[3 hours ago, in the human world...]
It took only a quick sniff of the chapel door handles for Detective Baskerville to know with an absolute certainty that he'd find Mrs. Asmodeus inside. He smelled a little bit of stress in the hand-sweat left there, and of course there was enough of the pungent stuff left behind to remove any doubt. Poor woman, thought the werewolf, and for a moment he considered just leaving her alone for then, and coming back to chat later, when the grieving woman wasn't obviously trying to find her peace with whomever it was the humans worshipped inside. But no, he rebuked himself, she would want to know as soon as possible. I'll be polite about it, but I should at least see her.
Soon enough, the detective had suppressed the wolfish half of himself enough to appear as a mostly normal, presentable human, and pushed through into the chapel, gigantic, roomy, and cold, where rows and rows and rows of wooden pews sat devoid of the souls they would usually direct toward the stained glass iconography all about the humble wooden podium. Utterly devoid of souls, save one: Mrs. Asmodeus was there, sitting alone with her head bowed, sullen and unmoving. Detective Baskerville could smell the emotion wafting off her from across the room, but there was no indication she'd noticed him yet.
After a moment of consideration, the detective removed his cap, readjusted his spectacles, and padded his way across the chapel, nice and quietly, for a seat beside the mother as she finished her prayer or whatever it was. The scent of her up close told him much more than anything he might've overheard of her muttering: stress smelled strong on her, there were scents left by dried tears on her face, she wasn't eating, she wasn't sleeping, and she seemed to be losing weight, said his nose. One thing he notably didn't smell on her was any of Zarala's scent; at least, nothing any fresher than a few days old, when she disappeared.
Eventually, she did notice him. And when she did, she gave a short, startled jump. "Detective!?" she said in surprise. "I-... I didn't expect to see you here, officer. I thought you-... um, your species, I mean, I was told once they couldn't-"
"We can enter churches without any issues, ma'am," the werewolf replied, finishing her train of thought for her after a while. "There is nothing special about the building itself. Occasionally, the tendency of churchgoers to wear silver jewelry can present a barrier to attending a service, but when the building is empty of that awful metal, as it is now, we may come and go as we please."
"And... you knew I was here?"
"I tracked you here, ma'am. I beg your pardon if you consider it an invasion of your privacy, but you weren't home when I came knocking, and your voicemailbox is full. So, I followed your scent here."
"Okay... why?" Helen asked skeptically, before her face lit up in sudden excitement. "Have you found my daughter, detective!?"
"Well... yes and no," replied Detective Baskerville. "I have been able to make a major breakthrough, but it appears the situation is more complicated than we'd realized at first, ma'am. I finally picked up her scent again near the outskirts of Elmtree, and from there followed it to the portal said city is home to, where it appears she made a crossing to the other side. Her scent became very difficult to follow from there, both due to the heavy traffic said portal receives and the likely fact that she had used yet another vehicle inadvertently masking her trail. However, customs allowed me to review their records after some explanation. That query came through with one 'Zarala Asmodeus' clear as day."
"IT DID!?" Helen just about jumped out of her seat.
"It did," the detective replied calmly, "and it appears that not only was the crossing perfectly legal, it had been arranged well in advance of your daughter's attempted runaway. Ma'am..." the detective gave Helen a piercing, heavily scrutinizing look as he asked what he did next. "How much did you know about your daughter's enrollment in magic school?"
She looked and smelled puzzled. "Magic school? What magic school?"
"So nothing, or next to nothing, then." He gave a sad sigh. "The school in question is Stella's School for Magical Girls, one of the more prestigious boarding schools for wizardry in the corresponding country, ma'am. Your daughter crossed back over to the nonhuman world together with a returning field trip organized by said school. They made no attempt to remove her. I made contact with the school's automaton secretaries within the hour of discovering as much, and the information they provided was very enlightening: your daughter, it seems, had applied and was recently accepted to said school, has been issued valid identification for said school and a legal visa to study in the other world, and has even had her tuition and fees waived by one of the school's patrons, a Great Spirit named Kokumari. Why he chose to do this, I don't know; the secretaries could not say, and attempts to contact the patron were frustrated by the tendency of said Great Spirits to be very… selective of those with whom they will grant an audience. But more relevant to yourself is that she apparently had to forge a parent's consent a few times throughout the paperwork process. Do you recall ever giving such consent, Mrs. Asmodeus?"
Helen's head was spinning. "I-... I had no idea…" And how on God's green Earth could I not have had any idea!? To think that Zarala had arranged all of that, by herself, in total secret, without her own mother ever finding out… Helen felt awful. Whatever pride she may have felt about her daughter's evident self sufficiency was drowned out by shame at the revelation such a thing was even possible, let alone something her daughter felt necessary to actually do. Even before she'd ran away, Helen had already felt plenty of guilt over the fact that she couldn't be there for her daughter enough, like a proper mother should; but now, the true and devastating fullness of her involuntary neglect was hitting her like a train. I'm a bad parent…
"Well, that should be a sufficient pretext to pull your daughter out of the school, should you wish," the detective continued once the silence had gotten awkward. "Forging a person's signature is an even more serious crime in the other world than in this one, and her application is likely null and void on top of that. She likely doesn't know how close you and I are to catching her, so she won't be getting away this-"
"Don't pull her out of the school," Helen interjected suddenly. "And please, don't tell anyone that my signature was forged. Just drop the case and let her be. In fact, I’ll write a letter to her and the school granting her permission." Helen sighed heavily and sadly. "She was right… she's better off without me, after all."
Detective Baskerville didn't like what he smelled one bit: the surge of hormones rushing into a face, right before it starts tearing up and choking the breaths in a sob. "Don't say that, ma'am. You love her very much, and plainly. You're only doing your best."
"Yeah, well, detective, I'm only human." Helen's face grimaced in pain as she quoted one of the last things her daughter had said to her, and soon enough enough the scent of her tears matched the visual shine of their rolling. "I don't wanna be, but I am. Just... You want to believe, as a parent, that you'll always be your daughter's little guardian angel, but you're not. I'm not... my own teenage daughter got herself into a better school than I ever could've dreamed would accept her, I wasn't there for her when it's obvious she needed me, I can barely even feed the girl for chrissakes! It's no wonder she thinks I failed her; I did!" Helen clasped her hands over her face before her sobbing got any worse, in a vain attempt to preserve what dignity she still had. "I-I'd like to be alone for a moment, detective. Please."
The detective's sharp, wolfish face betrayed only pity. "As you wish, ma'am. You know where to find my office, if you need anything else." The officer indulged himself a nice scratching beneath his fluffy triangular ears, readjusted his spectacles, and left the chapel.
Helen collapsed back onto the pew with a heavy, leaden thunk. Memories flashed through her mind of her daughter: of Zair, after she learned what had happened with her father, crying and crying and crying her eyes out into Helen's arms holding her, while her mother reassured her that no matter what happens, she'd always be there for her even if her father couldn't... of Zair, black-eyed and split-lipped one Halloween night, complaining bitterly to her mother about how much she hated this world and all the humans in it, while Helen tried to reassure her that she was doing all she could to make it better... of the look on her face, steadily growing more and more despairing and cynical, even belligerent over the years as things refused to get better, while her mother pleaded with her that she not give up hope... of the very last face she'd seen Zair make, with that odd sigh as Helen told her she loved her, more than anything else in the world... and how that sighing face knew, Helen realized now, that mere love wouldn't ever be enough. Helen broke down sobbing.
"Oh God!" she wailed aloud into that silent church, clutching her rosary close to herself. "I only ever wanted to be her angel... her guardian angel... I'd give my life... my soul, if I could... to just be, the savior she needed me to be... I'm tired of being 'only human'... tired of trying to give more than I have. I just wish... just wish I could be-..."
There came, suddenly, a loud and disruptive cracking sound from the rosary she was holding, echoing through the chapel. Helen turned tearful eyes on it to see that a silvery gem, decorating the center of cross, had shattered somehow. She frowned; that was a rather expensive piece of jewelry, she recalled, the gem was some crystal that could only be found in the other world, a mana something-or-other. As if this day couldn't get any worse... she thought sullenly, putting the ruined mana-bead rosary away.
