Eleanor arrived at the office 37 minutes after her phone call had ended. The sun was beginning to rise but the chill of Lake Michigan didn't give much hope for any warmth to day. She checked herself in the mirror making sure she was the presentable face of a bland organisation. Dressed in a dark grey pencil skirt with a conservatively buttoned white shirt and low practical heels she looked like a thousand other attorneys, CPA's and COOs who would be making their way to whatever outpost of modern industry at which they choose to toil, doubtless believing that their work was both valuable and vital. As she gazed at the three story red brick office building that served as the Sunday Groups Chicago offices she wondered if she was, in her own way as deluded as they were. That seemed depressingly likely. She twisted the key in the igntion, shutting off the purr of her Audi's engine and cutting of the music that had been playing in mid chorus. For a few long moments she sat in place, hands on the wheel, willing her body to move without achieving any result. At last she managed it and steped out of her car into the cool march morning. She pulled her black leather coat up over her shoulders and lifted her briefcase from the passenger seat before heading for the front door. Straights seemed to almost go out of their way to ignore the magical world around them, but a little bit of theatre went a long way. One jogger who saw a well dressed woman with a briefcase enter the building would immediately discount every instance of a hunched figure, or an unkempt man with a duffel bag that looked suspiciously like it might contain weapons. She climbed the granite steps and pressed her key to the door, allowing it to swing open before stepping into the warmth of the heated interior. 

The inside of the building was tastefully decorated in a modern style, soft carpeting with soothing neutral tones. The receptionists desk stood empty, which was unusual, and one of the chairs in the vestibule appeared to be speckled with glitter. Eleanor pursed her lips, but as no pixies appeared to menace her she let it go as unimportant. Walking around the desk she pushed open the glass doors stenciled with the rather unimaginative logo of the Sunday Group, a stylized S entwined in a G and headed down the hall into the main annex. A dozen or so offices encircled a central common area in which photocopiers and the other essential tools of modern office life were located. To the rear of the building was another hallway in which the restrooms, break room and several conference areas, set off with semi transparent windows. At each end of the rear hallways were stairwells that led to the upper floor. The second floor was given over to rather extensive storage and in some cases containment areas while the third floor, accessible only through an elevator off a separate entrance on the other side of the building, housed what few administrative staff  were required to support the actual working members. Largely this was a case of ordering equipment, dealing with payroll and occasionally notifying next of kin. To Eleanors knowledge none of the admin personnel had any idea what the actual purpose of the Sunday Group was, other than the vauglely worded mission statements, 'making tomorrow better today' and other such nonsense, that appeared in the companies few public listings. That was not her department.

Her own office sat in the right rear corner where she could view the other office and the common area. It had a window of frosted glass and  a name plate that read: Eleanor Tregellan - Operations Manager. A decade ago, before things had gone south in Fayetteville, this had been Dan's office. Management had told her that she had earned it, but steeping through the door always felt a bit like drinking the blood of her former teammates. The interior of the office was not particularly impressive. A large modern desk with a small but powerful laptop computer set off to one side. A comfortable leather chair and several tasteful pieces of modern art. Book shelves lined the three walls that did not look out over the other offices, each one piled with bound folios of A4 paper, printed pdfs of works on subjects ranging from the construction of non-euclidian algorithm generation, to Folklore of the American Southwest. While Eleanor had a fondness for the aesthetic of old grimiores, she preferred to keep her working documents in easy to use, and magically sterile formats. Besides her Latin wasn't that great and the translations were a damn sight easier to manage.

Walking over to her desk she sat down and took a deep breath. Partly to distract herself from her next task she drew out her cellphone. Sure enough there was a text from Emmaline.

[i]Liebhaberin, curve is now two Fourier transform from baseline Silenas. I'm shutting down the rig. Be careful. I love you.[/i]

Eleanor sighed. The auguries had indeed gotten worse since she had looked at them over breakfast. That wasn't a good sign, personal observation really only changed forecasts when ones own fate was tied up with the outcome. Continuing to predict the future in such cases always created a dangerous feedback loop with results worse than the original predictions Right now Emmaline would be destroying the glyphs they had painstakingly etched into the soft stone of their ritual space before laboriously smashing each of the CPUs they had used to monitor the spell, otherwise the forecasting algorithm might continue to operate within the silicon hearts of the microprocessors even in the absence of the rest of construct. She quickly texted back that she would be careful then drew a phone from beneath her desk. It was old, a black bakelite model dating from before the second world war, complete with old fashioned rotary dialing. No cords connected it to anything, but she knew by now that didn't matter. It took her an additional moment to steel herself before she reached out and laid her hand on the receiver. The call bell rang unmusically. She allowed it to ring twice more before lifting it to her ear. 

"Operations..." 

The team was finally assembled when Duclair at last decided to join them. Eleanor refrained from grinding her teeth. Management had told her she should think of herself as a handler rather than an employer, unique people lost their value if you tried to hammer them into a shape of your own devising. She let her eyes slide off the tall man and sweep the rest of the room. Edgar Stormraven sat nursing a cup of coffee that appeared to have personally offended him. Talents like his were rare, most people born with magical gifts died young and horribly but those that survived could wield tremendous power. It was hard to imagine Edgar wielding the power of the cosmos as he sat in his threadbare coat looking for all the world like a decrepit pensioner who had forgotten to shave these past twenty years. Beside him sat Davidson, looking as though he had slept in a bush and enjoyed the experience. His bearing reminded her uncomfortably of Dan and seeing him bought back the memory of that long ago night when she had found him kneeling in a ditch tearing at his face with bloody fingernails. She had opposed his recruitment but had been overruled by Management. People with outstanding warrants were always a risk, the best false identities in the world could be blown away in a heart beat if someone from the old days was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still it was always a benefit to have someone handy with a weapon to hand when things dropped in the pot. Across the table and a study in incongruity was Val looking like a wide eyed bush baby and still yet to rid the lace traces of glitter from her skin and hair. She had entered with a giggling Johanna Blumenthal, the normally reserved secretary having flushed several shades when she saw Eleanor before retreating back to her desk in reception. Eleanor was yet to make a determination about Val, people with both the technical knowledge and skill for brewing potions were rare, and she was a potential asset if she didn't manage to kill or maim herself in the process. 

"Now that we are all here," Eleanor began, unable to resist a slight jab at the tardy, we can be about our business. She touched a control and the lights dimmed, causing Val's eyes to dilate and narrow uncontrollably for a few seconds. A ceiling mounted projector through a photograph up on the rear wall. In it a man, perhaps thirty five years of age lay in a few inches of brackish water. His body had been opened from his Adams apple to his groin and ropes of intestine spread out across the surface of the water like enormous snakes. His clothing, while soaked in blood, had obviously once been of a very high quality.

"This was Gregory Tailor, a mid level executive with a commodities trading company called...." she glanced down at her notes.

"Northern Vista Inc," she explained, clicking forward to another image that listed some particulars about the company. Like the Sunday Group it was vague, something to do with trading in oil, soybeans, corn and pretty much any other resource being moved in North America. 

"He was found dead in a pond in a Seattle park two days ago by the local PD. Before he died he called his ex-wife Olivia Tailor in a panic." On queue the call, obtained by shady means Eleanor was not privy to but delivered to her, like the rest of the information, on a usb drive in a FedEx overnight bag.

Sleepy Female voice: "Hello..." 

Greg (clearly panicked):"O...Olivia," 

Olivia: "Greg? What the fuck its three in the god damn..."

Greg: "Oliva I need you to call 911 tell them I'm in the park west of..." 

Just before the line went dead there was an eerie chuckling and snuffling sound. Eleanor rewound the track and played it twice more.

"Local PD have no idea what to make of it and we might just shrug our shoulders and move on... except." The slide shifted on the projector to reveal another man. This one in jeans and a winter parka. The red fabric of the parka had been torn open and stuffing, now matted with blood covered the body. The similarity to the wounds suffered by Gregory were striking. This corpse too lay in a pool of water, though ice had began to form around the body in small clumps that made his outline look hazy.

"This is Jason Talbot, reported dead this morning in Fargo" Eleanor explained.

"Talbot worked on the oilfields during the boom, but with the slow down has been out of work. There dosen't appear to be any connection between the two men prior to this, but we aren't sure of that."

"Any thoughts?" she prompted, careful not to prejudice the team with her own ideas.


[hider=Guide]
Clue = Two bodies, hundreds of miles appart, same cause of death.

Synopsis - Everyone gets to work to discuss the case.

Prompt - Discuss the case

Next clue = [@POOHEAD189]

[/hider]