Edith blinks several times, like she’s shocked I’d ask her for help personally, before taking the pile of bags off my hands and setting them on her desk. She takes a deep breath, and as she lets it out, the bulk of her shyness falls to the wayside, posture relaxing, blush fading. Her analytical mind kicks into gear, eyes keenly scanning the top page of the stack.
I notice, however, that she absolutely refuses to make eye contact with me when she speaks, instead staring at a streak of dirt on the front of my coat. “You’re in luck. I was planning to stay late tonight anyway—I have some final analysis reports I need to write up for my section meeting tomorrow morning—so I can certainly take a preliminary look at this material for you.” She flips through a couple of the bags. “Have you organized this at all?”
“Yeah, I looked through them on the drive back to the office and—”
She sweeps all the bags off her desktop and into her empty trashcan, then shakes them up until they’re well and truly disorganized. “Not to offend you or anything, Detective Kinsey, because I’m sure you’re very smart, but I prefer to look at potential evidence outside the context of another agent’s bias, at least when I first begin my analysis. That way, I can be sure that I don’t unnecessarily limit my interpretations of certain elements of the material.” She upturns the trashcan and dumps all the bags back onto her desk. “I’ve found that this approach generally results in a more robust analysis that offers more potential solutions and reveals more lines of further inquiry, thus resulting in fewer dead ends.”
“Oh.” Now it’s my turn to blush. “Okay then.”
“Though I do feel the need to ask, since this perpetrator is still active: did you spot anything in the material that you believe may help identify future targets?”
My mood sobers instantly. “You know, that’s what I was originally looking for, in addition to an obvious clue to his identity, but I didn’t see anything. There are no pictures or notes that reference anyone other than the people he targeted today.”
“Hm.” She plucks a random bag from the stack. “That has interesting implications. I’ll keep that in mind while I’m working, see if I can figure out why that may be.”
“Great. Thanks.” I backpedal to the entrance of her cubicle, getting the sense she’s ready to slip fully into research mode. Which, if she really is like Cooper, means she won’t want to be distracted or pressured by my nosy self peeking over her shoulder. “Feel free to call me or fire off a text the minute you find anything, even if it’s early in the morning. I doubt I’ll be getting much sleep while this guy is prowling around.”
Edith looks up from the bag, sympathy pooling in her eyes. “I heard about that poor little girl. Sadie. What happened to her mother was…” Her grip on the bag tightens into a fist, crinkling the plastic. “I’ll try my absolute hardest to pin this man down for you, Detective Kinsey. I promise.” She bites her lip. “In fact, I may have one piece of information for you now, but I haven’t had a chance to cross-reference different sources and ensure my explanation is as accurate as possible. But if you don’t mind looking at my unpolished research—”
“Not at all. I’ll take anything you have.”
She leans over and opens one of her desk drawers, pulling out a manila folder, which she offers to me. “Based on your description of the creature’s appearance from your confrontation in the alley outside Frances Wheeler’s apartment, I believe I’ve figured out what the perpetrator is utilizing.”
I flip the folder open. The printed picture on top of the stapled stack gives me pause. It’s a nearly perfect artist’s rendition of the deformed, corpselike creature, down to the tentacles branching off its hands and feet in place of fingers and toes. In the drawing, the creature’s eyes are empty black sockets, and its mouth is skewed into a silent scream. It looks almost like a mummified body someone stuffed into a round container for three thousand years, but it has just enough inhuman features that you can tell it’s not of this earth.
The caption underneath the image says, A graphite drawing of a polong.
“A polong? Never heard of it.” I turn to the second page of the printout, which contains a scholarly article about the origins of the “mythological” Malaysian creature. “Did we not have anything on this in the DSI Archive?”
Edith shakes her head. “Not a thing. I didn’t find a single reference to one in the global case record database either. I don’t think we’ve ever encountered one before.”
“Which goes a long way in explaining why we suck at fighting it.”
According to the myth article, a polong is a spirit created by putting the blood of a murder victim in a bottle for two weeks and performing some kind of spell on it. Since a spirit can’t actually be created from scratch (as far as I know), I’m guessing the real version of the polong is a spirit summoned from some Eververse realm that uses human blood to sustain its form on Earth in lieu of possessing a host, like most spirits do. That explains why the creature stabs its victims in places guaranteed to cause massive blood loss: it needs to consume a portion of that blood so its integrity doesn’t begin to degrade.
There’s nothing in the article about how to destroy a polong, which I take to mean it needs to be kicked back to its home realm via a banishment spell. Something DSI’s minor practitioners can’t usually perform, and something I have yet to learn because it’s beyond the scope of beginner-level magic. So even if we do manage to hunt down the practitioner before Targus and his no doubt numerous associates currently prowling Aurora’s streets, we’ll still have to come crawling to the ICM for help to fully resolve the case.
Annoyed, I snap the folder shut. If only Erica hadn’t been spirited off to Europe. But then, that was the point, wasn’t it? To make sure we can no longer utilize an ICM practitioner’s skills outside the purview of the High Court’s administration. To make sure they always get access to our cases involving criminal sorcerers, even though they consistently refuse to give us access to their internal investigations. Those rat bastards.
Realizing Edith is staring at me curiously as I rant inside my own head, I clear my throat and hold up the folder. “I know you said you haven’t finished checking all your sources on the polong mythos, but do you mind if I take this up to Commissioner Riker now? He might be able to get the ball rolling in R&D for the development of some basic polong countermeasures, so next time we face it, we won’t be so badly outmatched.”
Edith looks apprehensive about the big man upstairs seeing her unfinished work, but her knowledge of the polong’s brutality, splashed across the case files, must sway her more. “That’s fine. Just make sure you tell him there may be details about the polong not included in that article. After all, it’s just a mundane scholarly article; there’s nothing in it from the legitimate supernatural knowledge base.”
“I will.” I step out of her cubicle. “Thanks a bunch.”
She smiles. “Not a problem at all, Detective Kinsey.”
I give her a little parting wave and retreat to the elevator, which spits me out in front of Riker’s office. Not halfway across the hall, my ears pick up muffled shouting as it filters under Riker’s door. Curiosity piqued, I look both ways down the hall to confirm there’s no one loitering nearby who might take offense to me eavesdropping on the commissioner. Then I quietly creep the rest of the way to the door and press my ear to the panel.
The angry shouts resolve into the voice of Pamela Newsome, and I catch Riker’s bass responding to her accusations in calmer tones. Riker has no problem yelling at people, I know from extensive experience, and he only avoids it when doing so is necessary to prevent retaliation from whoever he’s butting heads with. He’s allowing Newsome to blow off her steam on him without complaint now so she doesn’t set her fury loose on DSI as a whole later.
Got to commend him for keeping his cool. She’s ripping him to pieces in there.
I can’t hear every word she’s saying, but the gist of her rant is that the Lycanthrope Republic will nev
er lend DSI aid in the form of manpower, even for noncombatant roles, ever again, unless some foolproof system is put into place to ensure no Wolves can be harmed during the course of assisting an investigation. In addition, the Lycanthrope Republic will not attempt to dissuade the families of the Wolves who died tonight from suing DSI for failing to protect them in the field. And to rub salt in the wound, they will send out a general warning to all werewolves plainly stating that DSI is not capable of providing security for werewolves in any capacity.
She rounds off her tirade with, “I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to do business with you people. You are nothing but ignorant humans interfering in situations you barely grasp, and your joke of an organization should’ve never gotten the green light in the first place. The fact that Mayor Burbank agreed to expand your operations after everything you’ve allowed to happen over the past year is just mindboggling to me.” She snorts. “But then I guess it shouldn’t be, since he’s a foolish human too. Clearly, we need someone else sitting in the mayor’s chair. Perhaps his opponent will be more willing to listen to reason.”
At last, she stops talking.
I can picture Riker’s expression perfectly: absolute disdain straining to break through a neutral mask, the corner of his lips twitching, his teeth pinching the inside of his cheek. Somehow, he manages to tamp down his temper long enough to 1) tell Newsome she’s entitled to her opinion and to make decisions within the bounds of her role as representative, 2) apologize for what is probably the fiftieth time for the unfortunate deaths of the Wolves, and 3) request that Newsome doesn’t allow her feelings on the matter to push her to act in a way that might hinder the investigation.
Newsome is less than enthused. “Your definition of hinder is likely different than mine. If we catch up to the killer first, he’s ours to punish, as you well know, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”
“So if our two factions happen to run into each other in the field during the pursuit of this criminal?”
“Then to the victor goes the spoils. And that’s all I’ll say on the matter.”
Newsome suddenly storms toward the door. I reel back, dart down the hall, and duck into the captains’ lounge. Not a second after I’m tucked out of sight, the door to Riker’s office swings open and slams into the wall. Newsome goes straight for the stairs, unwilling to spend an extra minute in Riker’s presence to wait for the elevator. She heaves the stairwell door open, stomps onto the landing, and starts angrily mumbling to herself as the door bangs shut in her wake. And then she’s gone.
With her goes the last ounce of goodwill DSI had with the Wolves.
I can’t help but think that’s exactly why the wizard killed the tracker team.
Riker walks up to his office doorway and leans against the frame, pinching the bridge of his nose and muttering under his breath. I give him a few seconds to come down from the strain of the argument with Newsome before I step into the hall again. Riker stiffens at the sound of footsteps, probably worried Newsome has decided to come back swinging for another round, but when he spies me shuffling over from the lounge instead, his eyebrows shoot up. He glances from me to the stairwell door and back again, doing the math. “How long have you been up here?” he asks.
“Long enough to know we’re up a creek without a paddle.” I pluck the folder from under my arm and hold it out to him. “May have just found a barge pole to help drag us to shore though.”
Riker’s either too tired after his long, stressful day, or too frustrated with the current state of this case to bother with chastising me for eavesdropping on his argument, because he snatches the folder without a word and opens it. He spends a few minutes poring over the article on the polong and occasionally glancing at the drawing before he says, “I can’t imagine there are very many ICM practitioners who would think to summon such an uncommon type of spirit to do their bidding.”
“Me either. This guy must be one hell of a scholar to come up with that.”
Riker scratches his stubble. “Unless he himself is Malay, which I seriously doubt.”
“I’m guessing the Malay population in Michigan isn’t particularly high?”
“More like nonexistent.” He taps on the polong drawing, mouth stretched into a thin line. “Honestly, knowing this is the creature that’s doing the perp’s dirty work makes it even harder for me to shake the idea that he’s some kind of professional killer.”
“I think there’s a lot merit in the idea he’s hired help,” I muse. “Maybe someone in Aurora wanted revenge against Delos but didn’t think they could pull off the murders on their own, so they hired this guy to do it. After my encounter with Delilah Barnett, we know the ICM has licensed bounty hunters, people who hunt down rogue practitioners and other fugitives of the ICM. For that to be a viable profession, there must be a considerable number of those fugitives worldwide to make it worthwhile in terms of income. And if the magic criminal underworld mimics the mundane criminal underworld, then it stands to reason a portion of those fugitives are hired guns—er, hired wands.”
“That is a solid theory.” He trudges over to the elevator and punches the down button. “Though it complicates things considerably, because it means we’re actually hunting for two perpetrators: one who has a personal motive to eliminate Delos’ relatives, and one who’s doing the actual killing in order to score a big payday. With the Wolves no longer willing to work with us to track the latter down, we’ll have to sift through the many aggrieved practitioners in Aurora to identify the former first, and then attempt to wheedle the hitman’s identity out of them during their interrogation. Depending on how hard they are to crack…”
“The hitman could whack more people in the time it takes us to uncover his identity,” I pick up. “And because we don’t know the full extent of the hit list, since part of Delos’ family tree has been scrubbed from the public record by the ICM, we have no way to protect any of those potential victims.”
“Precisely. So while I agree the ‘hired wand’ theory has considerable merit, I really hope it’s wrong.”
“Hey, no argument there. I don’t like the idea of a wizard hitman either. That’s the kind of thing that keeps me up at night with my hand on the gun I always tuck under my pillow.”
Riker throws me a ghost of a smile. “Sadly, I’m sure there are far more unsettling things about the practitioner community of which we’ll never be made aware.”
“They can keep their creepy secrets, for all I care. As long as those secrets don’t affect us.”
The elevator arrives with a ding, and as the doors roll open, Riker ushers me inside.
He steps in beside me and hits the button for the first floor. “Secrets always have a way of spilling out at the worst of times, in my experience.” The doors close, trapping us in the elevator together, and Riker crosses his arms as he turns to me with that stern expression of disappointment mixed with irritation that always proceeds the kind of verbal beatdown that leaves your pride bleeding for days. “For example, about ten minutes before Newsome barged into my office, I got a call from Ramirez, during which he told me that you destroyed your suppression rings and blew your cover while fighting in the woods.”
I feel about six inches tall with Riker looming over me, and desperately wish I knew a spell that would let me melt into the floor. “Okay, first off, Ramirez is a snitch,” I say weakly, “and secondly, the perp didn’t exactly give me much of a choice. It took everything I could funnel through the suppression rings without making them explode just to knock the polong down for a short period of time. I’m guessing the fact it has no physicality beyond the blood it consumes insulates it from typical magic attacks somehow, though don’t ask me to explain the mechanism behind that. Because my magic knowledge is roughly kindergarten level right now.”
Riker doesn’t seem impressed by my explanation so far. “And?”
“And, when I was scuffling with the sorcerer himself, after successfully disabling the polong, might I add, the ma
n pulled some kind of immobilizing spell on me.” I mimic the pose I got stuck in when the net of threads enveloped my body. “I couldn’t move an inch, and neither of my arms was in a position to effectively throw a spell that mimicked beggar magic. The perp was walking up to me with one of his poison knives pointed at my throat. And look, sure, I might be able to survive having my throat slit, what with my supercool healing factor and all, but that is not the kind of thing I want to flip a coin on in the middle of a life or death battle.”
“So you did what exactly?” Riker’s stern tone gives way to a pinch of curiosity.
I explain how I aligned threads of my own energy with the lines of the external magic web that was holding me in place and then shoved my threads outward all at once, causing the wizard’s spell to suffer a catastrophic failure. “To be frank, I wasn’t sure it would work, and I’m not even a hundred percent sure how it did. It was an instinctual move, to fight fire with fire. Or in this case, magic energy web with magic energy web.”
“A clever move, especially for something drawn up on the fly,” Riker admits. “I’ll commend you for that.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” I grumble.
“But,” Riker continues, “you know I won’t be able to insulate you from the ICM’s petulance if this wizard decides to spill your big secret to his peers. I will have to cut you loose, or risk retaliation from the ICM in the form of penalties delivered by Burbank’s office. They’ll press their foot into his back until he does exactly what they tell him, even if they tell him to fire me and replace me with some ICM-approved schmuck whose sole purpose is to dismantle DSI from the inside out.” He sighs. “I can’t let them do that, Cal.”
“I don’t want you to let them do that. My job’s not worth that kind of damage to DSI.” I clench my fists. “But goddammit, those bastards shouldn’t have that kind of sway over us to begin with. It shouldn’t be up to them to decide who can and cannot work for DSI.”
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