"You remind me of my grandmother. She'd smack dad upside the head, and admonish him in her thick Scottish accent for calling the Lions game football." Bailey chuckled.
"LeBlanc is a french name, is it not?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Also where I got the blonde hair from." Bailey nodded. "My mother's mother would smack my father upside the head. Not his mother."
"Ah." I nodded. "Okay. So. Back to Eva." Bailey's company was distracting. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it was just the first time I particularly noticed that in spite of the forces of evil circling us like carrion birds, I genuinely enjoyed her company. She was comforting. Warm. I cleared my throat at that realization, because I had not, in the history of ever, actually enjoyed anyone's company. "She told me that Tracy was super focused at school. Her only real extracurricular activity was work and her boyfriend. On top of that, she passed on the helpful tidbit about her apparently having an angry conversation with her father."
"That's it." Bailey said, snapping her fingers. "We know her father was dead, when she had that call. Presumably she assumed someone had her father, or was going to hurt her father. The call was probably with whoever killed him."
"We need Tracy's phone records." I nodded.
"And we need to check in on Eva." Bailey added.
I blinked. That's all the time it took me to jump to the same conclusion.
"She's the only other living person that has this information. If this person is willing to attack three armed police officers, a Sharkbucks barista probably doesn't rate a very high threat." I nodded.
"How do we find her, though?" Bailey asked. "We don't even have a last name. You can't exactly google Eva the Sharkbucks girl."
"Would you like me if I told you that the items in my possession, like, say, the card I gave her, have a certain amount of residual magic discharge from my life force, and that I can trace hers, specifically, because it's the last one I handed out, and thus would have the most amount of residual magic?"
"Get dressed." Bailey stood up. "Let's go."
Hastily grabbing a pair of black slacks, I hurriedly grabbed my wand, jacket and shoes, and at 4 in the morning, we rushed off to go save a Sharkbucks barista.
Day 2
September 1st, 2019
Knights in unprofessional armor
It was a mad drive, with the lights on, but the siren off, as we crossed through New Westminster, where I lived, to the area of Vancouver known for student housing.
We arrived to see police, fire, and ambulance lights already outside one building, and every magical trace indicated the card was that way.
"Fuck. She's dead." Bailey whispered. Her colorful sentiments adequately summed up my immediate thoughts.
"I really hope not." I told her. Belief was a very important thing. If I believed it hard enough, there was a chance. Well. Statistically, there was no real difference, but I liked to pretend.
We got out of the car, and flashed our badges.
"Taking casual dress code a bit lightly, there, Noir?" One of the officers asked.
In fairness, I looked approximately as professional as Frank had, when we first met. I understood the officer's concerns.
"Shut up." I also didn't care about them. Maybe Frank had a point. "Is the girl okay?" I asked.
"I'm fine." Eva said, in the distance. She looked shaken.
"What happened?" I asked, rushing to her side, disregarding the paramedics around her.
"He killed him." Eva said. Her voice cracked twice, in three syllables. Shock was not a difficult diagnosis.
"What?" Bailey asked. "Who killed who?"
"There was a man." Eva said, quietly. "In a ski mask. He was asking questions about me. I was hiding under the bed. When my boyfriend refused to answer his questions, he just killed him."
"One of the other kids saw the ski mask and blood, and pulled the fire alarm. Probably saved the kid's life." One of the uniformed officers added. "Perp ran like the wind. Used the fire exits, that weren't alarmed, now that the fire alarm was pulled."
I looked at Bailey in silence. I desperately hoped she had an idea. A plan. A fart she was holding in sufficiently to look contemplative. Anything.
"You're coming with me." Bailey instructed. "I've got somewhere safe in mind."
I gave Bailey a perplexed look. This wasn't a fart, but it was surprisingly reassuring. "A blue smart car isn't exactly nondescript."
"We have to drive out that way, anyway. My car is at my station." Bailey explained.
It was a plan to stem the tide of blood. I had to admit a certain sense of relief. We were running out of plans. And leads. And living witnesses. And living investigating officers.
We carefully helped Eva into the back of the car.
She looked between us both. "You two look like you've had a REALLY rough night."
"Since we last spoke, I tripped across 6 other bodies." I said, quietly. "Do you want to drive?" I offered the keys to Bailey
"I'm going to fall asleep, if we're being honest. I need one of those energy booster shots." Bailey frowned.
"Alright. I'll drive. When we're far enough away, I'll pull over, and you can run in and grab us some supplies." I nodded. "It's going to be a long drive. I'm taking the scenic route."
"Aren't you tired?" Bailey asked.
"As it so happens, no." I wasn't about to explain to Bailey that because I more or less ran on magic, and she had an unusual effect on me, I was presently running on a fuller tank than I'd had in years, and could probably stay awake for a week straight, at this point. Partly because Eva was in the car. Partly because I wasn't sure why Bailey was affecting me like this.
"Well, thank small miracles." Bailey nodded. "Drive." She added, getting into the car.
I didn't wait around very long. I picked a complicated route, that went in four circles before I pulled over. "Don't dawdle." I told Bailey.
"Why don't I just stay with one of you?" Eva asked, quietly, as Bailey went in to the shop.
"They'll expect it." I explained. I decided that the information that someone actively tried to murder us twice at my house, within the past 6 hours, was probably not reassuring information.
Eva nodded. "That actually makes sense." She admitted. "Do you have like some sneaky secret safe house?"
"Better." I told her. "Bailey has a sneaky secret safe house, and she works out of Maple Ridge."
Eva looked notably relieved by this information.
"Hey, that phone call. The one you overheard." I said, looking in the mirror. "Is there ANYTHING about it that you remember? Specific things said?"
Eva shook her head. "I just heard her shouting dad in the bathroom. Through the door. I couldn't hear the rest. Is… is that why I'm in danger?"
"That tiny little scrap of information is the only information we had before bodies started dropping like flies. So. Yes." I nodded.
"That's why they killed Kevin?" Eva asked.
"And Frank." I said, quietly.
There was a silence between us.
"You're going to get this bastard, right?" Eva frowned.
"He's already failed at killing me twice." I nodded. It was actually three times if you included him shooting at me, which I had nearly forgotten by this point.
Eva laid her head against the side of the car, and closed her eyes.
Bailey returned with a couple bags of snacks. "I got-" Bailey blinked, and looked at Eva.
"What did you say, to get her to calm down?" Bailey whispered.
"She asked me if I was going to get this bastard." I said, rifling through the bag. "Oh. Yes. Bear claws. Score."
"What did you tell her?" Bailey said. "Hey, that's mine!"
I gave her a frown. "Fiiine, but I'm having the mini-donuts."
Bailey gave me a glare. "You can have the bear claw."
"Thanks." I chuckled. "I told her he already failed to kill me twice."
"Considering everyone else he's put in his sights has died, I can see how she'd find that
reassuring." Bailey nodded.
"You might want to follow her lead. I'm taking the long way out. I want to know if we're being followed." I gestured to the bag. "Before you drink half your body weight in highly concentrated caffeine."
"Probably a good call." Bailey admitted.
She leaned the seat back a little, and dozed off quickly.
There it was again. As I drove away, keeping my attention on the road, I felt a surge in energy. In belief.
Right this second, these two people felt safe, because I was here.
They felt protected. Cared about.
They believed I would keep them alive.
They believed I would catch this son of a bitch.
And that was one hell of a magical charge.
For the first time, since I had started being a police officer, I was absolutely certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is exactly the job I hoped it would be.
The LeBlanc maneuver
This particular scenic route was nearly two hours long. The car had been quiet, while the other women slept. It was peaceful. The sun climbed into the morning's sky. Birds flew over head. Clouds drifted by. Traffic was going the other way. I'd probably have had to stop for gas, were it not for the car being a hybrid. Instead, I could just drive, in the relative peace, and my nerves settled down enough for me to think straight.
It was almost enough of a moment to make me forget a serial killer had repeatedly attempted to murder everyone in this car.
Almost.
We pulled in to the police parking lot, and I gently woke the others. It was vacant, at this time of the morning. I appreciated that.
Bailey wrote down an address on the back of one of my cards, after programming my number in to her phone. "Meet me there in three hours."
"Good luck." I nodded.
Bailey helped Eva into a black civic. As nondescript cars went, that was the nondescript-iest.
I waited for them to leave, before pulling out, and rooting through the remaining supplies. Unfortunately, I had neglected to mention to Bailey that eating beef jerky was never going to happen to me. It's not that I was vegan, or anything. I've covered the fact that Fae were involuntarily vegetarian, but that I embraced meat, eventually.
It was that a single strip of beef jerky has an entire box of McDonald's fries worth of salt in them, and five times the fat of any four combined things on the McDonald's menu.
Superfood, my black tutu. Bacon was probably healthier.
The rules of dietary ingestion still applied to magical entities, and that tiny bit of beef jerky was equivalent to more exercise than I would recreationally care to do in a week. I already had enough flight speed impediments.
A bacon cheeseburger was worth the effort. Not a flavorless dried out stick of meat.
Now I was hungry. Damn.
As luck has it, a 24 hour diner did, in fact, serve cheeseburgers, and that was how I spent an hour and twenty minutes of my time to kill. It wasn't a particularly good cheeseburger, but at 8 o'clock in the morning, there weren't other cheeseburgers. Oh, sure. Other chains claimed you could order a burger in spite of them being on their breakfast menu, but the staff would hate you for it, and probably spit in your food. I had only made the mistake once of complaining to corporate after an overnight patrol, that one of the burger joints refused to serve me a burger on breakfast menu. Every time thereafter, I entered that restaurant, and upon recognizing me, malicious intent towards my meals became very prolific.
It took a further 45 minutes after eating my burger to arrive at the address Bailey had left me. That left a further 45 minutes to kill.
I did so by turning on the local news station, and listening in silence.
The weather went by. The morning's news. The bodies were hastily covered with as few facts as possible, though, in fairness, I was the lead investigating officer, and appreciated the brevity, because the 37 seconds of air time adequately summed up my presently available case summary, barring my own near death experiences, flirting with a traffic cop from another jurisdiction, and our efforts to save a barista.
The news report went by. Then traffic. Then sports. Then traffic. Then money news.
I looked up at a passing bus, and stared at the advertisement, while it let passengers off. It was advertising one of the increasingly commonplace superhero shows they filmed here.
Bailey was one of the passengers who stepped off, and she walked up to the car.
"Son of a bitch." I blinked.
"What?" Bailey looked back at the bus. "Oh. Yeah. I'm pissed off that they didn't renew that one for another season, too."
"No, that's not it." I shook my head. "Come on. Traffic is buggered. We've got a long drive in." I paused. "Where did you stash her?"
"Dad's place." Bailey nodded. "Dad was a cop. He retired. Mom was a lawyer. You don't even want to picture the Christmas dinners."
I shook my head, and laughed. "He's armed, I take it?"
"He's a hunter with a room dedicated to those terrifying dead animal heads on the wall." Bailey nodded.
"I know how to narrow down our suspect pool." I told her, as the car slowed into already backed up traffic.
"Do tell." Bailey said. "I know we've got chasing him off and Eva being alive in the win column, but I could handle a few more."
"He's not necessarily super-human, but he is definitely EXTRA-human. Think about the endurance this would have required. The strength to overpower this many people. The firearms accuracy at the car dealership. Not a single wasted bullet. The carefully crafted escape plans. Every. Single. Time. The attention to emergency response plan details. He torched the rental car within ten blocks. This isn't something police get trained for." I said, quietly.
"So, you're thinking our suspect pool is ex-military officers?" Bailey asked.
"Or some other agency that would instill such training." I nodded. "Regardless, it rules out a LOT of our suspect pool. Most of the hospital staff, for certain."
"You didn't eat my beef jerky." Bailey said, giddily opening the package.
"I-" I stopped. "Figured you were saving it." I added, deciding a lecture on salt and fat intake wasn't the best use of time. Not that we didn't have time. There were red lights and tail lights for several kilometers ahead.
I just looped back to the thing about actually enjoying her company, and decided that nutritional lectures might discourage her from thinking the same thing.
Instead, we drove along in silence, while she awkwardly chewed on the preserved beef.
Dental hygiene lectures were also voted down.
It was a weird thing, I decided. Actually caring about another living being, and whether or not they liked you. It wasn't an event that had occurred previously.
She leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes.
Probably the best use of her time, at this point.
Time rolled on. I got cut off 217 times. We had to wait for a train that should have been illegal during rush hour traffic. It was nearly 12:30 by the time we actually made it in.
At least Bailey had a nice nap.
I was beginning to think this was a deliberate ploy to allow her time for naps.
I dubbed this 'the LeBlanc maneuver'.
As far as I was concerned, it was further indication that this woman was secretly a genius, who just hid behind a wall of caffeine intake and unhealthy amounts of dried meat.
All around the misinformation bush-
When we finally arrived, Bailey yawned, and stretched, and looked well rested. It occurred to me then that this was her plan. By looking refreshed, and rested, it would throw off anyone, and everyone looking at us closely. When did she have time to sleep? It implied that we both rested well, and that Eva wasn't hidden far, if the person examining us was the killer, and otherwise, that nothing was out of the ordinary.
It was quite plausibly brilliant.
It was also quite plausibly entirely unintended.
It worked. That's all I gave a crap ab
out, as I stepped into the Captain's office, closing the door behind me.
"Seven bodies." The captain grumbled.
"Yeah." It didn't really seem like further elaboration was needed.
He gave me a silent questioning look, and held up his Sharkbucks cup.
I nodded, barely.
"Good." He said, relieved. "That means this guy is fallible, and we can catch him."
He looked to Bailey, who observed the other officers in the squad room, casually.
"You didn't bother to bring her in?" The Captain asked.
"Two fold reason. Would have drawn attention, because she's an outsider, and it gives her the opportunity to observe, without being unexpected in the area." I nodded.
"What's she looking for?" The Captain asked.
I walked over to turn my back on the squad room, and pretended to look at a report on the Captain's desk.
"When I'm done looking, I want you to follow me out of the room, yelling about how I need to do better. Pepper it with details about someone Frank previously arrested. Make it seem like I think the car dealership was a setup for Frank. Forward me a list, too." I nodded. "We suspect the perpetrator is military trained, and I don't want them looking too closely at Constable LeBlanc."
"God DAMN IT, NOIR! THIS IS SERIOUS! YOU COME TO ME WITH THIS SHIT?" The Captain shouted. "OF COURSE, YOU SHOULD QUESTION THE GUY WHO THREATENED TO KILL FRANK WHEN HE GOT OUT OF JAIL, AFTER HE GOT OUT OF JAIL. GET YOUR DAMNED HEAD OUT OF THE CLOUDS, AND STOP DAYDREAMING ABOUT THAT USELESS CHICK FROM UNIFORMS, WHO CLEARLY ISN'T BEING ANY ACTUAL HELP!"
"Captain, I was just running it by you in case he sues for police harassment-" I protested.
"FRANK IS DEAD, NOIR." The Captain pointed, with the best fake irate look on his face I had ever seen. "I DON'T GIVE A SHIT IF HE SUES. HARASS THE FUCK OUT OF HIM!"
"Alright, alright, I'm going." I said, holding up my hands. "You coming?"
"Hmmm?" Bailey looked up from her phone. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry." She added, before hastily following along.
Fae Noir- the Murderer in Blue Page 6