Seeing Red

by Lyra Evans

  The idea of Sade walking around a massive meat storage warehouse, with silver hooks and massive carcasses made Niko shudder violently. It made perfect sense, though, if he thought about it. To Sade’s mind he had always been in the meat business. Niko nearly felt his protein bar coming back up.

  Phone buzzing, Niko glanced down to check his messages. There was one from Uri snarking about Niko’s rude departure from their conversation. Two from Starla complained about the sheer idiocy of cheating partners. She had been following two different people for days only to find out that the two separate cases were connected—the two cheating spouses were cheating with each other. Niko wasn’t terribly surprised, but he hoped for her sake she’d get tapped for a more interesting account soon. The detective agency he’d gotten her a job with was well reputed, but sadly the lead investigator saw Starla’s past experience as a prostitute as too useful to let go. She was routinely asked to play a part to ‘tempt’ potentially unfaithful people into cheating. Given Starla’s looks and charm—when she turned it on—it was little surprise every one of her marks ended up falling for the ploy. Vacuous work, maybe, but it paid well enough.

  Niko texted back and forth with her a bit, always watching the warehouse door and the van parked in front of it. He checked his email and browsed through news reports for a while until he noticed the time. He’d been waiting there for a good couple hours. So long, in fact, that the rain had stopped and the sky had purpled with the deepening night. Surely this was too long to be in an empty and clearly dilapidated warehouse?

  Weighing his options, Niko pulled his hood back up, making the trade back to cotton as he realized how warm he was, and slipped his phone into his pocket as he got out. He listened closely to the sounds of the night, standing by his car, in case Sade really was inside rummaging around. But only the vague whir of distant cars and the soft chirp of nearby crickets met his ears. That was odd.

  A scan of the street confirmed no one else was around, and Niko jogged over to the open gate. He peered beyond it, to the door of the warehouse, and chewed on the inside of his lip. If he pushed onward and Sade was awake and aware inside, Niko wouldn’t only be burning himself but putting himself in some serious danger. Forgetting Sade’s right to report Niko and have him suspended or even terminated, Sade was still a violent offender with a particular soft spot for Niko. But if Sade wasn’t in the warehouse anymore, it meant he’d slipped Niko and could be anywhere. Doing anything.

  The second option was unsettling enough for Niko to damn it all and move to the door of the warehouse. The iron door was on a sliding rail that had seen better days. It was red and muddy from weathering, and when Niko tested the movement, it screeched a soft sound. Niko froze at the noise, heart pounding in his throat as he waited for Sade’s possible reaction. A few moments passed without any indication of someone coming to check it, and Niko screwed his determination to his spine and slipped inside the warehouse.

  Light filtered in from what Niko had correctly identified as rusted holes in the roofing. There were molded skids stacked and piled around, as well as abandoned boxes and crates. A lone broomstick leaned against a nearby wall, spider webs gleaming from around the frame of it. The interior walls were clearly insulated once, but the refrigeration component was clearly missing and liquid of unknown type leaked and pooled at the base of the walls. It stained the concrete floor an indistinct colour. Dust and mold were the dominant scents, along with something like iron and acidic, teased to intensity by the recent rain and leaky roof. None of that made any particular impact on Niko because he did find Sade in there.

  His body was strung up, hanging from what could only be a massive meat hook. He was naked, covered in bruises and lacerations, and blood poured down his chest and mouth, dripping slowly on the floor. Where his near-black eyes had once teemed with hatred and malice, now the pupils were empty, flat, dead.

  And in the face of his dead former abuser, Niko could only say, “Shit.”

  Chapter 3

  Niko ran a hand through his damp hair, pushing the locks away from his flushed face. He leaned back against the corrugated metal and concrete outer wall of the warehouse, watching as the flashing turret lights approached out of the darkness. There were no sirens, no wailing sounds emitted from the onslaught of cars. There was no emergency. Anything particularly time sensitive was done. Niko had seen to it that the appropriate stasis spells and runes were put in place around the crime scene.

  The first of the cars poured out, and Niko worked to steady his breathing and heartrate as Uriah and Captain Baobab emerged. Neither looked particularly pleased, but the nature of their displeasure seemed to vary slightly. Uri ran up to Niko, his golden face stricken with alarm and concern. He appeared to care little for the victim hanging inside the warehouse, or for any police procedure related to arriving at a scene like this. Instead, he grasped Niko’s shoulders tightly and shook him once.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” he snapped, his angular eyes swimming with worry that belied the anger. Niko stared back for a moment, remembering a time when he’d have been thrilled Uri was getting physical and rough with him. But a hollow in his chest ached, and Niko reached up, grabbing Uri’s wrists and dislodging his grip.

  “I was thinking I’d make sure Sade didn’t ever victimize another innocent person while I had the power to stop him,” Niko said, his voice raw. “I didn’t anticipate—this.”

  The Captain peered through the door to the warehouse, his face a mask of severity. In his dark eyes, Niko saw the racing thoughts as he worked to figure out how to approach this.

  “Statement. Now, Spruce,” he said, gesturing to Uri to take notes.

  Niko nodded, taking mild comfort in the protocol. “I arrived on scene at approximately 9 p.m. I walked the perimeter of the property along the front gate to get a sense of the access points of the area. I established there was only one entry point,” he said, pointing to the gate through which the police were arriving. “I then returned to my vehicle to continue my surveillance. Approximately two hours passed with no activity of any kind. There was no noticeable or notable noise, nor did I see lights or any other indication of another vehicle pass by. At around 11:12 p.m. I decided to investigate inside the property, having decided too much time had passed without seeing the subject of my surveillance.”

  “Your illegal surveillance,” Uri muttered, pressing a hand to his face as if to blot out reality. The Captain snapped at him to shut up, and Niko’s jaw tightened. There was nothing to say to that.

  “I approached the warehouse quietly, noting no tracks in the gravel apart from those left by the suspect’s vehicle and footprints. There was no sound coming from inside the warehouse, no movement I could discern, which was strange given the subject should have still been inside doing who knows what. Given this information and therefore believing something amiss, I urged the warehouse door open slowly.”

  “Was there any movement at the door opening?” the Captain asked.

  Niko shook his head. “None,” he said. “Which was equally unsettling. Upon entering the warehouse, I first noted the smell of blood and dust. Then I saw the body of the—victim—where it currently is. At that point, I called it in.”

  Uri worked his jaw over his tongue as the forensics team made their way into the warehouse to do their work. Dr. Aspen, the medical examiner, appeared close behind them. Her eyes flashed to Niko, her expression tinged with confusion, but she did not say anything. Neither did Niko.

  “Then what did you do?” the Captain asked.

  Niko cast his gaze along the ground toward the open warehouse door. There were no tracks in the ground where the forensic techs and Dr. Aspen had passed. The stasis spells and runes were partially to thank for that, but forensic technicians were also trained to wear boot covers enchanted to leave no mark. To avoid scene contamination. Niko wondered at that.

  “Given my surveillance and the fact that I had not seen anyone come or go from the property since I arrived, I s
uspected the killer might still be on the grounds. So I pulled my weapon and began a search. I cleared the interior of the warehouse and perimeter. I found nothing of consequence. No footprints. No bloody trail. No tire tracks. Nothing. No indication anyone else was present tonight here.” Niko shook his head, still unable to fully comprehend that detail.

  He even searched the back fencing, doing every test—magical and otherwise—that he could think of. There was no break in the fence, no sign of mending. There was no way out around back. But no one had gone out the front gate either.

  “Did you search for vitals on the victim?” the Captain asked, and Niko’s eyes flew back to his face. Their gazes met and held for a long moment before the Captain let it drop. “Did you collect any evidence? Notice anything useful?”

  Niko shook his head. “I haven’t touched anything,” he said. “And I haven’t spent much time examining the scene yet. Took me until minutes before you arrived to just clear the property. But I’ll let you know the moment I find anything—”

  “You certainly will not,” the Captain said, his expression uncharacteristically hard, his words sharp as cut glass. Niko straightened. “You can’t think that I’m going to let you anywhere near this case, Spruce. Forgetting the illegal surveillance, your connections to the victim are too many to name and too complex to unravel. You’re compromised. You can’t investigate.”

  Niko’s body felt like burning wire, curled along a barrel to make a spring. Everything was tight and painful, but he couldn’t move except with the flow of motion. Realizing he had no argument to make, no legal leg to stand on, he gritted his teeth and raked a hand through his hair again.

  “Fuck, Captain, you know I can’t let this go,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but this all just feels—”

  “Good?” Chief Banyan had appeared out of the darkness, her pristine white skirt suit in stark contrast to the dingy neighbourhood. Despite the late hour, she was made up as perfectly as usual, her hair neatly coiffed and her makeup precise. Niko stopped, staring confusedly at her. “I imagine finding Sade Hemlock in this fashion was somewhat of a relief, for you in particular, Detective Spruce.”

  There was no answer to that. He wasn’t sure whether to be offended or disgusted. Or ashamed. Because he was somewhat relieved. Sade was dead now, never able to hurt anyone ever again. Niko had argued he would go back to his old tricks and people would die. He still believed that. Perhaps the best-case-scenario was that Sade was the one to die.

  “I was going to say ‘off,’” Niko said, but it was a beat too late. Banyan nodded slowly.

  “Well, on that we agree,” she said. Turning to Baobab, she shook her head. “Do you have any idea the media shit storm that is going to follow this news?”

  Baobab seemed uncomfortable, but even he was mildly confused by that. “Shit storm? It doesn’t look good, but why does the public give a damn about what happens to Sade Hemlock?”

  “Because the public cares about what the newspapers tell it to care about,” Banyan snapped. “And Hemlock’s lawyers are going to have a field day. Not to mention the inevitable inquiry by the Court itself. They just sided with Hemlock in his case against the department, and now the fucker is dead. That doesn’t play well no matter how you look at it.”

  “He was a danger to society,” Niko said, feeling as though he’d been dropped into an alternate universe.

  Banyan favoured him with a searing look. “Why are you still here, Spruce? You are off this case. Hand in your badge and service weapon and get yourself home.”

  A freight train could have run Niko down and caused less damage to his insides than what Banyan had just told him. He was frozen in time and space, unable to compute her order. Uri responded for him, snapping out of his shock first.

  “Are you suspending him?” he asked, pushing between Niko and Banyan. Niko’s heart started pounding again, the ground slowly disappearing from under him.

  “I think that’s a bit of an overreaction, Chief,” Captain Baobab said, gathering himself. “Spruce may have stepped out of line—”

  “Out of line?” Banyan asked, manicured eyebrows arched to the heavens. “That doesn’t even begin to cover it. A suspension is just about appropriate considering the circumstances, but no. I’m not suspending him. I’m just placing him on modified duty for the duration of the investigation.”

  “Desk duty?” Niko said, disbelieving. “You expect me to sit by—”

  “Consider yourself lucky, Spruce,” she snapped back. “A suspension would draw too much attention to you. So until further notice, you’re either on desk duty or you’re taking vacation. You decide.”

  There was a fleeting moment of pure silence following her words, but in that moment stretched a vast ocean, in which Niko was adrift alone. He had never taken vacation days since the start of his career, except for the days he was required to take yearly. He took the required recovery time after his undercover mission with Sade and not a moment more. He’d certainly never abandoned a case without resolving it first. But the idea of sitting in the bullpen while Uri and the Captain and who knew who else were running down leads and trying to find Sade’s murderer was too much for him. He didn’t need his gun, but his badge—that was more integral to Niko than he wanted to admit.

  “There’s no need for that, Chief,” the Captain said, trying to defuse a situation already at its peak. “Spruce is a dedicated officer and stellar detective. Surely he’s more valuable working—”

  “You can’t hand down an order like that without hearing from his Union Rep, that’s for damn sure,” Uri interrupted. “He hasn’t—”

  “Try to tell me he hasn’t done anything wrong, Detective Fern, and I might be forced to consider whether you are able to think objectively on this case as well.”

  Uri gaped at her, and the Captain tried to step in again, but Niko was done with this nonsense.

  “Forget it,” Niko said, pulling his service weapon from its holster, safety on, and his badge from his belt. With a force of will that wearied him more than he imagined, he shoved both items at Chief Banyan and shook his head. “Consider me on vacation.”

  Uri spluttered some incoherent rebuttal while the Captain watched in tightly reserved disbelief as Niko turned his back on the three of them and walked back toward his car. Bile burned at the back of his throat, his head at once firing with thousands of thoughts and none at all. He felt more empty than he ever had, more frustrated, and more confused. A cord of muscle in his neck pulled taut, but Niko ignored it. He tasted nothing but rage. Slamming the door as he got into his car, his knuckles white gripping the steering wheel, Niko pulled out into the street with only one destination in mind.

  The streets peeled out in front of him, seemingly clear as he found himself on a route he’d taken numberless times before. There was no thinking involved, no planning or intention. His mind glazed over with the same distant hardness that coated his heart over the years.

  The parking spot beneath the weeping willow tree was always clear for him. He didn’t know if the people who lived nearby did this intentionally or not, but now was not the time to think on it. He pulled to a stop, taking only his keys as he exited the car and made his way down the little road toward his goal. The night was dark by now, the sky dotted with a few stars, here and there, the rest outshone by the light pollution of the city. The lights were off in most of the houses here, their windows blacked out or curtained. Only a few porch lights and street lamps lit the way.

  Niko didn’t hesitate as he approached the rocky opening, pushing through as he always did. The pebbles beyond crunched under his shoes, slipping slightly with every step. Salt and spray met him, and nothing else. The pebbled beach was small and enclosed on all sides by rocks and fences and dense plant life. The nearby houses each had their own beaches in small lots with sandier shores, so this little inlet had remained unclaimed, belonging to the city—if that—and making it accessible to the public at any time. Only few people knew ab
out it beyond the neighbours.

  Waves rushed the shore, not nearly as violent as Niko felt they should be, and filled his head with the soft crushing song of the ocean. And only that sound. Nothing else. No voices. No Song.

  Fists balled, Niko glared down at the water, dancing with the glittering reflects of the stars and moon. It taunted him now, unyielding and unforgiving and unhearing. He shook with the anger and the hurt, and he waited. The heart of him, and the hollow in his chest, begged the ocean for what he needed. Begged. He’d have dropped to his hands and knees and called out to the Old Trees or the Gods or whoever or whatever might be listening if he thought that would get him an answer. But it never did. Nothing did. That he’d ever believed in Fate and all that bullshit made him drop his head and screw his eyes shut. How could he have been so stupid?

  He felt the isolation choking him, rising in his chest and obliterating the air in his lungs. Blood pumped to his skull, the pressure increasing until he felt as though he’d explode. But not a sob escaped him. When he couldn’t bear it anymore, he swiped down and grabbed a fistful of pebbles and whipped them at the water. They splattered into the waves, harmless and quiet against the push and pull of the tide, and he didn’t feel any better.

  But despite his anger, he stayed. He stood there, unmoving, on the pebbled beach, staring out at the water. There was no telling how long, as he’d left his phone in the car, but it took much too long for him to tear himself away. A heavy stone in his chest, sinking through to his stomach, finally made him turn and walk back. Nothing was coming.