by Sean Stone
‘Just need a bandage.’ He got up and went back to the cabinet where he began rummaging about for a first aid kit. There was one in there somewhere. I wasn’t too concerned about that though. I’d just won a very close death match and there was something more pressing on my mind. I took myself to the drinks cabinet behind my desk and began pouring a big old glass of Captain Morgan’s rum.
‘Priorities…’ Drew muttered disapprovingly.
I was halfway back to the sofa when the door swung open and Leah stormed in with a look of fury I’d never seen on her face before. When she saw me her eyes flew open in surprise and she backed up apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, Jacob. I heard voices and thought… the other night I caught a couple of the bar staff in here,’ she explained.
‘In here? What were they doing in here?’ I was going to have to start locking the door. Privacy was important to me, especially when I had an office full of magical goods. If they fell into the wrong hands they could be quite dangerous. The cabinet was locked magically so that only myself and Drew could open it, but still, I didn’t like the idea of people wandering in freely.
‘Uh…’ Leah said awkwardly screwing her face up in an expression that told me exactly what they’d been doing.
‘Oh, God…’ I said as it dawned on me. ‘Where?’ Her eyes flicked to my desk. ‘No,’ I said, placing a hand on my desk and then quickly snatching it away.
‘That’s where I caught them. Who’s to say where they started,’ she added with a shrug. A small smile had crept onto her face.
I looked over at my sofa. That was where I’d start. I’d never had sex in my office and knowing that somebody else had did not sit well. I couldn’t have somebody else christen my own office. It was outrageous.
‘By the way, sorry about my sister showing up earlier. I had no idea she was even in town,’ she said, reminding me about the weird exchange and that her sister had seen me with Kagen’s discombobulated body in the loading bay. Then I remembered that the head was sitting on my desk. I fought the urge to glance at it. If I looked at it then she would too. I needed to keep her eyes on me. Drew had stopped rifling through the cabinet and was now standing in front of it, blocking the contents from view. Leah knew I was a wizard, that was common knowledge, but she didn’t need to see some of the more questionable items I kept in my cabinet.
‘Speaking of your sister,’ I said, moving toward the sofa and drawing her eyes as far away from my desk as possible. ‘I got the impression from your meeting earlier that you aren’t quite what I thought.’
‘In what way?’ she asked. I couldn’t tell if she was feigning ignorance or if she really didn’t know what I was implying. I decided to just come right out and say it.
‘You’re not a Nocult, are you?’
One eyebrow twitched upwards but that was the only reaction I got. ‘To be fair, I never said I was.’
‘And I never asked,’ I agreed. I’d made an assumption and never bothered to confirm it. I guess I just couldn’t see why anyone supernatural would want to be an accountant. That was a boring Nocult job. Magical beings were made for better things. ‘So what are you?’
Her eyes flicked down to the floor contemplatively before retuning to meet mine. ‘I’d rather keep that to myself.’
‘Oh…’ I hadn’t been expecting that. I don’t know why but I’d just thought she would answer my question.
‘It doesn’t affect my job performance in any way. I’ve done a good job so far without you knowing,’ she pointed out quickly.
‘It’s not like I’m going to fire you for not telling me,’ I said, adding an embarrassing giggle to the end of the sentence. Not sure why I did that. ’Your sister. She’s not going to cause any problems is she? The last thing I need is her bringing any kind of attention to my business.’
Leah shook her head profusely. ‘Not at all. Don’t worry, my sister will cause no problems for your business. Your businesses are safe. Both of them.’
I smiled for about a second before her words dawned on me. ‘What do you—’
‘Your head is on fire,’ she interrupted.
‘What?’ my hands shot to my head to check for flames but there were none.
‘No, the other head,’ she said, pointed over at the desk where Kagen’s head had now turned into a giant flaming ball.
‘Fuck!’ Drew shouted.
I acted out of instinct and threw my drink at the flaming head. Stupid instincts. The flames roared with new life and shot up to the ceiling. Leah strode into the room, grabbed the fire extinguisher from the corner and pointed the nozzle at the fire. It was pointless, though. By the time she’d pressed the button the fire vanished leaving nothing but a charred spot on my desk. The head was completely gone. A moment later the whole desk was coated in white foam.
‘What was that?’ she asked, looking over at me. The fire extinguisher was hanging limply in one of her hands.
‘Uh…’ I glanced over at Drew desperate for some help.
‘She obviously knows what you do,’ he said with a shrug.
‘I do. But don’t worry. Your secret is completely safe with me,’ she assured me.
‘Really?’ I asked in surprise. She wasn’t going to blackmail me, or worse turn me in. ‘You don’t think it’s at all deplorable, what I do?’
She shook her head. ‘I know the kinds of people you… work with. They deserve what they get.’
So, three people had grown to four. Four was too many people to keep a secret. I don’t know why but I trusted her. I knew that Leah would never tell anyone the truth about me. I don’t know what I’d done to earn her loyalty but I did have it and I was thankful. If only she trusted me enough to tell me her secret. It was better that she didn’t. When people started exchanging secrets it meant a relationship was forming. The only relationship Leah and I needed was a professional one. No attachments.
Leah excused herself to get back to working and I let her go without any more questions. At least I wouldn’t need to hide so much from her at the club now. It would be a relief to go about more freely.
‘Why the hell did that head catch fire?’ I said, turning back to Drew.
‘No idea.’ He shook his head slowly, his eyes trained on the place where the head had been sitting. ‘But I’ve got a hunch. I’m going to the Hall to hit the books. I’ll let you know what I find.’
‘Well, what’s the hunch?’ I asked, but he was already at the door. ‘You’ll have to do your own bandage. Make sure you do or the salve will wear off and trust me you don’t want to feel that pain.’ And then he was gone.
Fantastic. Everyone had left me on my own. I went over to a third cabinet. I know, I have a lot of cabinets in my office. Only three actually. The third one contained spare clothes. Since Kagen had burned my sleeve off I was in need of a new shirt. I replaced the old one quickly and pulled out a nice, black waistcoat that matched my black trousers perfectly. I was already at the door before I’d finished retying my tie. If everybody else was going out then so was I and I knew just where to go. It was time for me to catch up with Ethan.
Chapter Ten
I didn’t like parking my car in Ethan’s area. I never liked it much when I used to visit Ruby there and I liked it even less now I wasn’t getting any sex out of it. Like Drew, Ethan lived on the cusp of the Dregs, which is a pretty rough area. Leaving a Maserati unattended in such a place was a risk, there was always a fifty percent chance it would be gone when I got back. I did lock it with magic but people could buy all sorts of magical things that could break through a locking spell these days and magically booby-trapping things was illegal. Ridiculous law. A wizard should be allowed to do whatever he wanted with his own property.
Ethan’s building was a massive grey rectangle. I think the bricks might once have been white but that was in a lifetime long since passed. Nothing in this part of Sangford had retained its original colour. The security door at the front of the building was broken so I walked in with no trouble. The entire time I’d
been coming to this place the security door had been broken. Obviously in an area this grubby there was no concierge in the building. I walked up the stairs slowly thinking about what I wanted to say when I got to Ethan’s flat. It was odd thinking of it as Ethan’s flat rather than Ruby’s. A simple accusation ought to do it. Maybe a little magic to scare him into confessing.
I reached his flat, number 14 and rapped loudly on the door. Drew called it a bailiff’s knock. I’d never been visited by bailiffs but Drew had grown up poor so maybe he had. I’d grown up poor too, but not that poor.
Ethan didn’t answer. I felt a niggling of frustration inside me and had to smother it. Losing my temper at the first obstacle wouldn’t help. Maybe he was out. Almost the moment I had that thought I saw the peephole in the door darken where somebody had blocked out the light from the other side.
‘Open the door, Ethan!’ I said loud enough for him to hear me through the wood.
I saw light behind the peephole again as he moved away from the door. Coward. He was more than eager to send me threatening text after threatening text but the second I actually turned up on his doorstep he slunk away like a weasel. Did he seriously think this door was going to keep me out?
‘Come on! You’ve been threatening me for weeks. I’m here now. Live up to your words.’
Still nothing.
I pushed myself right up against the door and hissed the words at him. ‘You spineless sack of shit. All those empty threats. I thought you was going to sort me out? You couldn’t sort me out any more than you could sort your own fiancee out. That’s why she had to come to me.’ Using that against him didn’t make me feel great, but considering he’d murdered her it didn’t make me feel all that bad either.
I heard him start to unlock the door but then he thought better of it. ‘I’m not going to open the door, Graves. I’ll let the police handle you. Murderer.’
His accusation made my blood boil. The audacity of him to stand there hidden behind his door and accuse me of the crime which he committed. Well he was an idiot if he thought a piece of wood was going to serve as an adequate shield.
‘Butio!’ I muttered. The door exploded into hundreds of fragments of wood that cascaded across his narrow hallway, embedding themselves in the vomit-coloured carpet. Ethan turned in the doorway to his living room and looked at me with wide-eyed alarm. His eyes darted about for help and finding none, he bolted into the living room to get away from me.
‘All those threats for this? A pathetic game of hide and seek,’ I said as I strode after him. I didn’t need to run. There was nowhere he could go now. He was on the second floor and unless he had learned to fly, he couldn’t escape through the windows. I stood between him and the only way out of his flat.
I found him standing behind the stained grey sofa. First a thin wooden door and now a fabric sofa. This guy really needed to find better shields. I smirked at his sorry state. Still, he didn’t look exactly frightened. There was an intriguing smugness behind his expression of hate. I’d never seen anyone look at me with such abhorrence before. Even the people I’d been about to kill hadn’t looked at me as vehemently as he was.
‘Did it bother you that much that she cheated on you? Did it get to you so much that you had to kill her? Do you feel like you’ve evened the scales now?’ I asked, trying to goad him into making the first move.
‘We both know you did it. You just couldn’t live with the fact that she wouldn’t leave me for you. It was always me that she loved more. You were just a distraction. A piece of arse she met in a pub,’ he shouted the words, spitting them like venom.
‘You delusional moron.’ I shook my head in disbelief because I could see that he believed those words. Not that I killed her, he knew he was responsible for that. But he believed that she had chosen him over me. If only he knew that she had sent me half a dozen texts practically begging me to take her from him. But I could tell him now.
‘She never wanted you. You were never good enough for her. Why’d you think she was sleeping with me in the first place? Because she wasn’t happy with you. She practically begged me to get with her after you found out about us,’ I told him with undisguised glee. I saw the flicker of despair that he quickly masked beneath that hideous sneer of his.
‘Then why did she stay with me?’
‘Because I didn’t want her. Even if I did want a girlfriend as if I’d ever take someone who obviously can’t be trusted. I have more self-respect than that. More than you apparently. Let me tell you, buddy, if I was in your place I would have broken up with her the moment I’d found out she’d cheated. But like a mug you kept her.’
‘Because you don’t throw away all those years of love for one mistake!’ he shouted, tears welling in his eyes. That took me aback. He really did love her and her betrayal had nearly destroyed him from the inside out. Something that felt like guilt wriggled inside me, but I pushed it away.
‘Is that why you killed her? You couldn’t dump her but at the same time you couldn’t live with her betrayal.’
‘You killed her,’ he said firmly, nodding with each word for emphasis.
‘Enough of this.’ I raised my hand threateningly, the implication of magic obvious. ‘Admit it or I’ll force it out of you.’
I heard footsteps in the hallway and cast a cautious glance over my shoulder. I saw a shadow approaching the living room. I turned back to Ethan and saw the most sickeningly smug smile on his face. He’d set me up. That stupid, smug imbecile had actually got the better of me.
‘I called the police as soon as you knocked on my door. Good luck explaining your way out of this one.’
As if on cue, Decker and Mitchell entered the living room at that exact moment. Mitchell’s hand went to the weapon at his hip but I raised my hands in surrender.
This whole thing had been a ploy. Ethan had wanted me to break in. He’d wound me up and then stalled for time whilst the police came. He’d set me up and like a fool I’d fallen for it. I had to hand it to him, it was pretty clever.
‘Come back to kill the other one, Graves?’ Mitchell asked, eyeballing me from the doorway.
‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ I told him smoothly.
‘Sure,’ said Decker. ‘Monroe isn’t here to get you out of this one. I can’t wait to hear your explanation just as soon as we get to the station.’ He produced a pair of standard issue police handcuffs that he waved at me.
‘I’m not wearing those,’ I told him simply. There was nothing magical about them so they wouldn’t actually be able to hold me anyway. They served only one purpose on a wizard — humiliation.
‘You’ll wear whatever we tell you to wear,’ Mitchell snarled. Clearly these two were holding a grudge over Monroe taking me from their grips last night. It wasn’t like I’d asked him to do that. Not that I didn’t appreciate it.
‘Good luck getting me in them, boys,’ I goaded.
‘Using magic against—’
‘Yeah, yeah, serious penalties. Dorian Gray will make you drop any charges. I have nothing to fear from either you. He is the murderer. Not me. Give me ten minutes and I’ll get the truth out of him.’
‘Enough!’ Decker barked. ‘Jacob Graves you are under arrest for breaking and entering. Come with us willingly or we will use force.
I sneered contemptuously at the detective. How could this stupid little man waste his time on me when the real killer was right here in the room with us. A warm tingle in my right forearm momentarily distracted me. It was long enough for the police officers to take advantage. I raised my arm so I could get a good look at it and Decker pounced. He grabbed my arm and the little warmness turned into a full blown raging inferno. As I howled in agony I remembered that I’d forgotten to wrap the salve in a dressing and now I was reaping the rewards for my negligence.
The pain roared through me crippling my ability to concentrate. Mitchell took hold of my shoulders to hold me in place whilst Decker yanked both my arms behind my back and forced the cuffs onto my wrists.
/>
‘Not so tough after all, are you, wizard?’ Mitchell taunted. I saw Ethan smirking with aggravating satisfaction from behind his sofa. It gave me a small amount of comfort to see that he was still hiding.
‘He’s the murderer!’ I screamed, struggling against the cuffs.
‘He has an alibi. You don’t,’ said Decker.
‘I was working all night,’ said Ethan with faux innocence. Oh, I was going to make him scream so much louder than he’d just heard me scream.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on forcing the pain to subside just long enough for me to command enough magic to get out of the cuffs. Whilst my eyes were closed and my brain occupied I felt a stinging in my neck. My eyes flew open and I saw Decker right in front of me, his hand holding a now empty syringe.
‘What the…’ I said but the room was already starting to spin.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ Decker told me. As if I was going to be anything but alarmed after having a needle forced into my neck against my will. ‘This is standard procedure when…’ I never heard the rest of what he was saying because the room faded to black as I slipped out of reality.
Chapter Eleven
When I woke up I was in a police interrogation room slumped over a cold wooden table. I raised my head and felt a heaviness around my neck. I lifted a hand weakly, glad to see that the handcuffs had been removed. I wasn’t glad for long. They’d fitted me with a Nocult collar. We called them that because they essentially turned you into a Nocult. Whilst this collar was fixed around my neck I would be unable to use magic. On the bright side they had done something to ease the pain in my arm. It wasn’t gone but it had been reduced to a dull throbbing.