by C. C. Mahon
Nate shook his head again with the expression of a father deeply disappointed by his child. “If you murder Ernesto, you’ll never be the same. Taking a life, it haunts you for the rest of your life. Believe me when I tell you that it’s not the answer.”
“No, you believe me when I tell you that if you don’t get your ass off that bike in the next three seconds, you’re gonna get a bullet to the shoulder. And don’t think that will get you out of work tonight: I know that metamorphs heal quickly.”
With a heavy sigh, he stood up. With Nate’s weight lifted, my bike raised up a good four inches. My heart tightened when I thought of the stress her poor shocks had just gone through.
“If I’m not back tonight, open the club as usual. Put Barbie behind the bar. Background music and black armbands for all the employees. And tell the customers tonight’s proceed are going to an organization for battered women. Today is dedicated in memory of Agatha.”
I was going to start by dedicating a lovely vengeance to her. It wouldn’t bring back our dryad, but it would let me unwind—maybe.
6
Ernesto lived on the outskirts of Vegas in a house without any curb appeal in the middle of a street neglected by the gods of urbanism and gardening. Behind a patched fence, six square feet of weeds burned by the sun separated the sidewalk from the front door. Yellow tape was stuck to the door. No need to look any closer to know that it read “police do not cross.”
I stopped my bike on the other side of the street to take in the structure. One story, wooden walls under a tin roof. An old air conditioner stuck out like a dirty tooth under a window with yellowed curtains. Ernesto clearly had expensive tastes.
The air conditioner was quiet; the curtains didn’t move. No one was home.
I started my bike and turned down the next street. Several feet later, I parked my bike. No one in sight. The people who lived around here were all gone to work, and those who didn’t work must’ve still been sleeping. Perfect.
Only having illusion as a magical power had allowed me to develop my sense of observation, and I had no trouble making myself look like a delivery man. More precisely, the old man in the UPS uniform that delivered packages to the club.
I headed towards Ernesto’s, walking faster than the old delivery man, simply because I only had a few minutes before the illusion faded.
The gate let out a squeal of protest as I opened it, and I knocked on the door. It resounded with a metallic clang.
No answer.
I moved over to the window to peer inside. It had bars mounted over it, and the yellowed curtains obstructed my view. I knocked again, louder, and still no answer. My heart tightened: obviously no one was home. As soon as the police had let him go, Ernesto had taken off. He was probably already halfway to the Mexican border.
I headed back to my bike, still hidden by my illusion, in case a curious neighbor saw me. But I was already contemplating the next step.
The best way to find Ernesto was a location spell. For that, I needed:
1) a wizard;
2) a nice stack of bills to pay the wizard; and
3) an item belonging to Ernesto.
My concentration waned, and I felt the illusion crumble. It didn’t matter.
I ran back towards Ernesto’s house, opened the gate on the fly, and threw myself against the door.
I busted up my shoulder and lurched back. The door didn’t budge.
I circled the house, looking for another point of entry. All the windows were covered in bars, and there wasn’t another door.
Cursing Ernesto and his small-time dealer paranoia, I went back to the front door.
The shutters were clearly lined in metal, and my shoulder wasn’t up to the task.
A quick look around confirmed that I was alone. I took out my weapon and pointed it at the lock.
Would a bullet ricochet off a metal door? At what speed? In what direction?
I hadn’t learned to shoot locks. I didn’t feel like taking a bullet to the knee, or worse.
I could already imagine Nate’s reaction if I came back limping and injured because of my own stupidity. But the last thing I’d said to him came back to me: “Today is dedicated in memory of Agatha.”
It wasn’t time to give in.
I squared my shoulders, steadied my grip on the gun, and aimed for the lock.
A hard object lodged itself against my ribs, and a voice just as unyielding declared, “Police, drop your weapon.”
I obeyed, and my pistol hit the ground.
“Hands on your head,” ordered the cop.
I didn’t have to turn around to recognize her voice. It was the blonde who had arrested Ernesto. The one who had let him go too.
The barrel of her gun lifted from my back.
“Turn around,” she ordered.
She stood several steps back, her weapon pointed at my chest and my gun in her other hand, pointed towards the ground.
“Who are you?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”
The idea of lying crossed my mind. I could choose between any of the aliases that I’d used and abandoned before settling in Vegas. But she had my gun. It would be easy for her to find the permit associated to it.
“Erica St. Gilles,” I said.
“Agatha Argyris’s employer. And do you often attack doors with a .45, Erica?”
“I needed to get in.”
“I see that,” she said. “Is Ernesto a friend of yours?” The flash of anger must have been visible on my face, because she immediately spoke again. “Apparently not. Are you a client then? Or his dealer? Did Ernesto leave without paying what he owes you?”
“Ernesto murdered my bartender and you let him go.”
This time, anger flashed across the cop’s face. “Not my call,” she said. “And you’re not gonna find him here.”
“I noticed. So why are you here?”
I thought she was going to send me packing, but she smiled.
“I needed to think,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. She holstered her gun. “Do you have a permit?”
“In my jacket. Can I put my arms down now?”
“Slowly.”
At a frustratingly slow pace, I pulled out the permit. She read it carefully before handing it back to me and giving me back my gun.
“I’ll hold on to the magazine for now,” she said. “Follow me.”
7
The cop led me to a parked car further up the street. The vehicle was so run down that I’d assumed it was a wreck when I had passed it on my bike. But the inside was clean. She opened the passenger side door for me and got in behind the wheel. But she didn’t start the car.
“I’m Detective King,” she said.
Of course, she couldn’t know that I’d heard her the night before, when she’d introduced herself to Ernesto before cuffing him.
“I’d like to say I’m pleased to meet you,” I said, “but I’m not in the best of moods.”
King nodded. Her eyes were focused on Ernesto’s house, several dozen feet ahead of us. “Why do you think Ernesto killed Agatha?” she asked.
“He would hit her. She’d left him—many times. But he always managed to convince her to come back. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve changed,’ that kind of nonsense. She went back every time. We all knew it was just a matter of time.”
“And you didn’t do anything?”
“I promised that moron that if he touched her again, I’d bust his kneecaps. Apparently, he didn’t believe me.”
“Apparently,” she said. “Except there’s the issue of his alibi.”
“If Ernesto is breathing, he’s lying,” I said.
“Obviously. But he works in a casino, and the cameras, they don’t lie. When Agatha’s body was being brought onto the Strip, Ernesto was at work.”
“And at the time of the murder? Do you know when she died?”
“The coroner gave us a four-hour window,” she said. “During that time, Ernesto was at the tracks, then at a strip club
. Both businesses sent us their surveillance footage, and you can clearly see Ernesto.”
I mulled over this information silently.
I had no idea how they determined time of death, but I had a feeling their methods weren’t adapted for dryads. The truth was that no one knew Agatha’s time of death, and therefore all the alibis in the world meant nothing.
But I couldn’t just tell the detective that.
I remembered my old life—before I’d discovered the existence of dryads, metamorphs, and magic. If someone had tried to tell me all of this, had told me that the legends were true, that the monsters were real and lived in the shadows of humans, I would’ve never believed them.
And of course, the monsters weren’t always magical creatures.
“What are you gonna do?” King asked.
Her question pulled me from my memories, and it took me a minute to regain my footing in the present.
I couldn’t tell her what my real plans were, that I was going to come back as soon as possible to get into Ernesto’s house, grab one of his personal items, and spend a small fortune for a location spell. I instead settled for shrugging my shoulders and asking her the same thing.
“It’s not my case anymore,” she said. “My chief gave it to his protégé.”
“And?” I asked. “What does the protégé say?”
She pursed her lips before answering. “It’s possible that I might not have taken the news gracefully.”
“And?”
“It’s possible that I was ordered to take a few days off.”
“Sore loser, huh?”
For the first time in our conversation, she looked away from the street to face me. Anger flashed in her eyes, but it wasn’t aimed at me. “Do you have any idea what I go through at this job? Always working twice as hard as the guys, only to barely get any recognition. If a man loses it, he’s just standing up for himself and it’s good for his career. If I object? I’m ‘hysterical’ and should get back in the kitchen. Dale might be older than me, but he just started here in Vegas. I have seniority over him. It’s his first case here, and the captain just hands it over to him?”
Dale? He was the graying cop, the one who seemed to see through my illusion. I didn’t like knowing he was the lead on this any more than King did, but for a very different reason. This guy was shady, and I didn’t want to cross paths with him again.
From her end, King raised her hand, as if to cut herself off. “You don’t need to hear about my problems. And besides, you’re your own boss. You wouldn’t get it.”
“Wanna bet?” I asked. “Just this morning, my bouncer tried to explain life to me, like I was just some stupid child. Apparently, he knows what’s best for me. I feel like firing him and hiring a girl instead. But I know full well that a chick would have to break three times as many jaws before being respected, and that’s not good for business.”
“He wanted to keep you from coming here?” she said, smiling from the corner of her mouth.
“Maybe. He wants me to let the police do their job.”
“Not a bad idea. What if you started by telling me about Agatha? How did you meet her?”
“One of my waitresses introduced us. They knew each other from a support group, I think.”
“Alcohol?”
I shook my head. “Agatha had a habit of getting into relationships that were…toxic. She had just gotten to town, she needed a job, and I needed a bartender.”
“What do you know about her past?”
“Almost nothing. I think she came to lose herself in the middle of the desert to escape her family, but I’m not sure.”
“Do you know where she’s from?”
“Greece?”
“I don’t mean her ancestry. Where did she grow up?”
“I don’t remember,” I lied. “Do you want me to check her employment contract?”
“It would probably be as useful as her driver’s license,” answered the cop.
A fake, I assumed. Most supernatural creatures aged much slower than us humans and needed to regularly invent new identities. With the emergence of technology and the internet, the creation and sale of fake IDs had become a crucial industry for the community. But a full background cost a fortune, and Agatha was always broke. I guessed she’d gotten an ID at a discount. The police must’ve spotted it in under thirty seconds.
“We don’t know who she really was,” said King. “You’re sure she never said anything? A passing comment?”
I shook my head. Agatha had made plenty of comments. But I couldn’t put a detective on the trail of a clan of dryads. And besides, I knew for a fact who was responsible. I just needed to find him.
“Did she have any enemies?” pressed King.
“Ernesto.”
“Other than him.”
“Not to my knowledge. She led a quiet life. She wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”
That was her problem.
“Your medical examiner is wrong,” I said. “Ernesto killed Agatha.”
“He was at work at the same time as an unknown man dressed as a Viking set fire to the victim’s funeral pyre.”
I closed my eyes to push back the image that those words brought up.
“Ernesto paid some sucker to put on the gruesome show at a time when he knew he’d be caught by the cameras,” I said. “Even an idiot like him could come up with that.”
“Did Agatha know someone in Chicago?”
The mention of my old city hit me like a punch to the gut, and King noticed. “Erica? What’s wrong? If you know of a link between Agatha and…”
I shook my head. “No, she never said anything. Why?”
“We found similarities between her murder and several others committed there.”
That’s where Ernesto had gotten the idea for a viking funeral to cover his tracks: he had copied a series of random events.
“So if she ever mentioned Chicago,” continued King, “or the Great Lakes region…”
“No, never. Like I told you, she didn’t talk about her past, and I respected that choice. We all have a right to our secrets.”
“But sometimes there’s darkness hidden there,” grumbled King.
I couldn’t hold back my shudder: that statement was too true.
“One last thing,” said King. “You mentioned a waitress that knew Agatha well. Could you give me her number?”
“I’d better call her first. She’s naturally cranky and doesn’t trust the police.”
“Troubled past?”
“Ex-junkie. She has a heart of gold, but she plays it close to the vest.”
I dialed Barbie’s number on my cell, but I only managed to reach her voicemail.
“Hey Barb, it’s Erica. Look, the police need help with Agatha’s case, so get dressed and go see Detective King at the police station…”
The detective shoved her business card in my face, and I read off her number to the voicemail.
“She must still be asleep,” I explained after hanging up.
“A bartender hired under a fake ID and an ex-junkie waitress who’s wary of police: your hiring process seems to leave something to be desired.”
“Agatha was a model employee, and Barbie has never missed a day of work. I really don’t care what issues they’ve had in the past. What matters is that I trust them completely.”
“And you, what’s your story? You’re new to town, right? You opened your club only a few months ago. Where did you live before?”
“California,” I said without hesitating. “Sacramento.”
“Did you own a club there?”
“I was a waitress. And then my favorite aunt left me her collection of tobacco pouches.”
King’s left eyebrow rose towards her hair line. “Tobacco pouches?”
“From the 19th century. Would you believe that Napoleon’s was among them? It’s crazy what European collectors are willing to pay for these kinds of knick-knacks. I would’ve never thought!”
“Me neither.
And that was enough for you to come here and open up a nightclub?”
“I bought an abandoned hangar, and I cut back on expenses where I could: the tobacco pouches changed my life.”
I could see the doubt on the cop’s face: she was wondering if I was pulling her leg. She was welcome to check; when creating my new identity, I’d left nothing to chance. With a quick internet search, she would find the record of sale from a reputable auction house, the appraisal of the tobacco pouch, and even an article in the Sacramento paper with the picture of a happy lady in front of her collection of 139 tobacco pouches.
“Can I get my magazine back?” I asked with an angelic smile.
King handed it to me. “Don’t come near this case again,” she warned. “If I hear that Ernesto’s house was broken into, I’m coming to see you first.”
“But, Detective, that’s not fair. Look at this neighborhood. You just have to turn your back for five minutes for Ernesto’s customers and dealers to come looking for his cash and drugs. You know he was taking illegal bets on boxing matches? I have better things to do than getting mixed up with those scum.”
“I’d agree with that,” she said. “And don’t forget to send the waitress my way. Ernesto might not be the only violent boyfriend in Agatha’s past. The more I know about her, the sooner I’ll be able to do my job.”
8
I returned to my loft, lost in my thoughts.
Should I go back to Ernesto’s tonight, risking coming face to face with the detective again? Should I ask Nate to go for me? Would I be able to find something belonging to Ernesto at the casino where he worked, in his locker? What item would work? I didn’t know enough about location spells, and I decided to start by doing research. There was no point in risking going to jail to get an item only to learn that it wouldn’t work.
I grabbed my phone to call the Sorcerers’ Guild.
A young male voice with a thick British accent answered. The news of Agatha’s death had spread like wildfire in the supernatural community, and the wizard seemed highly motivated to help find the murderer.
