Murder by Magic

by Catherine Vale

  No. It wasn’t human. It was animal. A dog. No… It was…smaller, narrower. Cat? No. Small claw marks…

  “The guard said the wife is out of town at a fundraiser, somewhere south of here, some school literacy thing. He couldn’t remember the exact town, but he gave me her number.”

  Derek’s voice cut through the image. She turned away from the window, and the image of the footprint vanished from her mind, no memory of it remaining. “No one’s called her yet?”

  Derek shook his head. “Thought I’d leave that for you.”

  She turned back to the window. This was the part she hated, calling family, telling them that their loved ones were dead. Not just dead, but brutally murdered. It seemed so impersonal, to have to call the Mayor’s wife in the middle of the night and tell her that her husband was dead. She didn’t know this woman, hadn’t ever seen her outside of on television, where she would always stand by her husband’s side with a bright, cheery smile on her face.

  As the lead detective, Jessica could have easily assigned this heartbreaking task to someone else, but she knew that she needed to do it. It was part of the job.

  “Yeah, okay. Thanks. Give me her number.”

  Derek tore a sheet out of his notebook, and handed it to her. She looked at the paper, the numbers written in Derek’s neat handwriting. There was so much weight to that little piece of paper, to the numbers in blue ink on white. But it was her duty to notify the next of kin, and she would do it as gently as she could.

  With a sigh, she pulled out her cell phone, and dialed the number. The call went through, the distant ringing making her feel cold and alone. Then the ringing stopped, and a woman’s voice, groggy with sleep, answered.

  Jessica turned back to the window. “Mrs. Lansing? This is Detective Sharpe with the Chicago PD. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Bad news…that was an understatement.

  Chapter Three

  “Fuck it. There’s nothing else we can do here. Let’s go interview the guard, and see what he has to say.”

  Jessica and Derek gone through all the rooms downstairs, avoiding the crime scene investigators who were still carefully combing through the scene, and placing their flags around key points of interest.

  “Bet you’re tired of dealing with mayors.” Derek shook his head. “The other one…that whole case was a mess.”

  “Yeah…”

  The case in point was more than a mess, it had been a total nightmare, starting with the kidnapping of the former mayor’s daughter. But it had been the case that had gotten her promoted from patrol officer to detective.

  The Mayor’s daughter had managed to call the police and provide them with a description of her possible location. Jessica had been told to wait outside of an apartment for the search warrant to come through. There had been…not a mix-up, exactly, but something had gone wrong in the timing of the execution of the warrant. She’d entered the apartment before the detectives, to clear the scene, but she’d ended up surprising the suspect. He ran, she caught him, and made the arrest.

  During the trial, the defense had claimed she’d entered before the warrant was signed, and had no cause to make the arrest. The prosecution had fought back hard, the lead attorney practically spoon-feeding her the testimony he wanted her to give. In the end, the evidence was admitted, and the man who she’d arrested had been charged, and then found guilty. In her heart, she knew she’d done everything by the book, down to the minute she opened the door and entered the building.

  But that case was also the reason she was single. Most of the articles written had called her a hero, and claimed that her promotion was well-deserved. But one article, written by a reporter—and at that time, her boyfriend— had brought up the whole issue of the warrant, and had questioned whether she deserved the promotion, or if she needed more experience before she was worthy of the title as lead detective.

  Being single wasn’t what she wanted to think about now, though. That had been months ago—almost seven, if she let herself count it out, but she refused to. Derek’s comments had brought back bad memories, only adding to the stress of this case, and she didn’t need it – not now. The butterflies in her stomach turned sour, more like bats flapping around, and that managed to make her headache worse.

  “Why are you scowling?”

  “I’m not…” But she was. She tried to relax. “I’m just thinking.”

  Derek laughed, following her down the hall, and onto the front porch. The sky overhead was a dirty gray, the color of unpolished silver, dull and cold. It didn’t do anything to lift her mood, but she took a deep breath of pre-dawn air. It did ease the pain in her head a little, but she still wanted coffee, and ibuprofen.

  But the crowd being held back by the yellow tape soured her outlook. The press was there, as always, hugging the line, pushing forward. Derek, who was right behind her, was suddenly absent as she started down the steps alone. She thought about issuing a statement, something brief that would quell any rumors. That was ridiculous; there were probably rumors flying all over already. And she was sure she didn’t want to hear any of them.

  So, she stopped at the bottom of the steps. The reporters turned to her as a group, their eyes finding her instantly, a certain avarice in their gaze that made her cringe. A barrage of recorders shot toward her, followed by a chorus of questions. The voices all melded together, and for a minute she was reminded of seals at the zoo. Out of some sort of protective instinct, she stepped back, putting distance between them.

  Words came to her, the right thing to say, how to say it, for once clear and concise, all nicely organized in her head. She straightened, took a breath, and faced the sea of faces. Then she saw him. All those perfect words tangled in her mind, got stuck on her tongue, and then evaporated completely. All because of him.

  The bastard that she once loved with all her heart.

  Euros Desard. Reporter for the Daily Times, writer of the article that broke her heart, and left her questioning everything about her ability as a detective. The painfully gorgeous man who once loved her so intensely that she felt safe and secure, cocooned in the heat of his touch. The world didn’t exist when she was with Euros.

  Euros Desard. The man who was now an ex-boyfriend for more than half a year; the man who ruined all other men for her. The man she would never forget, no matter how much time passed by. No matter how hard she tried.

  He wasn’t standing front and center, wasn’t pushing a tape recorder toward her. He was at the back of the crowd, hands in the pockets of the long black coat he always wore. There was no mistaking that muscular silhouette, with the collar turned up, obscuring his face. Except for those steel-gray eyes.

  And of course, he was looking right at her.

  Even from way back there, his gaze was just as intense as she remembered, and even from that far away, that intensity sent a rush of heat shooting through her body. For a minute—a disconcerting, dizzying minute—she was completely lost in those dark eyes; everything else, all the voices of reporters and police radios, faded away.

  “Sharpe.”

  She jerked her head up, and spun around on the step, losing her balance in the process. Michael Ross stood behind her. He grabbed her elbow in a grip that was both startling for its strength, and for the total lack of concern she felt it held for her actual safety. As she’d expected, he was dressed in a bespoke suit, looking as fresh as if he’d just stepped out of his penthouse apartment. Instantly, she felt grubbier than she had a minute ago.

  “Sir.”

  “Careful.” He pulled her back upright, and let her go. “Are you going to make a statement?”

  “I…I was…yes. I was just going to…”

  Ross said nothing, and that unnerved her even more. Then he smoothed down his tie, today a subdued power red number, and stepped forward, down the steps, and toward the mob. He radiated steely control, and as if by command, the reporters took a half step back. But the recorders were still extended, and they were still
shouting questions. Ross stopped, swept the group with a cold glance, and then started to speak.

  As his voice reached Jessica, strong and assured, she pulled up the collar of her jacket, jammed her hands in the pockets, and turned her back on Ross, and the reporters.

  His voice carried back to her, he was giving the kind of statement he was so good at delivering: polished, calm, and yet saying nothing at all. The kind of statement she’d have given, if Ross didn’t unnerve the hell out of her. The walk to her car seemed to take an eternity, and during the whole distance she felt eyes watching her every move. For a minute, she wasn’t sure which was worse, knowing Euros was watching her, or wondering if Ross had turned to watch her leave.

  Her car seemed like a haven, even if the seat was cold on the backs of her legs, and her breath clouded the windshield. But it started on the first try, like always, and she patted the dashboard.

  “Good girl.” At least something was going right in her day.

  The engine purred, the heater put out tendrils of warmth, and as she put it in gear, she thought about turning toward her apartment, and going back to bed. But she drove past the barricade, waved at the patrol on duty, and flicked on her blinker. She had wanted this job for as long as she could remember. She wasn’t going to let anyone, much less Ross, or Euros, fuck it up.

  * * *

  Euros watched Jessica walk away, his eyes lingering on her form, as she disappeared down the block. He paid little attention to Ross, the pompous ass who wasn’t saying anything that Euros didn’t already know. In fact, he was sure he knew more than anyone else did about this murder. He absolutely knew more than about it than Ross did, and probably even Jessica. Ross, he didn’t give a damn about, but he certainly gave a damn about Jessica. One thing he was certain of was that magic was involved. It was so thick he could see it, taste it. It made his skin prickle, and his head hurt. It was dark magic, the blackest he’d ever encountered in his many years as a Gatekeeper. From the moment he’d arrived at the scene, every sense had been occupied with it, trying to track it, itching to find the source. The Mayor’s home radiated pure evil, and it was his job, his sworn duty, to track down the who, and why, and where.

  He’d cooled his heels with the rest of the reporters, listening with one ear to what they were saying. As usual, they were way off the mark, kicking around outrageous theories, and bizarre suspects in Lansing’s death. But his mind was occupied with more important matters. Magic seemed to have escaped its boundaries—black magic—crossing through the portals that were sealed. Or had been sealed. Someone—or something—had breached those portals, and was loose in this world. And it had happened on his watch.

  He watched as Michael Ross finished giving his statement and then turned away, ignoring the shouts from the rest of the reporters. Euros had enough information to write a decent article for the Times, enough facts mixed with just the right amount of suspense, conjecture, and skirting-the-edge of lies, to make his editor happy. His editor was all about circulation, readers, keeping them on the hook, getting them to come back for the next story.

  Euros could do all that in his sleep. Reporting for the newspaper wasn’t the reason he worked there, or the reason he was here at the crime scene, or even in this mortal world. For the last decade or so, he worked at one newspaper, or another, searching for clues, keeping track of stories, the bizarre, and unexplained. It had been so much harder before the advent of the internet, but he’d done it, doggedly tracking those who escaped through the portals from the Other side, coming to the mortal world from the realm of magic. Coming into the world where they could do nothing but cause trouble, and wreak havoc. This wasn’t going to turn out good; it never did.

  The reporters were moving away, grumbling among themselves, starting to call their stories into hungry editors. While Euros had an article to write, he had more pressing business now, and that had to come first.

  As the crowd of reporters and gawkers slowly dispersed, the patrol officers relaxed, their focus less on crowd control, than watching the CSI team putting away their gear. Even without using magic, he could slip through the crowd, and past the cop leaning against his squad car. This was going to be too easy, he thought. Until he hit his head on the brick wall hidden behind the hedge. He stopped, rubbing his forehead.

  “Shit.”

  Sometimes it was possible for him to forget, even after all this time in the Mortal world, that his body couldn’t just pass through walls.

  “To hell with it.”

  It was too dangerous—and not strictly necessary—to use magic now. Besides, he didn’t want to let whatever it was, know he’d been here, if whatever it was that had killed Lansing had decided to come back. He’d mastered the ability to cover his tracks, so to speak. He’d have to be very careful. There were mortals who could sense magic. They were rare, but they were out there. Jessica was one of them. He’d known from the instant he’d met her that she knew there was something about him that was different, but that she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. He’d kept his magic under wraps, and let her chalk up that difference in him to the exotic heritage he’d concocted as a background. It wasn’t far from the truth; but he’d skipped over several hundred years of that history.

  Taking one last look at the patrol officers, he moved along the wall. The magic grew stronger there, even with a brick wall between him, and whatever that power was on the other side. Static crackled, as he ran his fingers over the brick, sending little tingling jolts over his skin. Something inside him responded, was pulled and tugged by the magic he felt. Whoever—whatever—had come through the portal was very strong. The trail was hours old, but the magical residue was still potent, still exuding evil. It had been many, many years since he’d felt something this darkly intoxicating. For a minute, he closed his eyes, wondering if he was strong enough to deal with this, if he had the luck—or bad luck—to meet whatever this entity was, and if he did, what exactly he planned to do to stop it.

  The wall ran along the length of the property, and Euros struggled through privet, and weeds, and boxwood, wishing he could just invoke his magic and do this the easy way. But he was bound by the rules of the Other world, and he sighed, resigning himself to getting scratched and poked along the way.

  At the corner, where the public wouldn’t see, the wall changed beneath his hands from brick to something less expensive. The stench of magic was so strong that the sulfurous smell burned his nostrils. Whatever it was had come this way. He needed to move fast, before the trail dissipated into the air.

  His fingers traced along rough cement, and then abruptly fell between the openwork of a wrought iron gate. The gate was open. He moved away from the wall, took a breath, and then stepped into the gap in the wall.

  The sudden onrush of magic caught him off guard. A bitter cold breeze wrapped around him, cutting through his wool coat, razor-sharp, down to skin and bone, sinking into his soul. He thought he’d seen it all, felt it all, been exposed to every type of magic there was. But this was beyond fairies, and goblins, the little wisps of magic that slipped through, and back from time to time. This magic was pure evil.

  “Dammit. This is all wrong.” Wrong was an understatement; this was an absolute disaster.

  The magic came through the gate, and led away from the property, down the alley between Lansing’s home, and the house next door. Euros followed it, and when he stepped onto the side street, he knew exactly where he was headed.

  Oh, please, no.

  Brooks Park was down the block. He knew it, had known about it for decades. It held a hidden portal that led from this world to the Other side – into his world. Growling to himself, he crossed the street.

  “A portal that’s supposed to be sealed.”

  A woman walking her dog looked at him and crossed the street, the dog tugging at the leash and barking at him.

  Mental note: he should pay attention to when he was talking out loud.

  The woman hurried down the street, and ou
t of his sight. Even without the trail of magic laid out like a sooty carpet on the ground, he knew that’s where he was headed.

  Brooks Park was small, tucked away on a block with several large homes. There had been a wall around it at one point in the past, laid over a hundred years ago out of native stone, but that had fallen, and been carted away, leaving behind only a pair of pillars on the 46th Street side.

  As he approached, he was incredibly relieved to see that the portal was intact, at least as far as he could sense. The park was visible on the other side, oaks and maples losing the last of their leaves in the weak sunshine, the circular cement path that mortals used for walking, empty. Euros stopped on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets. His magic pushed against the portal, the membrane between the worlds shimmering slightly, like looking at the world through a wavy piece of old glass.

  For a minute, he thought about walking through the portal and staying on the other side, staying where he belonged. With his own kind, in a world that was much easier for him to exist in. Frowning, he looked over his shoulder. Maybe this world could get along without him.

  But there was Jessica.

  Seeing her today, even knowing she’d be there, had set off a cascade of emotions that confused him. She’d left him, walked out leaving coffee, and the early edition of the paper, on the kitchen table. The paper was open to his article; the words he’d written, almost limned with fire. The words that suggested she had mishandled serving the search warrant that had gotten her promoted. That she wasn’t ready for that promotion.