Murder by Magic

by Catherine Vale

  Euros’ fingers rested for a moment on the keyboard of his computer. To those around him, he looked asleep, or daydreaming, eyes focused on something only he could see. And that was how he liked it. Co-workers tended to leave him alone, even though his desk was in the middle of the newsroom, and at times it could get rather noisy.

  It was just a few minutes before the midnight deadline, and the room hummed with conversation, the sweat of panic and frustrated writers. Euros didn’t suffer from either panic, or writer’s block, like the rest of them, though. He knew exactly what he wanted to write, how the story would play out, weaving in the facts of the case—precious few that there were—and the things he could reveal about his investigation that morning.

  Besides, why would he panic when he knew that if he wanted to, he could snap his finger,s and the work would be done, not as if by magic, but by magic itself? But he refrained from using magic, at least most of the time. He liked the routine of it all, and writing his articles and news stories made him feel more in touch with his human side. At least as human as a magical creature like him could possibly be.

  What his mind was occupied with at this very moment, wasn’t on the work ahead, but on Jessica. When news broke of the murder, he knew that Jessica would be assigned lead on the case. Magic, and just plain good reporter’s work ethic, told him that. When it happened, he couldn’t have been more proud of her, and the regret for having written the article that ended their relationship, became even more bitter than the day it happened. He wasn’t prepared to see her – to come face to face with the one woman that had captured his heart like no other before. Seeing her sent him into an absolute tailspin, leaving his heart heavy, and his mind full of memories that he knew he could block out with a bit of magic, but were all too precious to let go of.

  She looked tired that day, and stressed out, but damn, she looked good.

  He thought back to the last time he’d seen her before that morning… and before the breakup—the day before it all ended, back when everything was good between them. Good was an understatement; it was incredible – everything he could have ever hoped for in a relationship.

  Jessica had the day off from work, a brief interlude before she started at her new position as detective, and they’d spent the day in bed. He had called in his article, using magic so he could stay in bed with her. She’d been playful, adventurous…sexy beyond any woman he’d ever known. And that was more than he could count, or cared to remember. She had become the center of his world.

  They’d been lying in bed, tangled in the sheets, the rich smell of love making rising around them. He’d run his fingers through the tangle of her dark hair, playing with the long strands, his fingers occasionally getting caught in a knot. Jessica would make a sound, and he’d apologize by kissing her…first the top of her head. The next time her neck, slowly rearranging her and him until he was working his way down the curve of her breast.

  She’s lost weight, he thought. Then, before…everything, she’d been soft and curvy, round at the hips, at the slope of her stomach, the secret softness of her inner thighs, the places only he touched. And with an ass… even now, the memory of it beneath his hands could stir him.

  She’d relaxed under his touch, and then come alive beneath him, shocking him with surprising aggressiveness. She was like that, calm and still, accepting. And then turning, rising, wild and passionate, taking his breath away. Taking control.

  He sighed, looking down at the blank computer screen and blinking cursor. Two minutes. He might as well do this. With a glance, he noted where everyone was—absorbed in their own work—he started to type. His fingers were a blur on the keys, and he smiled; even if he was doing this like a mortal, that didn’t mean he was going to restrict himself to typing a mere eighty words per minute. Well before the midnight deadline, he typed the final sentence. With a quick glance at his work, he hit send. And then sat back.

  Around him, a collective release of pent up anxiety, stress, and tension rose, as his colleagues made their deadlines. Decker, two desks over, leaned back, stretching his arms over his head. Even from here, Euros could hear the snap and crack of the man’s spine.

  “Finished? Thought you were cutting it a bit close, Desard. For once I thought you might actually miss your deadline.”

  “Desard never misses a deadline, do you?” That was Holmes, behind him. “He cuts it close every single time. I think he’s an adrenaline junkie, does his best work under pressure. Wish I could do that.”

  There were muttered words of agreement, but he shrugged them off. The men gathered coats and scarves, trying to come to a decision about which bar to hit. Euros wondered why they bothered; they always ended up at Mick’s on the corner.

  “Wanna come with us?” Decker asked. “Oh, yeah, you don’t drink.” He shrugged, and then laughed that nasty little dry laugh of his. Euros watched the group, as they moved toward the elevator, and breathed out a sigh of relief when they disappeared through the doors, and the room was silent.

  It wasn’t only seeing Jessica that had set his world at odd angles. The magic he’d sensed at the murder scene, and then followed to the portal, the meeting with Mixt. All of it left him on edge, feeling uneasy. He tapped a finger on the keys, trying to piece together what he knew, what he thought, the facts he’d observed. And what he sensed, the things that were still nebulous in his mind, refusing to be pinned down. Those were the important parts, the bits and pieces that might be the key to unraveling all of this.

  He leaned back in his chair comfortably, eyes closed, breathing in slowly, deeply. With a low rumble buzzing in his ears, he closed out the world around him, and began the process of mentally examining each piece of information about the murder, with the hope of making sense of all the jagged little pieces that refused to mesh into anything useful.

  He knew there was magic involved in this murder; that much was obvious. Someone had tried to cross through the portal. He couldn’t help but growl at the thought of his sacred place being invaded by someone who didn’t belong there. The world of his birth. His true home. He couldn’t let it happen.

  That piece of information was the key to this puzzle. The portals. The magic doorway between the mortal world, and the magic one that he loved so much.

  They’d been sealed centuries ago, after the witch trials burned across Europe, and then crossed to the newly formed American colonies. The remaining witches—fae, gargoyles, elves—every magical creature in existence, had retreated through the barriers into the security of the Other world. Until then, those barriers had been translucent, veiled, but open. They were hidden in standing stones, within the shadows of caves, behind waterfalls. Magic passed freely between the worlds, and those who could, who had the sense and the sight, could pass through. Sometimes even a human would wander through the portal, interested in the world beyond. And even they were welcome.

  But with the changing of the times, people grew suspicious and afraid of the supernatural, and the powers that they possessed. Before too long, the winds of change evoked an uprising, and people refused to accept those who were not mortal. Even wise women and crones, those who were at one time celebrated for their ability to help cure sickness, were driven out and forced into hiding, for fear of their lives being snuffed out like a candle to a flame.

  Euros’ mother had been one of those women, living in a croft in Scotland, searching the hedgerows and fields, the woods and streams, gathering what was needed for potions and poultices to heal the weak, and dying.

  As a boy, he never thought of his mother as having magical powers, but he knew she was special…spiritual, and gifted. The reality was that his mother, Avalon, was a very powerful and skilled witch, a Mistress of white magic, a master of her craft.

  It was at her knee, as a young child, that Euros learned of his true power, despite his mother doing everything in her power to hide it from him, and from those who would seek to destroy him because of it.

  But nothing could stop young Euros fr
om discovering his magical gifts, and the true power that he possessed. By the time he was a teenager, he learned how to light a fire simply by pointing his finger at an object. He also learned that he could easily put out that fire just by closing his eyes, and making it vanish in his mind’s eye. And when his mother wasn’t watching, he learned how to make himself vanish at will, read people’s thoughts, and take himself from one place, only to appear in another.

  Then they’d come for his mother, the very villagers who had visited her to beg her for help in healing, or to birth their children. They’d dragged her, arms tied behind her back, into the darkness of the night. He’d hidden in the barn, under fouled straw, remaining quiet, just as his mother had instructed, until they were gone. He’d ached to follow, but she’d told him over and over what to do if they ever came. At the time, he didn’t understand who “they” were, only that his mother was in constant danger, and that if he revealed his true powers, his life would also be in jeopardy.

  And so, he’d hidden, horse piss soaking into his shirt and breeches, even afraid to make himself invisible and follow, for fear his magic would leave him, and he’d suddenly appear in their midst, where he’d be tied to the post, and set afire.

  Long after they were gone, and her screams had faded into the night, he crawled out, dirty and cold. He didn’t go to the village; the smell told him he’d be sick if he did. There was no need to, anyway. He knew, in his mind, his heart, in his very cells, that she was gone from this world of mortals.

  He knew where to go though, where to seek refuge. There were standing stones in the clearing at the top of the hill, behind the croft. He’d been warned away from them, but he’d gone there anyway. And now he ran, the moonlight sending his shadow racing ahead of him across the ground.

  Momentum pushed him forward, headfirst through the gap between the stones. Landing hard on the Other side, he lay in a small, crumpled heap, trying to catch his breath, tears of exertion and loss running down his cheeks.

  A strange-looking man came forward, reaching out to him. He was thin, dressed in ethereal white robes, with long white hair flowing over his shoulders. It was Mixt who had found him – a man who began as a stranger, and became a sort of father figure to him throughout the decades that followed.

  On that sorrowful day, when Mixt picked Euros up from his place of hiding, he led him through a mysterious labyrinth of confusing paths. At first, the landscape seemed no different than the one he’d just run through, with familiar landmarks, and greenery. But as he continued his journey through the maze, it began to feel different. He recognized buildings, but they were somehow out of context: the village church missing its spire, the croft he lived in, was now dim and dark, just a shadow in the moonlight.

  They moved along the forest paths that he’d walked many times throughout his young life, the trees growing thicker, passing seamlessly into a world he’d never seen before. Stone walls appeared between the rough trunks, gradually growing taller, stone by stone, the trees pulling back. Then, with some alarm, Euros realized that they were walking between scattered buildings, the path turning into a narrow alley, the trees changing from silent brooding giants, into slender, flowering shrubs.

  All the while, Mixt had remained silent, though his presence was never forgotten, as he guided Euros along. Together, they walked under a grand arch of greenery, and into a beautiful courtyard. A fountain splashed somewhere in the distance, the sound soothing; a gentle lullaby of the soul.

  Mixt crossed the open space, and then abruptly stopped before a doorway, ushering Euros to go through. He obeyed, his heart thudding in his chest, and the door softly closed behind him, leaving him total darkness. He looked around anxiously, desperate to make sense of this unknown place, but the air was thick with the pungent smoke of incense, and it stung his eyes and nose. Instantly, he recognized the scent as Dragon’s blood, mixed with other herbs, arnica and bergamot. His mother had used Dragon’s blood, in secret, on windless nights. It gave him a sense of comfort, familiarity. His heart rate slowed.

  “Ah, Euros. Welcome.”

  He spun toward the voice. A woman…or a man…or both, he couldn’t be sure. The being shimmered, the edges of the form dissolving, reforming, over and over, refusing to make a solid shape. The face was at once feminine and masculine, eyes changing color from bright to dark. The only consistent part of the being was the smile. It drew Euros forward, slowly, but irresistibly.

  “Sit. Please. You have traveled a long journey to be with us.” The voice seemed to come from everywhere, yet nowhere. Startled, Euros realized the voice was within his mind, and perhaps his soul. Without question, Euros did as he was commanded, and was rewarded with food, drink and clean clothes. Despite fighting against the forces that be, he found himself growing tired, unable to fight the weight of the world, as it crushed down upon him. He wanted to ask questions, to find out where he was, why he had been brought there, and what his future held for him, but his eyes closed against his will. The voice was back in his head, ageless, genderless…soothing.

  “Sleep, little one. Sleep now.”

  And so, he did.

  * * *

  The buzz of the police scanner jolted Euros from his memories, bringing him back to the present. He sat up abruptly, hands coming down hard on the desk. The scanner crackled with static.

  “Damn…”

  As he glanced down at his computer, the clock in the corner ticked over to two-forty.

  “Shit…”

  The static on the scanner resolved into chatter, and he leaned forward. There was another murder. Another high-profile member of the community. Before the broadcast was even finished, he was shrugging on his coat, grabbing his cell phone, and heading for the stairs.

  The last words he heard were dispatch asking for someone to call Detective Sharpe. He stopped, hand on the door. He needed to move, and he needed to move fast.

  “Fuck it…”

  This was no time to hide his magic now; he needed to get across town, and he needed to do that as quickly as possible. He slipped through the door into the stairwell, listening. Somewhere below, he heard footsteps, and then the door to the street opening. With the click of the door shutting, he let out a breath. Eyes closed, he pictured the Marchland Building in his mind, and said the words for a transportation spell.

  The Gaelic Scottish was familiar to his tongue, and comforting to his ears; the language of his birthright. The Latin less so, but it was the language of his training. The two melded together into a seamless cadence, the intent simple, the words basic.

  “Á sealladh a hic; Siubhal; Nochdaidh ut ibi.”

  Disappear from here, travel, appear there.

  He knew where here was, and where he wanted to go. So, he let the magic take control, and his body went through that amazing transformation that he loved so much. Each cell split painlessly from its neighbor, rose spiraling into the air, his body becoming a swirling column of incandescent energy. And then, in a split-second flash of brilliant white light, he vanished from the stairwell.

  Chapter Six

  Jessica rolled over, and opened her eyes. The light around the edge of the windows was the same as it always was; light from outside creating an amber rectangle where the window was. It looked like fire, or something evil leaking in from the outside.

  She turned over again, back to her window, and fought with her pillow. It felt like she’d just crawled into bed. She was exhausted; she should have been asleep in minutes. The numbers on the clock caught her eye. Two-forty-five. She’d only been in bed for two hours; no wonder she was still tired. Twenty-four hours ago, she’d been right here; twenty-four hours ago, this whole nightmare had started. And in those twenty-four hours, she’d worked her ass off on this case.

  She took a breath, held it, as the clock rolled over to the next minute. Two-forty-six. Her phone rang, and she let the breath out in a soft curse.

  “Damn.”

  She flipped open the phone. “Sharpe.

 
“There’s a homicide.”

  “I’m not on duty tonight.” She reached over, and flipped on the light to make whatever dispatch was going to say seem less ominous. There was a hesitation on the other end, and she thought she heard the hushed conversation of someone else.

  “I was instructed to call you. There are…it’s like…”

  She closed her eyes, willing something to keep him from saying anymore. Earthquake, fire…a real fire outside her window, coming in, giving her a reason to run away. But none of that was going to happen.

  “It’s like the last murder. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “Yes.” The voice sounded relieved to not have to say the words.

  “What’s the address?”

  “Marchland Towers.”

  Her blood went cold, and she gripped the phone hard, the edge of the case biting into her fingers. She waited, holding her breath. Waited for them to say the name she willed dispatch not to say.

  “It’s Vincent Parnell.”

  “Right. On my way.”

  She flicked the phone shut, and tossed it on the bed. The sense of déjà vu was so strong, it made her dizzy. For a minute, she just sat, head in her hands. But this was her job, and she needed to do it.

  Standing, stretching, she headed to the bathroom. Vincent Parnell was already dead; that situation wouldn’t change if she took a shower. Besides, she’d feel better. Maybe that would translate to thinking clearly, when it mattered most.

  The shower was short, and very hot. Within a few minutes, she stepped out, her hair a thick mass of wet hanging down her back. A quick braid, and she’d be good to go.

  And there was no wearing yesterday’s clothes. Ross would be there; he was probably already on his way. Besides, she’d feel better wearing clean clothes.

  The problem was, most of her clothes all looked the same, dark turtlenecks, jeans, boots. Leather jacket. Well, hell, she spent her time either parked at a desk, or crawling around crime scenes. Everything was easy to care for, and the boots were comfortable.