The Deer Prince's Murder: Book Two of 'Fantasy & Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 2)

by Michael Angel

  The Deer Prince’s Murder

  Book Two of ‘Fantasy & Forensics’

  Michael Angel

  Copyright 2014

  Michael Angel

  Includes a sneak preview of

  the third book in the

  ‘Fantasy & Forensics’ series,

  Grand Theft Griffin,

  also by Michael Angel.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

  Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.

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  COLOR AND B&W MAPS OF ANDELUVIA

  The Deer Prince’s Murder

  Book Two of ‘Fantasy & Forensics’

  By Michael Angel

  Chapter One

  Not more than an hour before, I’d been at the witness stand for the LAPD, explaining how bodies decompose more slowly in cold weather.

  Now, as I stood in the middle of a dark forest with nothing on except a bra and panties, I could’ve groaned at the irony of it all. My skin, which had the oh-so-attractive medical examiner’s indoor tan, gleamed white and pink. I probably looked like a freshly plucked chicken, since I was all goose-pimpled up in places I didn’t even think you could get goose-pimples.

  “Galen, can we speed this up a little?” I asked, as I tried to keep my teeth from chattering. “Or at least let me put some clothes back on?”

  “In point of fact, no,” came the wizard’s reply. “Your transformation will do a great deal of damage to your outer clothing, if left on. As for ‘speeding this up’? This spell takes a great deal of concentration. Silence would be preferable for the next minute or so.”

  Galen certainly looked the part of the court wizard for King Fitzwilliam of Andeluvia. From the waist up, his brooding, darkly handsome looks and wine-colored cloth jacket made him a shoo-in for a theatre production of an Emily Brontë novel. Below that, he had the muscular body of a chestnut draft horse. He cast an annoyed glance at the pair of wry snorts that came from the two people next to him, and then went back to consulting his open leather-bound book.

  One of the centaur wizard’s two companions reclined on the forest floor. His lion’s body softly gleamed with golden fur shot through with bits of gray. Shaw, formerly ‘Grimshaw’ of the kingdom’s Air Cavalry, still looked every inch like a royal guard of Andeluvia. His dense fur shifted to white feathers where muscular wings were held tucked against his back. The proud griffin turned away for a moment as his stern eagle’s beak preened a few stray plumes back into place.

  Galen’s other companion had no feathers, and he didn’t have Shaw’s massive presence. But what Prince Liam lacked in size, he made up for in cervine charm. Liam was a princeling of the Fayleene, a magical race of white-tailed deer. He’d have made a wonderful six-point buck, but an accident in his youth had snapped his left antler, leaving him with a stub that projected three or four inches from his skull. He also had a condition that I’d first learned about in high school biology class – heterochromia, where an individual has different colored eyes. But it wasn’t Liam’s emerald left or brown right eye that had marked him as an outcast from his people until now. Rather, it was his reputed lack of Fayleene magical luck.

  I wasn’t too sure of that, to be honest. Liam’s luck had probably been more ‘good’ than ‘bad’, when it came to everything that had happened between us. Between all four of us: Human, Centaur, Fayleene, and Griffin.

  About a month ago, I’d been called in as a crime-scene analyst when a body had been discovered, smack in the middle of a demolition zone in downtown Los Angeles. I discovered the hard way that Galen had placed an enchanted medallion on the corpse to summon me to the realm of Andeluvia, a realm where sorcery worked and magical beings routinely did everything from manage the forests to write the tax code.

  Of course, the call didn’t come as part of a vacation package. In fact, I’d been summoned out of desperation. Someone had assassinated Good King Benedict and framed the Centaur Kingdom for the deed, bringing the world of Andeluvia to the brink of war. Which meant that they needed the services of someone like me to untangle the mess and defuse the situation before everything exploded.

  Just my rotten luck.

  Yes, there had been more than a few moments where the light at the end of the tunnel looked just like an oncoming train. The court soothsayer had publicly denounced me as soon as I’d shown up. The realm’s leading nobles had jumped at the opportunity to gain new land in the approaching war. And the centaurs wanted their chance to fight and win glory for their race.

  Oh, and let’s not forget the real villain of the piece: the centaur wizard, Magnus Killsheven. Magnus hadn’t only murdered Benedict. He’d also killed the king’s right-hand man, Duke Kajari, and then magically transformed himself into the Duke’s form so that he could play the acting Regent.

  But I’d gotten to the bottom of the crime. Magnus and the other treacherous lords were at King Fitzwilliam’s mercy, in the palace dungeon. So far, the new king had been lenient, at least by his medieval kingdom’s standards. He’d held off on executing the wizard who’d murdered his father – and the lords who’d been quick to turn a blind eye to the crime.

  Myself, I’d never have solved anything without my friends. Galen had been cast off by his father; Shaw, by his rider, Captain Vazura of the king’s Air Cavalry. And Liam had been living in near exile from his people until I’d been offered his help. But no matter their origin, all three had come through for me in a tough spot. They’d do a hell of a lot if I asked, and I would do the same for them.

  Which brings me to the reason I was freezing my ass off in the middle of this cold forest.

  Fitzwilliam had offered me the job of official Court Forensics Examiner. It was pretty darned tempting, especially when LAPD Deputy Chief Robert McClatchy was still after me for blipping out of sight during a murder investigation. To be fair, even if I’d been allowed to tell him what was really going on, I don’t think he’d have believed me. Bob wasn’t the kind of person who’d take kindly to a tale of magical homicide, centaur wizards, and talking deer. So, since I was still on probation, I took up the king’s offer to spend more time in his realm.

  That brings me up to a couple of days ago. Galen and Shaw had joined me in one of the palace’s corner towers – a drum-shaped, dunce-capped thing right out of Disneyland, complete with a roaring hearth to warm the cool evening drafts and a big wooden table smack in the middle of the room.

  I’d been teaching the centaur and griffin how to play board games. To my surprise – and Galen’s dismay – it turned out that Shaw was a natural. The rattle of dice was followed by a groan as the wizard grasped his thimble token and moved it around the edge of the board. It came to rest on a blue-edged space that sported a bright red hotel. Shaw smacked the table with one mighty leonine paw and let out a deep chuckle before he spoke in his distinctive archaic style.

  “Thou hast landed on Boardwalk!” he crowed. “Give me all of thy gold and finest mares, centaur!” />
  “Fuss and balderdash,” Galen grumbled, as he thumbed through his stack of bills. “I have no mares to give, but when it comes to my paper, take the lot.”

  “You might have to mortgage a property or two,” I added, stifling a grin. “That’s a full hotel our griffin friend has on there.”

  “Nay, nay,” Shaw demurred, as Galen placed the bills in his outstretched paw. “A true and merciful heart yet beats within me. Let the wizard play on, such as he is able.”

  “And I may yet deliver your comeuppance,” Galen remarked, as he handed me the dice. “Truly, this is a game where fortune can turn on even the most confident of players.”

  I rolled, and then went to grab the piece cast in the shape of a Scottish terrier. The wooden door off to our side opened with a bang as Liam cantered through. He panted, and his breath would’ve come out in steamy puffs had it not been for the warmth from the fire. Though deer faces weren’t as expressive as human ones, his eyes conveyed something between excitement and panic.

  I stood and went over to him. “What is it, Liam?”

  “Dayna,” he said, between breaths, “it is as I had feared. It is happening. I…could really use your help, if you’re willing.”

  That got my attention. Liam’s voice was that of a young man, and his musical Fayleene accent came across as vaguely Gaelic to my ear. But in three sentences, he’d gone from fearful and prophetic…then on to a rather wishy-washy request.

  “Come, Dayna!” Shaw called from the table. “If none of the Fayleene lie mortally wounded, return to finish our game. Thou hast journeyed upon my railroad to the price of–”

  “Not now, Shaw.” I motioned for Liam to go on.

  “The Lead Does handle things from day to day,” he said. “But there is one who serves as the ruler of my people. The Fayleene stag who embodies the magical heart of the woods, who makes both it and the peoples within flourish: the Protector of the Forest. ‘Ere last night, I received word – a rumor, actually – that Quinval, the current Protector, was stepping down as the ruler and guardian of the Fayleene.”

  I nodded, already impressed with the gravity of the situation. On my first visit to Andeluvia, I’d been given some tutoring on the subtle, potent power of Fayleene magic. Albess Thea, the owl leader of the kingdom’s Parliament, had told me that it was the magic of the fallow field, of the evergreen forest, of the stillness before the sun rises. And she’d told me why I needed one of the Fayleene: for centuries, nobody with one of these fey magical deer on their side had ever failed at a task or lost a battle. Sure enough, I hadn’t failed to bring King Benedict’s killer to justice. I didn’t really know if it was due to Fayleene juju or something else. But I wasn’t about to mess with it.

  “Stags of Quinval’s stature only step down once in a generation,” Liam continued. “When they announce their intentions, a ceremony is held in the Sacred Grove at the heart of our woods. All the princelings of the realm attend, for the Lead Does pick the one most worthy, the one most fit, to become the Heir Apparent. To apprentice under the current Protector, until he deems the newly raised Heir ready for the role.”

  “All right,” I acknowledged, “it sounds like the rumor carried the truth, this time.”

  “Indeed, Dayna. I just received the summons to return to the woods my people call home. In two days hence, I must attend the ceremony at the Sacred Grove. To do otherwise risks my permanent banishment.”

  “Dost thou wish our presence for thy imminent coronation?” Shaw asked, with a fluff of his feathers. “Simply ask, and we shall be at your side.”

  “No! It’s not like that, not at all!” Liam exclaimed. “There is no chance I will be chosen. Other bucks have their full set of antlers, and the magic of my kind’s luck. I am unsuitable, a cast-off.”

  I frowned. “You know what we think about that nonsense.”

  “Even if you are correct, there are still others who are more suited to the task. But no matter the choice of the Lead Does, I must attend. Only Fayleene are allowed into the Grove. And as per my kind’s law, I must have…a female consort at my side, or I will be refused admission.”

  “I still don’t see a problem,” I said, but that wasn’t quite true. Liam hadn’t let the other shoe drop yet. “You should have your pick of the does. Helping me take down the wizard who killed Good King Benedict got you a lot of what we’d call ‘street cred’ in Los Angeles.”

  “That ‘cred’, as you put it, has dimmed. It is possible that the loss of the jewelry you gifted me played a part.”

  He flicked his spoon-shaped ear in emphasis. Sure enough, the Andeluvian healing magic that everyone had been given after the last battle had done its work well. It had removed Galen’s cuts, cured Shaw’s burns, and sealed the ear piercing that the Fayleene prince had suffered at the hands of an overzealous ranger from the California Department of Fish & Game. I’d taken back the stud earring I’d bought Liam to hide the hole, once it would no longer stay in.

  “Okay, that’s a problem,” I sat back on my heels. “I’m not sure what we can do about it.”

  To my surprise, Liam threw a nervous glance towards Galen before responding. He gingerly stepped back and forth for a moment, his hooves making clacking sounds on the chamber’s stone floor.

  “Dayna, I would be dead, or an outcast without you. You’ve given me the only family I’ve ever really known. So I must ask a boon of you.” And with that, Liam bent his forelegs and turned his head so as to give me a sweeping bow. “Would you be my consort, to be at my side when I enter the Sacred Grove?”

  Chapter Two

  Galen kept his expression carefully neutral. Shaw’s beak dropped open and he stared in surprise. Me? I’m just glad my own jaw didn’t hit the floor when I heard that.

  “Liam…” I breathed, “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  “No! Well, yes. In a way. I mean, I don’t think of you in that manner, not really. It’s just for the duration of the ceremony!” He got up, and then added, “I spoke about this with Galen last evening when I first heard the rumor about the Protector. He suggested–”

  Galen crossed his arms and cleared his throat ominously.

  “I mean, I suggested that since he’d managed to transform an equine body into a human one, that perhaps he could do the same for a human…into a Fayleene form.”

  “And you agreed to this?” I demanded, rounding on Galen.

  “It was a most fortunately timed request,” the wizard replied. “I was just transcribing the details of my transformation spell, the one used both by Magnus and myself to pass as human. The spell for human-to-Fayleene is remarkably similar. In truth, it is somewhat easier, given the balance of mass between an adult human female and a fully grown doe.”

  “Well, I’m glad that Liam gave you the motivation to solve one of your academic problems,” I groused. I got up and began to pace. “But if the law specifies that only Fayleene can attend, then I don’t think that using a transformation spell is quite…I don’t know, kosher.”

  “To be precise,” Galen intoned, “the exact words of the Fayleene law states that the only persons allowed in their Sacred Grove are ‘those who bear the noble countenance of the deer’. To my mind, this only bars creatures who are not in Fayleene form.”

  Great. The one time Galen is able to untangle a legal document, and it’s not in my favor. I stopped pacing and thought this through for a moment. Liam was my friend, one who’d stepped up to save my life at risk of his own. He wouldn’t have asked this of me unless he were well and truly desperate. And in truth, a part of me was curious about what visiting the Fayleene – from an inside perspective, so to speak – would be like.

  “What about an illusion spell?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be easier, in any case?”

  “That is possible. But Fayleene have finely attuned senses, including that of smell. They would pick you out at fifty paces.”

  “Liam,” I said, and he tilted his head to look up at me, “won’t I be picked out anyway? N
o one will recognize me, it’ll be obvious that I’m not part of the...herd, I guess.”

  “You will attract some attention,” Liam admitted. “But recall: many Fayleene choose to live near to but separate from the Lead Does, just as I. In fact, given my time spent in exile, it would be expected that I’d have found a consort who also chose to stay apart.”

  I turned back to Galen. “What if you mess up the spell? Or you can’t change me back?”

  “Perish the thought!” Galen’s nose wrinkled in offense. “I have performed Archmage-level magic before, and without erring in the slightest. As to changing you back…if I were indisposed, you would change back in stages over the next few days on your own.”

  “Over the next few days? That sounds…painful.”

  “And acutely embarrassing,” he agreed. “Which is why I will handle the return to your true form. I assure you that it shan’t be any more difficult than cantering down a grassy lane.”

  I let out a breath in resignation. I trusted Galen with my life. Hell, I trusted Liam and Shaw with my life too. And again, that part of me that was twelve years old grabbed me by the back of the collar and said, Come on! This will be fun! Haven’t you always wondered what it would be like, to be a magical creature?

  I nodded in the affirmative, and Liam tapped his forehooves in a little dance of delight.

  “Just tell me what I need to do,” I said.

  And that brought me back to the present. Liam had told me how, in the strict matriarchal structure of the Fayleene that the newly visiting doe was not to speak to other members of the herd unless spoken to first. Galen had instructed me to avoid eating anything at all for the entire night prior to his casting the transformation spell.

  Neither of them had told me that I had to strip down to my skivvies. Or told me just how damned cold it was going to be in the Fayleene woods. I kept these thoughts to myself as Galen turned the next pages in his spell book, but I didn’t plan on staying quiet much longer. Getting half-naked and chilly was kind of comical. Hypothermia wasn’t.