by D. N. Hoxa
The third was Sasha Fortine. She was the oldest of the Richmond high priests, around her eighties, closer to nineties, with a sweet face and fourteen trained dogs that would love to either hump your leg or tear you to pieces, if she so much as wished it. She chose to spend her life with animals instead of people, and I could relate to that more often than not. Dealing with people had never been my forte either. Sasha was a simple mage, who manipulated things and killed people only when they crossed her or messed with her animals, but she and Nana had been close enough to be considered friends by their standards. She could have easily approached Nana and hit her when she wasn’t paying attention so, yeah, definitely a suspect.
And the fourth was Nana.
Each high priest had the right to have slaves—I mean students—to whom they could teach the wicked, wonderful ways of magic and chaos. Their houses were called Enclaves, and about ninety-nine percent of the mages in the city belonged to one of them. Even Sasha had a few, with whom she rarely interacted physically, but hers always turned out to be some kinds of maniacs. Good thing she didn’t take many in—like Nana.
Other magians, like elemental spirits—Sylphs, Vetters, Nixes and Pyros—and shifters, belonged to their Clans. A lot of the species liked to stick together, but those who didn’t, who left their Clans on their own or were banished, were able to join Enclaves as well. It was to everyone’s benefit because nobody wanted untrained magic users running around cities causing havoc.
The other reason why the Enclaves even existed, the reason nobody really talked about, was the obvious: power. Magic hung onto every magian’s skin like an aura, always regenerating, always multiplying. There was no bigger source of magic than live beings—live magians—and the more of them in one place, the more powerful the magic. Sure, high priests could draw magic from their own bodies, but they only consumed their own energy for the important stuff, like Guards, while the easy stuff was created based on the magic in the air, namely the magic that live bodies released into the air.
Nana was the only high priestess in Richmond who didn’t believe in the process of applying to an Enclave and being selected through a show of power. She believed that everyone had potential, especially those young and completely detached from the rest of the world so that they could devote their entire life to her and magic. She was a very smart woman. She used to say magic was like art—you can’t give yourself to both it and other people. Maybe that’s why she never started a family of her own. Her Enclave was full of magian children from all over the country, whom she reached through her other students. As far as I knew, her Enclave was the biggest in Richmond, which made taking her from her home even more problematic. Magic was at its rawest during puberty, and taking a priest from a house full of kids high on hormones and magic would prove rather difficult.
All four Enclaves reported directly to the MM—the Magian Ministry, but maybe saying should report to the MM would be more accurate. The MM claimed to keep tight relations with both the magians of the world and the human police departments who dealt with magical issues ever since the secret came out over a hundred years ago. The humans knew we existed, and while some didn’t have a problem with it, some liked to keep away entirely. As long as we didn’t use magic to hurt them, we were regarded the same as humans in the eyes of the law. There’s been struggles, hunts, lots of spilled blood and riots, but in the end, everyone realized that the only way either kind was going to live properly, was if they pretended to be okay with the existence of the other. Eventually, I guess, that pretend game became reality.
Unfortunately, the way the MM handled relations with humans could convince you fairly easily that they were working for the human police. All the police had to do was claim jurisdiction over any crime, and the MM would back the hell off. That’s why every magian who considered himself to be protected by their kind was a fool.
Nana’s Enclave was protected by the best Guard she’d ever made, so when the cab dropped me off at her street in the North Side of the city, I almost turned right back because I was sure she’d locked me out of it. Then I almost turned back because I felt like Marcus had lied to me, that he’d tricked me into coming back here for whatever fucked up reason.
But even if that were true, I couldn’t leave. I’d come so far, and I couldn’t go back without seeing Nana for myself.
The smell of the city bothered me. The dirt and asphalt—and the occasional scent of weed—held too many memories. An advertisement truck passed me by with a big, colorful ad on the triangular ad space attached to its back.
Got talent? Apply today to the Graneheart Enclave, a safe haven for all magians!
What a fucking joke.
A long time ago I’d thought Richmond was always going to be my home. I never even dreamed of leaving it, or Nana’s Enclave. Now, as I walked the streets I’d walked a million times before, nostalgia hit me, bringing with it the bitter feeling of failure.
There was a reason why I’d left and never come back, why I never wanted to be there, ever again. I might have been the One-eyed Hawk for many people, but those who knew the story behind how I came to be it, would only ever know me as Nana’s Ruby. Unfortunately, I needed to swallow all of that at the sight of Nana’s house and focus.
The house was three stories tall and sat atop a low hill at the end of a wide street. At almost ten thousand square feet, it had more than enough room to house homeless children, and the Guards of Nana’s magic were enough to keep the ones with a knack for trouble safe. Its grey walls reminded me of a time long gone, and for a second, I almost saw myself running out the black gates, off to whatever errand Nana had sent me on. The grass and bushes had grown bigger than she normally let them. Nana owned all the properties around her house, too, to make sure that no human built anything close to where her magic could spill and take over. She was careful like that, and if she weren’t cursed by a high priest long dead, she would have conquered the world by now.
You can see why I was having a difficult time believing in Marcus’s tale.
I stopped in front of the large gates and checked to see if they were locked with the usual thick chain. They weren’t—the chain was lying innocently inside on the overgrown grass. Taking in a deep breath, I reached out my hand, feeling the magic of the Guard vibrating through my skin. If Nana had locked me out of it, I wouldn’t be able to pass. Nobody would. Instead, my skin would catch invisible fire, and I’d be paralyzed and in pain for a long time after.
Spitting encouraging words to myself in my head, I let go of my breath and grabbed the cold iron of the gates.
Nothing happened. No burns, no pain, and I could still move every part of my body perfectly.
So much for that. I pushed the gate open and stepped inside with a new resolve. I could feel the head of the monster living inside me, taking pride in the fact that she hadn’t locked me out, even after all this time, and I smothered that monster with both my imaginary hands until it no longer breathed.
I was no longer Nana’s little girl. I was my own person.
The driveway was dirty, full of small rocks and even a plastic bag that had tumbled inside with the wind, and that was another red flag. Nana would have never left it there if she saw it, and she saw everything.
About forty steps separated the gates from the house, and I walked slowly, trying to see anything else that was out of the ordinary. I didn’t see that the front door was slightly open until I was standing in front of it.
My heart stood still as I pushed it, and it opened with a weak creak.
Marcus hadn’t lied.
That asshole had told me the truth.
I knew it the second I saw the foyer—the round table on the floor, the once yellow flowers now withered to nothing, their blue vase in pieces on the marble floor. Blood splattered the light blue walls. My heart beat steady in my ears, as if to remind me that I was all alone and that I had no idea who could be in there with me. Slowly, I slipped two of my chakris in my hand and proceeded inside the
house.
The door was perfectly intact. No sign of a break-in. It smelled of death in there, like rotten flesh, and once you smelled that smell, you never, ever forgot it. Under it, I could almost catch a whiff of magic, pulsating in the air. Heat came up in waves from the floor—and the runes burned on it, right in front of the stairway. They weren’t quite Futhark; they looked like something else. Something I almost felt like I’d seen before, but I had no idea where.
In the middle of the runes placed in a semicircle was a hole about three feet deep. Debris all over and something that smelled like gasoline. White goo hung from the edges of the hole, bubbling like it was still too hot to touch. I reached out my hand slowly. The runes were definitely still hot.
The stairway to the floors above was a mess, too, the railing on the left side completely ruined, the dark red carpet torn from the floor. A broken pool cue was close, the bottom half coated with dried blood. Somebody had been stabbed with it. To the sides, all four doors were wide open, but there was no body that I could see. I could, however, see the blood, and I could make out the places where two bodies had lain. Someone had taken the bodies but hadn’t bothered to clean up the mess. I wondered if it was Marcus or maybe the MM. The human police hadn’t been here or else I’d have found black and yellow police tape everywhere. It would have told me that this was a crime scene, that I wasn’t to cross it, and I would have anyway. Maybe it would have even made me feel better. Guess I’ll never know.
Whatever spell the attacker had used, it had been stronger than Nana’s, so the things around it—furniture, floors, walls—would still have some of the magic on them. Hopefully. It had been a week. Trying to ignore the blood was harder than it sounds, especially when I had to look around it for clues. No claw marks, which possibly ruled out shape-shifters. Their magic was different, they couldn’t do spells, and they never relied on weapons—except their own bodies. All shapeshifters had claws and there was no way there would be no claw marks in a place where a shifter fought. I don’t know if they did it on purpose, if tearing the place up together with the opponent was some kind of version of marking territory, or if they were just clumsy, but they were all the same. Tigers, wolves, bears, snakes, lynxes, cats—these were just the ordinary animals magians shifted into, but there were other kinds, too. For the most part, a shifter will turn into the same animal as his father, but there are exceptions to the rule. I’d heard of lions, hyenas, even polar bears, but they were very few in numbers, too few to create their own Clans.
I squatted down and touched the floor, a bit farther away from the burning runes. A small shock went through me as the floor pulsated, almost as if it were alive. To find out what kind of spell had been used for the murders, I needed access to a magimeter, a device able to detect magic and translate it into runes, at least approximately. Or better yet, a Seer, a mage who could sense magic in its truest form. Contrary to popular belief, Seers couldn’t predict the future. Nobody could do that. Instead, they were mages who had an incredible sensitivity to all things magic. If you were a magian, they could take one look and tell you exactly the kind of magic you possessed, the level of strength to it, and even your magical stamina. But Seers were very rare mages. Those who didn’t lose their minds at puberty—when the magic hit them raw and ugly, showing them the true face of the world, revealing all the shadows that hid in the dark and all the evil that hid in plain sight—chose to lock away their powers, never to be restored again. Those who decided to learn to control them were very few. Four years ago, Richmond had had only one Seer, and he worked for the Magian Ministry.
There was a potion Nana used to make, which wasn’t exactly a Seer in liquid form, but it could reveal the used spell, a Futhark rune, or even the mage’s name in rare cases. That would have come in handy, but if Nana was here to make the damn potion, there would be no need for it in the first place.
After taking pictures of the hallway with my phone, I moved on to the kitchen, which was in much worse shape than the hallway. Some cabinet doors were missing, the dining table for twelve was on its side, the chairs were broken, wood splinters everywhere, mixed with broken glass. The chandelier was broken and the walls were coated in black dust. The oven door was shattered, and from it came that same nasty smell, like gasoline, only lighter.
I hurried to it, careful not to disrupt any of the broken stuff. I leaned down to check the inside of the oven and almost gagged. I brought my forearm to my nose and tried to breathe through my mouth. There was a lot more of the milky white goo in the oven. It radiated heat, and it looked like it had been thrown inside the oven and had broken the back of it to go deeper into the wall.
I opened the drawer where Nana had kept her dishtowels and oven mittens and grabbed a green pair. I didn’t want that stuff on my skin. With my chakris right next to my feet, I looked at the entrance for one more time and then dove into the goo. It made me sick to my stomach just to touch it, even though I couldn’t feel its texture through the mittens. I had to dig my fingers deep, much deeper than I thought, to get to the bottom of it. With my eyes closed, I grabbed handfuls of the stuff, trying to find something hidden in it to give me an idea of where the hell it was coming from.
Finally, my glove touched something hard.
I made the mistake of breathing in deeply through my nose as I pulled my hands out of the oven. Bile rose up, touching the base of my tongue. It was a miracle I managed to hold it back. It would have been a disaster if I threw up all over what could potentially be a clue to help me find Nana. The thing hiding beneath all that goo in the oven was some sort of rock. I brought it to the sink and turned on the faucet. I was surprised when the water came, and I put the rock under it. I took the mittens off carefully and put them in the sink, too.
The green rock was a cross between rock and crystal, covered in jagged edges, some of them transparent, some of them filled. Small versions of runes, similar to the ones burned on the floor in the hallway, were engraved on the sides. On one side was a hole no bigger than my pinkie, and as I watched it, a bubble popped and some of the milky colored goo slipped out. I put it over the sink again. What the hell was that thing? Some mages drew power from precious gems, but this didn’t look precious, and gems most definitely didn’t spill out goo.
But it didn’t matter. I got a plastic container from one of the cabinets and put the piece of rock inside before sealing it shut.
I checked the bathroom on the ground floor and the lounge room, which contained three recliners, more books, a pool table with a missing cue, and a dartboard—all in perfect condition. The living room was the same. The shelved walls full of fiction books were meant to keep us entertained, but Nana’s students weren’t exactly the kind to sit and read on Sunday evenings. The only exception was me. I loved to sit by her legs while she read my favorite stories. Good ole times.
Three large sofas and four armchairs took over most of the spacious room. There was no TV—Nana strongly believed that it was made to force imagination out of people’s minds by telling them what to think and how to think it. Without imagination, magic was less than an idea, unreachable, impossible. Her words, not mine. The glass doors that led to the backyard were intact and locked from the inside. No sign of magic use anywhere—just like with the front door. The attacker hadn’t broken in. They hadn’t had to shatter Nana’s Guard to get through, either, which could only mean that they were let in by Nana herself. She’d known the attacker. It was the only thing that made sense.
The biggest question here was, where were all of Nana’s students? She had to have at least five people living under her roof at all times. Marcus said that two people had died, and so did the dried blood on the floor, so where were the others? Maybe Nana had softened while I was away. Maybe she no longer kept more than two, three students at a time. Luckily, there was one way to find out.
The third floor was Nana’s quarters. I’d lived with her for fifteen years, longer than any student she’d ever had, and she’d never even let me near it
. It was safe to assume that none of the other students were allowed up there either. But the second floor had ten small rooms and two big bathrooms, more than enough space for others to hide in. It’s why I made my way up the ruined stairway first. If somebody was inside this house with me, I needed to know.
The long, wide hallway with six doors on each side was exactly the same as I’d left it. The light wood walls were covered in hand drawings of Nana’s students, almost all the way to the end. If you looked hard enough, you could even find a Christmas tree I drew a long, long time ago, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Nana had removed it. Either way, I had no interest in finding out.
Most of the doors to the student rooms were ajar. With my chakris in hand, I stepped deeper into the hallway and began to inspect. My footsteps were soundless, a result of many, many hours of training. Nana was the only one who could hear me approach her, no matter how silent I was.
The first room to the left was empty. The bed had no sheets, only a yellow mattress, and there was nothing in the room that would indicate someone had lived there. The second room was the same—completely empty, save for the furniture, but the third was full of clothes, most of it on the floor as if someone had searched all the drawers and the wooden closet behind the door. I pushed the door open with my chakri, and it whined like a ghost, sending shivers down my back. It was obvious from the clothes that the room belonged to a woman—unless a man who lived here wore short shorts and really short skirts, too. There was makeup on top of the dresser, and the bed was covered in light pink sheets. There was no picture, no book, nothing with a name on it, but judging by the size of the clothes, the woman who’d lived here was not a teenager—much closer to my size.
I moved on to the next room, and it, too, had clothes all over the floor, the closet and drawers empty. Five of the ten rooms were the same, the rest empty. So Nana had had five students with her, and only two of them had been kids. Other than them and Marcus, she’d had another man and woman living in the house, and they were nowhere to be found.
