She was sitting on the oversized couch, staring at the room’s wood paneling, the book in her lap, when Zarethyn arrived. He had Jessilaen, Brynneth, and the new squad member with him. The new elf was male, with black hair and a serious expression, Allie noted, feeling relieved he seemed nothing like Aeyliss. Unexpectedly they also had both human police in tow. Looking up to see the full task force gave her a strange feeling of déjà vu, despite the changed setting from their first visit, but it was broken quickly as Jess moved to sit next to her, resting his arm around her shoulders. She held the book up to the Captain, “What do you see?”
He frowned, contemplating the book. Walters spoke into the silence, “That piece of shit? It looks like something you hit with a weed whacker.”
Riordan looked equally skeptical, and the other elves shook their heads slightly.
Finally Zarethyn spoke, “Are you certain this is the book you have been seeking Aliaine? It does not seem significant in anyway.”
She had been expecting that response, but still felt her heart sink. “Are you sure? Absolutely sure?”
He looked displeased, and she knew she was bordering on rudeness to press him, but she wanted him to look again. He did, but shook his head, “I see an old human printed book, cheap, and of no special note.”
She sighed, dropping the book back to her lap, “It seems that everyone sees something slightly different, but along the same lines–old, ruined, junky–not worth anything. This is it though. And it doesn’t look like that at all. Like I told everyone when we started looking for it, its handmade, brown leather, obviously an antique but in good shape.”
Zarethyn was staring hard at the book now, his brow furrowed, “It’s enchanted.”
“Looks that way,” Allie said, and then winced at the unintentional pun. “If even you, Captain, can’t see it for what it is then it must be a major enchantment. It must have taken my grandmother years to set it, although I have no idea why she’d invest that kind of energy in something like this.”
“To hide it?” Riordan guessed, still not looking convinced but obviously willing to humor her and see where she was going with all of this.
“Yes, but why?” Allie said, “Why not just destroy it?”
Zarethyn shook his head “There is no way to know without knowing the full contents of the book.”
“Yes, “Allie said, taking a deep breath and bracing herself, “And that brings us to the good news and the bad news.”
“You can’t read it?” Walters said suddenly, sounding uncertain. Allie was so used to his in-your-face attitude that his hesitation now caught her off guard.
“I can read it–although I have no idea at all why I can see and read the book and no one else can.” She bit her lip, chewing thoughtfully.
“Perhaps because your grandmother intentionally set the enchantment that way” Jessilaen offered quietly. Allie winced.
“So, I’ll bite, what’s the good news?” Riordan asked.
“The good news is that if this is the book the–people–who attacked me in my store were looking for then they can’t kill me, or seriously hurt me, because they’ll need me to read the book for them.”
“You call that good news?” Walters scoffed, “that still leaves room for a lot of shit.”
“Yes, well, it’s all about perspective. Assuming the, er, people who attacked me aren’t connected to the murders, the bad news is if this book does contain information about the theory behind the ritual your killer is using–even the exact ritual itself–and I’m the only one who can read it, then as soon as the killer realizes that, it’s going to be in his best interest to kill me as quickly as possible.”
Jess’s arm tightened around her shoulders and she resisted the urge to lean her head against him. Oddly she wasn’t afraid for herself; she felt better having a few answers even if they weren’t what she’d wanted.
Walters’s voice was flat when he spoke, “You really think the guys who jumped you aren’t connected to these murders?”
“I don’t know why they’d want the grimoire if they already have the ritual,” she said honestly and his eyes narrowed.
“It seems unlikely that this book has the ritual itself,” Zarethyn said, reasonably, “More likely it contains the theory behind the ritual or other information that will lead us to understand why what is being done is being done.”
Allie nodded, “I may have misspoken. Obviously though, there’s something important in here and we need to know what it is.”
“How would the killer find out you have this magic book no one else can read?” Riordan asked
Allie looked down at the book, and spoke quietly “How did he know to kill Aeyliss, the one person here who could have tracked him down magically once we found the book?”
Jess tensed next to her and she could feel his rage. The silence in the room was so complete she could hear people breathing. As the minutes stretched out she finally forced herself to look up; all the elves were radiating a cold fury that was more than a little frightening, even to her and she knew she wasn’t its focus. The two humans were looking at each other, trying to communicate something silently.
“That’s a pretty serious accusation,” Riordan said grimly
Allie shook her head, “I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I’m stating the obvious–your killer has a way of finding things out. Maybe it’s a leak. Maybe it’s a spell. Maybe he wiretapped something–I have no idea–I just know that he knows. And if he has a way to find things out, whatever that way is, he will find this out too. It’s inevitable.”
Zarethyn’s voice when he spoke was totally devoid of any emotion, “You believe this is why Aeyliss was killed?”
Why do you think she was killed? Allie wondered. “I think it’s not a coincidence that he killed the one Guard that had the best chance of finding him. Her gift is rare–how quickly could you get another here with the same ability?”
Zarethyn locked eyes with her, searching, “It would be difficult. Months perhaps.”
“Exactly,” Allie refused to look away. “With her dead, finding him, even with the book, will be much harder.”
Zarethyn nodded. “We will find him.” His voice held unpleasant promises for the killer when that happened. Allie didn’t feel sorry about that at all.
“I’m sure you will. But you, “her eyes swept the room, “need to make a decision, because the risk is too great of the investigation being further derailed if I’m killed. As I see it there are three options: I can read the book straight through as fast as possible and summarize it for you. The advantage of course is that you’d have some idea of what’s going on pretty quickly, but the downside is you’d be relying on a summary and I might leave out important details unintentionally. I can read it out loud to someone else, sharing the info as it were, which will take longer. Or I can hand copy the entire book, which will take the longest of the three options but might be the best idea, overall. The risk of course is if I’m killed part way through.”
Jess wrapped his arms around her. “You will not be killed.”
“That’s a happy thought, but it would be foolish not to have a backup plan. Or several,” she said, refusing to look at him.
Walters was frowning, probably, Allie thought, at the idea that their whole investigation hinged on her.
Riordan looked thoughtful, “There’s no way to break the spell on the book so other people can read it?”
Allie shook her head, “I don’t think so, at least not quickly or easily. If it took years to set it could take months, at best, to remove.”
“According to you,” Walters said, “We only have your word that this even is the book. Maybe you’re just looking for attention.”
“You have no right to question her word,” Jess cut in, clearly angry.
“You aren’t exactly impartial, are you,” the Detective sneered unpleasantly. “Standing up for your girlfriend.”
“Walters,” Riordan tried to interrupt, “remember the handbo
ok.”
“Detective, do not presume to insult any of my officers,” Zarethyn said sharply.
“Screw the handbook, we’re all trusting this case to someone that shouldn’t even be involved, if you ask me.” Walters was getting red faced, and Allie sensed that the tension and stress was about to erupt in a very dangerous way.
“Enough!” she said forcefully, and then with everyone still glaring at each other, “Enough. We can’t start fighting now. Let’s start here; I’m already under Guard. (She ignored Walters scoffing and prayed Jess would too.) Let me read what I can tonight and see what the book says. Maybe that will help give us some answers to start with. But think about how you want me to proceed from there, because it’s too dangerous to keep things the way they are. One way or another, what’s in the book has to be shared out somehow.”
“Aliaine?” Brynneth said, speaking for the first time, “You had asked me to look for patterns with the timing of the deaths, do you remember?”
Everyone looked surprised, but Allie nodded, “Yeah, I remember. Did you find anything?”
“Yes, I did,” Brynneth replied, “Although I do not know if it will mean anything to you. As far as I am able to tell all of the girls were killed on the night of the dark moon.”
“Hmmmm,” Allie frowned, thinking. “Well, that goes along with the idea of inverse fertility I guess. Fertility magic is done on waxing or full moons, so the dark moon would be the energetic opposite of that.”
“That can’t be right,” Riordan said. “That would be four bodies over exactly three months but we started finding bodies 2 months ago and they aren’t evenly spaced out.”
“Looking at your reports, it would seem that the first victim found was the second one killed, and the second found the first killed; several of the bodies were not found immediately and so had begun to decay.” Brynneth said calmly.
Riordan nodded thoughtfully, but Walters was shaking his head. “There’s no way for you to look at those girls after they were found and know they were killed on whatever day of the moon.”
“It’s a tedious process,” Brynneth said, sounding annoyed. “But it can be done with time and patience.”
“Well, that gives me somewhere to start, anyway,” Allie said, suddenly sick of all the arguing. “Between that and knowing the killer’s targeting girls with mixed ancestry…”
“What do you mean–mixed ancestry?” Zarethyn queried; most of the others looked puzzled by her statement, but Walters looked really angry.
He probably thinks I’m saying that because I’m mixed, Allie suppressed a grimace, and he thinks it’s more attention seeking. Like being on some ritual murderer’s ideal victim list makes me happy. She tried to keep her voice even.
“All the victims had some degree of Fairy ancestry; I thought you knew that.”
“Are you certain?” Jess asked quietly. She wasn’t sure how they’d react to knowing it was Bleidd who had told her, but she trusted his perception. She nodded. The elves exchanged looks.
“If there’s nothing else I need to get started on this. This book is over 500 pages of cramped handwritten everything. It’s going to be a lot to go through and I don’t know yet if it’s coded.”
“Coded?” Riordan sounded as tired as she felt. “What do you mean coded?”
“Most grimoires were written in code. Sometimes runic alphabets, where you have to know the runes to read it, sometimes substitution codes, where you need to know that one word or phrase means something else, sometimes key codes, where a key aspects of each spell or ritual is left out. It’s all to ensure that the book can’t be used by anyone but the proper owner,” Allie said
“If it’s coded, can you, um, break the code?” Riordan asked.
“I have to,” Allie said grimly.
Zarethyn nodded abruptly, as if he had decided something, “Read the book and see what you can uncover; we will decide how else to handle it based on what you find. I believe you are correct in your evaluation of the gravity of your situation and the risk to our investigation should you be harmed. It would be best for you to come back with us to the Outpost, you can be protected there with less risk.”
“No way,” Walters said, as Riordan shook his head and added “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
The Elven Captain frowned, “It is the best course of action.”
“How about we put her in human protective custody?” Walters said “She’d be safer with us, and then there’d be no conflict of interest.”
“Conflict of interest?” Jess’s voice was dangerous
“Hey, I call ‘em like I see ‘em,” Walters said
“She would be safer at the Outpost.” Zarethyn started before Riordan interrupted him.
“In human custody…”
“Stop! Just stop,” Allie said, standing up and clutching the book. Jess stood up with her, his hand on her back. She couldn’t help but draw comfort from the touch, a steadying presence as she spoke. “I can’t just put my whole life on hold indefinitely until this is solved. I have a business to run if I’d like to keep paying my bills. I don’t want to be horribly murdered but I can’t run and hide either.”
Since the police, Syndra notwithstanding, hadn’t been protecting her so far anyway, she turned to the Elven Guard Captain, “I am deeply grateful for the offer, but if you cannot continue protecting me here then I will have to take my chances and get the book read and annotated as quickly as possible.”
He shook his head, and Allie’s mouth went dry. If he decided she qualified as a denizen of Fairy he could, theoretically, take her into his custody whether she wanted to go or not. But when he spoke it was with a grudging admiration, “From this point on, you will always have at least two Guards with you at all times, and another full squad assigned to patrol the area you are in, until this is resolved and the killer is captured.”
She wanted to argue with him, because it felt like a ridiculous amount of resources being wasted on her, but she sensed it would be futile. The elves wanted vengeance for Aeyliss’s death and they would do whatever it took, including babysitting her en masse, to find whoever that was. It offended her innate desire for personal freedom to think of having so many Guard with her all the time, and Gods knew how she’d explain it to Liz.
“That’s a lot of effort for one person,” Walters said, echoing Allie’s thoughts.
“All things are part of a greater pattern; we cannot always see what the pattern forms. For whatever reason Aliaine is the key to what is going on here, on different levels. She will lead us to understanding the pattern and solving the crime.” Zarethyn said calmly. Walters and Riordan both looked dubious, but the other elves, even the one who did not know Allie, were nodding. She had forgotten how much elves relied on synchronicity, the idea that things that appeared related, even if the relation was inexplicable, were in fact somehow linked on a deeper level. She wondered if his belief that her involvement was synchronous was why he was willing to let her make her own decisions about where to stay, and she wasn’t sure if she should be grateful about it or worried about the added pressure for her to find the answers they needed.
*********************************
When he finally finished his shift and got back to his apartment, Walters put his fist through a wall. He’d managed to keep it together in front of his partner, but inside he’d spent the rest of the day fuming. Bad enough that she’d found the book and immediately told the damn elves, but worse that she’d quickly put several pieces together about the ritual itself. He’d worked hard to make it look like there was no timing pattern and that dumb bitch turned right around and pointed it out to everyone. Up until now no one had realized the girls weren’t entirely human–and damn if it wasn’t a stone bitch to find each one of them–and there she went pointing it out.
How’d she even know? He thought, hitting the wall again. How’s she fitting it all together so quickly? Fuck! I should have killed her when I first realized she’d be trouble. He was sta
rting to wonder how he could do it, if it was worth risking shooting her, with the chance that ballistic evidence might trip him up where he’d always been so careful before, when his private phone rang.
He grabbed it convulsively, and the familiar voice was speaking as soon as he turned it on, “Don’t panic. Everything’s under control.”
He took a deep breath, wanting to yell, but knowing better, “I can’t see how. She has the book, she says no one else can read it and she holds onto it like it’s stapled to her hand. And the Guards are always within touching distance, especially that one blond one.”
“I have a plan. You may not like it, but we need to throw them a red herring.” He had no idea how his contact could stay so calm.
“I could kill the mixed blood girl and steal the book,” he suggested, trying not to get his hopes up.
“No. Absolutely not. You just said yourself she’s never alone and it’s too dangerous to try to orchestrate anything on your end.”
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