Sweat Peas Hostel, 23 Rankin Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina.

It was quaint - or, more apropos, a hole. Not unlike the whole of Asheville, in David's opinion... but then he never was fond of the States, opting instead to ply his trade in Great Britain and mainland Europe. Hunting down Eliza Stetson and her inexplicable fortune was, however, a bit of a championship case; Crown Estates was paying out the arse for its speedy resolution, and - to be frank - the mystery tickled David to no end. It was fascinating.

Without a prod from the Crown and Eliza, however, David Fischer had no immediate plans to visit the United States, but... here he was. Six days into his man hunt, figuratively balls deep in the investigation, he had turned up an impressive load of [i]absolutely fucking naught[/i]. The trail on Mrs. Stetson ran cold in Asheville, North Carolina, and no matter how hard the old boy dug, he could turn up nothing that pointed him in any fresh directions. The night before, in fact, he had been indulging in his first cigarette in eighteen years on a bench outside Pritchard Park when he'd come to the conclusion that [i]fuck it[/i].

Now, however, he was rethinking that move; the lovely folks at Crown Estates, after David had expressed his intent to return to London and declare the case "as solved it could ever be, really," had [i]insisted[/i] that he find Mrs. Stetson - and offered an extra 15% of his fee as incentive. To be brief, it was a [i]lot[/i] of money.

So David found himself forcing down a cup of not-so-wonderful black coffee in the sitting room at Sweet Peas, glancing at his watch with a frown. "A'right, love," he said, offering the woman at the counter a nod before rising from his seat, shrugging into his overcoat, and heading out onto the street. Fischer pound pavement for a few blocks before settling on Carmel's Kitchen & Bar on Page for lunch. He drifted absent minded through a turkey panini and a bowl of the soup du jour - French Onion, as it happened - working out his next step whilst glancing listlessly through the Asheville Citizen-Times. [b]UNCA remodeled Ramsey library opens its doors[/b], the Citizen-Times insisted.

Who bloody cared?

"Anything else, hon?"
"No, love, just the check."

David made his way back to Sweat Peas, taking his time, paying no mind to the increasingly [i]absent[/i] streets - where had the traffic gone to? Standing outside of the hostel, the old man grimaced and rubbed his temples with calloused finger-tips, glancing out at the BB&T building on Rankin rearing its ugly forehead out into the skyline of Asheville. What a hideous town.

Waltzing back into the hostel, David halted before reaching the first step leading to the lofts upstairs; his eyes scanned the front counter curiously - where had the attendant gone?

"'lo?" he called out, slowly moving from his perch towards the counter. "Anybody about? It's no time to be sleeping on the job, y'know," he joked, never cracking even a faint grin. Steadily, Fischer made his way around the counter and towards the back of the hostel, where he could hear movement and muffled voices - the hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he hadn't the foggiest [i]why[/i].

"Christ!" he declared upon examining the back room; blood quite literally stained the floor, walls, and ceiling, and in varying states of torn-the-hell-apart, several hostel employees lay sprawled across the hardwood floor and the bits of mismatched furniture dotting the room. "Nggh?" grunted the sole survivor of this massacre, a slight and portly woman a bit older than David, wearing a blood red blouse - wait, sorry, a once white blouse - and a torn blazer.

"What - what's going on - what happened?" he stammered, agape, staring like some damned fool into the room and making no move to flee.

"Rggharrgh!" she declared, pouncing to her feet and heaving herself with alarming swiftness across the room and straight into David, sending the pair sprawling backwards. David yelped in surprise, tumbling so far back that he upended himself and was deposited neatly on the other end of the counter, which provided some separation between himself and the mad woman bent on nibbling his bits.

It didn't stop her for very long, of course, and David found himself scurrying backwards on his rear end to escape the crawling Mrs. Sillycunt.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" he proclaimed, his voice ringing of a youthful falsetto inspired by sheer panic.

Soon David found himself back against the street-side wall of Sweet Peas, all out of room with a loony hostel employee dragging herself towards him with nearly impressive fury. In desperation, Fischer whipped his leg out, a booted heel connecting with the bridge of her nose; the Mrs. was distracted, briefly, as her face crumpled and her shattered nose began to spurt blood. Doing his best to ignore the sight - and quietly muttering "fuck me, fuck me, fuck me" - David leaped to his feet and blasted out of the front room onto the sidewalk.

His car - a rental Prius hybrid - was parked in the Rankin Avenue garage. David decided now was as good a time as any to return the fucking car.