5 The Elemental Detective

by Kirsten Weiss

  Donovan was on the phone. He shook his head, hung up. “New plan. The nearest hospital is in Lihue. He’ll need to be choppered out if he’s going to have a chance. What the hell just happened?”

  She knelt beside Mana, the pavement digging into her knees, and took Mana’s hand. It was calloused, the nails short, uneven. A working man’s hand.

  “It’s called allotriophagy,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve read about it but have never seen it before. Black magic, causing someone to throw up objects, usually sharp.”

  “The salt circle – it broke the spell?”

  “Yes, but…” She looked up at him. “Sharks’ teeth, Donovan.” They were like razors, and her counter spell too little, too late. Helpless frustration raged in her chest. She was no healer, never had been. Her first aid skills were limited to puncture wounds and breaks. And Mana’s punctures were internal.

  Mana’s face grayed, his life draining out.

  “Come on, Mana.” Gently, she squeezed his hand. “You can fight this. Help will be here soon.”

  The wind blew the salt, streaking pale red across the pavement. An ambulance wailed in the distance.

  Donovan placed a hand on Riga’s shoulder, and warmth spread from his touch.

  Mana’s lips moved, his voice a soft wheeze. Riga bent her head to hear.

  “I don’t want to die.”

  She placed a hand on his chest. “You’re going to be okay, Mana.” But she knew it was a lie.

  The siren grew louder. Finally, an ambulance rolled down the driveway, and a police car screeched to a stop behind it. A uniformed man and woman sprang from the ambulance. Donovan pulled Riga away. The male paramedic knelt beside Mana.

  The woman came over to them. “What happened?”

  “He approached us and began vomiting up those.” Donovan pointed to the sharks’ teeth scattered on the asphalt.

  She blinked, pursed her lips, blowing out her breath. Finally, she said, “Wow. Sounds like pica disorder. I never thought I’d see that.” She hurried back to her partner, said something to him and the police officer.

  The paramedic shook his head, and stood.

  Too late. Riga’s vision blurred, and she bowed her head.

  Donovan went to speak to them, returned to Riga. “They’ve canceled the chopper. He’s gone.”

  “Donovan, there’s something I need to tell you. The leiomano – the sharks’ teeth are missing.”

  Donovan looked back toward Mana, then at her. His face darkened with anger. “You mean those are the teeth… How?”

  She raised her hands helplessly.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  The police officer walked over to them, and Riga cursed beneath her breath. It was the same cop who’d taken her statement on the beach. His brows lowered when he saw them.

  “I know you.” He snapped his fingers. “The couple from the beach. What happened here?”

  “The man was sick,” Donovan said. “We called 9-1-1.”

  “You know him?”

  “Slightly,” Donovan said slowly. “We were at the beach near Poipu this morning. He worked on a fishing boat there with a man named Kimo.”

  “So you knew Mr. Glasgow, who you found dead, and you knew this man, who you also found dead. What was he doing here?”

  Riga’s heart sank. This conversation could not end well.

  Donovan folded his arms across his chest. “He called us at our hotel, said he had information about Dennis Glasgow’s murder, and asked to meet.”

  The cop’s face darkened. “Right. You two follow me down to the station. And don’t even think about running. This is an island. I’ll find you.”

  Riga and Donovan got into the Ferrari, waited for the police car to pull out in front of them.

  “What did Mana say to you at the end?”

  She looked out the window, and swallowed. “He said he wanted to live.”

  “You did everything you could,” he said.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  They watched the policeman say something to the paramedics, get into his car.

  “We don’t tell the police about the leiomano,” he said.

  “Agreed.”

  “On the bright side,” Donovan said, “he didn’t put us in handcuffs.”

  Riga snapped on her seatbelt. “He’s probably only got one pair.”

  They spent the next three hours at the police station, questioned separately in cinderblock interrogation rooms that smelled of disinfectant. In the end, they were admonished not to leave the island, and set free.

  They peeled away from the police station, gravel spinning beneath the Ferarri’s tires. “How did you do?” Donovan asked, making a hard right turn.

  “I stuck to our story, though I’m not sure it helped us. We would have been suspects no matter what we said.” She drew the denuded leiomano out from under the seat. “And speaking of which, the police let us off too easily.” They’d been at the sites of two suspicious deaths in a week. That had to put them at the top of a suspect list.

  Donovan glanced at the weapon, a pulse beating in his jaw. “Who knew we had that?”

  “The woman who sold it to us, for starters.”

  “Petra Singleton, the responder with the Protection Society,” he said, “coincidentally also the last person to see Dennis alive.”

  He wedged an earpiece in his ear, and tapped a screen on the updated Ferrari. “Connect me to Petra Singleton in Koloa.” After a moment, “Petra, this is Donovan Mosse. I bought a leiomano from you— Yes, we are. Actually, no, the leiomano was stolen…” He glanced at Riga.

  She nodded to herself. If questioned, it would be hard to disprove the weapon had been stolen, though she hoped to hell they’d never have to.

  “No, no... No,” he said. “Did you tell anyone that I’d bought it…? Of course not… Yes, I understand. Say, have you spoken to anyone from the Aquatic Protection Society lately…? I see… Thanks.”

  He tapped the screen and yanked the piece out of his ear. “She denies telling anyone,” he said. “There’s another possibility – someone who worked for the hotel could have gotten inside our bungalow.”

  “And Deidre, Dennis’s widow, may not work at the hotel, but I’ll bet she wouldn’t have any trouble getting her hands on a master key.”

  Donovan pulled into a gas station. “I think it’s time we ditch the murder weapon.”

  Riga began to protest at this destruction of evidence, but realized he was right. They’d never be able to explain how the sharks’ teeth from Donovan’s leiomano had gotten into Mana’s stomach.

  He got the gas pumping, then tucked the leiomano into its package and strolled with it around the side of the building, towards the restrooms. When he returned, his hands were empty. He paid for the gas, and they drove off.

  “Feel better?” she asked.

  “Throwing the damned thing in a volcano would have been more satisfying, but beggars can’t be choosers. Dinner?” he asked.

  She thought of Mana, leaning on the Ferrari that morning, joking, and her fists clenched. Dinner. Drinks. And then she’d scry for a killer.

  Chapter 15

  “Mr. Mosse!” Sarah hurried down the garden path toward them, her long, black hair trailing over one shoulder.

  Donovan paused, plastic key card in the slot.

  She stumbled to a halt, panting. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry about what?” he said.

  “The police searched your room. They had a warrant. I couldn’t stop them, but I assure you the press will not learn of this from any hotel staff. They’re gone now. And the maids have been inside your bungalow to put things back in order as best they could.”

  Donovan’s lips flattened into a grim line, and Riga guessed what he was thinking. Sarah couldn’t really control the hotel staff, and surely more people than the maids knew the police had searched their rooms.

  “Thanks for letting us know,” Riga said.

  Sarah knotted
her fingers together. “They wouldn’t tell me why—”

  “We witnessed a death,” Riga said. “Two in one week struck them as suspicious.”

  “A death! Who?”

  “A man named Mana,” Donovan said. “If you’ll excuse us.” He placed a hand on Riga’s lower back and guided her inside. Once the door was closed behind them, he said, “So the police didn’t let us off so easily after all.”

  “We look guilty as hell.” Riga paced the living area, caged between the couch and the dining table. This was exactly what their adversary had wanted, and they’d played into his – or her – hands. “Dammit!”

  There was a scratching at the glass door, and Riga opened it.

  Brigitte hopped inside. “What have I missed?”

  “We’re prime suspects in a murder,” Riga said bitterly.

  “Again? Tell me everything.”

  Riga did, while Donovan made phone calls to his lawyer, his publicity agent.

  “This necromancer is a devious one,” Brigitte said. “But you could not have ignored ze poor Mana’s call. Still, you have been playing his game. It is time he plays by your rules.”

  Donovan ended the call, and looked down at the drying tarot cards Riga had laid out on the bungalow’s low coffee table. Their submersion in the creek had left the cards wrinkled, and the sitting room’s hanging lamp highlighted their faded and streaked colors.

  He sniffed, wrinkling his nose. “They’re molding. I think you need a new deck.”

  Brigitte chuckled. “Especially since she hasn’t been playing with a full one.” She reached behind her neck with one claw and scratched, the grating sound of stone on stone.

  “You’re a laugh riot, Brigitte.” Riga swept the cards off the table and dropped them into a round garbage bin. Donovan was right. They were ruined.

  Donovan’s shoulders twitched. “Mind if I turn down the A/C? It’s freezing in here.”

  “Go ahead,” Riga said. “In fact, I could use some fresh air. Would you open the doors?”

  Donovan drew back the floor-to-ceiling shutters and slid open the doors to reveal their small, private pool, set into the tile patio. A salt-water breeze flowed into the room, rattling the palms outside, and some of Riga’s tension eased away. Brigitte was right. It was time to take control of the game.

  “Shall we scry?” Riga asked.

  Donovan stared into the darkness, not answering, then turned. “What do you need from me?”

  “Help clearing a space, for starters.”

  Brigitte watched them shift chairs, toss colorful red, white and orange cushions to the side. Together they lifted the matching chaise lounge. They moved the table to the patio outside, and rolled up the sisal carpet, exposing the bamboo floor.

  “Where are we going to sit?” he asked.

  She looked down.

  He rolled his eyes, went outside and grabbed two cushions from the chairs, tossed them on the floor.

  Riga retrieved her supplies from the other room. Candles. Matches. Salt. She hesitated, grabbed the knife.

  She frowned as the breeze caressed the back of her neck. The air might be too much to keep the candles lit. But it felt damned good, and she needed that. Her last scrying for a necromancer had left her with a healthy fear of the breed, and though she told herself this was different, she was better prepared now. Still, she was uneasy. Which was ridiculous. This was her heritage. And this was a simple spell, a spell she knew, and the only alteration was that it would be powered by the in-between.

  Outside, a patter of rain carried a cool draft of air into the bungalow.

  Riga’s chest tightened.

  Brigitte squawked, wings flapping. “Something touched me!”

  “A bug?” Donovan asked.

  “It was not a bug,” Brigitte snapped. “I know what a bug feels like.”

  “Then what was it?” Riga asked.

  “I do not know. Something cold.”

  Riga relaxed her vision, extended her senses. Something translucent, irregular, fluttered outside the open glass doors and disappeared. Unease rippled through her. She’d spent so much time around ghosts, that she’d come to take them for granted. They couldn’t hurt her.

  “Spirit, show yourself,” she said loudly.

  Nothing did.

  Feeling foolish, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “There’s nothing in the room, Brigitte. Not anymore, at least. There was something on the patio, but it’s gone now.”

  “What was it?” Donovan asked.

  “There’s so damn much magic on the island I’m having a hard time differentiating. But it seemed like a ghost.”

  “Seemed like?” Brigitte said. “Seemed like? Do not ‘seem.’ Know! You are a necromancer. Ze other magic should not matter. Feel for what calls to you.”

  Riga bit back a retort. Blood called to her. The local magic appealed to her. But half-hearted necromancy was what she was stuck with. “Thanks for the advice, Brigitte.”

  “Are you going to start ze spell, or not?” Brigitte asked.

  Riga arranged the cushions in the center of the room. “Get comfortable,” she said to Donovan. “This may be a bumpy ride.”

  He folded himself easily onto the cushion, watching while she conducted a banishing ritual, cleared the room. When she was finished, she poured a circle of what was left of the red, Alaea salt around them, muttering an incantation.

  “Question,” he said. “If the salt stops magic, will it keep your magic inside the circle?”

  “It’s a protective circle. It doesn’t trap my magic inside – just harmful magic from coming in.”

  He shifted uneasily. “And we’re both safe in here from outside interference.”

  “Just don’t break the circle. Donovan, if you’re not comfortable with this—”

  “I’m trying, Riga.”

  Brigitte said something under her breath.

  Riga ignored her, and sat on the cushion across from him, inside the circle. Her knees cracked, and she winced at the sound. Every day she was a little older, and no wiser.

  Her back was to the open door, blocking the white pillar candle from the breeze. She lit it, blew out the match.

  “Now what?” Donovan asked.

  She took his hands. “Now I cast, and you focus your energy on supporting my spell.”

  He didn’t ask how. She’d never explained the process to him, somehow knew she didn’t need to.

  Closing her eyes, she took a long breath, and focused on her own center, the still point that was nowhere and everywhere and felt… butterflies. Riga rolled her shoulders, focused on her breathing. Centered, she just needed to get centered.

  Nothing.

  Brigitte cleared her throat. “Any day now.”

  Riga opened her eyes and glared at the gargoyle.

  Brigitte shrugged. “I’m simply suggesting that you shall miss ze midnight hour if you do not hurry things along.”

  “This is still a new method for me, okay? Give me a minute.”

  She closed her eyes. Breathed. There was energy and there was non-energy, the in-between. Riga thought of Hecate, the goddess of magic, of death, the goddess who came before. Her center, still and powerful.

  Energy flowed through her, cool and dark, hot and light, there yet not there. She let it fill and empty her, and focused on what she needed: like calling to like. Necromancy to necromancy. Blood to blood.

  The barriers of her skin fell away, and she was flying. Out the open doors, over the hotel. The world beneath was a sea of energy, sparkling light rising and falling, an ocean wave connected by gold filaments.

  It dazzled her, a chaotic masterpiece. She tried to make sense of it all and gradually, glowing patterns emerged. A burning woman sleeping beneath the earth. A blue bird, gigantic, its wings spanning two mountaintops. A triggerfish, orange and black and white, shimmered along a beach. And Riga was the in-between, the nothingness between it all.

  Layers on layers. She shifted her focus and those patterns sank ben
eath new ones. The dots of energy resolved into roads and jungles and buildings.

  Magic. She needed to find the magic.

  Something fishhooked beneath her breastbone and pulled her southward. A speck in the distance, a dark sun, a missing piece of the pattern. A lizard spouted water, roaring. Suddenly, it swelled, flaring ultraviolet, engulfed her and she was falling, spinning.

  The room was shaking.

  “Riga!”

  She blinked, back in the bungalow. Something crashed to the floor in the bedroom next door. The candle tipped over, its flame winking out. She sat frozen, unable to speak.

  The ground lurched.

  Donovan hauled her to her feet, pulled her away from the windows, into the doorframe between the sitting room and bedroom. He clasped one arm around her waist, braced another against the frame. She clutched him, her heart slamming against her ribs.

  And then the earthquake was over.

  Eyes wide, Riga looked up at him. “I didn’t do it.”

  Brigitte hopped into the salt circle. “Well, someone did it. I felt ze magic. Did you at least discover who was responsible?”

  “No, but I think I know the origin.” Riga stepped around a splintered ceramic lamp, dug a travel guide out of her suitcase. She flipped the pages. “In my vision I was headed south. I saw a lizard spitting water. It must refer to the legend of the Spouting Horn.”

  “The lizard monster that got stuck in the blow hole?” Donovan asked. “Let’s go.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Riga slipped on her sandals. The blood thrummed in her veins. They were close. They would find him. The earthquake had been triggered by a big spell, by necromancy.

  And someone else had died.

  Chapter 16

  They were back on the darkened highway, Riga’s hair streaming behind her in the open convertible. They’d only been on the island a few days and already the road was familiar. In a strange way it reminded her of their home at Lake Tahoe, but here they endlessly circled the same mountains rather than a lake. Though in Kauai, she thought, they couldn’t actually circle the whole island. Not by car, at least. And though the island was small, they’d been on the road over forty minutes.

  They drove past a fire truck, lights flashing, going in the opposite direction.