 A.M. and we're going to get as messy as necessary to save McRue."

"Are you insane Alroc? We can't partake in a demonic ritual. Who knows what could happen if we mess with 'The Operator.' "

"Look pal, I am sorry for bringing you a bitter memory earlier, but you are the insane one here." The lupine flashed his teeth as he jabbed his index finger against the table several times in an aggressive manner. The liquids on the table shook for a moment. "That video proves that I am right about everything. And I mean -everything!-" the lupine dug his eyes like they always did and the raptor bowed his eyes in submission like he always did.

"And you can't pull back now. You promised before God that you were going to do this. And this means that we're getting McRue back to safety with us even if means making a blood pact with the God of Darkness himself!"

The raptor couldn't believe what he has just heard. There's no way the Wolf is serious about this. If McRue or Rantego were to hear those words, they would have kicked Alroc out of the clan right away.

"We are hours away from rescuing McRue!" the Wolf continued "You can't quit because we have to perform a demonic ritual."

The Wolf got to his feet. He planted his hands on the table and his gaze locked on the reptile while the pelt along his head and neck was standing. The lupine was trying to remain calm. The raptor could feel the tension in the air diminishing once Alroc closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Tell me Xaduardo when I have been wrong about this case. Mention me one time."

"You said that Rantego left McRue Behind during the investigation and that's a lie. Viennomante confirmed that Rantego just stopped to show up a few days before McRue disappeared."

Maybe it was the heat of the moment. Perhaps the frustration that the raptor has bottled up was to blame. It could be the confused mind the reptile had, or perchance the saurian felt like threatening the leadership of the Wolf. But the lupine took the hit.

"What? That's not possible! He must have confused him for some other avian."

"He told me that he was expecting for a 'bird guy' that knew a lot about this case to show up instead of me. The avian he expected has been investigating with McRue since the beginning until a few days before he disappeared. There's no way that it could have been someone else."

"Listen Xaduardo. I don't know what the hell Viennomante is up to and I don't care. That cat has a long tail, and he's afraid that someone steps on it."

"And according to you, what is so rotten with the tiger? He's desperate to have his hotel cleansed."

"He's covering up all the dark stuff that happens at his hotel to save its reputation. He doesn't save any video from the security cameras. He deletes everything every week and covers whatever happens with lies. He's throwing all kind of information left and right."

"What does any of this has to do with Rantego?"

"I trust that manager as much as I trust a demon. He feels cornered because his request got out of hands. I overheard that part of your conversation with him. Rantego is just as useless as a spoiled three-year-old cub. He had no right to leave McRue alone not even for a single minute, let alone several days."

Alroc took a seat on the table as he tried to calm himself down. The raptor remained silent as he wasn't sure what to make out of this mess.

"Listen Xaduardo. This is just..."

An energetic song began to play in the employee room, and the cell phone that belonged to the Wolf began to shake over the table. The Wolf picked up his device at once to check the number.

"Shit! It's Rantego..."

The Wolf dropped the cell phone on the table and ignored the item as it vibrated along the table until it went silent.

"Look Xaduardo. I know this is not inside your comfort zone. This has been a stressing time for me as well, but we're making a lot of progress in a short timeand we will be done with everything tomorrow. Let's stick wi..."

A song familiar for Xaduardo began to play. The raptor examined his cell phone screen.

The screen displayed a green background and the name 'Rantego' on large and white words as the icon of a telephone shook in the center of the screen

"Don't answer him!" the Wolf commanded. The reptile didn't like the idea, but he wasn't going to disobey the Wolf now that he had calmed down.

Once the phone stopped to beg for attention, the Wolf resumed speaking.

"Like I said. This is just for tonight and tomorrow. Push yourself harder for a couple of hours more. We're about to close this case,and we are bound to close it together. Once McRue is here you can go back to your normal..."

A short chime played on the Wolf'scell phone. The canine growled loud in frustration before picking his device up

"It's a text message from our 'dear leader,' it says that we are to report at 7:00 AM at the headquarters. Mister Duster has an important announcement to make regarding McRue. He is going to expel from the clan anyone who fails to show up." Alroc the gray Wolf spoke before dismissing his cell phone aside.

The raptor found the idea of being expelled from the Clan of the Ascended Sun unbearable. He couldn't conceive a life where he wasn't part of the group.

"I bet he got another demon hunting clan to help with the case. He told me that he was going to do that after we left the police precinct the night we reported that McRue was missing." Xaduardo spoke with resignation in his voice.

Another chime played on the raptor's cell phone. The reptile suspected that it was the same message that the Wolf received.

"I hope he does at least that one useful thing in his entire life. I would ask you to ignore his lame threats to expel us and come with me. But if he has contacted another clan, then we're going to the meeting. We're stealing the contact from him and ask the external clan to assist us with the mission. I want to go to a private place to practice the ritual tonight. We need to leave this room soon,and we can't go to my apartment because Rantego lives next door. We're doing this ritual live at the hotel as soon as Rantego dismisses us and we learn who's coming to back us up."

"Viennomante promised us access to the west wing when we needed it"

"Still don't trust that guy, but beats sneaking through a rusty air duct all the time."

"What else could Rantego want? What if he figures out that we're working on this?" Xaduardo closed his eyes after expressing his concern and tried to make the best of this situation. He had no option but face the difficult night that was waiting for him and the critical day tomorrow.

"Don't worry about it Xaduardo. He's not going to stop us. I'm ready for anything, even if that means rescuing McRue with four remaining bullets."

"Shut up Alroc! That's not funny."

"Of course, rescuing McRue is no funny matter. I agree with you... "