The Heritage of Sephtis: The Returning

8: Just Jake

"What were you doing following the FBI?" Jack stood awkwardly waiting for Finn to return.

"He was looking for a case." Jaden walked into the living room and sat down on the couch directly beside Jack.

"Correction: I was tracking a case." Finn responded from the kitchen. He walked into the living room and stood beside Jack with a towel draped over his shoulder. "I knew about the fires, and predicted the next likely location. Once I saw the FBI I assumed that they were heading to the fires, if they weren't they were going towards something even more exciting, and I'd rather have been there anyways." Finn stuck his hands in his pockets and stood looking at Jaden. Jaden looked back him.

"What?" Jaden asked uncomfortably.

"What do you have so far on your case?" Jack looked at Finn. Finn returned his look with a nod of approval.

"Thank you." Finn pulled the towel off his shoulder and draped it over Jack's, and then sat in his chair. "Well I never told you what the men said when I went to, uh, talk with them." Finn redirected his attention to Jaden. "After some convincing, they said something about a boss, which you know I wasn't surprised about, and so-"

"That's what you were waiting for?" Jaden looked at Finn. "That's what you wanted?"

"What do you mean? I was looking for a name, so I-"

"You just wanted me to ask you?" Jaden sighed.

"Yes, I like answering questions. Anyways, so I asked them once again who their boss was, and they were all like 'Don't hurt us! We've never seen the man!' and I-"

"What is wrong with you?" Jaden scrunched up his eyebrows.

"Nothing? So I eventually got the name Ali. But they still couldn't give me a description, other than some middle eastern accent. I gave up on that, and started asking them about some of the weirder stuff-"

"Why? You're not thinking of investigating that ghost woman? Don't mess with that stuff, it's bad!" Jaden blurted out.

"Why not? I like a challenge, I like a mystery. So I asked them about the weirder stuff, and they said they didn't have anything to do with that. I'm thinking we should try and get there quicker to try and investigate it, see if we can catch her and talk."

"Ay dios, no! Not with me paying you!"

"You don't have to catch her to talk with her. I've talked to-" Jack spoke up. Finn stopped him.

"Yes, that's lovely. I'm sure you did. I'm not interested in talking with spirits. I'm interested in discovering how this woman keeps doing this and passing off as a ghost."

"Yeah, but she is a spirit, in a sense." Jack interrupted again.

"Which makes it dangerous! It's voodoo or demons or something very bad, you shouldn't mess with that stuff! I'm not going to!" Jaden sat back down, and crossed his arms.

"Yes, well regardless of what she is, I want to know, I want to talk to her." Finn replied skeptically.

"But she is like a spirit, and she's not evil. She's like an angel! She's been helping me." Jack took up the defense.

"You what?" Finn sat up.

"She's been helping me. I'm here because I listened to her, and followed her from fire to fire."

"Ok, so not a spirit, sí?" Jaden uncrossed his arms. "Just a woman, like Finn said." Jaden cleared his throat nervously. Finn nodded to himself and pulled out his phone.