Henri Davenforth was not really a people person. I’d gotten that sense, at least, so when it came time to hit the streets, I didn’t invite him to go along.
Penny had told me flat out before that she wanted to learn proper investigative techniques. This seemed like a good opportunity to snag her. I swung by the front desk and propped myself on it. “Penny, you free?”
She looked up, hazel eyes lighting at the corners, visibly perking. “Are you going out?”
“Need to hit the streets, see if anyone’s spied our girl that played reporter and snuck in,” I explained, watching as she pulled her jacket on. “Davenforth’s got lab work to do, thought you’d like to go with me.”
Pulling her cap firmly on, hiding that dirty blond hair, she grinned at me. “Always. Where do we start?”
“Well, I highly doubt that she was actually a reporter for a newspaper, and I have a suspicion that she’s worked with this thieves’ ring before. Or one like it. She was very smooth about getting in, and that suggests experience. I’ve only got a vague description to go off of, though. Who are the gossips? Who in this area notices everyone and everything?”
Penny led the way out the door, clearly thinking, and she didn’t answer until we were outside and on the front sidewalk. “Mrs. Graves reports to me at least once a week about a domestic matter. Her flower shop is down this street, right there on the corner.”
I followed her pointing finger and nodded. Good vantage point, and she might not have seen our girl in question, but she’d be a good starting point. “Okay, lead the way.”
With any luck, even if I didn’t get a name, I’d at least have a better description.
I went home that night troubled on several points but unable to solve them all. Then I entered my apartment, saw the borrowed dish sitting neatly on the edge of the counter, and realized that I had once again failed to return it. Really, I’d gone outside the politely allotted time to return the dish and render proficient thanks, and if I delayed even a day more, it would be mortally embarrassing.
Show me one person on this planet that liked to be embarrassed.
For a moment, I felt flat footed on what to give in return until I remembered I had a small box of gourmet chocolates I hadn’t opened yet. I’d planned that for an after-dinner snack, but small sacrifices could be made. Especially if I could charm her into a repeat of that wonderful dish.
Gathering up dish and chocolates, I headed to the third floor. I had, at least, remembered to ask Mrs. Henderson what room her female tenant resided in. So I did know where to go.
When I reached the correct door, I heard singing in a feminine tone, although I didn’t recognize the melody or the lyrics. She possessed a rather nice voice. It had a catchy, infectious beat, and I found my nerves relaxing a smidge because of it. Raising my hand, I knocked firmly on the door.
The singing stopped and within seconds the portal opened. The occupant immediately spotted the dish in my hands and started laughing. “Now, what should we call this,” Jamie Edwards inquired, eyes crinkling up, “kismet? Fate?”
“Circumstantial evidence would suggest coincidence,” I managed although it took me a moment to find my tongue. Truly, this situation was absurd. “Of course, I should have guessed that a new female tenant, foreign, who can cook a dish I’ve never heard of would be you.”
“You really should have,” she mock scolded, stepping back and waving me inside. “Peer into your crystal ball more often, it might help.”
I paused two steps inside to give her a confused look. “Crystal ball?”
Edwards groaned, heaving an exaggerated sigh. “How is it that I’m in a magical world but none of the magical puns or idioms apply?”
Ah, something from her world, then. I focused for a moment on the interior. Despite the fact that my apartment resided a floor below hers, Edwards’ apartment looked substantially different. She possessed a single couch, no chairs, although two ottomans rested on either side of the couch. Not a book in sight, although I suspected she had her study materials in the second bedroom. It took me a moment to realize what was missing—no portraits of family, no photographs, none of the clutter that one accumulates through a lifetime of living. She had basic furniture, a few portfolios stacked on the coffee table with designs on the pages, and that was all.
It made me inherently sad to see it.
Not being the shy sort, Edwards opened up the box of chocolates and bit off a chunk with a moan of pleasure. “Mmm, now where did you get these?”
“The Kingston Chocolatory,” I answered, pulling my attention back to her. “It’s several streets over. I’ll show you where, if you like.”
“I’m counting on you. These are the best chocolates I’ve had since my arrival.” Edwards indicated a bar stool near the kitchen island, which I hesitantly took, as it occurred to me that my presence in a female’s domain without a chaperone might be a breach of etiquette. Then again, I had no other recourse without being rude, as obviously our cultural rules made no sense to Edwards.
Better to just behave and not do anything questionable.
Edwards put the dish up in the open shelves and asked, “Well, what did you think of the curry?”
Hearing the word from her own mouth made me realize the pronunciation from Mrs. Henderson’s mouth was different, and I revised my mental dictionary accordingly. “Divine. Are you amiable to sharing the recipe?”
“Or cooking it for you on occasion?” she asked knowingly, brows arched slightly in amusement. “Yes, Davenforth, I can do that. I admit it’s not quite what I’m used to, as I’ve had to work with the herbs and spices you have on this planet, but it’s a similar version. I just wish you had basmati rice. This short grain stuff you have isn’t really suitable for curry.”
“I’m amazed you could adapt anything. I imagine our foods are very different.”
“Yes and no. You seem to have a few staples that are the same—I’m not too surprised at that, your climate is very similar to my home world’s—but there’s a few things that are missing. It’s jarring, because I can almost convince myself I’m in some reenactment village or on a movie set, and then I come across that missing element, and I’m reminded all over again I’m not on Earth.” A flash of sadness crossed her face.
If I were more of a gentleman, I would leave it alone, but I couldn’t help but ask. “Like what? What’s missing?”
“Cats, for one.” Her hands rose in illustration, held roughly a foot apart. “Small furry creatures about this long, that high, very flexible with a long tail and ears that stand up. They’re adorably cute and very good hunters.”
I found this description of the animal strange and yet somehow familiar. “If they’re that small, what do they hunt?”
“Mice, birds, bugs. Sometimes they get ambitious and tackle moles and gophers as well. Basically anything they feel like they can take down.”
Her description rang something of a bell with me. I felt like I’d heard of something like this before although I couldn’t quite place a mental finger on it. “What else?”
“Strawberries,” she answered with a nostalgic sigh. She braced her forearms against the counter top, amiably leaning toward me, as comfortable as an old friend. “I do miss strawberries. Small red berries shaped like a triangle with a green top. Have a very juicy, sweet flavor to them. But you know the thing I miss most? TV.”
I shook my head, not having enough context to even guess what she meant. “TV?”
“Television.” She paused, mouth pursing thoughtfully, her expression one I’d come to recognize as ‘thinking mode’ when she considered how best to explain something. “I’ve told friends about this before, but I honestly haven’t found a good way to explain it. You remember how I told you about the small, mobile telephones? Okay, good, there’s a device that’s similar to that called a television. Although they eventually got huge. Hmm, maybe a bad analogy.”
“Edwards,” I requested patiently, “focus.”
She
grinned at me unrepentantly. “Sorry. Okay, so imagine a box that you can set in your living room, and through that box you can see almost any play imaginable. It’s a recorded projection, which shows live on the screen of the box. Kind of like your recording boxes? How they project against the wall? Well, these are projected against a screen so you can see it.”
That sounded fascinating. “This ‘movie’ thing that you mentioned before, is it similar?”
“It’s how you watch movies, through a television set.” Her eyes narrowed and she adjusted her position so that she was braced against the island, leaning slightly toward me. “I mentioned that in passing. Are you retaining everything I tell you?”
I shrugged, deliberately blasé. “I’m attempting to do so. I’m very curious about your world, the inventions you’ve mentioned to me.”
Edwards narrowed her eyes further, studying me. “Is that right. Well, I’m curious about things as well, Doctor. How about a little game of quid pro quo?”
I could tell the phrase was one she used, but not one she truly understood the meaning of, as the translating spell she had on her didn’t know what to do with it. “Those last three words, they’re not in your native tongue.”
She blinked, startled. “You could hear them? They didn’t translate?”
“No.” I steepled my fingers under my chin and stared at her. “These words, you don’t know the meaning of them.”
Edwards dipped her head in slow acknowledgement, still a little off balance. “Correct. They’re Latin, not English, and I know the general meaning of them but not the precise definition. It means we take turns asking each other questions, tit for tat.”
I had some secrets, every person did, but she did not know me well enough to sense my sore points just yet. I felt it safe enough to play the game. “I’m agreeable. Who starts?”
“Me, since you’ve asked me a dozen questions already.” Drawing up a stool, she sat, comfortably crossing her legs. “I heard a rumor that you’re from a well-to-do family. Truth?”
“Truth, in a sense,” I answered, not surprised by this question. Females always wanted to know about a man’s family for some reason. “My family has connections with the aristocracy although we are not ourselves of that bloodline. I choose to work, however, as being a man of leisure is deadly dull. My brain would rot out of my skull if I didn’t have some occupation to turn my mind to. Now, my turn: The rumors I heard about you are very conflicting. How long have you been on this world?”
“We estimate a year and a half.” Her eyes turned all cop. “I honestly can’t tell you how long Belladonna had me before I managed to kill her. But after that, Sherard had me for about five months, almost six, getting me stable again. I spent a lot of my time either asleep or learning about this world. Then, of course, I went through an abbreviated version of the Police Academy in order to learn the laws of Kingston. I came into the precinct four months ago.”
Curiosity ate at me, demanding I ask how she managed to kill the most famous witch in history. I bit the question back. “I believe it’s your turn.”
“So it is. How long have you been a sideline handyman?”
The joking way she asked this had me rolling my eyes. “Mrs. Henderson is under the impression that a doctor knows everything, no matter what field or endeavor. I’ve learned it’s futile to try and convince her otherwise. Fortunately, most of her troubles come from the electrical upgrades she’s put into the building, which I have an interest in.”
“I see.” Her smile stayed steady as she continued, “I think I know what you want to ask next. How did I kill the witch? I thought as much. This is going to be somewhat anti-climactic, but I killed her with my bare hands.”
The answer so stunned me that my jaw dropped and I gaped at her like some moronic buffoon.
“I’m going to have to back up and tell the story,” Edwards said as much to herself as to me, her dumbfounded audience. “Alright. You don’t have an alphabet agency here, but you do have the King’s Service, which is more or less the equivalent. Think of me as a Kingsman, alright? On Earth that’s basically what I was. I trained for hand-to-hand combat, guns, investigative procedures, criminal behavior, et cetera. When Belladonna brought me through, I’d been on my way home after a thirty-nine-hour mission, so I was dead on my feet. I didn’t react as quickly as I could have and she got the drop on me. I was in stasis for a long time after that but eventually I realized I was one of six she’d brought through. The only woman, oddly enough. I’m not sure if that was by design or happenstance, though.
“Anyway, she poured all sorts of potions and spells into us. I’m not sure how much time passed before she thought to put a translating spell on us, several months I think, because we’d lost three at that point. After that, from what I could decipher of her mutterings, she wanted a strong guardian who was cognizant enough to not need monitoring. She’d tried golems, but they needed too much attention to keep going, which was when she hit upon the idea of suborning humans.
“Some of the spells worked, some didn’t. I’m sure you’ve noticed my sense of smell is strong? Yes, I thought so. All of my senses are better than a normal human’s. Sherard measures them to be twenty-two percent better. She increased other things, too, like stamina. Although I’m not sure how well that took, all things considered. She was down to two of us when she reached some sort of acceptance of our state and then hit us with the last of the spells. They were strengthening spells—for bones, muscle density, regeneration powers. The single man standing couldn’t withstand the pain. His heart stopped. I barely withstood it.” Her mouth turned up into a humorless smirk. “I’m trained for torture, you see.”
No, I didn’t see. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to even imagine this woman, who was fast becoming my friend, in such deplorable circumstances.
“The last changes were her undoing.” Edwards continued as if reciting a report, in the same calm tone she’d recited the story in. Even her posture didn’t change, still leaning comfortably on the counter top. “She didn’t think to question the manacles keeping me in place. With the changes, I was strong enough to break free. I did it the minute her back was turned, caught her head in my hands, and broke her neck.”
The scene painted itself in my head in vivid swatches of color and pain and I winced.
“What came after was…interesting,” she declared with more animation than before, relaxing with each consecutive word. “I stumbled out of the cave she’d squirreled herself into, followed a road to the next town, and talked to the first policeman I saw. He didn’t know what to make of my story at first, but once he had the basics down, he took me straight to the mayor. They were so excited—and a little alarmed, I think—that they called immediately to Kingston for reinforcements. I got to rest for a few hours before leading an investigative squad back to the cave. Several Kingsmen were with us, as well as a Royal Mage. It took me several months to realize that I am not, in fact, on a parallel world to Earth but some other planet entirely. I’m still not really sure how I feel about that, as parts of your culture are very confusing, and I wonder if a parallel world would have been easier to get used to. In other ways, I’m kinda glad, as it’s more of an adventure this way. I really can’t use Earth as a comparison to here.”
“Is that why you chose to be a detective and not a Kingsman? Considering your training and experience on Earth, I would think it boring to be a normal detective.”
“Not at all.” She raised a hand, ticking points off on her fingers. “In order to be a Kingsman, you have to understand politics, magic, different cultures, and have handy fighting skills. I don’t know enough about this world to fill those shoes. It’s better for me to be a detective, learn the ropes. If and when I get comfortable enough with Draiocht, then I can consider a career change.”
Her approach to the matter seemed entirely sensible and I found nothing objectionable about it. I also imagined that she had much more to tell of the tale. However, she’d more than answered my q
uestion. I decided to let it lie, for now. “I’m very glad you survived.”
“I am, too.”
My ears pricked at these words and I studied her expression for a long moment. “You really mean that.”
Edwards met me look for look. “You think I’m not glad to be alive?”
“You’re far from home, with no possibility of contacting family or returning, in a land that makes no sense to you. You survived a horrible ordeal that would break anyone’s spirit. I imagine that life would be difficult to bear some days.”
“I have my share of nightmares,” she agreed as if we were discussing the passing weather of the season. “But if I was the type to give up on life, I would have done it in that cave.”
Her courage was breathtaking. Inspiring. I hoped, if I were ever in similar circumstances, that I would fight just as hard to survive.
I don’t know what prompted me to say it, but the words tumbled out of my mouth on their own: “The next time you have those nightmares, remember that my apartment is directly below yours. My door is always open to you.”
Her expression softened and Edwards gave me a blinding smile. “You’re a real sweetheart, Henri Davenforth. I appreciate it.”
I spent the next week devising a new interlocking system of wards to turn the five buildings in the police precinct into a compound, based on the model Newell had quickly sketched out. I had to refine and redesign elements of it, but it worked astonishingly well. So well, in fact, that my captain informed me he wanted the other police precincts in the city to do the same. I fully expected the other warding specialists in the city to pay me a visit to examine what I had done.
Hopefully it would be enough to deter the thieves. I still had no idea how they’d pulled off their last heist.
I did take a few hours to help Edwards research our files, see if there were any other cases with a similar pattern to the crime committed here. A few looked similar, and she took notes on those. I did most of the reading, of course, but I wrote down a few key words for her and she was able to scan through the files and see if any of them had those words in them. If they did, I would give them a closer perusal. It sped up the process and gave her something useful to do without the situation degenerating into something borderline insulting.
Magic and the Shinigami Detective Page 9