The Lulamoon Files

The Lulamoon Files

Chapter Three: Pointed Hoof

Written by TheCrimsonDM

Casa la Trixie, a nice little basement apartment that I had the pleasure of staying in. The little place was comprised of a square cement room with a small hallway leading into my bedroom, bathroom and broom closet. The living room and kitchen were pretty much the same room, and a fireplace stood with still glowing embers at the bottom. Being a basement apartment this place managed to retain warmth during the winter and stay cool during the summer.

I also had an ice box, sure someponies had fancy dancy refrigerators, but when I tried to get one the darn thing just kept breaking around me. Stupid earth ponies and their stupid non magical devices. As for the bathroom I had a shower tub combination. Since I didn’t have any heat to the house I decided wisely against any showers, instead I used my mastery over magic to heat up a tub full of ice cold water.

There were tapestries covering the walls trying to hide the concrete from sight. For the most part it actually worked. Then there were a few posters of the greatest magicians to ever live. Even one of the famous Starswirl the bearded. A bookshelf stood with a collection of paper backs I have read and decided to keep, or new ones that I was probably going to give away to some donation center.

I stepped out of my coat and hat as I shut and locked the three locks on my door behind me all in one swift use of a telekinesis spell. Now that I was home I could get away with using my magic without being starred at. I didn’t go out without my hat most of the time because it was easier to do my job if ponies weren’t staring at my horn.

I threw on my big fluffy purple bathrobe and went to the center of my apartment. There was a glorious rug with some handsome stallion’s face on it, I think he was a detective from some movie recently made, or maybe he just liked fedoras as much as me. Still I moved his handsome mug out of the way to reveal a secret trap door. Down the trap door there was a stair case leading into a spacious square room where the shelves were lined with anything from dragon’s dung to harpy feathers. In the center of the room was a series of tables all which were cluttered with all sorts of lab equipment. There was one section of this room that didn’t match the rest.

A bookshelf lined with action hero comics and a couple of light romance novels featuring unicorn female love interests. On the top of the shelf was a small draconic skull with spikes lining the back of it. I picked up a notebook and a pen before taking a seat on one of the stools.

“Hey, Spike,” I said. “Wakey, wakey, time to get to work.”

The eye sockets of the skull lit up with green light and focused on me. “Oh, good. No it’s fine, you totally didn’t interrupt my nap.”

“Shut it,” I snapped. “I need some information.”

“Try reading books, I hear its good for the brain and we both know that you could use it.”

I rolled my eyes. You see Spike wasn’t actually the skull itself, he was a spirit of knowledge carved from the very fabric of an young dragon’s soul. Some wizard stole a dragon egg a couple hundred years ago and created him, at least that’s the story so far. He was made for the very purpose of collecting knowledge, sort of like the wizard version of a library of encyclopedias. His knowledge was far superior to most any wizard on the plant, and his wit was pretty high up there too.

“I have bodies, and a murderer on the loose. I need some answers.”

“We all need answers. Like, have you ever thought, what is the meaning of life?”

I growled. “Spike.”

“Okay, okay. What’s up boss?”

“That’s better. Now what I found was a couple of dead bodies, they were pretty much just piles of meat and something had been chewing on them. I’d suspect vampires but I can’t think of a reason they’d go out of their way to climb into a six story window just to eat.” I left out that this might have been connected to Wind Rider, Spike didn’t need that bit.

“So what we’re looking at,” Spike said. “Is something that eats ponies, in a very messy way and doesn’t mind climbing up really high to get them?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, well why don’t you sit down and pull up a chair… oh you already did that. Okay, well it’s gonna be a long list, a very long list. Unless you got something else, something specific.”

“I think it ate there,” I almost choked on the own words. “Cutie marks.”

“It… excuse me that’s, wow, okay, I didn’t realize we were going into that kind of territory. Now was piles of meat a metaphor for they were so pleasured that they couldn’t move or-“

“Spike it literally ate their cutie marks. Like a zombie.”

“Ew, no, Zombies thank heavens don’t work that way. Okay now that is a bit of information to go on. Even ghouls do not like to eat cutie marks, usually. It’s sort of a… universal sin to eat one. That’s where a pony’s magic comes from and eating one usually comes with some nasty backlash, you don’t want to know. It takes something either very stupid, or very powerful to eat a cutie mark.”

“It’s just flesh,” Trixie said coldly.

“Would you be saying that if yours just vanished?”

“I…”

“That’s right. The cutie mark might be imbedded into the flesh, but for so long after a pony dies it retains their energy. Not their soul, but their magical self. There are reasons why ponies like to keep their cutie marks covered, well except for those wonderful, wonderful mares that parade themselves like-“

“Spike, stay on topic. What kind of creatures would eat cutie marks on purpose than?”

“Demons for starters. Those guys love the things. Then a whole host of fea that might eat them, either for pleasure or out of stupidity. The later tend to vomit them out later, if they’re lucky.”

Trixie was fast at work keeping notes. This all sounded more useful than she’d hoped for, but if it really was a demon than she was in trouble. After her encounter with the Ursa Major she’d never wanted to meet anything that was summoned to this world again, especially not demons.

“Is there anything else that could help me identify what you’re tracking down?”

I shook my head. “Not yet, but I’ll keep you posted.”

“Cool, can I go out now? I haven’t gotten any fun since the last time you let me out.”

“The last time I let you out you ended up creating a mass live action role playing event downtown. You were lucky no one got hurt.”

“Oh come on, we were just having fun.”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I still need you around the house.” With that said I headed up the stairs. After shutting the door beneath me and replacing the rug I heard at scratching at my window. That had to be my owl, he hadn’t come home last night after going out to hunt. Of course he did that often, sometimes he wouldn’t be back for several days at a time. Yet he was my best connection to the unicorns, though that wasn’t saying an awful lot.

I opened the door and a dark brown owl flew past my head and back into my room where his cage was hidden. Yet he wasn’t the only one there to greet me. A lavender unicorn with long dark blue hair nearly black with a red and purple stripe running through it was there. She wore a gray cloak that covered most of her body, and held a long sword at her side with a ruby jeweled hilt. Her eyes were glaring daggers at me.

“Oh, Twilight Sparkle,” I said as casually as I could. “What a pleasure to see you. What brings you here today? Tea and cakes perhaps?”

“There is dark magic at play in the city,” Twilight said in a voice that was almost as hot as her temper could be. “And there’s only one warlock that I know of here, Trixie.”

“Excuse me, oh so miss perfect. I am no warlock,” I snapped.

“Your record proves otherwise. Now give yourself in and your death will be swift.”

My anger was rising. “How dare you come to my home, insult me, accuse me of warlocking like I was just some punk, and then threaten me on top of all that. You’re a bully, and I want you to leave now!” I went to slam the door but a red aura surrounded it keeping it from budging even an inch.

“I may not have proof yet, but I know it was you. When I find proof of what you did I will come back. You’re going down for this, warlock.” Twilight turned and walked back up the stairs. Only when her aura left my door did it slam shut furiously.

I leaned against it, trying to catch my breath. That stupid warden! I didn’t do anything wrong this time or last. Sure there were rules broken, but would you rather have an Ursa Major or a dead pony? Seriously what the Tartarus is wrong with her?

I slumped to the floor. My face was hot with anger. Jeeze, just because there’s some dark magic at play in this city, that doesn’t mean I am at fault. So what if there’s a new warlock here, those kinds of monsters pop up everywhere all the time. I mean you wouldn’t even be bothering me if the warlock hadn’t killed some-

“Oh crabapples,” I cursed as I stood up quickly. I didn’t hesitate to throw my hat and coat back on. Even if Twilight had just come down here to upset me, she had given me a piece of information that I desperately needed. This murder was done by a warlock, he summoned something most likely a demon, and that meant he might really be targeting Wind Rider. I jumped for joy, at least until I saw what time it was. It was just ten past eleven. I had somewhere else I needed to be.

I strode outside, wishing Owlicious my pet owl goodbye on my way out. I was going to meet with Flitter Bell and take care of my side job while I worked out why a warlock could possibly want to kill off Rider’s men. This day just kept getting busier and busier.