by L. EE
It doesn’t matter what he thinks. I know the risks involved in my job and how to best mitigate them. “If you don’t mind, I have some work to attend to.”
Arthur looked at the head, which was now lying in one of Nia’s open hat boxes. “And if you don’t mind, I’ll leave you to that and look in on Detective Lin.”
“Certainly. Ah, Arthur, just don’t – well, you know.”
Giving her one of those very familiar but still occasionally infuriating sardonic looks, Arthur touched a hand to his heart. “I solemnly swear not to murder her and steal her identity in order to unleash my murderous impulses on the unsuspecting layman population. It would be difficult to pull off anyway. Detective Lin and I look almost nothing alike.”
Nia glared at him. “You know those jokes aren’t funny, Arthur.”
“They’re funny to me.” Then he smiled that wide smile he only used when he wanted to cheer Nia up against her will. She held firmly to her frown for nearly five seconds before her lips twitched upward in spite of her and Arthur, damn him, knew he had won the day.
“I’ll come back in a little bit and let you know how she’s doing,” he said, smile softening a little.
Nia nodded. She would want to know. “Thank you.”
When Arthur had gone, Nia opened one of the suitcases and removed one of the large pieces of slate she used when drawing on the floor was inconvenient. After laying down the slate, she opened her toolkit and pulled out a fresh piece of chalk. Over the next few minutes, she carefully drew a search-and-locate spell. She knew the spell by heart, but she double-checked one of her books, just to be absolutely sure she hadn’t made any careless mistakes.
If today had proven one thing, it was that this case would not allow for careless mistakes.
Nia put the final touches on the circle and opened the hat box. Grasping Connery by his hair, she lifted him out and set him in the center of the circle.
“All right, Mister Connery,” she murmured, drawing a few final lines to complete the spell. “Let’s find the rest of you.”
Sitting back, she folded her hands and began to concentrate, feeling her own magic fall into the circle’s pattern, which both focused and contained it. Using the head as a template, the magic reached out for the rest of Connery’s remains. Slowly the magical threads wove together in the air around her. Many of them were yet too fragile to follow, but one felt so strong and clear that it had to be pointing to somewhere close by. She would need to draw a more precise spell to get an exact location, but for now she was content to know that the trail had not gone cold.
She broke the circle with a scuff of her shoe, picked up Connery’s head, and put it back in the box. When the box was safely hidden under the bed – she would have to remember to hang the do not disturb sign or some poor hotel employee might get a nasty shock – she went into the bathroom to tidy herself up for dinner. She supposed they couldn’t go out with Detective Lin ill as she was, but she should at least look human before calling for room service.
It was only after peeling out of her blood-and-sweat-stained dress and stepping into the shower that she realized there was still blood on her hands, hidden between the fingers. Detective Lin’s blood. She could remember all-too-vividly how the other woman had looked sprawled on the floor, blood running on to the floor from a hundred tiny but lethal wounds. Nia had seen people bleed before, of course, dozens – maybe hundreds – of times. For goodness sake, she had been the one to amputate the hand of a colleague who had been careless with a putrefying spell.
But that had been in the sterile Academy clinic, not in a filthy house full of death and foul magic. And under those circumstances, those terrifying circumstances, there was a very good chance that Nia had made a mistake.
Turning on the water as hot as it would go, she began scrubbing the remaining flecks of blood from her skin. Magic was generally unhealthy for laymen. That was why vernix did such strange things to their minds and why illusions cast on them often either failed entirely or left permanent mental scars. Healing magic was especially dangerous as it affected the body directly, repairing tissue and blocking pain receptors. Magicians could absorb and break down excess magic as easily as most people broke down sugar, but laymen couldn’t do anything with it, so it remained in their bodies. A small amount was basically harmless, but too much…
She toweled herself off and put on a clean dress.
It was only once. There’s no harm in doing it only once.
She heard the room’s door open and she quickly put her face back in order. No matter what you feel inside, don’t display your doubt. That was what Mother had always said. Confidence without could create confidence within, but showing weakness to others would only encourage weakness within the self.
Arthur tapped lightly on the bathroom door. “Are you all right?”
“Absolutely!” Nia quickly checked the fall of her dress in the mirror before opening the door. “I was just washing up.”
“I’m going to do the same” Arthur rubbed the back of his neck with a grimace. “I feel like I’ve been playing in a slaughterhouse.”
“Funny, that’s what you smell like.” Arthur swatted at her with his bloodstained sleeve, but she dodged the swipe easily. He rolled his eyes at her laughter and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
As she stepped to the large mirror against the opposite wall to make herself presentable, Arthur’s voice floated out of the bathroom. “Detective Lin seems better. She’s sleeping easily now.”
That doesn’t mean she’s better, a nasty voice whispered in the back of Nia’s mind. The magic might just be taking time to do its work. If she has a lower than normal resistance to it, her body may even turn on itself in a futile attempt to fight it off. But Nia made herself smile at her own reflection. “That’s wonderful! It’s only thanks to her that we found Connery after all.”
“Speaking of which,” said Arthur, sounding suddenly disgusted. “Where is it?”
“Under the bed.”
The bathroom door swung open. “Under the bed?”
“Well, where else would you have me hide it?”
“I – fine, but I’m sleeping in the adjoining room then.”
“There’s no need to be squeamish, Arthur. It won’t rot for a long time yet.”
“That’s comforting.” Arthur closed the door again. “I’m going to shave. Then we can get something to eat. Before we do, though, I’ll have to bring something up for Detective Lin –”
“I can do that!”
Arthur seemed startled by her enthusiasm, but finally responded with, “All right. I mean, if you want –”
But Nia was already half way out the door, fastening a bracelet around her wrist as she went.
The best way to deal with worry was having something to do.
10
Gail Lin
Gail woke up in a strange bed with an ache in her head and an odd tingling running up and down her arms. She slid her hand across the too-smooth comforter. Hotel blankets. So they’d made it back to The Crown.
She pushed herself up into a sitting position and leaned back against the wide headboard. Her hair had come almost entirely loose from her short braid, so she undid it completely before slumping back on her elbows.
What a day. Houses full of angry dead people who tried to kill her, evil furniture that tried to kill her, evil toys that tried to kill her.
All in all, the case was off to a rollicking good start.
Someone knocked on the door. Part of Gail wanted to fake sleep, but she supposed it was about time she dragged her ass out of bed anyway. She called, “Come in,” as she quickly pulled her hair back again.
The door opened slowly and Nia poked her head in. She had changed her clothes and fixed her hair, but she still had a livid scrape on one cheek.
“You didn’t fix your face,” Gail said before she realized that wasn’t the politest way to start a conversation.
“Excuse me?” Nia touched h
er cheek, fingers brushing across the scrape. “Oh, this? It’s nothing.” She smiled, a little unsteadily Gail thought. “Are you all right, detective?”
“I seem fine. All in one piece anyway.” Gail looked down at herself and realized that she was still wearing her bloodstained clothes. She probably looked pretty garish next to Nia in her pretty purple dress. Speaking of Nia… “Thanks, by the way, for fixing me.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no!” Snapping her mouth closed before she could keep running on forever, Nia coughed lightly and folded her hands in front of her. “I should be thanking you. You were the one who found Connery for us.”
“I found – right, the head.” Gail vaguely remembered yanking a severed head out of a toy box. “So I take it we got him – it –back to the hotel all right?”
“Oh yes, we put him in a hat box!”
Of course, what else? Gail swung her legs over the edge of the bed, rubbing her still tingling arms.
“Are you all right, detective?” Nia asked with sudden urgency. “You don’t feel ill, do you?”
“No. Should I?”
“No, no, no, no – I was simply… worried. You were badly hurt.”
“Well, you can stop worrying. I’m fine.”
Nia’s face relaxed into a real smile. “I’m glad.” Then she jumped a little. “Oh! I was going to ask what you wanted for dinner! Arthur and I thought you probably wouldn’t want to come down to the restaurant tonight after all the excitement. Tomorrow, we’ll have to find somewhere nice to eat –at the Academy’s expense, of course.”
“Sounds good to me.” Gail plucked at her bloodstained shirt. “I might take a shower first.”
“Oh, of course! I should leave you to that, shouldn’t I? I’m sorry, sometimes I don’t know when to stop talking. I think it’s a common flaw for people who work alone – talking to oneself, I mean. I work alone a great deal.”
Yeah, Gail had gotten that impression.
“But before I go,” Nia continued brightly, “I do have some good news.”
“Wow, really, more?” Then Gail kicked herself for being an asshole. Without the Illuminator, she probably wouldn’t be here right now. Best case scenario, she’d be laid up in the hospital. Thanks to Nia’s magic, she felt almost as good as new except for that tingling and a weird buzzing in the back of her head. A good night’s sleep would probably cure both. She made her voice sound friendlier when she added, “What is it?”
Nia looked at her closely for a moment, seeming unsure if Gail was making fun of her or not, but apparently decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. “As it turns out, there is another part of Connery very close by. Much closer than I would have guessed, actually.”
That was good news, Gail supposed. The sooner this case was over and she got the second half of her paycheck, the better. “Where?”
“Ah, well, I haven’t been able to pinpoint the location yet. Connery’s magic is so very complex; it will take more precise work to narrow it down, but you can rest assured that we won’t have to go far!”
Gail nodded slowly. “Speaking of which, can I ask you something?”
“Of course!”
“The magic in the house. Do you really think Connery had those spells just lying around for his cronies to steal? I mean, Connery was an evil bastard, but I don’t think even the evilest of evil bastards would have murder spells, raising the dead spells, and attack furniture spells all conveniently on hand at the same time. If nothing else, it seems like just asking for someone to steal them to use against you.”
Nia blinked owlishly at her. Then she broke into a bright smile. “You know, Detective Lin, you’re very astute!”
“Uh, thanks. It’s sort of my job.”
The smile faded as quickly as it had come. “I had actually been pondering the same thing, though I must admit, not with the exactness you have.”
“Well, when you spend a lot of time hunting evil bastards, you start to get an idea of how they think. Most of them wouldn’t trust their underlings to bring home the right kind of milk, so I have a hard time believing Connery would leave so much valuable ammunition just lying around unless he really needed the spells.” She paused. “And does anyone ever really need a killer furniture spell? Something seems off.”
Talk about an understatement, everything about this case seemed off. It was like she was trying to do a puzzle in the dark. She could sort of feel how things fit together, but just because she could find two pieces that matched up didn’t mean that she understood the big picture.
Nia sat down in one of the stiff hotel armchairs, apparently forgetting Gail’s earlier comment about wanting a shower. “If you’re feeling up to it, perhaps we should sit down and discuss our next move. Obviously, we were taken by surprise today, but now that we have an idea of the sort of magic we can expect, we can take proper precautions.”
What sort of precautions could you take against walking dead people and homicidal houses? Still, Gail guessed planning would be better than sitting around. “I feel up to just about anything so long as it doesn’t involve fighting dressers. Let me get showered and changed and we can go down to dinner together.”
“Wonderful!” Nia beamed so brightly that Gail suspected she had been more disappointed than she had let on about not being able to eat out on her first night in the city. She was almost out the door when she turned back with a sharp, “Oh!”
Gail, halfway through rolling up her sleeves so she could examine the perfectly smooth but still aggravatingly itchy skin on her forearms, looked back at her. “Yeah?”
“Would you mind terribly if Arthur joins us?” Nia’s voice dropped to a near-whisper, as though she feared her colleagues had their ears pressed against the walls of the adjoining rooms. “Technically, he’s only supposed to be given case information on a need to know basis, but I would feel awful asking him to sit in our room while –”
“We got attacked by corpses. I think preventing that from happening again counts as something he needs to know.”
A relieved smile lit up Nia’s face and Gail was suddenly certain she had expected to be told no. Why had they even sent Arthur along if he was supposed to be kept away from everything up to and including meals? Anyway, was Gail even allowed to say no to the Illuminator? She would call the Academy to ask, but that would probably just result in a full list of dos-and-don’ts and she really didn’t have time for any more bullshit.
“We’ll meet you downstairs in half an hour then?” When Gail nodded, Nia finally turned to go, murmuring something under her breath about changing her dress.
Shaking her head to knock away the haze left by her surprise nap, Gail went to the bathroom, shucked off her bloodstained clothes and took a quick shower. When she returned to the bedroom wrapped in a bathrobe, she stood in front of her suitcase, wondering what she should wear. The clothes she had been wearing today were probably a loss unless Nia knew some sort of laundry spell that removed set-in bloodstains.
Actually judging by the way Nia ran headlong into danger, she probably knew five. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that if the magicians were dressing up for a night on the town, should she do the same?
She took a moment to ponder then promptly decided, fuck that, I’ll dress up tomorrow, and grabbed something comfortable.
11
Nia Graves
Despite the best of intentions and – according to Arthur – all laws of time and logic, Nia and Arthur arrived in the hotel dining room a few minutes after Gail. The detective was dressed much the same as she had been before, the only difference Nia could spot was the color of her suspenders. She was reading the newspaper when they came in, an unlit cigarette in her mouth.
“Do you smoke?” Nia asked before realizing it was perhaps none of her business.
Gail pulled the cigarette from between her lips and tucked it into a pocket on the inside of her jacket. “Used to. I quit last year. Holding one sometimes helps me think, though.” She got to her feet, tossing the pa
per into the empty chair beside her. “All right, let’s eat. I got us a table near the back, so we should have privacy.”
A few moments later, they were comfortably sequestered at a corner table only inches from one of the wide windows. They were so far from the rest of the diners that it almost felt like they had their own private room, but through the window, Nia could still watch the finely dressed people strolling past as the lights of the marquee flickered to life.
“Mind if I take this seat?” Gail asked Arthur even as she slid into the chair that put her back to the window.
“There’s plenty of room on this side,” Nia said, shifting over a little. “It’s quite a lovely view.”
“Nah, I’m good. I don’t much care for it.” Before Nia could ask what she meant, she smiled crookedly and added, “These tables are usually reserved for rich and famous guests. I had a feeling you would qualify, so I wrangled it.”
“Oh, it’s lovely!” Nia burst out. “You can still hear the music and –” You’re on the job, Nia, she reminded herself. Do try to act like a professional. “That is, it’s most certainly private. Thank you, detective.” She could feel Arthur smirking at her, but Gail just nodded and opened her menu. Anyway, she was certain that Arthur was just as excited as she was, even if he hid it better.
They didn’t start speaking right away. First there was dinner to consider. The menu had more pages than Nia would have believed possible and the drinks especially had long bewildering names that made her think she had opened a thesaurus by mistake, but they finally successfully delivered their orders to the quick and quiet waiter.
Then they got down to business.
“So,” Detective Lin began. “Today was interesting.”
“I thought so too!” said Nia. “Horrible as it was, the magic employed was –”
“Sarcasm,” Arthur murmured.
“Oh.”
Gail was watching her with a frustratingly unreadable expression.
“Well, I hope you understand what I meant.” She started to twist her fingers in the tablecloth and quickly stopped herself. “It wasn’t pleasant by any means, but –” She met Gail’s dark eyes defiantly – “I’m sure you find crime scenes interesting from time to time.”