by R K Dreaming
“I have every right to be here,” he said. “You on the other hand… not so much. Trespassing. Interfering with a crime scene. Grounds for arrest.”
“I had a vision,” I lied. “I thought the Sentinel Alliance might welcome my insight.”
“Liar,” he taunted. “Without us, you’ve found yourself all alone in the world, like the freak you’ve always been. And here you are at the most famous crime scene in Brimstone Bay. You’re hoping to set yourself up in town as an oracle, aren’t you? Make the rich and famous flock to you. Got used to having money, didn’t you? Can’t do without it now.”
His eyes fell to the shirt my brother Oberon had bought for me, registering its fine fabric and expensive cut. His face hardened in displeasure.
“It’s all in your mind, little man,” I said.
“Don’t play games with me. I’ve known you too long. I know what kind of vile creature you are. Pretending to be one of us all these years. I could keep you here till morning. Drag you out in the sunlight, and then you’d know you weren’t one of us.”
I was stunned. He had never spoken to me this way before. Never had the guts to. The sun could no longer burn me to a frisp, but he did not know that.
“I know exactly why you came here,” he continued. “You’re not working for the mighty Sentinels anymore, so you have to start by proving yourself all over again. You thought you’d start with nothing less prestigious than a Reaper case.” His lip curled in a sneer.
I clapped mockingly, though my heart was racing. Polliver would just love to arrest me, and he was here alone. Which struck me as ominous.
I could see it in his pale grey eyes. The smugness. He had me exactly where he wanted me. I was going to jail, my chance to catch The Reaper gone in a puff of smoke.
I could not let that happen. I needed to catch him. For me. For my daughter Gaia. For Charming. I had promised him.
I panicked, my mouth dry. It was all I could do to keep my voice steady as I said, “So you guessed I’d come here. Well done. One might almost think you had the gift yourself. You should call your chief. Tell him I’ve offered you my services. I doubt he’ll turn them down.”
I had no gifts, but I could play them along. Maybe it would work. The Sentinels had hated me walking away from them. This way they could claim some power over me again.
“I am the chief,” he said, and my hopes died.
I couldn’t stop the disgusted disbelief that crossed my face.
“You?” I spat.
How could they have elevated this creep of all people to a chief?
“Me,” he said so gleefully that it should have been pathetic.
But it was not. He had the power. I felt like a vice was closing on me. Those spinning handcuffs were for me. It couldn’t be more clear.
“So I’ve trespassed,” I blustered. “Hardly a sin.”
“You’ve tampered with evidence.”
“I’ve done no such thing.”
He pointed at the blood spots on the carpet by his feet. “You’ve bleached these spots, I think.” He pointed to The Reaper’s mark on the wall. “I came in here and found you scrubbing that away. You wanted this case for yourself, so you destroyed the evidence.”
“You creep!” I snarled.
So that was why he had come here alone. To frame me.
He thrust his face at mine so suddenly I had no choice but to rear back. “You’re nothing but a criminal. A murderer. We had you to rights. We had all the evidence. But somehow you made it go away.”
His mouth turned white at the edges with rage. “But I’ve got you now. I’m going to put you away, you piece of crap. You vampire spawn. Put you in a dark cell where you belong with the animals and let them tear you apart. You won’t last one night.” He laughed and laughed.
I saw red. I wanted to lash out. The horrid nasty bully. I wanted to use a wish to make him regret every time he’d tormented anyone. I hated him more in that moment than I’d hated anyone.
He clipped the handcuffs back in his belt with a suddenness that set my teeth on edge. “Or…”
He let the word linger into silence.
“Or what?” I hissed.
“Or you can do what I want, oracle. That’s all you’re good for. Give me what I need to solve my case and I’ll let you go. You can do whatever you like with the pathetic remnants of your life after that, sanguith.”
My mouth had dropped open and I snapped it shut quickly. My gosh. He really had to be stuck if he was resorting to this.
“And I’m supposed to trust you, am I?”
“You’ll have to,” he said bluntly.
My mind was racing. I could almost have laughed. I wanted to solve this case too. This was just perfect.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll solve your case. But I don’t trust you. I want it in writing that my involvement has been authorised by you, beginning tonight. And I’m to be free to investigate in any manner I choose and be given complete access to everything. All the crime scenes, the witnesses, all your forensics.”
Polliver threw back his head and laughed. “You fool. Your powers on the blink, are they? You’re not coming anywhere near this case.”
I frowned. “But you said—”
“The Reaper is mine,” he snapped. “It’s not this case I want your help with. You’ll need every last bit of your powers for my other case. You’d better solve it, or I’ll have you locked up quicker than you can blink.”
Chapter 4
SIGOURNEY
“What case?” I said.
He scowled, eyeing me up as if I was playing games with him.
“What case do you think?” he snapped. “The Mockingbird. Don’t tell me you haven’t got wind of it yet!”
I frowned. The Mockingbird was a case I had once come across at the Sentinel Alliance.
“Troy Mockingbird? But he went to ground years ago. I thought he was dead?”
“He is dead,” said Polliver looking more displeased with every passing second. “We found him dead three nights ago just outside Brimstone Bay. We’ve kept it out of the news for now.”
“And you want me to solve his murder?” I said in disbelief.
I didn’t give a crap about Troy Mockingbird. He was a low life criminal, a trafficker of illegal magical goods from the Magicwild, and all-round unpleasant sort with a huge list of crimes including extortion, torture and murder to his name. That he was dead was nothing but good news.
“What does he matter?” I said. “Wouldn’t you much rather I catch The Reaper for you? That’ll be a huge feather in your cap.”
“Mockingbird is the one I want you to solve. We think he’s expanded his operation to people-trafficking. You hate traffickers, don’t you? You got rid of the last one who came your way. Whoever killed Mockingbird has to have taken over his operation. This is huge. Not just some lousy serial killer. That’s the feather I want in my cap.”
I glared at him in disgust. He didn’t give a crap about the women who The Reaper murdered. They were nothing to him.
And then it hit me. There was only one reason why Polliver wanted this case solved so bad.
“When did your chief die?” I asked suspiciously.
His face went red, and I knew I was right.
“Ha!” I said. “Your chief died just recently. You’re only the acting chief. You haven’t really got the job yet. That’s why you want the Mockingbird case solved. You want to get confirmed as chief!”
And you’ll never get it, I thought, my face flushing in jubilation. How could I help him? This creep was not worthy of such a position of responsibility where he would hold the lives of all the sentinel officers under his command in his hand.
“You keep your nose out of my business,” Polliver snarled. “You choose right now. I’m going to take you to the crime scene, or I’m going to take you to a prison cell. Your choice.”
“I need a moment.”
“Not my problem.”
“No really. I need a moment to use
the ladies. Desperate actually.”
Without waiting for an answer, I dashed past the blood-soaked bed and into the en-suite bathroom. He came after me to pound on the door, growling, “You can’t go here. It’s a ruddy crime scene, you fool!”
“Yeah, it is,” I muttered quietly to myself. I had no intention of mucking up the bathroom, which was so peach and pink, it looked like a petal bomb had exploded over everything.
“Charming?” I murmured quietly. “You can come out now.”
And he did, in a swirling cloud of angry multi-coloured smoke.
He took man-shape in front of me, and stood there glowering, arms crossed furiously over his broad chest.
“What?” I said, defensively.
“You commanded me to go back inside,” he hissed. “What if that had been The Reaper?”
“Well, it wasn’t. I recognised his voice. I worked with him long enough. You heard what he wanted, right?”
“You can’t trust him.”
“I know that. But I’ve got one over on him.”
“It sounded to me like he’s got one over on you.”
“No really. Didn’t you hear him lying through his teeth?? I can’t believe it took me so long to catch on. He doesn’t have a right to be here. The Reaper isn’t even his case!”
Charming looked thoroughly confused. “What? Of course it’s his case.”
“No. I can’t believe I didn’t realise it right away. The sentinels would be interested in this case because they think Marilyn, Amelie, is a Humble. The other guy killed was a wizard though, and this is Brimstone Bay, so the Conclave of Magic will have primary jurisdiction. Polliver’s come down from London only to find himself on the side-lines, and I bet he is mad about it. That’s why he doesn’t want me solving this Reaper case. It’s not his.”
“Either way, that doesn’t help us,” whispered Charming. “If he’s not in charge, you can’t get his official permission to investigate it. And that snivelling little bully already threatened to incriminate you. If you make a wish, I can unsnarl this for you…?”
He said it half-heartedly because he knew I wouldn’t waste a wish on that.
I shook my head. “You know I can’t. I’m going to have to help him with this Mockingbird thing. But we can still investigate The Reaper case unofficially. If we get caught, we can lie and say Polliver gave us permission, and he’ll be forced to back us up!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle.
Charming dragged his hands through his hair in frustration. “But we can’t waste time on this Mockingbird thing. The Reaper is getting away! I need to catch him. Me. I can’t wait for law enforcement to catch him. It needs to be an act of devotion, of love. I need to give Amelie’s spirit some peace. It has to be me!”
His cheeks were flushed in a mixture of helplessness and grief and anger.
I nodded. “I’m sorry. I know it has to be quick—”
“We’ll split up,” he said suddenly. “I’ll look into Amelie’s death and you can—”
“No way!” I hissed “I’m helping you with The Reaper. Stop trying to get rid of me. I brought you in here because I need to make a wish.”
Charming went still at this. My last wish had turned out disastrous for me, and yet he had warned me that I must make the three wishes now that we were bound, and each time I would have to pay a price.
“But… Sigourney, I don’t think you should make one rashly. You should think it through.”
“I have thought it through. I—”
“No!” he hissed. “Don’t you dare wish to know who The Reaper is. I have to find him. Me. Not you. Or I’ll never be free of this damn curse.”
I was taken aback at the vitriol with which he had said ‘curse’. As if being a genie and everything that came with it, including suffering my company, suffering granting me three wishes, was a curse. Which hurt.
But more to the point, “I’m not going to wish that!” I said. “Heck, the price I might pay might be that he slips away again that instant! Or kills us, or whatever.”
“Good,” he said, looking relieved. “Then what?” He looked at me questioningly.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said hesitantly, my cheeks flushing, “…that maybe I should wish for my psychic gifts to be restored….?”
I swallowed hard, this possibility hurting with how much I wanted it now that I had actually said the words.
He didn’t say anything.
“They were never supposed to go away,” I said softly. “They were such a curse at times, but they were always a blessing, and I feel… I feel so diminished without them, like I’ve lost a limb… or worse—half my brain! I don’t think I’m me without them and it’s just so hard…”
“Then you want them back?” he said.
“I need them,” I said almost pleadingly, as if I had to explain myself to him, or even to myself.
I was scared I was being selfish. Hadn’t I said I would devote my remaining two wishes for my daughter? And yet now I knew the price, I feared to do that.
“What about Gaia?” he said, guessing what I was thinking.
It hurt to hear her name. I hung my head in guilt. How could I have not known who she was the moment I had seen her face?
He grasped my shoulders gently. “Hey, don’t do that. Don’t torment yourself.”
“She said I was a fraud,” I said in a choked voice, the wave of emotion rising so sharply that it threatened to smother me.
“You know that’s not true,” he said. “You lost your gifts. You were never a fraud. She’ll know that in time.”
I swallowed hard. “But she was right. I was never a mother to her. I cared more for my career.”
“That’s not true, and you know it,” he said impatiently now. “They told you she died at birth. You couldn’t go looking for her because you never knew she existed.”
“I should have known it. I was a Grace. How could I have never known it?”
“Because you’re a Grace, you know better than anyone that the gift does not work like that. It’s a bit like my wishes. It never gives you what you really want.”
“That’s why I’m scared. I wanted to save a wish for Gaia, but what if it’s her who has to pay the price if I do? I would rather it was me who pays.” I bit my lip.
He nodded solemnly. “You’re scared that if you wish for your gifts back, then the price you might have to pay is the loss of your health again.”
I nodded, touched that he understood.
My health was such a blessing. Now I had it, it simply took my breath away that it might be gone again. The idea was devastating. That wish had taken my gift, but it had given me the dream of maybe decades more time to spend with my daughter, if she could ever forgive me. If she could ever come out of hiding.
“I wanted to catch him so that she can come home,” I whispered. “So that she doesn’t have to live in fear. I just want to give her that. None of this is her fault. But…” My voice trailed off.
“But if you lose your health you may never get to know her,” he finished.
He had lived a thousand years. He knew as well as I did that we sanguiths died soon and suddenly, like a berry withering in an early frost. Life was too tough on us. We weren’t made to last.
“Will it?” I said. “If I ask for my gifts back, I can help Polliver find Troy Mockingbird’s killer maybe as soon as tonight at the crime scene. Then we can be free immediately to investigate our own case. No delays. But if I end up in jail tonight… then I have to spend a wish getting out of jail. What a waste. I would rather try for my gifts. What do you think?”
I looked at him hopefully.
He nodded slowly. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen one wish taking the former wish as payment before. I think maybe you don’t have to worry about that, but I can’t guarantee it.”
I felt a flush of relief. That made sense. How stupid it would be if your three wishes took the prior one away as payment.
“I need it Cha
rming. The Reaper taunted me in that letter, said he knows I’ve lost my powers. He thinks I can’t find him now, but this might give me the exact edge he doesn’t expect. And you said sometimes the price is small, right? Maybe this time it won’t be so bad.”
Charming only grudgingly nodded. “Maybe.” A small frown marred his forehead, as if he was truly worried for me.
I gave a little laugh. “It can’t be that bad. It already did the worst. The only thing worse would be to take away Gaia, and I don’t have Gaia anymore really. What have I got to lose?”
“What have you got to lose?” he echoed.
“Okay, that’s good,” I said.
And then I closed my eyes and said really quickly, before I could change my mind, “I wish for my psychic gifts to be restored to me.”
Chapter 5
SIGOURNEY
The moment I said it, I knew it was the right thing.
I said it more firmly now, eyes still squeezed tightly shut, sure it was what I needed, because if all else failed, I still had that one wish left for Gaia. “I wish for my psychic gifts to be restored.”
“They already are,” said Charming softly.
I opened my eyes and frowned at him. “They are? But… I didn’t feel anything.” I couldn’t stop the note of worry in my voice.
Charming looked a tad offended. “Hey, I waved my hand and everything, but you didn’t even open your eyes to see it. Trust me — if you make the wish, then it comes true. It’s done.”
I rolled my eyes. Trust a man to take it personally!
“It’s only that last time I felt this amazingly miraculous fizzing burst of energy spreading all inside me. It was spectacular, just like a wish should feel.”
“Gosh, I’m so sorry to disappoint.”
“So you should be.”
He rolled his eyes. “Could that be perhaps because you wished for your health, last time? You who were decrepit all your life.”
I scowled. “There’s no need to be rude.”
That made sense though. The spectacular energy I had felt last time must have been my health returning. No wonder it had felt so marvellous, as if the very seed of life itself had bloomed inside me.
