by Sarah Biglow
I settled on the edge and pulled out my notebook again. Su-Ling took her time sitting in the armchair across from us.
After one more steadying breath, I said, “Mrs. Cho, I’m so very sorry to have to tell you this, but your husband was found dead a short time ago.”
Her hands grasped the armrests until her knuckles turned white. Tears sparkled in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “No, you are mistaken.”
“I’m afraid not. We found his ID on him.”
‘Who would want to hurt my husband?”
“We were hoping you might know the answer to that. If you feel you can answer just a few questions for us…” Jacquie interjected.
“I can try.” She paused and, after a moment, her bob bounced against her cheeks as she shook her head. “No. No one. Edwin was a good man. Nice man. Everyone liked him.”
Clearing my palette again, I inhaled, but all I got was the faint scent of cooking spices and some candles that had been burned on the mantle place not long ago. Nothing that jumped out as even remotely magical. If he wasn’t part of the magical community, then why would someone with clear magical abilities target him?
Glancing down at my notepad, I continued. “I’m really sorry to have to ask, but when we found him, he wasn’t far from the Tufts stop on the orange line. Did he work nearby or have a reason to be there this late at night?”
“Edwin was working late. He does sometimes. He called me maybe at six o’clock to say he would be a few hours and not to wait for supper.” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes, her composure threatening to slip. “I should have known something was wrong when he did not come home yet.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what did your husband do for work?”
“He is a professor. He teaches advanced cardiology at Tufts School of Medicine.”
His job didn’t seem to give any clue so I tried a different tack. I glanced at Jacquie who was busy taking her own notes on the conversation. “Did Edwin have any hobbies or meet anyone new recently?” Maybe he’d hidden any magical connection from his family.
“No. At least, not that he told me. He was very busy with his students. He didn’t have time for anything else.”
Not the answer I’d been hoping for. One final question then. “Do you know if Edwin took the same route home every day?” Maybe he’d been more than a target of opportunity.
“I don’t know.” With that, Mrs. Cho’s lower lip quivered and tears slipped down her cheeks, first a few at a time and then so heavily that her cheeks shone in the dim light. “I need to call my daughter. I have to tell her that her father is dead. She’s only nineteen. She is away at school.”
Jacquie stood up and pulled a business card from her jacket pocket. “I know this is hard, Mrs. Cho, and we are so very sorry for your loss. We’ll need you to identify your husband’s body when you’re ready. I’m going to leave my card if you can think of anything or if you need anything. The address of the morgue is on the back. If you want us to be there, please don’t hesitate to call us.”
Through her tears, Mr. Cho took Jacquie’s card with shaky fingers and buried her face, weeping softly into her shirtsleeves. Jacquie headed for the door and I moved to follow her. I set my own business card on the table beside Mrs. Cho. My heart broke for this woman. I knew that grief better than many of the officers in the department.
She reached out a damp hand and grabbed my wrist. “Please, just find who did this to my husband.”
“I pro—” I bit my tongue. We were trained never to promise something in a case like this. “We will do what we can.”
Jacquie and I retreated to the car and I flipped open my notebook, jotting down the limited information we’d gotten from Mrs. Cho before rereading the details I’d gathered from the scene. Why kill a cardiology professor with no magical connections? For a fleeting moment I considered that, while the killers may have been magical, the murder wasn’t tied to the impending battle I had to face. But I knew deep in my bones that they were connected.
Jacquie’s phone buzzed. “Karo came through. She sent over the information on the first victim.”
I bent over her phone, skimming the details. Two days ago, Altagracia Mendoza, age 78, was found dead near the Esplanade. Her chest was crushed and no witnesses had been identified.
Scrolling down the report, I said, “Look at this, she was found around the same time of night.”
“Same MO but vastly different locations, and at first glance there’s nothing that connects our victims. They’re different sexes, different ages and races.”
I shrugged. “Maybe they knew each other through work or a church group or something.” I couldn’t help but wonder if magic had been involved in Mrs. Mendoza’s death too.
“You did well, Ezri,” Jacquie said once we were back on the road heading for the precinct. Our shift was nearly over.
“It was harder than I thought. God, when she broke down crying I just wanted to tell her we’d find the son of a bitch who did this.”
“We do our jobs the best we can. Sometimes we win and sometimes the criminals get away with it.”
“Don’t I know it.” I stopped short of sharing anything else.
We pulled to a red light and Jacquie looked at me. “I know you lost your mother when you were a kid and this had to bring up some of those feelings.”
I stared open-mouthed at my partner. “How?” As far as I knew, the police had no record of her death.
Jacquie eased off of the brake and kept her gaze on the road. After a tense beat she said, “I did my homework on you, Trenton, when you made detective and I knew I’d be partnered with you.”
Something about the answer seemed off. Why inquire about my past? Our gazes met in the rearview mirror and the suspicion building in the back of my mind dissipated under her kind expression. Not everyone in the world has dark motives. “She was murdered and I swore I’d find her killer,” I blurted. Why did I just admit that?
“I’m sorry. That’s a noble promise to make, Ezri, but a dangerous one.”
“No one gave her the justice she deserved. That’s why I’m doing this job.”
“You can’t let what happened to you color your judgement. So, if you can’t handle this case you need to let me know now and the captain can assign you to a different partner.”
“No. I can do this. I’m not going to let my personal issues get in the way of working the case. I know this isn’t anything like what happened to my mother.”
“Good.”
With that one word, the conversation came to an abrupt conclusion. I wanted to know what had prompted her digging into my history, but the dashboard clock read 11:07 p.m. and sleep threatened to cloud my thoughts. We pulled into the back lot of the precinct and Jacquie cut the engine.
“Write up your report, then go home and get some sleep. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
By the time I finished my report, the graveyard shift was in full force and Jacquie had left and gone home to her niece and nephew. It was almost midnight and I had no desire to make the drive home at the moment. So, I dragged myself out of the bullpen to the break area and flung myself down on one of the bunks. Sleep wrapped around me like a blanket as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Excitement coursed through me as I headed up the two flights of stairs to our apartment. I could hear footsteps thundering behind me as J.T. and Desmond chased after me. Their voices echoed in the stairwell, but I couldn’t make out the words. Whatever they were saying, it didn’t matter. We’d spent a good night together, staying up way too late and trying wine coolers Desmond got with his fake ID in secret, but today was my birthday and I was sure my parents were going all out. After all, it wasn’t every day your only daughter turned fifteen.
I pulled the keys from my pocket and slid them into the lock. The bolt turned easily and I pushed the door inward. Before I even crossed the threshold, I could smell something wrong. The sweet honey of
my mother’s magic hung in the air, but there were other scents overlapping it. Too many to pick apart. I wasn’t that good.
“Ezri, wait!” J.T. called from down the hall.
I ignored him and went in. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention as did the hair along my forearms. “Mom? Dad?” I called. No answer.
I crossed the short entryway and past my parents’ bedroom and into the living room. All of the air went out of my lungs, robbing me of the ability to scream. My throat burned as my vocal cords tried to make sound anyway. My mother’s body lay on the floor, a silver-handled knife wedged between her ribs. A small rivulet of blood trickled from the side of her mouth. Nubs of candles lay around her having long burnt themselves out. The scents of whoever had been in the apartment were overwhelming and, as if they had physical mass, pressed down on me until I landed on my knees on the hardwood.
“Mom,” I finally squeaked out, clawing my way across the room to her.
Up close her left hand was coated in blood. She gripped something in her right hand and without thinking I pried it open to find a pentacle necklace. It was the one she’d told me she would give me on my fifteenth birthday, just like her mother had done and so on back through the generations to our ancestors who died during the Witch Trials. I freed the necklace from her stiff fingers and secured it around my neck. Whoever took my mother from me wasn’t going to take that legacy from me too.
“Ezri,” my mother’s voice called.
I looked down to find her staring at me, eyes wide open and glittering with unshed tears. She cupped my cheek with her bloody hand and said, “Sweet girl, they’re coming. It’s time now. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you forever. Remember her words. And you need to wake up now. Ezri, wake up!”
March 12, 2017
Three
The precinct bunkroom came into view as I sat up in a cold sweat, hair matted to my forehead and dampness soaking my shirt. My hand clutched the pendant as if I were still in the dream. I hadn’t taken it off since the day my mother died. I’d had that same dream every year on my birthday since I was sixteen. This was the first time my mother had ever spoken to me. The dream had been so vivid, I could still smell the sweetness of my mother’s magic. Why had she spoken to me this time? And how could she have been protecting me if she was dead? I’d never known exactly what had happened that night, but I knew she’d fought her attackers until her very last breath. Her warning stuck out in my mind. “Remember her words.” Without even naming names, I knew whose words I needed to remember. Our magical family tree traced all the way back to the Witch Trials. And with that lineage came a destiny for one of our line: When the world is balanced anew and fire rains down as midday turns to night, the last daughter of Harrow’s blood shall rise to stand against the Old Guard’s return.
I was the last living daughter of Theodora Harrow’s bloodline. It was up to me to fight off the impending evil force. I now only had eight days until I went toe-to-toe with destiny. The burden of what was coming had weighed on me since I learned that I was the one. Fear had given way to determination. If this is what had to be, then I was damn well going to be ready for the fight.
“You okay?” a bleary-eyed guy in dress blues asked from the doorway.
I hadn’t even noticed that I was no longer alone. I blinked beads of sweat from my eyes. “Yeah, fine.” I caught sight of the clock hanging above the doorway. I’d been out longer than I’d expected. It was nearly five in the morning. I climbed out of the bunk and returned to my desk where I’d left my notepad. I may not have been on shift anymore but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do some digging. But first, a shower and breakfast were in order.
I had just made it to my car and cranked the heat—sweat and chilly winter air did not mix—when my phone buzzed with an incoming notification. I immediately regretted checking it. A simple text reading, “Happy Birthday, I miss you, sweetheart,” should have cheered me up, but I didn’t need the reminder of what I’d lost. It was even worse coming from my father. We hadn’t spoken in years. I threw the phone onto the passenger seat and headed out of the parking lot.
On some level, I knew he’d lost the love of his life, but the way he’d acted after her death broke my heart. He’d come home not long after I’d found her and he sent me out again with J.T. and Desmond. When we’d come back hours later, my mother’s body was gone. The apartment had been cleaned and there was no sign of foul play. He’d refused to call the police, just saying it had been taken care of. Without a body, it hadn’t made sense to have a wake and the funeral was a joke.
I always suspected he’d done it to give me some sort of closure. But I’d never gotten closure. And from that day forward I knew the people I was supposed to trust—the people keeping the magical community together and in order—had betrayed my family. They were supposed to keep us safe from dark practitioners and they just swept a heinous act under the rug, pretending it hadn’t happened. I’d walked away from all of them.
So my father’s small gesture at connection wasn’t the joyous greeting it was meant to be. It only boiled my blood and reminded me that I had a mission still to complete and a promise to my mother to keep.
Muscle memory brought me back home to my one-bedroom apartment in Brighton. Even on a detective’s salary, I couldn’t afford to live in the city. But being a little way out was nice. It had the calmness of the suburbs but was still urban enough to keep the need to be close enough to get into the city satisfied.
I climbed into the shower and let the water wash away some of the anger that had bubbled to the surface. I needed to be clear headed so I could show Jacquie and the brass that I was capable of doing the work they believed I could do; the work that magic had helped me do to get me where I was. Using magic had become so commonplace in my life I sometimes forgot that it could have a cost. I never pushed myself far enough to really feel the effects. Or at least I hadn’t in a long time. Like any part of the body, frequent use strengthened my magic and my ability to wield it. Long gone were the days of three-day-long migraines and unstoppable nosebleeds from manipulating the power within me. I could alter the speed at which a suspect ran away from me without even breaking a sweat now. Sure, it had raised an eyebrow or two, but other officers had chalked it up to being in peak physical condition. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
Another benefit of magic: I didn’t even have to bother with a hair dryer anymore. I just heated the water molecules until they evaporated. I pulled my hair back into a low knot at the nape of my neck and pulled on a new blouse and pair of slacks. Clipping my holster and badge to my belt, I poured myself a cup of coffee in a travel mug and headed back out into the early morning air.
The trip to the Esplanade was quick. Most of the city wasn’t up yet given that it was Sunday. I pulled up to the corner where Mrs. Mendoza’s body had been found and I could see the Hatch Shell in the distance, standing empty and unused at this hour. In a few short days people would gather all over the city, even here, to watch the eclipse and the meteor shower. The biggest lightshow the city would get until the fourth of July fireworks display.
I paced the length of the block where Mrs. Mendoza had been discovered. Like Mr. Cho there hadn’t been much blood evidence at the scene. The only sign of something out of place that remained was the last vestiges of the cracked sidewalk where she’d lain, her body crushed like Mr. Cho’s. I hadn’t stayed around long enough to see if the sidewalk had suffered similar damage at the other scene. I pulled my notepad from my pocket and scribbled a reminder to follow up with Tricia about it later. I spotted a few surveillance cameras overhead set up by the department and made a mental note to check the footage when I got back to the precinct for my next shift.
I moved to stand over the cracked cement and closed my eyes. With slow breaths I let the world fall away from me, one sound at a time. The rush of the very distant traffic vanished first, followed by the other city sounds. The buzzing of street lamps faded out until all that was left wer
e the sounds of my breathing and my heart beating in my ears. I opened my eyes and looked around at the world. I could see the interconnecting yet invisible fabric of magic that blanketed the city. Those threads woven together moved through me, latching on for the briefest of moments to the magic within me before letting go and connecting elsewhere. It was a beautiful sight and I had to believe there were few places in the country where magic was so engrained in a place. Magic may not have been born in Boston but it thrived, even though our kind had been persecuted in this place hundreds of years ago. Humanity had since forgotten about our existence or had turned its ire to other superficial differences. Just another facet of the American Dream.
I studied the ground beneath my feet. I could see that a spell had been used here but it was still too faint to pick out its purpose. I could swear my nose picked up the barest hints of limestone and garlic, but even this connected to magic I couldn’t reach back that far in time. It was just a trick of my imagination. Confirmation bias messing with my senses. It had still been worth a shot.
As the world came back into focus and daybreak crested over the nearby buildings, a sense of being watched tickled the nape of my neck. I turned around, right hand hovering over my holster, but there was no one in sight. That, of course, meant little when you could turn yourself invisible with enough force of will. I used a little of my own magic—sweet strawberry tickling my nose—to reach out through the world, probing to see if I could reveal anyone hidden by spells, but nothing jumped out at me.
“Get a hold of yourself,” I chided before retreating to my car, pulling an illegal U-turn on the street and heading back toward the heart of the city, a sense of foreboding still prickling my senses.
Four
Restlessness overtook me until I sat at my desk forty-five minutes before the start of my shift, reading Tricia’s report on Mrs. Mendoza. Her injuries were consistent with being crushed by something heavy and the same strange dust particles had been left on her clothing. To me, that all pointed to the same killer. There was also a note about possible partial fingerprints left at the scene. And like Mr. Cho, whoever had called 9-1-1 hadn’t stuck around to be questioned so we had no leads to speak of.