Gabe stopped to close his eyes and concentrate. He had to check before he continued on. Gabe took deep breaths and the world around him started to pull away from him. The emptiness of the world opened up and beyond that the true figure of beings could be seen. The ethereal view was something that any of it’s true creatures could view though any living things had an ethereal imprint.

It was a 2 hour walk to Prim’s place and normally Gabe would rather just pay for a damn taxi rather then do a 6 mile walk but he needed to clear his head and relax before he got there. Focus is the key to never missing a clue. He kept repeating the word to himself.

“Focus.

Focus.

Focus.”

Gabe nearly walked right past Rodeo Drive. He was close.

The neighborhood was fancy as hell but that’s what you should expect on Beverly Hills. He walked up the street, turned on Beverly Hills Drive and a couple houses down was the place. The place was frickin gorgeous and must have cost a fortune to maintain let alone buy in the first place. It made sense though that Prim would have a place like this. As the centuries have past, the four always had niche qualities that worked well when angled for profit. They wanted to live the life here they had to the fullest. They wanted out of their boring existence of captivity in Limbo. Gabe couldn’t blame them. Limbo sucks.

He went up to the front entrance. He looked around area and investigated the door but there didn’t look to be any sign of a break-in. He unlocked and opened the front door. Stepping inside he looked around and started assessing. Shoes and socks laid nearby that look to be thrown to the side of the front door while the rest of the shoes are set aside in the shoe shelf. Gabe made note of that as he continued forward to a glass sliding door. Gabe stepped up to the glass door, which looked to be a sealed. Probably for the same reason that Gabe was reaching for his gas mask out of his side bag. He fitted it on his head, took a deep breath and opened the door. He could only imagine how horrible the smell would be if he didn’t have some sort protection. A normal man would have passed out after about 30 seconds without protection of some sort. Gabe figured he probably had about 15 minutes before he might lose consciousness so he was going to have to work fast.

He walked into the kitchen, which was full of moldy fruits and vegetables. He suspected there would be gnats all over the place if not for the sealed off environment. He saw a large metal door in the back of the kitchen and walked for it. When he opened the door he could feel the wave of stench hit him more then he could smell it but the sight nearly brought him to the point of vomiting. There were huge cuts of pig, beef, lamb, and deer hanging by meat hooks and left rotting in a large walk-in fridge. “Not much of a fridge,” Gabe mumbled to himself after he turned around and noticed that the thermometer near the door read 85 degrees. He closed the door and turned around to see on the counter near the back a large glass jug with old milk left out to go bad. It looked to have started to clump. He needed to get out of there.

Gabe walked out of the kitchen and towards what looked to be the bedroom. As he approached the door he started to hear music of some type. He could see bits of light creeping out from underneath the door. He took a moment to listen for anything else but could only hear what sounded to be some epic music on repeat.

Gabe pulled out his gun and slowly pushed open the door. The music and light seemed to originate from a television in the bedroom that was repeating the title screen for “Outbreak”. Gabe stepped into the room, turned off the sound on the TV, and turned to the rest of the room. The bed sheets were tossed tossed to one side like someone had moved it over to climb out of bed. There was also an empty glass on the small table next to the bed. Nothing looked out of place though. No sign of a struggle.

Gabe stepped to the bathroom and turned on the light. Everything clean and in place. Gabe was starting to get frustrated. “What was wrong with this?” Gabe asked himself. He kept thinking that everything was in a place where someone should be in that bed sleeping but…

Then Gabe pulled the shower curtain.

The bathtub was full of a milky liquid. It looked like soapy water, only slightly thicker. Gabe could almost make out something in the milky muck.

A figure.

A face.

It was Prim.

After an encounter with Felicity, Gabe was a bit on edge. When one encounters one of the four, one should always be careful. Now that he was investigating the disappearance of one as well he figured it would be better to just get started now. The rain had let up while he was in his office and he had felt nervous about the wad of cash burning a hole in his coat pocket. He walked the 12 more blocks to his house. If one could call it a house.

In Santa Monica housing was expensive and Gabe didn’t need much space, so he rented a room in the backyard of a nice Korean couple’s home. They were usually away from the house on travel and he never had company so they got along just fine. With rate he had for rent though he really wasn’t going to complain even if he did have any trouble. He walked through the side fence and along the stone walkway in the back to his place. It was a little efficiency but he wasn’t in need of anything big. Just somewhere to hang his hat and crash in a bed. As soon as he got in he locked his door and went straight to the bathroom though. He needed to take care of the money.

He had a safe hidden in the built-in laundry hamper. He figured people were fine finding and airing other peoples dirty laundry but most people were not inclined to actually go digging through it.

He pulled out the pile of some clothes that he got from a goodwill store and never wore and slid out the false door to get to the in-wall safe. He dialed in the combination and opened it up. Inside the safe were a few stacks of cash, of which Gabe tossed in the pile that he received from Felicity sans some spending money. He never knew what kind of “expenses” might pop up at any point. He also had a few keepsakes: a small leather bound book of some sort with the words “Liber Judas” written on the cover, a crudely fashioned metal spearhead with red on it, and two very large and simply-made nails.

He gave him one job while on this planet and Gabe was certainly not going to fail at it.

He locked the safe back up and set everything back in it’s place. He then went about grabbing supplies. He was going to need a few things if he was going to go to Prim’s place. Thankfully he had the keys so there was no worry about having to break in. He was going to have get himself prepared to deal with the conditions. He grabbed a HEPA gas mask he had for some of his more gruesome investigations from the closet and a pair of heavy-duty gloves from underneath the sink. He tossed the items along with a flashlight into a small satchel and left the house.

It was a long walk to Hollywood.

Gabe rolled his eyes a bit before getting up from the uncomfortable chair to pace the room and think a bit. He wanted his thoughts clear. If something happened to an ethereal he wasn’t about to take the matter lightly and at this point he had little to no information to go on so he was going to assume the worst. He walked around a couple minutes collecting himself and puffing away at his cigarette before he said anything.

“Now did anything look unusual or out of place at the house when you went by? Anything tossed around or things that seemed to be missing?”

“No, everything looked as normal as she usually keeps it, though you can only really stand it so long in there before the smell gets to you so I left fairly quickly.”

“Good to know. I’ll probably have to drop there myself to investigate. Do you have a key I can borrow so I don’t have to break into the place?”

“Yeah, I’ve got one right here.” Felicity reached to the ground to fetch her purse. She searched around a bit before coming across a set of keys. She tossed the keys to Gabe.

“The bigger one opens the front door and the smaller opens the interior of the house. I relocked both when I left earlier. The address is 906 Beverly Hills.”

“Thanks,” Gabe said as he pocketed the keys. “Now is there anyone else that I should talk to that might know where she might be?”

“To be honest I don’t really know who she spends time with regularly but I know she has kept in touch with Elric and has had an on again, off again thing going on with Alex. I don’t know too much though. I thought it polite not to ask too many questions.”

Now those were two people Gabe had thought he would never see again. At least not until the end of the show. Elric was someone Gabe was okay with but Alex… well Alex was someone that Gabe always thought to be worse then the Morningstar himself. He hated the thought of having to go to him but information was in short supply at this point and he needed what he could get so he made a mental note about the two.

“Well I’ll make sure to keep those two in mind. Also, do you know where I can find Richard and David?”

“Why do you need to speak to them? They’re as much in the dark as I am.”

“I don’t know what information I’ll be able to find at Prim’s place and while Elric is usually one for good intel, I don’t what he’ll have. Not to mention Alex is always a tricky one to deal with. I’d rather keep any opportunities for information I can open.”

“Fair enough. We are all staying at The Chateau Marmont. Just ask to go to the suites. I’ll give your name to the front desk.”

“I should have expected as much. Nothing less then the best for you four, right?”

Felicity slyly smiled and said, “We live within our means.”

Gabe shook his head and smirked. “Of course you do.”

“Speaking of which, what is your normal rate?”

“My rate for this type of thing is $500 a day, first day up front, and if at any point you believe I’m not performing up to snuff you don’t have to pay me.”

“You always were a righteous one, weren’t you Gabe.” Felicity reached into her purse and pulled a stack of twenties. “Let’s make it $1000 a day and I’ll throw down $3000 to start. I want to make sure you find her as soon as possible and have no other distractions.”

Gabe didn’t have any other cases at the moment but he wasn’t about to tell Felicity that. He leaned over to the table and picked up the money. He’d rather wait until Felicity left before he moved the money to his safe, though with as easy as it was for her to get into the office he might just leave the money at his house. Or use it to get better locks.

Gabe slid the cash into his coat’s inner pocket then turned to Felicity. “I didn’t take you for the lovey dubby type either.”

“Call it… sisterly love.

Despite what you may think of us Gabriel, we do still give a damn. At least about each other. Don’t forget that we all have our place and purpose.”

Gabe grabbed his cap off the table and put it on as he got up out of the chair. “You can say that again Toots.

And the names Gabe.”

He turned around to leave the office. “I’ll get back to you in a couple days. Lock the door when you leave.”

It’s a damn shame when it rains. You’ll have a nice evening in Santa Monica. It always starts with a stroll on the pier. The lights of the wheel and maybe a little cotton candy. Gabe’s always been a sucker for people watching and this is quite the place for it. Everyone is so carelessly happy.

Then he caps it off with a calming and relaxing walk on the beach. Some people complain that it’s too cold in January to go hanging out on the beach but for Gabe all you need is a good excuse to wear a coat and moonlight over the Pacific and you’ve found a semblance of the happiness that seems to be getting even more sparse across this hell-ridden world.

Gabe was a tall but lean built man with short brown hair, a hard face, and icy blue eyes that seemed almost unnatural. He strolled across the sand in brown khakis, brown leather shoes, a long beige raincoat and a black fedora. He always liked the style.

But that’s when it begins to pour and Gabe is forced under the pier to try to find some shelter from the rain in hopes that it’ll just pass. After about 15 minutes of the rain only getting harder though he’s pretty sure he’s going to have to accept he’s going to get wet.

His office is closer to the pier then his home and he’s pretty sure he has an umbrella there so he pulls up his coat collar and that trudges out along the wet sand. He makes his way up the boulevard, makes a right on 16th, and goes an additional few blocks ‘til he gets to his office.

The place used to be a warehouse but the owner of the property realized he could get more tenants by converting it to an office space. The guy had actually done a decent enough job of it. Gabe normally couldn’t afford a office space this nice but he had helped out out the landlord with each of his five philandering ex-wives. They weren’t pleasant jobs but his rent had been reduced to damn near nothing so who was he to complain. Besides it was his job anyway.

So it was when Gabe walked around the bend of the long hallway of which his office was at the end that he noticed light peeping out an open door. He undid the buckle of the holster under his coat and slid out his gun. He raised the weapon and slowly walked towards the door. It was open enough that a small wedge of light was streaming down the hallway through the gap. He steadied himself in front of the door, sliding his left hand over the knob and his gun near head. He readied himself to aim as he swing open the door to find a beautiful woman in a black dress casually sitting cross-legged in his chair.

“She’s going to be the death of me, isn’t she?” Gabe immediately thought to himself with a chuckle.

“Hello Gabe,” said the woman. She was a stunning woman in a black dress low cut on top and short cut on the bottom with long black hair that flowed down her perfect skin. She had deep green eyes and along with her red lipstick you could quickly become overwhelmed by it all.

But that voice…

I took a moment for Gabe to recollect from his long memory just how he knew that voice. It was the voices that never changed. It had been almost 500 years. “How are you doing Felice?”

“Oh, I go by Felicity now?”

“My apologies. It’s been a while. You seem a little shorter these days.”

Felicity smiled. “Well these bodies do have their limitations. You can only do so much with the human form.”

Gabe moved to the chair opposite her at the desk. It was weird being on the other side of the table but he tried his best to not let it show.

“I didn’t expect to see you around here. I thought you were enjoying yourself in Africa,” Gabe said with a tinge of sarcasm. He never did like the four. He understood that they had a purpose in the great plan but why did they have to go about enjoying it so much. Why couldn’t suffer a little more.

Like he did.

“Oh don’t be like that Gabriel. I mean look at you. You were the sword and fury of The Almighty and now you are reduced to solving menial mysteries around Los Angeles. Quite the fall I’d say.”

Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “Well you know the deal. We all get to learn this life as well. At least until the end comes.”

They sat there in a bit of silence with Gabe trying to keep his external fuming lower then his internal frustration and Felicity trying to keep the smirk on her face to a minimum. She had to ask something of him anyway.

Gabe finally broke the silence. “Why are you here anyway?”

“Well I’d come here to take some time off and spend it with my sister and two brothers. That is until Prim decided to up and disappear.”

“Are you sure she didn’t run off to fulfill some nerd boy’s wet dream of starting the zombie apocalypse? She’s had fun ever since those Romero films joking about that one.”

“Oh you know the rules. And while she is one to have a little fun here are there she isn’t one to go about breaking that one. Not to mention she would never miss out on our week. It’s the only time the four of us ever dedicate to meet up. We all hit up the best bars and restaurants around LA and gloat about our work.”

“I hear Prim has been settling down more. Stepping away from her work and trying find a life here.”

“Yes she’s seemed to have found an enjoyment in the mundane. I wouldn’t have thought her possible of such a thing with the way she used to be but the time always has a way of changing us all.”

Gabe set down his cap on his office table and then leaned back in the chair. He pulled out a Marlboro and his zippo as he she spoke. He lit the cig and took a long draw before responding. “Well that may be so but I doubt you came here to philosophize on the effects of the time here as had on us. I take it you came here to ask me to find her.”

“That would be correct Gabe. I would like you to find Prim, if you can.”

“Well let’s start with what you have so far. When were you supposed to meet?”

“Well we were supposed to all meet at Yamashiro for sushi and sake last night but she was a no show. I tried to call her but I got no response. Today I tried dropping by her house to scold her some for ditching but she wasn’t there. I’ve left her a couple messages but she never got back to me.”

“Well maybe she decided she didn’t want to be around you guys this time around,” Gabe casually responded.

Felicity gave Gabe a scolding look. “I seriously doubt that. She’s the one that organizes these these get togethers. We meet once every decade and Prim’s the one that always plans out the locations and tries to make sure we never lose contact. She always felt like we were a family that should stick together.”

Gabe couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle. “I wouldn’t have pegged her to be so lovey dubby.”

“Oh I think you’d be surprised by what we are capable of,” Felicity said as she leaned forward to give Gabe a view.

Gabe had a moment lost in the thought that view brought to mind but it didn’t last long before he remembered Felicity’s true form. He looked past the beautiful woman to see the long black form that could slither through a field and cast shadows across it, leaving only dread in her wake.

Prim stepped out of the cab wearing dark grey jeans with a black sweater. In the night her straight black hair almost seemed to meld into the knitted fuzz. It was really her pale skin that stood out. Not that she really stood out at all.

When one lives just down the street from Jack Nicholson and Madonna and Pamela Anderson, it’s easy for any non-celeb to slip between the cracks of the paparazzi and general false-reality-driven society.

But Prim was fine not attracting unwanted attention. She had her own fun and could join in when she pleased, where she pleased, and was always glad to contribute what she could with a dark grin. She wasn’t going to let herself fall out of practice.

She never knew when she’d be called.

But tonight was a night for her. Tonight was a night of simple pleasures and lone joy. She walked to her front door thinking about the perfect dinner with a nice drink waiting for her and a cozy bed to slip into. Sometimes it’s the simple pleasures that make this existence worthwhile. Even if it may seem like it just drags on forever.

Not for Prim though. She probably was the only one of them that could lay low and enjoy the life there. Feel something beyond the purpose. The others were too antsy and too eager in waiting. Never able to truly relax. But she knew in the end they would all be called upon.

Maybe she was loosing her touch. She doubted it though. She could always bring back that spark. It was like riding a bike or a good fuck; you never really forgot how to do it. Just do what comes naturally. It’s what she was made for.

Prim opened the heavy wooden door and slipped inside her house. She was glad to be home. She took off her shoes and socks so she could feel the floor beneath her. Little comforts.

She stepped forward and opened the sealed glass door and quickly slipped inside. She continued beyond the dining room and through the kitchen to the meat locker where she kept her specialty cuts. Prim knew this morning when she woke up what she wanted to have tonight though, and it was some yummy pig. She never quite understood how those crazy vegan hipsters in Santa Monica could ever live without meat. Particularly pork. It was practically sinful, not that she ever truly had to worry about that.

She bee lined straight for the pig in the locker and took her cut. The slices of meat were juicy and tender and she practically wanted to take a bite right then and there but if there is one thing she has taken pride and a little humor in, it was her manners. Not to mention she also needed to finish prepping.

Prim got together the meat and a few veggies and sat down for her meal. By the time she had everything in front of her though, she couldn’t wait any longer and dug into the slices of pork. She gobbled up nearly half of it before stopping to enjoy some of the veggies as well. She filled herself up quickly though and before she knew it she was practically stuffed. She barely had enough room to have her planned glass of milk while watching a movie in bed. She had to finish it off right.

She grabbed a glass of warm milk and went to the bedroom. After looking at her DVD collection she figured she’d put on something peaceful to help her get to sleep easier. She didn’t want to be too distracted by a movie. She was tired and full and ready for wonderful dreams.

As the film started up Prim slipped out of her clothes and into bed. Snuggled up under sheets she took her glass of milk and gulped it down quickly. She thought for a moment that it tasted a little funny, but it was probably nothing. Just hadn’t aged enough she guessed.

She set the glass down on the side table and laid her head down on the pillows. The sound of the movie seemed to drift away as she slowly slipped into sleep.

And a shadow strayed across the TV’s dim glow.

I want to create an ethereal murder mystery involving angels and demons on earth in the modern day. I’d like to possibly incorporate the savior as well and maybe the 4 horsemen as the story progresses because I’d like the story to be about a group of ethereal beings and their interaction. I would like to incorporate alternate dimension where true form of each ethereal can be seen and the true form of each person being an outline of regular form with a glowing orb in the center, the brightness of which is determined by the goodness of each individual.

Characters:

Gabe

Michelle

Elizabeth

Elric

Reynard

Alex

Benedict

Lucy

Abby

Benjamin

Maybe Morris and maybe the son

One is killed and Gabe takes it upon himself to find the killer and deliver justice.