The Trouble With Magic

by Tania Hutley

  This time, I won’t assume they’re on my side.

  “Can I help you up, Ms. Black?” Before I can answer, the policeman grips my arm and pulls me to my feet. He’s taller than I realized, his shoulders wide. He towers over me, making me feel small and a little fragile in comparison to his bulk.

  I hate feeling fragile.

  “I can walk on my own.” I wrench my arm out of his grip. By his expression, I can tell my strength has surprised him.

  “Let’s go outside.” He motions a policewoman to walk with us. It’s much busier outside, with flashing lights playing on the house, and men in blue uniforms swarming around it. The front door and gate are both wide open.

  “Wait,” I say when we get to the bottom of the steps. “Where’s Agnes?”

  “Agnes?” He frowns. “Who’s Agnes?” He looks around as if expecting to see another dead body.

  “The chicken. Where’s the chicken? And the rat? Is Ratticus okay?”

  “Ms. Black, have you had anything to drink in the last few hours? Taken any drugs?”

  “Of course not. My cousin owns a rat called Ratticus. The chicken is… it’s my chicken. Agnes is her name. I brought the chicken to Sylvia’s place because she was going to…” I shake my head. “I needed some advice about taking care of her. It. The chicken.”

  “Your cousin was a chicken expert?” His eyes are still narrow, but they’re sharp, too. He might be big, but he also strikes me as intelligent.

  “Of course not. She…just…knew a lot about all kinds of things.”

  My brain is whirling, but as he watches me intently, taking in my every word and reaction like he’s memorizing them for later, one thought surfaces enough for me to single it out. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “Detective Trent. I’m in charge of the investigation.” He looks at the policewoman who walked outside with us. “Have we found any animals?”

  “The cage in the living room is empty, sir. No animals found alive or dead.”

  Shit. Now, on top of everything else, I’ve lost Agnes.

  “If you find the chicken, will you tell me right away?” My gaze flicks from the policewoman to Detective Trent and back again. “It’s important. You can’t let anything happen to her.” I don’t want to be responsible for my neighbor getting killed, or shut up in an animal shelter.

  Or eaten.

  The thought makes me shudder. I need to find a way to change her back. Fast.

  Detective Trent’s frown deepens as he studies me. He’s no doubt trying to figure out whether I’m completely off my rocker, or just eccentric.

  “So, you brought a chicken to your cousin’s house,” he says without inflection, as though it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. “Can you tell me what happened when you arrived?”

  “As soon as I walked in the house, something felt wrong.” My voice threatens to crack. The memory of walking down the hallway is so clear and strong. And there was that smell. Should I have been able to tell right away that Sylvia was dead?

  “The door was open when you arrived?”

  I shake my head. “No, it was locked. I have a key.”

  “What felt wrong about the house?”

  “Just a bad feeling. It’s hard to describe, but it felt off.”

  The detective’s expression shifts almost imperceptibly. It’s not much, but enough to tell me what he thinks of my bad feeling. Too much of the woo woo stuff for this man mountain, apparently.

  “When I went into the living room, Ratticus was upset. He’d spilled his food so I turned his bowl the right way up. That’s when I noticed Sylvia’s blood.” I suck in a deep breath as a fresh wave of horror rolls over me. My cousin is dead. It’s like the shock lessened for a few minutes, just so it could come back even stronger and wipe me out again. How can Sylvia be gone?

  “Then what happened?” asks the detective.

  I can’t exactly tell him about her athenaeum. “She was on the floor. I called you. End of story.”

  “Most of the books on your cousin’s shelves are occult in nature,” says Detective Trent in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Sylvia collected books. She was a researcher.” Of course, they’re going to think my cousin was a crackpot. Mundanes can’t sense magical power, even when it’s so strong that the books quiver with it. To the detective, my cousin’s books probably look ordinary. And their subject matter is more woo woo stuff for him to dismiss.

  “Was she romantically involved with anyone?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  He studies my face carefully, as though trying to tell whether I’m lying. “Why do you think your cousin’s neighbors would see her coming and going at all hours?”

  “Are you investigating my cousin’s death, or just my cousin?” I point back at the house, my voice rising. “Shouldn’t you be trying to find out what did that to her instead of wasting your time with innuendo and gossip?”

  “What did that to her? Not who did it?”

  I swallow, bringing my anger under control. I have too many secrets to be able to speak unguarded.

  “You saw her chest,” I say in a calmer tone. “It looked like an animal tore it open.”

  He nods, looking toward the road. “There’s the ambulance. Let’s talk more while they examine you.”

  “I’m fine, I just need to find my chicken. She must be out here somewhere. I can’t let anything happen to her.” I start to push past him, but he grabs my arm.

  He must have learned something from his previous attempt to hold onto me, because this time he grips my arm tightly with both hands to keep me from wrenching free. I try anyway, and get some satisfaction when his expression tells me he finds it tough to hang on. He nods to the policewoman to help, and she grabs my other arm.

  “You’ll be examined by the medics,” he says through gritted teeth. “Then we’ll take you for photographs.”

  “Look, you can take your photos, then I need to go.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible. Ms. Black, I’m taking you to the station for formal questioning in relation to the murder of your cousin.”

  Five

  “I need to get out of here.” I say for the millionth time. “Agnes isn’t safe on her own.”

  The room they’re holding me in has no windows and I’m not wearing a watch, but I know it’s the middle of the night. It feels like the detective has been sitting on the other side of the crappy wooden desk questioning me for hours.

  Detective Trent’s suit jacket is slung over the back of his chair and his tie is loose. He has a manila folder in front of him. The whole time we’ve been here, I’ve been obsessed by what’s in the folder. My guess, it’s all the information they have on me. Like one of those dossiers from a crime show, with a photo of me stapled to the front of printed pages of information. Maybe they have my school grades and copies of old speeding tickets.

  “Agnes is the chicken, right?” I’m sure Detective Trent’s being deliberately annoying. He’s playing bad cop, hoping to get me angry enough that I let something slip.

  “You should check whether anyone’s found her.” The thought of Agnes in someone’s chicken run, or worse, their dinner pot, is making me squirm. I really would be a murderer if that happened.

  “You’re not taking your situation seriously enough. Forget about chickens and rats. Tell me about your cousin.” Detective Trent leans back in his chair and runs one hand through his short brown hair, leaving it rumpled. It’s crazy for me to feel sympathy for him, but he looks almost as tired as I feel. I doubt this is fun for him either.

  “You said Ratticus’s cage was empty. He’s spent his whole life being fed. I don’t know how he’ll get by on his own.”

  Maybe the detective’s right and I should be trying to convince him I’m innocent. But they won’t believe me, so what’s the point? Five years ago, I had a different set of detectives riding my ass. I tried to help them, I tried to convince them. I answered every damn question they had a hundred times over, sure t
hey’d eventually see that I was innocent. And then they turned around and arrested me anyway.

  I survived that experience. I’ll survive him too.

  Before they ushered me into this claustrophobic room, a couple of doctors examined me. They took my blood-soaked clothes and gave me a pair of loose pants and a gray shirt to wear. My most comfortable jeans, my favorite pair to work in, are in an evidence bag, probably being sliced up and tested.

  Both the pants and shirt they gave me are so big that I’ve had to roll up the sleeves and cuffs. I look incredibly dorky. Not that it matters. It’s not like I’m about to start flirting with the detective, even if he is tall, square-jawed and annoyingly handsome.

  “Those scratches.” He nods at my forearms, exposed by the shirt’s rolled-up sleeves. “What really happened?”

  “How many times do I have to repeat myself? The chicken didn’t like being carried.”

  “Chicken scratches,” he says thoughtfully, as though this is the first time I’ve said it instead of the hundredth. “We’re scraping under your cousin’s fingernails. Will we find your DNA? If it’s a possibility, you should tell me now. Things will go a lot easier for you if you’re honest.”

  “Do they look like scratches from a human?” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “They’re chicken scratches. No matter how many times you ask, there’s only one answer.” I shove my arms toward him, like it’s going to change his mind if he’s just a little bit closer.

  He just watches me, as if waiting for me to change my mind and admit my guilt.

  The silence stretches for a moment, and then I can’t help myself. “And while we’re being honest,” I emphasize the word, “here’s some honest advice. The longer you waste time asking the same questions over and over, the less likely you are to find out what really happened to my cousin.”

  At first I assumed the grimoire had cast its own spell to kill her, but surely Sylvia’s archivist power would make that impossible, even without all the protections of her athenaeum. She was born with the means to control the spells contained in any grimoire’s pages, so the only way a spell could have killed her was if somebody cast it at her. And that would explain why there was blood in her living room.

  The detective sighs. “We’ll be here until you stop talking about chickens and rats, and start telling me something that makes sense.”

  “Then you’d better order us breakfast.” I put my hands on the table, twisting the ring my mother left me in her will. She asked me to always wear it, and I do, though I suspect her blood embedded in it might have helped stir up my bound magic. Still, I like having something of hers close.

  “That ring,” he says, catching the movement. “Is it yours? Or did you steal it from your cousin?”

  “What?” A hot flush of anger surges though me, before I catch the sharpness in his eyes. He’s just trying to get a reaction out of me. Probably hoping I’ll get mad enough to blurt out something I didn’t mean to let slip.

  I press my lips together and lean back with my arms folded.

  “At least tell us where you killed her,” he says. “We know she didn’t die in the place we found her. We know you moved the body. So if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life behind bars, I’m going to need you to start talking.”

  “All I know is what I’ve already told you.”

  With a resigned expression, he reaches for the manila folder. “Then how do you explain this?” He takes out two glossy crime scene photos and places them side-by-side in front of me.

  Bile rises in my throat.

  One is my mother’s body, partially charred. The other is my cousin.

  “They look the same,” he says. “A hole in each chest. The flesh torn rather than cut, and their hearts missing. What do you think happened to their hearts, Ms. Black?”

  Pressing my mouth into a hard line, I look away. The images from the photos are burned into my brain. If you’d asked me two minutes ago, I would have sworn that my memory of the gaping wound on my mother’s body is as clear today as it was on the day it happened. But one glimpse of her photo has proven that’s not true. Somehow, the horror of it had softened.

  Now it’s back, full force.

  My chest is tight and my throat feels so thick I can’t swallow. But I refuse to let him get to me. There’s no way I’ll let him win this terrible game. I’m stronger now, tougher. I find a way to pull my eyes back to his, refusing to look back down at the photographs even though it takes all my strength not to.

  “You were found with the bodies of your parents, and your cousin,” says the detective. “Coincidences like that just don’t happen.” His voice is soft now. It’s low and gentle, like a verbal caress.

  I hold his gaze, not saying a word.

  He probably thinks he has me, because he leans forward as though hoping I’ll share a secret. “You know you can tell me anything, don’t you? Even if you did something to them. Maybe it was an accident. Perhaps you didn’t mean to hurt them. Things happen sometimes. I know, I see it all the time. It’s okay. I’ll understand.”

  His brow has a slight crease of concern. His light blue eyes are perfectly clear, like when you can see the sky all the way to the horizon. He’s got wrinkles in the corners like he’s used to smiling rather than frowning, and his short, dark brown hair is messy. He has a habit of running one hand through his hair every time he feels frustrated. Over the last few hours, he’s been frustrated a lot.

  Though my throat is still thick, I manage to whisper back, my voice just as soft. “Fuck you.”

  He lets out an audible breath as though I’ve disappointed him. He pushes the photographs back into the manila folder, and my relief to have them hidden makes me feel limp. There’s a paperclip on the table that was holding the photos together. The detective picks it up and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger.

  “I want to help you, Sapphira.” It’s the first time he’s used my first name and I like the way he says it, rolling around the ‘r’ on his tongue as though savoring it. Apart from that one quirk, his ‘good cop’ routine is so lame it should be taken out the back and shot.

  Still, it’s better than his bad cop act.

  “If you want to help me, stop wasting time and find whoever did this.”

  A question I’ve been asking myself is how did whatever hurt Sylvia get through her magical protection wards? But that’s not exactly a line of investigation the police can follow up.

  “You inherited your parent’s house, didn’t you?” he asks. “And as your cousin’s last living relative, you’re her sole beneficiary. So that’s two houses you own now, thanks to your family’s convenient deaths.”

  I blink at him, trying not to let my shock show. Sylvia’s house will belong to me now? What about her grimoires? I don’t want her house, and I definitely don’t want all that magical stuff.

  “It doesn’t look good for you,” he says in a regretful tone. “You understand that, don’t you? Seems you’re a dangerous person to know, because your family members keep dying.” He pauses, waiting for a reaction, and when I give him nothing he shakes his head. “You only live a few blocks from your cousin, but by all accounts you didn’t see each other much, did you? Had a falling out? Argue about something?”

  “My cousin and I didn’t agree on everything, but we were still close. She was family.”

  “What didn’t you agree about?”

  It’s not like I can tell him how I was ostracized after my magic was bound. Sylvia was one of the few to take my side and support me, but she was still part of the community I’d cut ties with. It was just easier not to see so much of each other when there were so many sensitive subjects to avoid.

  “Do you agree with everyone about everything?” I ask.

  The detective frowns, but doesn’t answer. His hands are on the table, still playing with the paperclip while he studies me with his sharp eyes. I drop my gaze to my own hands. Though I wear gloves when I work, my fingernails are torn. The police
scraped under my nails and put whatever they found into plastic tubes for testing. Sylvia’s blood would have been under my nails. And yes, I moved her body because I couldn’t exactly invite the police into her athenaeum. But they can’t convict me for a crime I didn’t commit.

  Except I’ve watched enough true crime Netflix shows to know they do it all the time.

  “I don’t know why I expect anything from you,” I say, my anger rising again. “You just want the easiest answer. You want me to be the one who did this, because it saves you having to go out looking for the truth.”

  “There’s plenty of evidence against you. It’d save us both time if you admit what happened.” The directness of his clear blue gaze, as much as his words, makes my stomach drop. He’s not putting on an act. He really thinks I was responsible for Sylvia’s death.

  Before I can argue, the door flies open. A gray-haired man charges into the room. His expression is murderous and it’s all for the detective. “What are you doing, Detective Trent?” he demands.

  I lean back in my chair, trying to understand the sudden change in situation. I’m fairly sure the man is someone high up in the precinct, because I vaguely recognize him from my last run-in with the police.

  “I’m questioning a suspect, Captain.” The detective’s back has gone stiff.

  “She’s a victim, not a suspect.” The captain steps to one side and another man appears behind him.

  My breath catches. It’s Magnus Fox, head of the Blood Council, and the one I hold most responsible for the council’s shitty behavior. With his long gray beard, he’s always reminded me of Gandalf. Except that Gandalf is a good guy and Magnus is anything but.

  The air around him tingles with magic, like static electricity. Whatever spell he’s using has turned his irises red: a weird, animal-like effect that’s particularly noticeable under the harsh, fluorescent lights of the interrogation room. It’s only because I’m looking for it that I see a smear of blood on the side of his curled fist, and a smear on the underside of his wrist, just visible under his sleeve. Probably a rune drawn on his arm.