The morning was light, although the greyness of mornings does prevail mostly in the region. Though this time around there was more sun. Shining brightly into the room where Dima and Pietro slept.
The church bells were ringing, as the mass began. The sort of peace and sweetness that resounded felt cozy.
Milica came to get the two for breakfast. Where they sat in the large room, with other sisters and brothers of faith, eating the food. It did strike Dima and Pietro, when the whole lot had lowered their heads and prayed before the start of the meal. But somewhat it felt not like a scene from the mechanical robot thing, or eerie horror, it rather exuded devotion. As odd as it was.
Then Dima and Pietro walked with Luka off to the office. There Pietro was handed the copies of all the documents about the missing cases, which the Church kept. All the diary copies and other notes which were jotted down about the missing persons were also included.
With that Father Luka requested the two to make preparations for the tomorrow - to go together to Rene. Letting them know that Bozhana has been consecrating the needed things for the ritual, as well as preparing other things for it, so they'd be all set to go.
Pietro answered that with all that in plans, they'll go back and go through the documents, notes and journals that were copied, so they'll make a case with their office.
Once Dima and Pietro returned to the tavern - Dima just silently went to his room. Pietro did his time to look through the whole lot of the writing and noting, checking the documents and files he brought, cross referencing those.
Finding out one after the other that all the missing persons cases they've had, have not been completed in actuality. There were far more victims. Thanks to the notes which Luka and Milica provided, more could be put together. So Pietro called in the office to notify them of all the findings, as well as all the information Church gave them. Though omitting the part about evil beings and esoterical things.
"Hey, I have just called our boss, can we talk?" - Pietro knocked on Dima's door. Silence hung for a bit, Pietro knocked again. And then again. Until finally Dima opened the door, looking rather messy. - "What the…?" - Pietro looked at the mess of a friend, pushing the opened door to get into the room.
"What did he say?" - Dima asked, as he looked rugged for some reason.
"They said they'll send some backup. Though they'll most likely come tomorrow or the day after." - Pietro answered, as he checked the room. Some empty alcohol bottles, some sleeping pills. - "What were you trying to pull off in here? Meeting a wife too early in life?"
"I've seen her." - Dima answered, looking somewhat in a daze. - "I have seen her in a dream. She ran somewhere. Then it disappeared. There was some goddamn thing in there. It was like a damn cemetery, but like a whole lot of a celebration venue. Fucked up."
Pietro eyed his friend, slowly getting more and more concern for him.
"We'll find her tomorrow. I promise you that." - Pietro added.
"I'm afraid she's gone forever." - Dima said.
"There could be a miracle, my friend. A miracle. You never know." - Pietro was trying to console his friend. - "Hope is there to guide and support the wary heart, mate. It takes hope and faith to make all things work. Even if the place is all fucked up, we've got some damn good people with us to help. I'm sure there'll be more goodnessh twoo come out, shi..." - Pietro bit his tongue on the word 'goodness', as he was speaking. - "Ehh, you get what I mean."
Dima paced about the room, like a caged animal. Pietro observed the whole ordeal.
"I told her to get out and flee. But how fucked, oh now I felt that shit is up… And now she's gone. Like gone with the wind into the fog." - Dima thought aloud. - "That fuckface… That professor whatever his name is - I'm so killing that bastard… Especially if it's his fault. Especially."
Pietro observed the whole thing - Dima kept on going, talking about him missing his wife, then crying hysterically, howling, throwing pillows and covers across the room, laying on the floor and sobbing uncontrollably. Pietro just sat there and witnessed his friend's pain, knowing that there is not much he can do, but help his friend find the answers.
After a few hours of such a mess, eventually Dima passed out sleeping. Pietro got Dima onto bed, after he made the bed again, then covered his friend with a duvet. Cleaned up the room, took the bag of trash, as well as took the pills, to stash them away from his friend, for safety and health reasons. Feeling like the hollow pain could make his friend do even more horrendous things.
Once he got out, he closed the door calmly, leaving his friend sleeping it all off.
The bar was looking rather busy, a lot of people, a lot of chatter. Unlike the previous day.
"What's the occasion?" - Pietro asked the Barkeep.
"Ah, the event of the season! People gather to burn the effigy of the evil that snacked the warmth, so that the next spring the crops start off better. A huge fire is planned in the park, some masks, chants, songs, music and dances. So we have a bunch of tourists now. You should visit it! It's fun every time." - Barkeep said, then his attention was grabbed by the customer and he went his way to work on.
"Funny man." - Pietro smiled.
The whole ordeal was absolutely fun to listen to, but the ordeal Pietro dealt with seemed like such a heavy thing to carry. The names he checked were in thousands, not a few dozen, as he previously found and was already in dismay. This was larger than he anticipated. Maybe the rituals that Luka talked about were actually a thing. Maybe there is something hidden and evil, inherently more and more obscene by the years with more and more demand for human sacrifice. But what if that's some trafficking ring? If it is - then how exactly are we getting to the bottom of this? Through the leads that even Dima got from it - that would mean that the whole damn town is in on the trafficking thing. Which would be the scale that's absolutely crazy to even imagine. Thousands of people helping to kidnap people and sell them off? That's a madness, a plague - if that would be the case.
Other than that - it could be some other thing. Maybe to do with drugs, maybe prostitution, but the list of victims include all ages, all sexes, like it does not discriminate. Anything from age 8 to age 88 went into the missing persons cases. So many of them in fact being more in the 20's to 60's that it's ridiculous. Maybe the work force somewhere? But that's bogus.
Boss had speculated that it might be some syndicate, but that too would be too great a scale to work with and work on, to be honest. Then what? Accomplices in the town? How many? Who exactly? The people gone missing from their homes, their walks and just simply from moments they've gone to shop. All that and years of absolute silence after. Then the people who reported them missing in the same town suddenly felt to just leave in neglect their relatives and family, forgetting them in the span of months after. Not a peep from them, not even recollecting that those existed.
That is when Pietro really did think more into what Bozhana said about the evil being in the town, how that is the reason to. The memory of the story his grandmother shared, the stories about his great-grandmothers endeavours with entities also weighed on him. Thinking that maybe one great evil could be purged from this earth with the help of the saintly powers and the powers of strong witches.
"There'll be a day when it'll all end." - Pietro let out, as a summary of his own mullings inside of his head.
"Nothing lasts, sonny. Nothing lasts." - A grandpa sitting nearby said. - "But life is not only losses, it's the rainbow at the end of the storm! So let us drink to the rainbow!"
The whole table with old men cheered and had a drink.
"Pfft. What timing." - Pietro said under his nose, with a smile.
"The next day would give answers, finally." - Is what Pietro thought to himself, as he went to bed after all the investigation of papers through the day, after all that tantrum Dima pulled off, and after lengthy thinking about what's to come.