by Logan Jacobs
Nothing looked out of the ordinary in the sparse room. It was small, with a large bay window that covered the entire front wall and faced the street. There was a worn out brown couch and a bookshelf that overflowed with crime thrillers and romance novels. How fitting.
I peeked behind the couch and saw nothing but more dust balls and an empty plastic water bottle.
Across from the couch, there was a television mounted to the wall. Strange, it seemed like no one was home, nor had they been home in weeks. The screen was muted, but played out an old classic Elven commercial that advertised a human maid service for rich Fae. I watched for a moment as the middle-aged human, in her classic French maid outfit, smiled wide for the camera and dusted off a fancy glass chandelier filled with twinkling pixie lights, like the one in the dining hall at the guild.
My eyes trailed down from the television to the floor below it. A pillow lay there, next to the remote and some batteries. When I stepped over to pick up the remote, another battery fell out of the back. The little black cover had been cracked and lay in shards on the floor.
Either somebody had stepped on this thing by accident, or it had been thrown onto the ground with a lot of force.
“I’ve got nothing,” Ariette whispered as she emerged from the kitchen.
“Let’s go check the bedroom,” I replied softly as I held up the remote.
She took in the sight of the shattered item and gave me a silent nod.
We crept down the short hallway to the blue door at the end. Ariette, with her elf blood and impossibly light frame, made absolutely no sounds. My clunky feet, on the other hand, made the floorboards creak with each step, no matter how many times I tried to silence them or how many exasperated looks Ariette shot me.
Light streamed out from the edges of the door. I paused and put my hand on Ariette’s shoulder to halt her gait. Then, I pressed my ear to the wood of the door and listened.
There was complete silence on the other side. Cautiously, I put a hand on the brass knob and turned it a centimeter at a time. Ariette flattened herself against the wall, just in case someone tried to burst out and make a run for it. Our breathing was the only sound that broke the eerie silence of the house.
Then, finally, the knob clicked, and I pushed on the door gingerly. This one swung open silently, and we stared at a plain bedroom. The large, old-fashioned bed, with its floral bedcover and lacy bedskirt, was smack in the middle of the room. Its placement made the small space seem even tinier than it already was. The only other thing in the room was an equally old-fashioned wooden armoire, complete with brass drawer pulls and a hairbrush on top.
There was something else on top of the armoire as well. I stepped closer to get a good look.
Next to the hairbrush lay bright purple fragments of an egg shell. The rounded bottom of the egg was still mostly intact, but the top had been pecked out, and the pieces scattered all across the top of the armoire.
Instinctively, I reached out and smoothed two fingers along the bottom part of the shell. It was satiny smooth, like it had been made out of the finest cloth and magically hardened into a shell. The white inside was just as soft.
“I think we’ve got a big problem,” I said aloud as I turned to Ariette, a fragment of the shell in my hand.
“Double that big problem,” Ariette replied sadly. She stood on the side of the bed obscured by the door and looked at the ground as she shook her head. When I came around to see what she meant, I had to stifle a gasp.
Valerie Burke lay there with her eyes wide open in fear and a gaping gash along her throat. Her hair was matted into the area rug beneath her by thick red blood that had already begun to congeal and harden. Both of her hands had been zip tied together crudely, and a bloody kitchen knife lay in between them.
“I don’t think Amy Watkins was just a museum guide,” I said. A soft breeze brushed through my hair as I stared down at poor Valerie Burke, who wasn’t the first, and wouldn’t be the last, person to be played by love.
“And she must have left through that window,” Ariette muttered and indicated the window across from the bed, which looked like it had been forced open. The pane was splintered and cracked and there was a large enough hole for a person’s body to crawl through.
“Okay,” I sighed as I turned away from the lifeless body, “we should get the clean-up crew in here, see if they can find fingerprints or DNA, anything to find out who Amy Watkins really is or that can help us track these guys down.”
“Wait,” I paused as my nostrils filled with an aroma similar to rotten eggs. “Do you smell that?”
“Oh no--” Ariette gasped.
There was a loud crash that emanated from the closet next to the bed, and then suddenly, a dark figure burst out of the closet and scrambled past us so fast, we barely had time to react.
Quicker than a bolt of lightning, the guy clambered over to the window and fell out through the hole, over the sharp shards of glass, and didn’t even glance back at us.
“Who the fuck was--” I started, but I was cut off by Ariette’s hand grabbing my own.
“We need to get out of here,” she demanded. “Now!”
The two of us dashed to the shattered window, and the Fae swiftly tossed herself through without a twinge of difficulty.
I was right behind Ariette, but unfortunately I wasn’t so graceful. I hit the ground hard, and a sharp pain shot through my knees as I impacted.
Ariette and I got about three steps into the yard before a huge wave of heat slammed into my back, and a loud explosion boomed against my eardrums. My entire body was thrust forward, and I rammed into the ground chest first. As I violently struck the ground, I felt my lungs burn as all the air was forced out of them. A sharp pain flared up at my hairline, and the warm trickle of blood flowed down my face. My vision was blurry, and for a moment, my mind was a complete blank, like a black hole.
“Come on, HC, can you get up?” Ariette’s voice was soft and intense in my ear. A strand of her soft blonde hair tickled my ear, and it took me a moment to put together it was the Fae who was speaking. The world was a complete blur, but I rose up as quickly as I could. I was pretty damn sure I had a concussion.
My theory was validated when I glanced down and saw a bloody, jagged rock right under where my head had been. I had to work hard to ignore the throbbing pain in my head, but I used my magic to staunch the bleeding and followed the elven warrior as she scrambled up and further into Valerie’s backyard.
The backyard extended twenty feet in front of us, and just at the back edge, our attacker and assumedly Valerie’s killer, had opened a gate that led into the alley behind the houses.
“Kal,” I said into my comms as I watched the figure turn to the right, “I need you to block off the entrance to the alleyway directly to the right of this house.”
“Got it,” came the dwarf’s reply, and I heard the Van of Death’s tires screech briefly before she clicked off the comms.
Ariette and I dashed to the gate and hurtled around the corner. My breath was loud in my ears, and the throbbing in my head grew as my blood pressure rose.
Unfortunately for this guy, I could still concentrate hard enough to feel for his blood. He was pretty far ahead, and I had never tried to connect with blood quite that far away before, but I willed myself to summon every ounce of strength I had to stop the assailant in his tracks.
Sweat dripped from my brow, and the muscles in my arm tensed up as my Hand vibrated, and then I felt it. The attacker’s blood connected with me as clear as day, and the cells in my Hand shook even harder and faster.
With a grunt, I pulled on the invisible cord that connected me to this figure just as it reached the end of the alleyway. Suddenly, the attacker was yanked back, hard, and I could almost hear the air leave his lungs. I kept myself connected to the murderer’s blood, even as he struggled to stand back up and run.
The concerted effort brought me to my knees as my vision blurred into twinkling, dancing lights, and I le
t out another soft grunt. Every muscle in my body tensed up and screamed for release.
“I got him, HC,” Ariette said as she ran past me. “You just keep working your magic.”
As the elf approached the figure struggling against my grasp, I spread my magic out to hold down the attacker’s arms and legs. I sure as Hell wasn’t going to let him hurt Ariette. A screech sounded, and the van pulled up at the entrance to the alley. Maaren jumped out hurriedly, and she and Ariette were on the guy at the same time. The hunter flipped the figure over and cuffed his hands while Ariette yanked off the hood.
I released my hold on the attacker’s blood, and my entire body flooded with relief and relaxation.
That is, until I felt a slow drip of hot liquid come down my top lip and fall off my chin. The blood splattered onto the concrete I was kneeling on, and I was beginning to feel woozy. My blood hadn’t been able to stay clotted with my effort focused elsewhere so much. The immense pain was back, and it was all I could do not to pass out or see a kaleidoscope of stars as I made my way shakily back to my team.
“It’s not Amy,” Ariette said with a sigh as I approached. Her eyes were fixated on the face below her as Maaren yanked him to a standing position.
It was a human man, probably in his mid-thirties. His hair was short and was already a salt and pepper grey, and he had piercingly cold blue eyes. The man’s thin lips were pressed into a hard line, and he refused to meet our eyes as he struggled uselessly against the grip Maaren had on his bicep.
“Let’s bring him in and see if we can get him to talk,” I mumbled as I tried to make sure blood didn’t drip into my mouth. “Do we have an ETA on the cleanup crew?”
“Milton, you need to get to the infirmary!” Maaren said.
“I’ll be fine,” I said with a shrug. “A little concussion never hurt anybody.”
“Actually, concussions are the silent killer,” Kal’s voice argued as she stuck her head out the front of the van.
“Why aren’t you using your Hand to clot your blood?” Ariette demanded, worry in her face.
“Too exhausted,” I mumbled back.
“Yo, dude, you’re bleeding!” Kalista said as she hopped out of the Van of Death with a white cloth. She handed it to Ariette, who promptly put it over the man’s face. Within seconds, his entire body went limp.
“Juice from a Cakel Berry,” the elf replied to my questioning gaze. “One inhale, and you’re out like a light. Pretty neat trick, right? This way he can’t try to escape while we’re transporting him.”
“Okay, can we head back, kind of fast?” I asked as I indicated my swollen nose. “I’m starting to think I need the infirmary after all.”
“Yep, let’s go!” Kalista hollered and barreled into the van. She and Ariette helped me step up into it.
When we arrived back at the guild, Ariette and Maaren drug the prisoner, still knocked out from the Cakel Berry, down to the interrogation rooms. Kalista accompanied me into the infirmary and shot me a worried glance every two seconds until I finally put an end to it.
“Stop looking at me like that, Kal,” I uttered as we passed a stout dwarf. The dwarf shot me a grimace when he saw my blood-streaked face and swollen head, and then he nodded at me, slightly in awe.
“It just looks bad, that’s all,” she shrugged in reply as we entered the infirmary room. “The last thing I want is a teammate whose face looks like a swollen blueberry.”
“Thanks,” I chuckled sarcastically.
“Aw, come on, Milton, it’s your first real injury in the line of duty!” she joked as she elbowed my ribs, softer than normal. “This is a day to remember.”
“I could have held off on this day for forever, personally,” I said just before an elderly elf in a nurse’s uniform rushed up to us.
“Oh dear me,” she tutted as she gazed at my face. Her soft, warm hands grasped onto my chin and turned my head at all different angles to get a good look.
“How bad is it?” Kalista asked somewhat tensely. “Is he ever going to fight again?”
“Oh, nothing a little adjustment won’t fix,” she responded gently.
“I would have stopped the bleeding, but my magic’s not really listening to me at the moment,” I grumbled as the nurse poked my forehead with her finger and sent a shot of pain straight up the center of my skull. “OW!”
“Yep, you’re concussed,” she said calmly. “You said your magic’s not working right now?”
“Yeah, he just got tired, you know how that is--” Kalista started to explain, but the nurse had already hurried off to a fridge in the back of the room.
In a flash, she was back with a dixie cup full of neon orange liquid. Kalista wrinkled her nose at the stuff, and I could see why. It let off the most acrid smell imaginable, like rotten fruit and week old garbage.
“Drink up!” the nurse said cheerfully.
I pinched the cup in my hand and ignored the look of absolute pity on Kal’s face. Carefully, I put the paper to my lips, and then I tipped the liquid into the back of my throat.
It was completely disgusting. If someone were to eat a dog poop and hot garbage sundae, it would definitely taste like this neon orange drink. Scratch that. This stuff would make the sundae seem like a delicacy.
“What is that?” I gagged as I shoved the paper cup toward the nurse, who tossed it into a nearby trash can.
“Try your magic,” she commanded as she ignored my question.
I sighed and tried to connect with my Hand. Instantaneously, the familiar vibration in my cells returned, and my body sagged in relief. I felt for the blood in my nose and commanded it to clot. It did so instantly, and the liquid that had been draining down my face retreated back inside of me.
“Good boy,” the nurse said with a gentle smile, “you’re all good to go.” She gave me a curt nod, and then she strode off to her next patient, an elf who lay in one of the beds with an eye completely swollen shut.
“A bit disgusting, isn’t it?” Kalista giggled beside me. “Give me blood and guts any day, but an eye that’s as big as a cantaloupe? That’s just not natural.”
“Yeah, that would definitely suck,” I breathed out as I righted myself and cracked my spine before hopping out of the bed. Then, Kalista and I wound our way through the guild hall and down to where Ariette, Maaren, and our suspect waited.
The interrogation rooms were two floors below the main level and had apparently been carved straight into the dirt. The atmosphere was dank and frigid down there, and there was a faint hint of musk in the air.
We finally met Ariette and Maaren in one of the viewing rooms, a typical cop-show sort of setup where we could look in on the guy who had killed Valerie behind a one-way mirror. The would-be assailant was still under the effects of the Fae-style chloroform, and he was slumped over the table with his arms cuffed to a ring in the center.
Danira was there with them, and she wore a grim expression.
“I heard you got your nose broken,” the commander said when Kal and I arrived. “What a shame. It was one of your best features.”
“Eh, it was nothing.” I shrugged it off, careful not to move my face too much as I spoke.
“Nothing?” Kalista snorted out. “It didn’t sound like nothing when it was popped back into place. I seriously thought somebody was cracking open a walnut in the infirmary.”
“It wasn’t that bad.” I retorted, and I gave the dwarf a playful, and hard, elbow to her ribs. “It was more like a peanut, if anything.”
“First on-the-job injury is always something special,” Danira chuckled. “It’s something you should wear as a badge of honor.”
“Thank you,” I mused victoriously. “But our job isn’t done yet. Not until we figure out who this guy is, and who he’s working for.”
“You really do have a hero complex,” Kalista asked as she rolled her eyes in my direction. “So, boss lady, what do we got here?”
“Well, Lyel McDuff here is still out cold,” Ariette answered as she peere
d in on the guy, “but we do know he seems to have been hired by someone. His bank statements show he was wired one hundred grand last week. I--”
“Wait, wait,” Kal giggled and threw out her hands. “His name is Lyel? That’s got to be a made-up name.”
“It’s what it says on his birth certificate,” the Fae explained.
“Somebody’s mother didn’t love them,” the dwarf shrugged. “Yeesh.”
“Kal, I think we’re going to need you to trace the account the wired money came from.” Ariette continued. “My skills aren’t quite where yours are.”
“You said it, not me,” Kalista said as she grabbed the laptop on the desk. The dwarf’s fingers flitted across the keyboard like some sort of hacker ninja as she clacked away for a moment. Then, she sucked air sharply through her teeth. “Ooh, you’re going to have to give me a minute. They wired it through a dummy account.”
“He seems like he just fell in with the wrong people for a job,” Danira spoke up from behind me. “Regular Joe with a college education. No family to speak of. The only thing I can figure is that he was in it for the money. He was fired from his cushy office job two months ago for sexual harassment and hasn’t been employed since, and apparently his house is on the verge of foreclosure. We’re going to turn him over to the human cops for Valerie’s murder.”
“But first we need to see what he knows about our robbery,” I replied.
Lyel started to stir, and then he sat up slowly with a loud groan.
“Who wants to go in?” Maaren asked excitedly. “It’s been ages since I’ve had a good interrogation.”
“Come on,” I laughed, “let’s go see what this guy knows.”
I held the door open for Maaren, and the blue-skinned Fae strutted past excitedly. As she entered, I watched Lyel’s cold blue eyes appraise Maaren’s body in a seedy way. Then, I followed her in and let the door shut with a slam behind us. Instantly, Lyel’s head snapped up to look at me, and his skinny body shrank back a bit.
“Whatever it is, you got the wrong guy!” he protested. His voice grated my eardrums and was the kind of high-pitched voice that you’d never expect to come from a killer.