by Carter, Mina
It was in capital letters. As she watched, an exclamation mark added itself to the end of the sentence. The words themselves were bad enough, but when punctuation started to get on her case, it was just rude.
“Not today,” she told it firmly, closing her eyes to shut both out.
She’d seen dead people practically since she’d been born. Her first memory was of a little old witch who’d been burned at the stake during the Dark Ages. The crispy witch often bent over her crib, singing nursery rhymes to help her get back to sleep. She’d thought everyone saw them until she’d mentioned the hanged man who played afternoon tea with her to her mother.
Then it had all been banishments and warding spells, and she’d been warned that under no circumstances was she to tell anyone what she could see. They were a good solid family of kitchen witches, thank you very much. Their stock in trade was herbal concoctions, weather casting and the occasional love potion or two. They didn’t hold with such nonsense as talking to the dead. Or making cheese. According to her grandfather, that was an arcane art up there with necromancy.
“You okay?” Oberon murmured, his deep voice low by her ear as he came to stand next to her. For a moment she wanted to turn and bury herself into his strong arms. Strong arms he’d used to great effect last night, bracing himself over her. All. Night. Long.
Fuck. She put that temptation from her mind before she could get all hot and bothered again. It wouldn’t look good if she was caught dragging her assistant down a dark alley for some tonsil tennis and a quickie against the wall. Her professional reputation, fledging as it was, would never recover.
“Yeah. I will be,” she said on a sigh and opened her eyes. “Okay, Mr. Fae Expert, what do you think?”
He blinked, looking down at her. “Why am I the fae expert?”
“Helloooo… did you miss the fact you’re the only winged freak here?” Garlick asked, looking up from his perusal of Jack’s fish with an interest that was agitating ghost Jack, who kept trying to shoo the familiar away. Unfortunately, his hands went right through the cat’s head, making Garlick sneeze repeatedly.
Oberon shot the cat a glare that could have melted steel. “What? Just because I’m fae I know all about them? That would be like me asking you if you know my aunt’s husband’s cousin’s great-grand-niece’s friend just because you live in the human world. And,” he added with a feral grin, “you all look alike to me.”
Daffi reached up to swat at his massive bicep. “We’d better not all look alike to you—”
“Yeah. I’ve got fur and she’s like naked under her clothes.” There was a gagging sound. “Ugh…I need mind bleach.”
Oberon shot her a sideways look and a charming smile. “Apart from you of course, my queen. Your loveliness sets you apart like the moon herself in the heavens.”
She nodded, a small sound of approval in the back of her throat. It was an appropriate amount of sucking up. “Okay, tell me what you do know?” she asked, nodding toward Jack’s body.
The ghost of the little fae jumped up and down in her peripheral vision. She ignored him for the moment. There was a time and a place for talking to the dead. This was not it.
“Okay,” Oberon pursed his delectable lips as he looked down at the body. “He’s a Wirry Boggle. Essentially harmless.”
Daffi raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t known that. Types of fae were hard to distinguish. She’d heard with some of them, most of their courtship rituals were based on finding out what type the other person was… which was secondary to gender.
Oberon nodded toward Jack’s fish. “That’s about the extent of his capabilities. Unless cursed, boggles are rarely violent or dangerous. They’re more mischievous. Knock door and run games, moving household items, swapping the salt and pepper type thing…”
Garlick grunted. “They’re the assholes who hide the toilet paper then.”
Oberon nodded. “That sounds boggle level.”
He continued looking at the body as he walked around it. Then he crouched down and put his hand out, running it over the body slowly.
“What’s he doing? Communing with the body?” Garlick asked, sidling up to Daffi to lean against her leg. She reached down to scratch his ear and he rattled an asthmatic chainsaw purr.
“Shhh… let the man work,” she murmured, watching the big fae. Crouched down, his jeans pulled over his delectable arse. Like two walnuts in a sock, it looked just as good out of them as in… She bit her lip as memories from the night before flooded her brain.
Garlick sniffed and groaned. “Look, I know you banged the fae, but I don’t need an olfactory replay. Kthankx…”
She grinned, about to tell him to keep his nose to himself, when Oberon stiffened and snatched his hand away. He stood, backpedaling so quickly he almost stumbled over her. His face was white.
“The sergeant was quite right,” he swallowed, his face white. “This wasn’t a hellfire machete. This was a different murder weapon. He was killed with cold-worked iron.”
“Seriously?” She blinked. “You can tell that?”
Oberon nodded, rubbing at his stubbled jaw. In all the literature and information she’d studied on the fae, she’d never seen a fairy with stubble. It made him look… sinful. Quickly she dragged her mind out of the gutter and back onto the job.
“All higher fae can sense cold-worked iron. It’s… like cold here?” He rubbed at the center of his chest. “This fae was killed with cold-worked iron, which means he cannot move on.”
“Cold-iron weapons are a restricted class of weapon,” Sergeant Abberline added, obviously picking up the last part of their conversation as he approached. “It should be easy to track down any of them in the local area. And who has access to them.”
He made a note in his little book, almost identical to the one Daffi carried. “This changes things, though.”
“Oh?” So far the sergeant had been very good at sharing information, far more than she’d expected… but then, her only experience of actual investigation had been MPI Investigates, a popular TV show with witch detectives who were at odds with each other and often sabotaged each other’s investigations. She was sure the two main characters were shagging as well, but so far no joy on any on-screen action.
“Yeah. My main suspect so far had been the victim’s half-sister,” he mused. “Forensics came back on the first murder weapon. It was a stone machete. But all types of gorgon have an aversion to cold-iron… so this? It’s not the sister.”
Daffi blinked, her blood running cold. “Gorgon?”
Gorgons were rare. Really rare. In fact, the only gorgon she knew was—
“Megas Petr,” he replied. “The mother used to be a servant at the Bulcock estate and was cast off when she got pregnant. The father was listed as Tobais Bulcock. She’s Sybil Bulcock’s half-sister. I’d say that was motive. Wouldn’t you?”
Daffi nodded. “Makes sense. Are her movements accounted for on the day of the murder?”
She had to ask the question. She hadn’t thought anything of it, but she hadn’t had a chance to catch up with Meg yet. But no… not Meg surely? She was a gorgon, yes, but she wasn’t a killer. No way, no how.
Abberline shook his head. “Not as yet. She’s on my list of suspects to question, but I haven’t been able to track her down yet.”
Shit. That was not good. So not good. Rather than say anything that might incriminate Meg, she simply nodded. “I’ll let you know if I manage to find her.”
Abberline smiled. “Excellent. I must say, I rather like this level of cooperation. It’s most enlightening, even in this day and age. Although…” he leaned in and gave her a stern look. “Don’t think you’re off my suspect list yet, Miss McGee. You might be an investigator yourself, but you’re still officially the last person to see the first victim alive.”
She nodded, a cold chill rolling down her spine as she realized that might hold true for the second as well. Jack was fae. He could control if people saw him or not. She knew that for a
fact from the many times she’d seen his fish appear in mid-air and smack someone upside the ear.
“I wouldn’t expect any different,” she added with a smile she didn’t feel and turned to go. As she did, she caught the eye of Jack’s ghost and then jerked her head to indicate Jack should follow her.
She didn’t slow down until she’d turned the corner, Oberon and Garlick hot on her tail. With a wave, she moved them to the side.
“Remember,” the street sign rearranged its letters to announce. “Remember who you were before you forgot.”
“Alright,” she hissed at it. “I’m doing it so STFU, okay?”
Oberon leaned down to Garlick. “STFU?”
“Slap the Fae Unconscious,” Garlick replied immediately, which got a blink of surprise from Oberon.
Daffi sighed. One day she was so going to turn him into a fur muff. “It stands for ‘shut the fuck up.’”
A smile crossed her face as the ghost edged his way around the corner and looked at her.
“You can see me. Can’t you?” he asked in a small voice.
She nodded. “Clear as a bell, Jack.”
He grinned, waving his fish excitedly. It went through Garlick’s ear, making him flick it furiously.
“Who is she talking to?” Oberon asked, obviously still not over the stupidity of asking the obnoxious familiar questions, especially when he was in this mood.
“The queen,” the cat said promptly, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. For a moment he looked like he had way more teeth than any feline had any right to.
“Cousin!” Oberon declared, looking right through Jack. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Jack blinked at him and then whispered to Daffi. “He’s… he does know the queen doesn’t have the power of invisibility. Right?”
“At this point,” Daffi said, ignoring both the cat and the big fae, “your guess is as good as mine. So, whatcha got for me? Oh, and condolences on your death,” she added, watching as Jack leaned forward and smacked Garlick through the head with his fish again. The cat sneezed three times. Jack grinned, looking up at her. Without looking, he hit Garlick again.
“Was a witch wot killed me,” he said, his expression twisted with distaste at the thought.
“Weren’t a nice thing to happen. Cold-iron…” he shuddered, his eyes sliding out of focus and his form becoming more indistinct and see-through.
“Stay with me, Jack,” she ordered, reaching out a hand to put on his arm. At first, her fingers closed on nothing, but she reached down inside herself, to that part her momma had always told her to ignore… the part that remembered… and pulled.
Jack popped back into high relief, a tight smile on his face as he looked up at her. “I’m ’ere. I’m good thanks… just easier with you holdin’ on. What with you being… well, wot you are.”
She arched an eyebrow. “What I am? I’m a witch investigator, Jack. Nothing special.”
“Nothing special? Nothing special?” Utter surprise crossed his face and he almost dropped his fish, fumbling with it before it hit the ground. “Girlie, if you ain’t nothing special, why is someone wearing a white wig and trying to do you for murder?”
12
“Why didn’t you tell me, Meg?”
Daffi tried to keep the confusion and hurt out of her voice as she faced the other woman. She’d been difficult to track down, a location spell from a fragment of a shed snakeskin leading the intrepid little team down into the depths of the archives to find her renovating a fourth-century fertility statue.
It was a giant cock. With balls, which was why it wasn’t on display in the main museum anymore. A bunch of mothers a couple of years ago had petitioned to have it removed on the grounds of it might give poor little Timmy the wrong idea.
Personally, Daffi thought poor little Timmy had more chance of being corrupted in the playground or online rather than by a random look at a ten-foot cock in a museum. But who was she to argue?
Meg shrugged. “Would you admit to being related to Sybil Bulcock?”
“Well… no, but that’s not the point. She was murdered and it looks bad!”
Meg snorted, smoothing a handful of porridge against the shaft of the big cock. It was from the café, so absolutely inedible, but made excellent concrete, especially when Meg glanced at it through her hand mirror.
“So should I tell everyone I’m related to a stuck-up bitch with a stick up her ass, just in case someone murders her?”
Meg folded her arms, ignoring the fact that the two males in the room were still sniggering over the ten-foot cock.
“Well, no… but you could have told me. I’m your friend.”
Meg looked over her shoulder. “You are. But… well, I just didn’t think of it. Never had anything to do with the Bulcocks and never wanted to. I hadn’t met any of them until the day Sybil started here.”
“Did she know? That you were her sister?”
Meg shrugged. “Dunno. Doubt it. I think she’d have been way shittier to me if she had. I mean. All this?” She patted her hair, the tiny snakes half-hidden under her cap writhing and hissing happily at the touch. “She’s not… wasn’t gorgon. Was she? Any witch would be jealous. And besides, she’s got an older sister… I wouldn’t get anything from my sperm donor’s estate even if I had killed her.”
A smile pulled at the corners of Daffi’s lips. Put like that, it was far more likely for Sybil to bump Meg off, not the other way around. And besides, there had been no evidence of Sybil being turned to stone. A gorgon’s glance wouldn’t be fatal for a witch, just give them a dead leg or arm. Which while annoying and embarrassing, it would have held her for a while so Meg could finish the job with the machete…
But Meg was clever. If she had killed Sybil, she wouldn’t have done it in a way that would have led suspicion right to her door. Would she? Daffi bit back her growl. This investigation lark gave her a headache.
“So… on the day of the murder, where were you between five and seven p.m.?” she asked, flicking to a new page in her notebook.
Meg pursed her lips, thinking as she mended one of the veins on the underside of the cock. “I was here until about one in the afternoon. Dave at the ticket desk saw me leave. I went shopping down in Covent Garden and then took the ghost train home around five. Mom and I went out for a curry at seven.”
Daffi nodded and then looked up from her notes. “And your mom can confirm this?”
Meg eyed her. “Of course. You want me to call her?”
Daffi closed her book with a snap. Out of the corner of her eye Oberon was nodding. Meg was telling the truth. “Nope, we’re all good. Last question. Did you notice anything off, at all, on the day of the murder?”
Meg leaned against the cock, cleaning porridge off her fingers absently. “Not on the day of the murder, but Whippy was down here the other day,” she said. “It was odd because she’s not down here usually.”
“Oh?” Daffi’s ears picked up.
That was unusual. Whipsnide rarely did anything that could be counted as actual manual labor, so walking all the way down here into the archives… “Any idea why she was down here?”
Meg shook her head.
“She was over in the Medieval artefacts area. Florentine section. That’s all I know. I got my ass out of here before she could see me and make me stay late.”
“Good call,” Daffi murmured. Everyone who worked here knew to avoid Whipsnide before clocking out time, or she’d find you a hundred and one extra tasks to be done before you left. “Okay, I have everything I need. Just… watch your back, okay?” she said in concern. “Real weird shit going on at the moment.”
Meg grinned and two snakes wriggled free to poke out from under her cap at the back. “No worries. I got built-in security.”
The three of them left her to the cock repairs as they headed over to the Florentine section. This was an area of the archives she’d never really spent any time in. Medieval magical history wasn’t really her forte.<
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“There’s cold-iron here,” Oberon said suddenly, his brows snapping together. She heard a strange buzzing and realized his wings were fluttering in agitation under his t-shirt.
“There is?” she asked, motioning for Oberon to go first, like some sort of fae cold-iron seeking bloodhound. He led them directly to the back of the section and a large glass case. It held a dagger, the weapon supported in an upright position. Even though Daffi wasn’t fae, she felt the malevolence pouring off the blade.
“This was used to kill someone.”
The knowledge came from the part of her deep down that she was ignoring, the part that remembered. Three babies in a crib… She cut the memory off and concentrated on the dagger in the case.
“Cold-iron,” she read from the card on the glass. “Mid- to late-sixteenth century, suspected to have been forged by Da Vinci or one of his students. Shit…”
There was magical ordinance and there was scorched earth. A Da Vinci forged cold-iron blade? That was magical apocalypse.
“Jack never stood a chance,” she breathed and then something on the latch caught her eye. Leaning down, she squinted like a mole caught in the sunlight and reached out. There, caught in the latch of the case were two long, white strands.
“Fuck me…” she breathed. White hairs. According to Jack, the killer had worn a white wig. If they could get a location off these babies, they’d cracked it. They could identify the killer!
“Gladly,” Oberon said immediately.
Garlick sighed. “Please don’t. I’m already scarred for life. When you’re queen, you’re going to be getting some very expensive therapy bills, I assure you.”
She waved a hand. “If I’m queen, I’ll be able to afford it. Won’t I? Or, alternatively, I can just throw you in the dungeons.” She shot a look up at Oberon. “We do have dungeons. Right?”
He grinned. “We do… more than one type.”
“Oh?”
“Well, the bad kind and…” His eyes darkened with heat. “The really wicked kind.”
