“Bomb,” I mouthed the word as if it were a foreign delicacy I was trying for the first time. Even though I had uttered the word only yesterday.
“Hat, you okay?”
“Wow,” I said, holding my hands up to my cheeks in an emoji scream.
“Take a minute,” the chief suggested. His gorgeous blue eyes dancing warily over me.
“Is Kramp dead?” My voice was flat.
“He is,” David said softly. “Miraculously, the driver had stopped to move a kids toy from the street. Random act of kindness. And, timing apparently. If he had chosen to just drive around the toy, he’d be as dead as Kramp right now.” David leaned on the roof of his car.
“Anyway, on first inspection, it looks like the bomb had been planted in the back of the vehicle. With Kramp. That’s where most of the damage happened.”
“Did anyone see anything? Any body?” Asked Gloom. She sat beside Eclipse on the hood of David’s car.
“That’s the next thing I was getting to,” David said, putting down his coffee cup on the car roof.
“Remember that drifter arrested about a month ago? For loitering?”
I shook my head, confused.
“Yeah, you do, the scruffy, homeless guy who Eve was trying to handle? He was picked up for vagrancy. Right here, in fact.” David whirled and wriggled his fingers at the deep art-deco entrance way of Prettykins.
“We had to let him go because the station was packed with reprobates that night. “I had advised him to steer clear of the shop-fronts and to find a quiet place out at the bluffs, remember?”
“No, I don’t …”
But then a fleeting image bounced to the front of my mind then. “Oh, wait, Typhon Gribblewauld or something like that?”
“Typhon Jyldrar, but, yeah,” David said.
It was coming back to me. It had been one of Eve Fernacre’s first nights working at GIPPD. She had been responsible for the intake of folk into the jail cells at the time. She still is, in fact, but I had remembered Eve being a little overwhelmed that night. The sheer number of petty offenders waiting to be processed had been insurmountable that evening. Eve had asked David what she should do with this Typhon chap. The chief had suggested to Eve to let him go. The homeless man had carried no ID. And, I remembered now, he didn’t talk much. He had some a tattoo. I thought it kind of looked like a tail of some crouching animal creeping up toward his throat. The flash of the image was so fleeting; it fell away before I could fully grasp it.
I looked at David.
“He’s at the station now,” the chief said.
“Have you questioned him yet?”
“Nope. Had way too much to do here,” he swung his arm in a wide arc across the crime scene. “Had to send Kramp’s body to Maude’s, the weapon to GIPPD for analysis, our buddy, the driver, to Howling Mercy to check for internal injuries, and … I wanted to wait for you anyway,” he finished, looking at his feet.
I felt the thrill of his last comment, but I kept my face impassive.
“So, this Typhon’s a suspect?”
“He was here, right at the scene as the Broomedics showed up.”
David passed a hand over his stubbly chin. “He didn’t resist either. Just kept staring at the crash site as my guys took him away. Said nothing. Weird, huh?”
I nodded.
“You didn’t find anything in his background check last time, right?”
“Nada,” David confirmed. “No ID, remember? No print match, no records of any description when we plugged in the name he gave us. No relatives, no friends, nothing. Same again this time, so Spinefield tells me.” David’s desk-sergeant was thorough and fast when it came to background checks.
“Sounds highly suspicious to me,” Eclipse opined. “I think we need to look at this guy closely. Make sure you ask him the right questions.”
“Uh, yeah, thanks, cat, but it’s not my first rodeo,” David said, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.
My friend reached into the car, and from the passenger seat, he grabbed a paper bag. He rustled the package and pulled out a freshly-baked chocolate chip muffin.
“Last night’s dessert?” I asked.
David just looked at me, tore off the top of the muffin and shoved it in his mouth.
I grimaced.
My friend’s food habits of late were most unsavory. Said the woman who just scarfed a butter-rich sugary delight herself.
“We’ll need to speak to Maude,” David said over a mouthful of batter and chocolate chips. “She hasn’t called me yet, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing from her today at some point. Find out the cause of death et cetera.”
“Don’t mean to steal Maude’s glory, but I’m betting our coroner friend will tell us that Kramp was bombed to death,” Gloom said, looking at the chief as if he had two heads.
“David, have you slept yet?” I pinned my friend with an accusing stare.
“I’ll take a nap on the couch at the station later,” he mumbled.
“Right.” I scanned the carnage one last time. “So, I suggest you grab a quick snooze, and we meet --” Chief Para Inspector Trew doubled over.
“David!” I charged over to him, rolling up my sleeves as I went. Not sure what sleeve-rolling would accomplish, but …
He stood up but continued to grip his stomach. A soft sheen of sweat broke out on his reddened face.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said, reaching up with one hand to hold onto the roof of his car. “As I said, the junk food is killing me.” He offered a hesitant smile.
What could I do here? How could I impress upon him to open up and tell me what was troubling him?
Instead, I remembered my self-professed promise, and I kept my mouth shut. But, inside, I felt unnerved. To the core.
I caught Gloom looking at me, raising her eyebrows in question. She could have uttered any number of disparaging remarks to the chief, but, instead, my sharp tongued kitty remained silent.
Eclipse just stared at my friend, and the moment stretched into an awkward, fidgety silence.
“Right, well, okay,” David said, his voice strained. “I’m going to follow your advice here. I’ll take a nap, and call you after. Can you be ready to come to the station for questioning our drifter-friend?”
I nodded, ushering my kitties from the car, as David took his place behind the wheel.
“Give you guys a lift back?”
“No!” Gloom, Eclipse and I shouted in concert.
David chuckled. “Suit yourselves.” He buckled up. “Later, gators,” and with that, he drove away to catch some much-needed shut-eye on his GIPPD office couch.
“Yeah, that dude is NOT okay,” Eclipse observed, trotting alongside me, as we made the trek back to the Angel.
I whirled on my cat. “I know that, ‘Clipsy!”
“I can tell,” he said wryly.
“He’s a doofus, but he can look after himself. I suggest we stick to this case and let the chief work out his own issues,” Gloom said, not looking at any of us.
Once again, I was going to take my grouchy cat at her word, and follow her recommendation. Because that’s what you do, right?
You take the advice of your family pet.
CHAPTER FOUR
M illie had opened up The Angel by the time we returned. The cats had told her I’d gone to the blast site with David, and my thoughtful assistant had a cup of fennel tea ready for me when I returned. I shared what little info we had about the explosion, and the sinister grenade that was found on the side of the road.
Jet was predictably exuberant about all the new news. “That’s, like, insane! Yep, sheesh,” he said as he raced across the floor in zigzags. “I mean, Krampus had it coming, yep? But, no need to ‘off’ the geezer, nope? I’m just happy the driver didn’t buy it too, yep gosh.”
“Wh-who was it that did it?” Fraidy’s teeth chattered as he posed the question. “Unseelies again? W-w-warlocks?”
“We don’t know yet, sweetie. Could have be
en just a regular hater of Kramp’s, we’ve no idea,” I replied. “We just have this Typhon Jyldrar character, who was on the scene before the emergency services showed up. Too early to say if he was involved, but I’m joining David for the questioning of our drifter later today.”
My head cat, Onyx, hummed thoughtfully. “Were there any implications, any markers, on the device, that might suggest it’s a Warlock weapon?”
Shade’s head popped up beside his sage brother. “What does ‘implications’ mean? Bro, you’ve gotta cool it with the fancy words, know what I’m sayin’?” My Romeo cat pleaded. “Just talk regular, like.” Onyx shook his head and offered his brother a condescending pat on the head.
“Tell us about the drifter, Typhon,” Carbon piped up. “What’s his story? Why is he in Gless Inlet? Where did he come from? Where’s he going? When did he show up? How long’s he staying?”
Gloom plopped herself on Carbon’s head to have a quick wash, and to better deliver answers to her inquisitive brother. She ignored his muffled protests from under her rear. “We only know that nobody knows anything about Typhon Jyldrar right now. Will you please stop wriggling? I’m trying to wash here.”
The door to The Angel announced a visitor. Our heads turned toward the sound of the tinkling bell, but it wasn’t a customer. Midnight was back.
“Dudes, Dudettes,” he said, positively swaggering into the middle of the room.
“Middie? You have news then?” I scooped up my cat and plopped him on the counter. Which was a mistake, because Middie loved this lofty stage even more than the floor. Now he could look down on his rapt audience. There was nothing Midnight loved more than to share his self-importance when it came to juicy gossip or much-needed intel. He often gathered this information from creatures of the night that nobody had heard of, much less seen. Middie occupied a bizarre middle-of-the-night world.
He paraded left and right, his tail curled in a banner to his brilliance.
“Well, Moody’s clean,” he began. “He has no Warlock ties whatsoever. Apparently, he was as baffled by the verdict as we were. I think that’s why he left the court in a hurry. So, no dirt on the judge, I’m afraid.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling the anti-climax of Midnight’s information settle into my shoulders.
“But!” Midnight strutted left, taking flourished strides like a dressage horse. “I did find out something that you guys may want to know,” he teased.
“Unless you want to fall off your stage and meet your grisly end, then I’d say get on with it,” Gloom quipped from atop poor Carbon’s head. I could see my heat-loving cat had given up the fight; his body was a still, stretched-out noodle by the fire.
Midnight stopped in the middle of the counter and looked at each of us dramatically, to make sure he had our attention. “You know Verdantia and Hinrika went to the Glimmer Mountains yesterday, yeah? To find the exact location of the Tiamat Stone?”
“Yep, yep, Burning Peak,” Jet said.
The rest of us nodded, urging Midnight to continue.
“Well, turns out, there’s no way into the mountains. Burning Peak is cordoned off. Goons all over the place. Vee and Hinrika couldn’t even get close.”
“Shields!” I stormed across to the counter where my cell phone lay. I snatched it up and began jabbing the screen.
“Hattie, what are you doing?” Millie’s hand rested gently on my arm.
“I’m calling David. He needs to know. This is an outrage!”
A black paw pressed against my foot. Eclipse looked up at me.
“I love to wake a human up, no matter the hour, you know that.” His face told the truth, and there was a chorus of mumbled ‘Amens’ in response to his statement.
My memory-wiping cat continued. “But this is one human who needs his sleep right now. You saw how shaky the chief was at the blast site this morning?”
My cat was right. I couldn’t drag David from his sliver of slumber. This news wasn’t exactly going anywhere. No urgent action need be taken. I just felt so livid, so frustrated with Gideon Shields’ new and crafty move.
“I’d like to suggest we take this opportune moment to discuss this issue, while Chief Para Inspector Trew complete’s his catnap,” Onyx said.
My sage cat got our attention.
“Why would the Governor block off the area?” His voice was a little muffled, but Carbon had managed to get his mouth outside the ‘hot-spot’ of Gloom’s derriere.
“Exactly!” I nearly shouted, my impatience with the smarmy Governor mounting.
“The Elder Code,” murmured Millie.
We turned to her.
“I mean, if we know about the Elder Code, then it stands to reason that Shields and his cronies do too, right?” Millie’s Unicorn mane glimmered under the shop lights.
“Rainbow head’s right,” said Gloom, who was balancing, perilously now, on the shifting head of Carbon as he tried to free himself once more. “Shields is gonna guard that dragon-heart stone with everything he’s got. If he gets to the unborn dragon first, then he gets total control.”
“He’s freezin’ us out. Man, that dude is shifty,” Shade said, squinting his eyes.
“N-not, good, not good,” Fraidy moaned. “If Governor Shields gets to the dragon-gene carrier before we do, then it’s gonna be g-goodnight, sleep-tight, enjoy the dragon fight.”
Eclipse said. “Isn’t that rock grumlin territory? I thought that the inside of Burning Peak was their sacred ground and that Cathedral citizens, official or otherwise, could not in anyway desecrate rock grumlin lands?”
“That was the story, yeah,” I hissed. “But, has anyone seen any news lately on the rock grumlin equality issue? Or anything about rock grumlin’s for that matter?”
A flurry of shaking heads.
Since eco-warrior, Millicent Pond’s, untimely demise, no network promoted the plight of the rock-dwelling creatures.
“Shields will do what he wants in Burning Peak, and if he has the area cordoned off, then nobody will know what he’s up to in there,” Millie said. Her eyebrows furrowed. “Wait a minute, weren’t the Unseelies supposed to be ‘making’ their own dragon? Wasn’t that why all those black diamond shipments from Burning Peak were mined in the first place? To funnel money for dragon R&D?”
I exhaled, motor-boating my lips. “We think that the Unseelies, or Goddess, who knows, maybe the Warlocks now, are using the money from black diamonds, yes. And, yes, we think they are trying to create their own version of Wyrmrig, but now? With Shields guarding the Peak? What does it mean? He’s guarding it, giving a clear path for the Unseelie made dragon? Does their dragon need the Tiamat Stone to ‘activate’ too?”
“Maybe they, Goddess, who are they, anyway?” Gloom spat. “Maybe ‘they’ haven’t created their fire-breather yet. Maybe they’ve had no luck in the research and development phase? Maybe they’re cutting their losses and know if they can’t have their dragon, then they will just control the Wyrmrig once it comes sniffing around.”
“One dragon’s better than two, yep, yep,” Jet said.
“W-what if they have their dragon already, and are now waiting for Wyrmrig to show up, so they can have two monsters?” Fraidy’s eyes were like black dinner plates, his fur electrified in manic tufts.
A weighted silence fell over the room as our heads turned slowly to my scaredy cat.
Fraidy picked up on the gravity of his words and our fearful reaction to them. It was too much for the poor kitty. He fell on his side, his paw clutching at his heart.
“S-someone, intubate me! Intubate me, I’m dying!”
With patient steps, Onyx walked over to his prone brother on the floor. My wisest cat almost looked embarrassed for Fraidy. Onyx grinned sheepishly, and patted his sibling saying: “Brother, I think the word you seek is ‘defibrillate.’ To ‘intubate’ you, we’d have to stick a tube down your--”
“Down my WHAT?” Fraidy leapt up, his tail tall and erect as a flag-pole. His ears flattened to his head. “I
’m having a heart attack, and you want to shove a tube down my … my … whatever? How very dare you!”
“Guys, please!” I said, moving to the center of the room and motioning my arms for everyone to calm down. “We’re all getting a little too on edge here,” I suggested. “We don’t know anything for certain, and here we are making up stories as if they’re real. If we’re not careful, we’ll end up like the old wives of Nanker Isle. Believing every silly myth, fable and legend ever written. Let’s just calm down, shall we?”
My cell phone shrilled from its place on the counter, and two humans and eight cats jumped at least a foot into the air. Once my heart fell into its natural place in my chest I grabbed for the device. “David?”
“Hat, I’m at the morgue. Meet me here? Kramp didn’t die from the explosion. Come now, because this is interesting.”
Click.
My cats and Millie looked at me.
“It wasn’t the bomb that killed Kramp,” I said dumbly, pressing ‘end call.’
A collective gasp from my audience.
Carbon trotted over to the door. “Come on, let’s go,” he said, pawing at the entrance. My heat loving cat didn’t even need an excuse to see Maude Dulgrey. He loved the ghoul-coroner to bits, and he loved her salmon treats even more. Carbon got to preside over the huge, gurgling boiler at the morgue. He’d sleep for hours next to the fiery furnace there.
“I-I want to come too, Hattie,” Fraidy’s eyes beseeched me. “I’m not safe here. Onyx intends to ram a tube in my….thing.”
How can you say no to that?
Fraidy, Carbon and I left for Maude Dulgrey’s state-of-the-art lab to find out what had killed Barnabus Kramp.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Warlock Weapon Page 4