I still respected Vega, and I wanted to keep on liking her. But ever since she’d overhead me and Esteban talking about Andeluvia, she’d grown ever frostier. And Esteban’s honesty in telling her that we were talking about an alternate world seemed to have solidified her dislike.
“What are you doing all the way out here?” she demanded.
“I was on the back lawn when I spotted something odd out here,” I answered, indicating the twin white lines. “I’m not sure what this substance is, but–”
“Then why did you contaminate it?”
“What?”
“I asked a simple question, Dayna. Why did you take your glove off and contaminate the substance? If I recall, you’re the one who once lectured me on how to handle crime scene evidence.”
I bit back a reply. Technically, she had me, but I was still playing within the rules of accepted forensic procedure. I made sure to reply in a measured, even tone.
“Contamination should be avoided with evidence immediately connected to the crime scene,” I agreed. “However, when there are items on the periphery that could be connected, sometimes a direct examination by touch, smell, or taste is appropriate.”
“Taste? Were you actually going to put that stuff in your mouth?” Vega sniffed. “For all you know, that could’ve been anything from old paint to weed killer.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to taste it, no,” I said. “I don’t even know what these lines are, but it’s pretty suspicious.”
She raised an eyebrow. “A couple of random lines, that aren’t even close to the crime scene, counts as suspicious? How exactly would you connect these markings to Mose Wainwright’s murder? It doesn’t look like he had any construction planned for this part of his property.”
“Wait, so you found out that the victim was the homeowner?” I asked, partly out of curiosity, and partly to get Vega talking about something else. “That was fast.”
“Wainwright’s on a bunch of government ‘watch lists’, so his file came up immediately once the address was called in. The prints and face match. The partial body in the living room is definitely our man.”
“Any idea on what the murder weapon might be? That thing left a hell of a footprint at the crime scene.”
Vega shook her head. “Not really. But the odds are that it’s some custom job. Wainwright’s ex-military, and he’s a firearms designer. And tester.”
I looked back towards the expanse of lawn, pointing out where the booth sat between a triple set of earthen berms. Suddenly, their purpose became clear.
“That’s got to be an outdoor gun range,” I said. “The berms are there to stop ordinance from leaving the bounds of the property.”
“Likely. And that’s one hell of an illegal setup. But no one out here reported him.” Vega’s eyes went flat as she returned to her last question. “So. You were going to tell me what these two strange lines have to do with our murder.”
I chewed that one over and decided the truth was the best policy. “I don’t know. I headed out this way to find one of the bullets fired by our mystery weapon, or at least a fragment of it. Then I spotted these lines. I’m not even sure how far they go.”
“Just be careful. There’s a steep drop-off past the trees.”
“I won’t go past them,” I said, as I walked on. I squinted, making out where the lines finally petered out. “Maybe this isn’t anything at all. It looks like the lines stop just past the last set of trunks. Give me a second.”
I walked to the point just between the two trees with the oddly wrapped set of branches. As my companion had said, the ground sloped sharply away down a gravel and brush-strewn slope. For a moment, I thought that I saw odd marks or scrapings in the gravel, but it could have been a trick of the light. I leaned forward to get a better look.
The silver medallion Galen had infused with his transport magic exploded with cold.
I’d never felt cold radiate out like this, as if the medallion had been dipped in liquid nitrogen. I felt it adhere to my skin, shards of frost shooting through my neck and into my jaw, then down into my chest. My heart stumbled like a drunk man on a crooked sidewalk.
I let out a pained gasp.
“Dayna!” Vega shouted, as I nearly fell over.
I tried to scream, but my vocal cords felt frozen shut. A deathlike croak fell from my lips. But that was all.
I staggered back, clutching desperately at my throat.
Chapter Five
I managed to wedge my fingers under the medallion’s chain. Vega grabbed me as I sank to my knees in the dirt. She helped keep me upright before I fell over backwards.
She shouted unintelligible words at me as I tugged at the chain. All I could hear was the rush of blood in my ears. Shocks of cold continued to rack my body, churning my stomach and filling my mouth with the nasty taste of liquid mercury.
The medallion finally came loose with a grisly ripping sensation, like tearing off a quarter-size chunk of meat from my neck. The freezing jolts and the metallic taste in my mouth vanished as I popped the silver chain over my head.
The medallion dropped into the leaf litter without a sound.
I let out a pain-free wheeze as I grasped at my throat. I fully expected to feel the warmth of blood pumping from my torn jugular vein. Or the rush of air from my ruptured trachea. Either one carrying off my consciousness and my life.
All I felt was smooth, unblemished skin. Vega took a step away from me, her dark eyes wide, hand resting on the butt of her gun. She probably wasn’t planning on shooting, but I wouldn’t put it past her to club me over the head if it looked like I’d gone completely loco.
“All right,” she said slowly. “What. Just. Happened.”
I coughed a couple of times in response, then held my hands out where she could see them while I slowly got up. That seemed to mollify Vega a bit, and her stance relaxed.
“My damned necklace got twisted around my neck!” I said, trying to put a peevish tone in my voice. Even as I did so, my conscience shook its figurative finger at me. I reached down and fished the medallion up from where it fell and held it up by the chain. “It does that sometimes. I need to see a jeweler to get it shortened.”
“Uh-huh.” Vega didn’t say any more for a moment, but the frosty expression behind her glasses spoke volumes about how much she was buying my story.
“Well, it’s time I headed back to the house,” I announced. “The coroner’s office is sending people from their Sun Valley branch to help–”
“Cut the crap, Dayna. You obviously suspect that there’s something going on out here with these white lines. Talk to me.”
“I don’t know.”
“I didn’t ask what you knew. I asked what you suspect. Give me something, a theory, anything.”
I pursed my lips. “I think this is a marking for a pathway. A pathway that leads directly to the Wainwright house.”
“A pathway for what?”
“I don’t know, and I can’t even speculate.”
With that said, I moved to leave. But Vega stepped in my way, blocking my path.
“You can’t even speculate?” She shook head. “No, I think you’re speculating plenty. And you’re not telling me everything. For example, what if it were magic at work?”
I blinked. I’ll admit, she’d surprised me. “Magic?”
“Yes, magic.” Vega made a vague wriggle of her fingers in mid-air, mimicking the hocus-pocus gesture of a stage magician. “Come on. You’ve speculated about magic before, when you were looking over the self-firing machine gun that took out Chief Sims.”
“Why don’t you ask your partner about that?”
“Simple. Because Esteban’s not my partner anymore.” She saw my surprise and went on. “I was just promoted to Homicide Detective, Class Two. I requested reassignment as soon as the paperwork went through.”
“You did? I mean, I really should congratulate you, but why the sudden reassignment?”
“That’s my business. And don�
��t keep changing the subject,” she said sternly. “I’ve been browsing your prior case files, and there’s a sky-high level of chueco in there. There’s more than the self-firing machine gun. There’s the body of ‘Connor McCloud’. And let’s not forget that monstrous eagle feather you took from the Natural History Museum.”
I hoped my skin hadn’t flushed red as Vega went through all the casework where Andeluvia had touched this world. In a way, I shouldn’t have been surprised. It only took a sharp eye to start spotting the oddball things I’d never quite closed out. And Vega’s eyes were sharp indeed.
“Sure,” I agreed lamely, “they’re all kinds of strange. But remember, a lot of that wasn’t my doing. Luis Ollivar or Robert McClatchy stuck me with those cases, mostly to tarnish my record. One of them probably got me yanked out here to the middle of nowhere, to try my hand at untangling this particular ball of weirdness.”
“No,” Vega said. “They didn’t stick you with this case. I’m the one who did.”
I stared at her. “What for?”
A shrug. “I wanted to see what you would do. Honestly, I halfway expected you to run out of that house screaming, the way you did when Harrison supposedly showed up at the OME.”
“He was there, and I wasn’t screaming,” I corrected her, but she continued, talking right over me.
“Maybe I figured that you’d start babbling about magical realms again. Maybe start talking about elves, dwarves, and dragons.”
What I said next just slipped out.
“Elves and dwarves don’t exist. Unfortunately, dragons do.”
“Sigue con tu viana!” she spat. “You’re making my blood boil! And you just keep–”
I held my hands out again. “Hold on, hold on! What is going on here, Isabel? Why are you so angry about…well, something you might have heard in a private conversation?”
Vega blew out an angry breath. She glanced back towards the Wainwright house as if to make sure that we were alone. Then she crossed her arms and remained where she was, almost looking away from me as she spoke.
“I was eight. My family had moved to San Clemente from the D.R. only a couple of years before. I was still struggling with speaking English, making friends. I tried hanging out with my brothers, but they were teenagers by then. They had new, better friends they’d go biking or skateboarding with, and they didn’t want their little hermana around, not anymore. I heard them talking about visiting their fantasy land again, a place made of rainbows and magic.
“One afternoon, when my parents were at work, I demanded they let me come along. My brothers laughed and said I couldn’t, I was too young. When I insisted they at least tell me about where they went, they said it was a place where they could fly, where the colors spoke to them. A place only those with a spirit of adventure and purity of heart could come.”
“And you believed them,” I said.
“I believed them. How could I not? I trusted anything they told me, and I’d read all the children’s books. The one with the talking lion, the one with the white rabbit, all of them. I had a hand-me-down dirt bike one of my brothers had given me. So the next time they left with their friends, I followed them. And you know what I found out?”
Wordlessly, I shook my head.
“My two brothers and their new ‘friends’ were breaking into the back of a hobby supply warehouse. I peeked in through the window in the loading zone and saw them all stoned out of their mind from huffing glue.” Vega sighed. “All their talk…it was nothing more than code words for getting high. And next time they visited ‘the place they could fly’, the cops busted them and sent them to juvie hall. It’s off their records now, gracias a Dios.”
“I’m sorry that happened.” Then it was my turn to glance around to make sure we were alone before I spoke again. “What Esteban said to you, after you caught us talking about magic…that was true.”
“Oh, I know it’s all ‘true’,” she said, her temper flaring. “I left it alone, because I admire the work that you, that my former partner does. But I’m sure you two are up to something. And I’m warning you. It had better stop. Or I’ll put an end to it.”
And with that, Detective Isabel Vega turned her back on me and stomped off.
Chapter Six
Fitzwilliam’s capital was wide awake and bustling at dawn. Street vendors set out wooden carts laden with the day’s fruits and vegetables. The scent of tanned leather and freshly baked bread drifted over from where shopkeepers were just opening their doors. Men armed with push brooms did their best to keep the ever-present background odor of horse manure down to a minimum. I even got a heady whiff of pine tar soap off a trio of washerwomen as they passed by, conical baskets of laundry balanced atop their heads.
It made sense once I thought about it. This was a world lit only fitfully by hearth and candlelight once the sun went down. Everyone had to maximize their daylight hours if they wanted to earn money, complete household chores, or get their bellies filled.
I found myself having to weave through crowds of people taking care of the day’s business as I kept to the pedestrian-only zones. Much as in Los Angeles, the broad center of the road was designated for wagons, dray horses, or mounted knights only.
Since I was a woman travelling on foot, and I lacked any entourage, everyone pretty much ignored me. Occasionally I got a nod or a quick bow from someone who recognized my rank, and I did a quick nod-type bow back. My apparent lack of recognition was a blessing in disguise. When I’d tried to get anything done shortly after my investiture, I couldn’t take more than ten steps without having to bow back to someone.
I spotted my destination from a couple blocks away. The soothsayer’s guild had chosen a decidedly odd location – a building, or set of buildings, that sat irregularly atop one another. While the walls were freshly painted, the golden yellow-brown shade chosen was strange. Between the architecture and the color, the guild’s home looked like a stack of overdone flapjacks.
As soon as I was admitted, I recognized someone from my last visit. The stout, middle-aged woman with dark hair waiting inside was Master Seer Zenos’ acolyte. She wore the same beige cloak as on the evening she’d served me and my friends a sorely needed hot dinner.
“Dame Chrissie, it is an honor to have you join us again,” she intoned, with a slight bow.
“The honor is mine,” I replied, bowing gratefully in return. “Aki, isn’t it? How are your studies with Master Zenos coming along?”
“You remember me,” she said, pleased. “As for my studies, I continue to learn how to pierce the veil surrounding the future.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re still Zenos’ acolyte. Which is why I’m here.” I patted the leather pouch I had tucked under my arm. “I’ve brought something for him.”
She opened a large book on her desk. “So I see. Do you have an appointment? I don’t think it’s in here.”
“No, I just dropped by.” I did a double-take. “Wait a minute. If you’re a bunch of soothsayers, why do you even have an appointment book? Shouldn’t you folks just know if someone is about to show up?”
Aki made the tiniest of shrugs. “Prophecy works in mysterious ways.”
Zenos’ voice boomed out from the corridor beyond. “Do I hear Dame Chrissie out there? Aki, stop acting like a doorstop and let her pass!”
“Of course, Master Zenos,” she called back. To me, she added, “The guild master is in his scrying chamber. Cross the commons room and enter the second chamber on the right.”
I thanked her and walked on down the corridor. A familiar mix of scents greeted me: herbs, charcoal, roasted meat. The commons room was also immediately recognizable. The ratty couch I’d crashed on for one night last summer was still there, though it sported several new fabric patches. The long table and blackened stone hearth also remained, though the table was bare now and no iron stew pot hung over the dancing fire.
Zenos’ scrying chamber made my eyes water as soon as I stepped into it. Fragrant curls of pipe smo
ke hung in the air. I tasted as much as smelled the spiciness of coriander mixed with tobacco.
Blinking, I made out where the Master Seer sat at a small table by a nearby window. He clenched a pipe carved in the shape of a rearing dragon between his teeth, smoke puffing out of the creature’s fanged mouth. His gnarled hands were at work adjusting a little clockwork mechanism depicting a sphere circled by a series of crystal planes.
“Eh?” he asked, as he heard me stifle a cough. “One second, Dame Chrissie. Please, take the seat across from me.”
Zenos set aside his work and pushed the window open a crack. The pane squeaked on badly oiled hinges, but sunlight and fresh air came streaming through, brushing aside the worst of the smoke. I breathed in deeply as I pulled out the chair across from him and took a seat, placing my leather bag on the table as I did so.
“Ah, now I see the purpose of your visit,” Zenos said. “Returning one of the guild’s texts?”
“All of them, actually.” I unbuckled the bag and slid out the assorted tomes. These books had been stuffed into Galen’s saddlebag when we’d left the guild the last time, on loan from Zenos. “They helped me decipher a little more of the Codex of the Bellum Draconus, but not a lot more.”
That was something of an understatement. Last summer, Liam had been tasked with destroying or driving off Sirrahon, the greatest of the ancient dragons. Failure meant destruction of the fayleene, so my friends and I had acquired the ancient Codex to try and gain any advantage we could. Thanks to Zenos’ knowledge of ancient texts and his books on translation, we learned just enough to drive the dragon off.
Sad to say, I’d proven to be underwhelming in my role as linguist. Part of the problem was the lack of time, but mostly it was the disruption in my life brought on by the Creatures of the Dark. Yet, I couldn’t shake the fact that my brain refused to wrap itself around the runes and symbols that made up the Codex. And I simply didn’t know anyone who could help me out in that department.
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