Shadows & Dreams (Kate Kane: Paranormal Investigator)

by Hall, Alexis

I dragged her up. “You know, the mages have a plan as well, right?”

  “I have never known anyone fight so hard to stop me from going down on them.” She sighed. “Yes, I know the mages have a plan. Acton told us at the meeting. Sebastian is going to get out of town, and the Witch Queen can do what she likes. We’ll be more than happy to let her do our job for us, but again, I’m not pinning my hopes on a ragtag group of mortals with spell books. Now, is there anything else you want to ask, discuss, or talk about?”

  “I’m done.”

  “Are you absolutely certain?”

  “Yes, I’m certain.”

  “And you’re sure you want this oral sex? You wouldn’t prefer to discuss ancient history, formulate disaster survival plans, or watch paint dry?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  Julian kissed me with damp lips and slithered down my body back into the water.

  Julian whispered good-bye just before dawn and was gone in a swirl of smoke and shadows. I rolled over to her side of the bed, claimed all the duvet, and went back to sleep. I woke up again at nine. Technically I didn’t have a boss to complain about me being late for work, but I do sometimes pretend to be a professional. And I’m a bit old to get away with fucking all night and sleeping ’til two. I texted Elise to tell her I’d be late in again and went to use Julian’s hard-core power shower. Then I remembered I’d trashed my clothes.

  I dripped into the kitchen, salvaged my trousers and my pants from the soggy mess on the floor, and clambered into them. I’d have to go to work smelling of stale booze and sex, but it wouldn’t be the first time. My shirt and jacket were past saving, so I raided Julian’s wardrobe. It turns out borrowing your girlfriend’s clothes is really difficult if she’s half your size and dresses like Adam Ant. I managed to squeeze myself into one of her ridiculous ruffly shirts, bunching the sleeves up so I didn’t look like a kid who was outgrowing her school uniform. I couldn’t find any jackets to fit and had to settle on something heavy and brocade-y that might have been a dressing gown.

  And so, disguised as a complete bell end, I grabbed a box of chocolates, put my hat back on, and went to work. I just hoped I wouldn’t get any walk-ins. I rocked up at about eleven to find Elise diligently compiling newspaper reports.

  “Good morning, Miss Kane,” she said. “Did you have a pleasant evening?”

  One of the unsettling things about Elise is that her face only moves when she wants it to, so you don’t get the usual visual clues. Most people can’t help smirking if you show up looking like the world’s most confused drag king. Elise didn’t even twitch. “Got put on trial, got in a fight, got laid. I had a blast.”

  “I hope you were not harmed.”

  “Julian doesn’t like it that rough.”

  “I was, of course, referring to the fight, but I see you have wilfully misinterpreted me for comic effect. I am quite entertained.”

  I poured myself a coffee and slumped behind my desk. “How’s it going?”

  “I believe I have uncovered some promising leads.”

  “Hit me.”

  Elise tapped a few commands into her keyboard. “There was a break-in at Christie’s, a Professor Fox at All Souls College reported several items missing from his personal collection, and there was a recent robbery at a gallery on Brick Lane, but the nature of the theft has yet to be disclosed.”

  “Okay, when did these things happen?”

  “The twelfth, nineteenth, and twenty-fifth of November, respectively.”

  “Can you find out when Corin got out?”

  “The tenth, Miss Kane. I had already taken the liberty.”

  I went to look at one of Elise’s beautifully constructed and cross-referenced spreadsheets. “Okay, scratch Christie’s. She doesn’t usually go for big targets, and not even Corin could pull off a job like that two days after getting out of prison. So that leaves the gallery and the professor. Is there any more you can tell me?”

  Elise flicked up a web browser with several open tabs. “The gallery is owned by a woman who goes by the name of Isis Fortuna.”

  “Which means she’s either a mage or a hipster or a hipster mage.”

  “I bow to your superior experience. The other gentleman is a professor of anthropology with a large collection of mystical and religious artefacts. He has reported the theft of a candle in the shape of a human hand dating from the seventeenth century and an ornately decorated skull dating from the fourteenth.”

  “This candle,” I asked, “it wasn’t a left hand, was it?”

  “I am afraid that information was not made available to me.”

  I went and flopped back down behind my desk. “Well, fuck. If Corin’s managed to nick a Hand of Glory, she could be basically anywhere.”

  “I am sorry, Miss Kane, that term is unfamiliar to me.”

  “It’s a magic doodad that makes you invisible or puts people to sleep or opens locks or something. They’re really useful for getting places you shouldn’t. They’ve gone pretty rare since we stopped hanging people. Probably wouldn’t get you past an ancient killer vampire queen though.”

  “Do you have any theories about the skull?”

  “That could be anything. A malicious, familiar spirit, an ancient death curse, a really macabre potpourri holder.”

  “Those unfortunately seemed the only likely candidates.”

  “Come on then.” I drained my coffee and unflopped. “We’ve got some legwork to do.”

  “Are we going to kick arse and take names, Miss Kane?”

  “I was thinking we’d maybe just ask them some questions. Politely.”

  “That would also be appropriate.”

  We hopped on the Tube and headed straight for Liverpool Street. I don’t normally come to this part of town, because I don’t often find myself needing vintage clothing, vinyl LPs, or bespoke Italian office furniture.

  “This seems a most vibrant area, Miss Kane,” said Elise, as we wove through a thin-ish crowd of quirkily dressed shoppers, past walls covered in the respectable sort of graffiti, and places with self-consciously meta names like This Shop Rocks, Pictures on Walls, and Beyond Retro.

  “Yeah, it’s been tarted up a bit since the Ripper murders.”

  “Which murders?”

  I sometimes forgot that Elise was less than a year old and there was quite a lot of stuff she just plain didn’t know. Her creator had built her for a very specific purpose, so he’d prioritised handjobs and personal grooming, and skimped a bit on general knowledge. “Five dead prostitutes in the eighteen eighties. Never solved. Source of a million conspiracy theories. Archer was kind of into the case. He liked the mystery of it, but I always found it a bit skeevy.”

  “Perhaps I shall Google it.”

  “Oh, Eve had this massive comic about it if you’re interested.”

  “I believe the preferred term is graphic novel. My creator was quite insistent upon it.”

  We found the place nestled between yet another vintage shop called Yet Another Vintage Shop and a restaurant that appeared to be named “?”. Isis Fortuna turned out to be a gallery/hair salon. The window displayed a mixture of arty pictures of crows in flight and photographs of models with outrageous hairstyles.

  Elise sighed. “Sometimes I think I would like to have my hair cut.”

  “Well, why don’t you?”

  “Sadly, my hair, like the rest of me, is impervious to physical damage.”

  Her hair was long, dark, and slightly wavy, the sort of hair I’d have been really jealous of when I was about twelve. It didn’t look or feel like it was made of stone. “Uh, it’s nice the way it is.”

  “Perhaps it could be styled. That had not occurred to me previously.”

  We went inside. The door had one of those old-fashioned bells that jingle when you open them. The place was all exposed brickwork, overpriced art, hair dressing stations, and sofas. A young man with very thick glasses and an immaculate quiff got up from where he was perched on the arm of one of the sofas. �
�Hi, welcome to Isis Fortuna. Are you here for the static art or the hair art?”

  He didn’t seem bothered by my outfit, which either meant he was a consummate professional or just had no taste.

  “I’m here about the break-in.”

  He gave me a bit of a wary look. “The police have already been.”

  “I’m a private investigator. I’m looking for someone. I think they might have been responsible. Can I talk to the owner?”

  After a moment, he nodded. “Give me a moment, and I’ll see if she’s available.”

  He disappeared into a back room, leaving us with the static art.

  I took the opportunity to have a quick snoop, but there wasn’t much worth snooping at. If Isis Fortuna was a mage, she was either relatively weak or powerful enough to hide it really well.

  Elise had gone to look at the static art. “This is most interesting, Miss Kane. The eclectic juxtaposition of disparate elements and styles creates a very satisfying effect.”

  I stared blankly. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Perhaps we should purchase some for the flat? I am very fond of the instructional poster on the subject of surviving a zombie apocalypse, but I feel it lacks emotional resonance.”

  It had quite a lot of emotional resonance for me. Eve had bought it as a souvenir after our third anniversary. “Hey, I like that poster.”

  “As you wish.”

  There was a short silence while we looked around the salon-slash-gallery.

  “Miss Kane,” said Elise. “Do you believe this bare shelf is an ironic comment on the quintessential emptiness of human endeavour, or do you believe something as been, as we say in the detective business, nicked?”

  I went over and had what we in the detective business call a look. There was a small shelf with a slightly faded card bluetacked to the wall. Not for sale.

  “I’m not going to rule out the possibility it’s some kind of arty joke, but it definitely looks like something was kept here, probably something not very valuable or else it would have been under glass or, at the very least, fixed to the shelf.”

  “I am no expert, Miss Kane, but it seems contrary to the principles of thievery to take the one thing in the building that has no monetary value.”

  “So either we were wrong and there was nothing on the shelf to begin with, or Miss Fortuna didn’t know what she had.” I ran a finger across the shelf to see if there was a convenient layer of dust with a telltale gap in a helpfully recognisable shape. There wasn’t.

  Then I heard the faint rustle of a beaded curtain, and Isis Fortuna herself swept into the room. She was the kind of girl I would have gone for about eight years ago. She had a haphazard punky look, long green hair, shaved on one side and braided on the other. Her exposed ear was a cutlery drawer of piercings, and a peacock feather hung from the other. She was wearing a studded leather jacket over a fishnet vest, through which her neon-orange bra was clearly visible.

  “You can tell Nimue to go fuck herself,” she said.

  So definitely a mage then.

  I held up my hands. “Whoa. Easy tiger. I’m here strictly on my own time.”

  “The hell you are. You work for the Witch Queen and everyone knows it.”

  “I work for myself.” I had technically sworn an oath of fealty to Nimue, but that didn’t mean I was on anyone’s leash. “I’m here about the robbery.”

  She folded her arms, her weight resting on one hip. “Fuck off.”

  “Wow, I thought hairdressers were supposed to be good with people.”

  “I’m good with customers, not thugs who bust into my place and try to strong-arm me.”

  I really wasn’t in the mood for this. “Is that what you think I’m doing here?”

  “Well, isn’t it?”

  “If I was, you’d know.”

  “I believe there has been a miscommunication.” Elise stepped neatly forwards. “Miss Kane and I are not here on Court business. We are looking for someone, and we believe she may have been responsible for the break-in at your establishment.”

  “And who the fuck are you?” snarled Isis.

  “My name is Elise. I am Miss Kane’s assistant.”

  She gave Elise a long look. “You’re one of Russell’s girls, aren’t you?”

  There was a slight pause. Elise had gone very, very still. “I was unaware that there were others.”

  “Oh, there are others. Believe me.”

  “Look,” I interrupted, “she’s right. I’m not here for Nimue. I’m tracking a fugitive, and I think we can help each other. Also the sooner you talk to me, the sooner I’ll get out of your, um, hair.”

  There was a brief silence.

  Isis Fortuna shifted to a slightly less fuck you pose. “All right. The break-in wasn’t a big deal. Whoever it was, they just took some crappy old statue.”

  “A crappy old statue of what?”

  “Napoleon. I thought it had a kind of kitsch edge that really set off the rest of the collection, but it can’t have been worth more than twenty quid.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the empty shelf. “I stuck it over there.”

  Well, fuck. It was a crappy statue of Napoleon that had got Archer killed last year. I spent weeks chasing this piece of tat that was supposed to have a thingamy of tremendous magical power stashed inside it, bodies racking up around me the whole time. Then it turns out that everyone’s nuts, my client’s a murderer, and the damn thing’s a fake with nothing in it.

  “Where did you get it?” I asked.

  “Friend of mine skipped town last year and left me a box of stuff.”

  “This friend got a name?”

  “Syme.”

  That figured. Syme was the guy that Corin had hired Archer and me to keep an eye on. He was dead, but there was no point telling Isis that. He must have ditched the real statue before he got whacked.

  I pulled out my phone which had exactly one picture of Corin on it. She was glancing over her shoulder as if she expected someone to step out of the shadows and pull a gun on her. “Have you seen this woman?”

  Isis glanced at the picture for a second. “I think someone like that came in last month, but I couldn’t say for sure it was her.”

  That sounded like Corin all right. When she wanted to be, she was the only thing you thought about. But when she didn’t, she was a fucking ghost.

  “Are you going to tell me what this is about?” asked Isis.

  I gave her the short version. “She killed my partner. She might have killed your friend as well.”

  Isis looked unconvinced. “Why did she want a bust of a dead French dictator?”

  “I’ll tell you if I ever work it out.”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure I care. If two people have already been killed over it, I don’t want it. Oh, and you know I don’t really want you to tell the Witch Queen to fuck off, right?”

  “Fine by me. I’m not a messenger service, anyway.”

  “Before we leave,” said Elise suddenly, “would it be possible for me to arrange an appointment with you? My hair cannot be cut, but I am quite interested in having it styled.”

  “Talk to Janus. He’ll sort something out.”

  While Elise and the boy with the quiff scheduled an appointment, I went outside for a smoke and a think. It looked like Corin had finally got whatever it was she’d been looking for a year ago. I didn’t know Corin nearly as well as I once thought I did, but I was ninety-nine percent certain she wasn’t a mage herself. Which meant she was either working for someone, she was going to sell the thing on, or she was going to use it as leverage. There’d been a lot of real heavy hitters involved last time round, and she could have been in bed with any one of them. That might even have been why they busted her out of jail, but then that wouldn’t explain why she woke up the Morrígan. If she even did.

  Part of me figured that if Corin had done this job, it was unlikely she’d done the one in Oxford as well. But the part of me that had dealt with her before said that I
couldn’t rule it out. Either way, it looked like me and Elise were taking a road trip. And by road trip I meant a two-hour drive up the M40.

  I was just stamping out my cigarette when my phone rang. Unknown number. Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother having caller ID. “Kane.”

  Rachel’s voice crackled over the line. “Got a message for you, babe.”

  There was a moment of static, and then Jacob spoke: “Tonight. King’s Cross. Six.”

  Then the line went dead.

  Great. Because I didn’t have enough to worry about. I’ve been involved in a few necromantic rituals in my life, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that they never ever go to plan. But a deal was a deal, and in an absolute best-case scenario, there was a very slim chance that this would solve all of my problems.

  Oh, who was I kidding?

  As soon as Elise was done, we hopped the Tube back to the office, and Elise drove me home so I could change my clothes and pick up the Sword of Killing Everything. Since I still had a couple of hours to kill, I looked up Marcus Fox on the Oxford University website and gave him a ring. He seemed quite happy to talk to me and quite keen to get his stuff back, so I told him I’d swing by tomorrow afternoon. Assuming I hadn’t had my soul sucked out through my nose in a magical ritual gone horribly wrong.

  Then I had to get to King’s Cross in the middle of the rush hour, which was almost as bad. I fought my way off the train and found Jacob waiting for me on the platform.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  I nodded.

  It didn’t look like we were in for an evening of scintillating conversation.

  We squeezed onto the Northern line and headed south, basically forever. Jacob had his eyes closed for most of the journey. I was pretty sure he was doing some weird mage stuff. About three-quarters of an hour later, the train terminated at Morden and we got out. As soon as the last stragglers left the platform, Jacob fished around in the Tesco’s bag he’d been carrying and pulled out a Tupperware container filled with slightly reddish goop.

  “Should I ask?”

  “Blood and ashes.”

  He did his thing, and I did mine. Mine involved standing there with a sword in a bin liner waiting for something to try and kill us. Nothing did.