by Sarah Biglow
“I said I’d help you out if you came. You did, so I am.”
“You still think I have issues.”
“Oh, I know you have issues, Ezri. But until you’re willing to hash them out, I don’t think there’s much else I can do.”
I blew out a breath. “I’ll work on it.”
“Good. I’ll be here when you’re ready,” he said and left the room.
Avery motioned for me to follow her out of the meeting hall and down a corridor I didn’t remember. She said nothing as she led me through the passageway into an open space filled with desktops, laptops and an array of tablets.
“Jeez, did you rob an electronics store?”
Avery grinned. “Nah. The Authority is moving into the twenty-first century. You’d be amazed what people are trying to do with magic these days. Magical hacking is totally a thing. Not that I condone it or anything.”
I set my bag down and pulled out my own laptop, adding it to the jumble of electronics on the nearest table. “If I’m honest, it doesn’t really surprise me. People always find new ways to hurt each other.”
Avery nodded. “Right, Des mentioned you’re a cop.”
“You two sound awfully friendly. From what I remember he only let his girlfriend call him that.”
Color flooded Avery’s cheeks, burning bright red against her otherwise pale skin. “It’s still new, but we’ve known each other for years.”
“I don’t remember you.”
“You never hung with the nerds so we wouldn’t have crossed paths. And Des and I really started getting close after…”
“After I left.”
She nodded, tugged at the ends of her bob and didn’t look at me. “Right. Of course. So, uh, what’s the problem exactly?”
Flipping my computer open, I pulled the files up and hit play on the one I’d been working with. “We’ve got surveillance footage of several murders; except, well, we don’t. They’ve used magic to corrupt the files. I’ve been able to fix bits and pieces, but whatever spell they used, it’s like a living thing. Or maybe it’s still connected to the caster. I don’t entirely know.”
Avery quirked a brow at me. “You’ve been doing this on your own?”
“It’s not like I can ask the techs in the department for help. They don’t know magic exists.”
“Right, but you don’t ever go into tech alone when magic’s involved.”
Her judgmental tone sent my hackles rising. “Maybe you don’t.”
“Tell me what happened when you went in.”
I massaged the wound in my leg and my fingers came away rust colored. “Like I said, it was as if the spell was alive and it could sense when I was trying to undo it. No sooner had I started picking apart the magic than something was trying to kill me.”
Avery nodded as if she’d heard all of this before. “And that’s why you don’t ever go in alone. We don’t know why exactly, but when technology and magic mix, you always need two people at least. One to combat whatever the damage is and one to watch their back and take on whatever defenses might have been left behind.”
“You may want a whole team when you go in there.” I held up my bloodstained fingers.
“Noted. Is it just the one file?”
“No. It’s four.”
Avery’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “Four people are dead and magic’s involved?”
“Looks like it.”
“Why haven’t we heard about this?”
“Because solving murders isn’t the Authority’s job?”
“I mean we like the general public.”
“Not my department.”
The techie went silent and I could see the wheels turning in her head, trying to decide whether to ask more questions or just accept what I’d given her and move on. Finally, she cleared her throat and said, “Right. Of course. We’ll get right on it. Do you need the computer back?”
“Yeah. Just copy the files.”
Avery flitted around the room, grabbing cables and connectors I’d never seen before. She grabbed my laptop with one hand—my heart may have stopped beating entirely as she balanced it in her palm—before setting it down. She strung cords from one machine to another and I stood in silence, watching as she made sense of whatever was going on. She only looked up when the door behind us opened and a balding man in his late 30s waltzed in.
He gave me a silent nod and settled in behind one of the computer setups. “What have they got us doing now?” His tenor voice came out in a whine, which seemed in direct contrast to his beefy frame.
“Morgan, behave. We’re helping a police investigation,” Avery said with a not-so-discreet nod in my direction.
“Since when do we help cops?’
“Since the Savior’s asking,” she snapped.
Morgan stared at me, mouth agape. “S-sorry. I didn’t realize. Whatever you need, any time,” he stammered. He practically launched himself out of the chair.
“I swear to God, if you bow I’m going to arrest you for being a douchebag,” I warned when his knees were only a few inches from the floor.
In an awkward duck walk he backed up and narrowly avoided landing on the floor. He opened his mouth to speak again and stopped. Instead, he situated himself back in the chair, spun so he wasn’t looking at me anymore and put on a set of earphones.
“Let me know when you finish. And thanks for doing this,” I said to Avery and shouldered my bag with the map and diaries in it.
Avery blinked, as if woken from a daze, and scrambled to unhook my computer and relinquish it back into my custody. I slid it into the bag as well and showed myself out. Finding my way back to the meeting hall proved easier than I’d thought. I found Desmond standing by one of the windows looking out at the grounds.
“Have you been waiting here the whole time?” I asked, stepping up beside him.
“No. You should be getting a call from your captain shortly telling you to report back to duty tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
“Come on, we should get you checked out by a Healer.”
My stomach gurgled unceremoniously as we headed for the double doors. “Dinner wouldn’t be a bad thing either.”
“I think we can manage that.”
A short while later, we found ourselves sitting side by side in the kitchen, platters of sandwiches in front of us. I tried not to eat like a beggar getting a meal for the first time in days, but I’m pretty sure I failed. I was halfway through my third sandwich when a dark-skinned teenage boy wandered in followed by a woman who I immediately identified as his mother. They shared the same inquisitive brown eyes and high cheekbones.
“Ezri, this Belladonna and her son Adrian. They’re going to take a look at you.”
My shoulders drooped at Desmond’s words. It was silly, but in some small way I’d been hoping for J.T. to walk through those doors. It would have been poetic to get all my reconnections to the past done in one day.
Adrian sidled up to me and bent down so his nose was uncomfortably close to my face. “Someone punched you pretty hard.”
“I hadn’t noticed. And aren’t you a little young to be giving me a medical opinion?”
“I’m in training.” He looked over to his mother and she smiled a big, toothy grin.
She rounded the table, pushing the tray of food out of reach, and nudged her son out of the way. Gently, she pressed the tips of her fingers against the bruise on my jaw. I tried not to wince. “He wasn’t wrong,” she finally said. “I can reduce the swelling a little, but ice is probably best. And some ibuprofen for the pain. Where else are you hurt?”
My ribs ached more than they had in days. I reached for the hem of my shirt but stopped mid-motion. Breaths came in shallow rasps as I stared at her. Adrian continued to leer at me and heat crept up the nape of my neck. Belladonna glanced at her son and swatted him away. She gestured to him and Desmond saying, “Right, the two of you, out now.”
Desmond stood without comment, but Adrian opened his m
outh to protest. His mother gave him a swat on the arm and he backpedaled, following Desmond out of the room. I let out a long breath and pulled up my shirt to reveal the welts on my side.
“Girl, you really took a beating, didn’t you?”
“Hazards of the job,” I said. This time I couldn’t cover the pain as she poked and prodded at my side.
“You didn’t get this chasing bad men down alleyways. These were caused by magic. Dark, powerful and potent by the looks of it.”
“You aren’t wrong.”
“Anything else I should know about?” she asked.
Bending over, I hiked my pant leg up to reveal the bloody bandage covering the wound in my calf muscle. She peeled away the wrapping and let out a hiss. “And you’re still walking around with all of these injuries?”
“I’m tougher than I look.”
“Right, let’s get to work.”
She flitted around the kitchen, grabbing an icepack from an industrial freezer and producing some ibuprofen from her pocket. Sitting back down beside me, she pressed her hand to my cheek and the tantalizing scent of cinnamon filled the air. Out of habit, I let a little of my own power slip out, a defense mechanism I wasn’t entirely conscious of. Bella murmured something under her breath I didn’t understand and my magic receded, letting her work. The ache in my jaw dissipated. The icepack and meds weren’t a bad thing either.
I expected her to move down my body, but she propped my leg in her lap and probed the skin around the wound. The haze of her magic made it hurt less, but little lances of pain made their way through my nervous system and to my brain.
“What did this?” she asked.
“It felt like a piece of stone.”
“There’s someone else’s magic at work here. Fair warning, this is going to hurt. A lot.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I’d be fine when she clamped both hands over my leg and fire erupted everywhere her skin touched mine. A guttural scream ripped from my throat, bile churned and those three sandwiches threatened to make a repeat appearance. My left hand sought purchase on the table and my fingers dug into the faux wooden edge, the skin of my entire hand blanching until it resembled a corpse.
Sweat broke out on my brow and trickled down my face, dripping off my nose and landing in big splotches on my blouse. I could feel wet patches blooming under my arms, too, and I could hardly catch my breath. Something foul filled the air, only to be beaten back moments later by the sharp taste of cinnamon.
“That should heal by morning now.” Belladonna’s voice was miles away.
The world blinked in and out of focus, small, black dots popping everywhere I looked. Something cool materialized against my forehead and I sunk into whoever was behind me propping me up.
Slowly, the world righted itself. The burning died away and my stomach settled. I twisted around to find Desmond sitting behind me, worry lines tugging at his lips.
“Thanks,” I rasped.
He said nothing but held me tighter. Belladonna pressed a glass of water into my hands and I drank quickly. With my body no longer revolting against me, I took stock. My ribs didn’t hurt and my leg, while tender to the touch, was no longer bleeding. The bandage was less elaborate, which had to be a good thing.
“Your phone’s been ringing incessantly for the last twenty minutes,” Desmond said.
I dug it out of my bag to see several missed calls and a voicemail from the precinct. No doubt the captain reinstating me as Desmond had promised.
Belladonna set a bottle of pills on the table beside me. “Take two before you go to sleep. It will help you heal.”
I pocketed the medication and said, “Thanks again.”
“Try to stay out of trouble.”
I laughed. “Not likely, but I’ll do my best.”
Adrian appeared briefly to stuff sandwiches in a bag and ferret them away somewhere. He fixed me with a curious stare before vanishing again, leaving Desmond and me alone once again.
“So, your girlfriend’s interesting,” I said, finishing the glass of water and pushing myself up so I could straddle the bench facing him.
Color spread over the bridge of his nose and he smirked. “I like to think so. If you stick around, I think you two would get along.”
“I like her more already than your little spy.”
He laughed. “Kayla is an acquired taste.”
“You’ve got that right.” I spun the empty glass in my hands. “So, you’re happy?”
“I am. Though I’d be happier with you back in my life.”
“I’ll work on that too,” I said and I meant it. He could have held out and kept me off the case for as long as he wanted. But he was being nice to me. He was more like the Desmond I remembered than I wanted to admit.
“Come on, I’ll drive you home,” Desmond said, offering his hand to help me up.
I hoisted myself up on my own, testing my leg. It seemed to hold my weight well enough. A few hours’ sleep and Bella’s magic coursing through me should heal the rest of it. He led the way back out in the night air. His was the only car left in the circular drive.
“It’s changed more than I expected,” I admitted once we were back on the road.
“They aren’t the villains you make them out to be, Ezri. These are good people who are trying to help their community where they can.”
“They’re still being told what to do, how they can practice their craft.”
“The Council thinks it’s safer that way.”
“They haven’t changed, have they? Still the same people.”
“For the most part, though I’ve taken over my mom’s seat and … yours is still waiting for you.”
“Then I can’t be a part of it. You aren’t going to change my mind. Thank you for the help with the case, but that’s all I’m getting from them. I don’t trust them.”
“Whether you trust them or not, they need you. Like it or not, their future rides on your shoulders.”
“But it’s my destiny, not theirs.”
“You may have turned your back on them, but they haven’t forgotten you. Avery was right, everyone here knows who you are. They can help you. I can’t believe you’re meant to do this all on your own. I think we both know that the Order is behind whatever is coming.”
The Order of Samael—the Authority’s bitter enemy and primary cause of the Salem Witch Trials. We’d been taught that the Order had used the trials as an excuse to thin the ranks of good practitioners. But the mass hysteria had ended up taking plenty of their people too. They were also fond of branding their members: a triple spiral to represent life and a scythe for their supposed power over death.
“Then they should have thought about that before they let my mother get killed and covered it up,” I muttered.
I turned my attention to the passing traffic outside and the thick, cloud-filled navy sky above. Rain was imminent. Being back in the boundaries of the Authority’s domain had set my nerves on edge more than I’d expected. But it also hadn’t been quite as horrible as I’d anticipated either. For his part, Desmond didn’t pester me the rest of the ride. He pulled up outside my apartment building and put the car in park.
“If you need anything else, case-related or not, just let me know.”
“Yeah. I will. And, Desmond, thanks for clearing things with my captain.”
“You said you will try talking out your issues. Please, don’t let things fester any longer,” he answered.
I opened the car door but didn’t get out. I craned my neck to try to catch a glimpse of a certain purple-haired punk girl. Nothing immediately drew my attention and I couldn’t sense her magic nearby.
“Kayla’s gone,” Desmond said, as if reading my mind.
We sat awkwardly for another few minutes before he reached over and pulled me into a hug. I didn’t fight him. Maybe he was right. Maybe I did need this connection in my life. He finally let go and his eyes shone with unshed tears.
I gave him a weak smile. “See you aroun
d.” I eased the passenger side door closed and headed inside. Once I was safely back in my apartment I played the waiting message on my voicemail. Captain Beech was letting me back to work for my next shift. Relief flooded through me; endorphins and residual traces of Belladonna’s magic coursed through my body, relaxing me far more than I had been in days.
March 15, 2017
Fifteen
Belladonna’s pills worked like a charm—and I wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t fueled by magic because I got ten solid, dreamless hours of sleep, rolling over and peering gummy-eyed at the clock just before nine o’clock the next morning. Lying beneath the blankets, I took stock of the injuries that had plagued me for the last few days. My throat and ribs felt better and at first blush the swelling on my jaw had gone down significantly. I twisted into a position where I could reach my leg and prodded the bandage with the tip of my finger. The muscle ached but no more than just a pulled muscle. As I climbed from the bed, a thought began to nag me.
I’d been so focused on trying to uncover the killers’ identities through the video footage that I’d ignored the uniqueness of the primary killer’s magical signature. Everyone I’d ever met had the scent of something naturally occurring in the world. Limestone—while naturally occurring—didn’t always smell damp. I caught my reflection in the mirror and studied myself as I tried to put the missing piece into place. There had to be something about this killer to explain the strangeness of his magic.
“Come on … what is it?”
I didn’t get a chance to let my brain work through the problem before my phone blared with an incoming call. I snatched it from the bedside table and paused when I saw Jacquie’s cell phone number on the display. The hit to my pride surfaced, but I forced it down and answered, “Hello.”
“I just got a call from the medical examiner. She finally got the results back on those fingerprints and skin cells from the victims.”
“And who did they belong to?”
“She wouldn’t say over the phone. She wants us to go over so she can tell us in person.”
“Like … now?”
“She hinted that sooner was better than later and to come without the FBI escort if possible.”
