by MJ Kraus
I looked behind me at the door and saw nothing, then turned back to the vamp. In the half-second I had taken my attention off of him, he had used his tongue to loosen one of his back teeth and pry out the small capsule hidden underneath. I didn’t notice the movements of his mouth until it was too late, and I cried out and tried to stop him.
“Dammit, no! Nepodvizhnost'!” The word came too late. Before his mouth was frozen again, he had crunched the small silver capsule between his teeth, driving the shards of it up into his gums and introducing the pure silver powder into his bloodstream. It coursed through his body, sending him into uncontrollable shakes that rattled against the magical bonds. I stood up, took a step back and ground my teeth together in frustration as I loosed the spell. By that time it was the only thing holding him together, and his body immediately dissolved to ash, leaving his filthy clothing behind.
“Damn!” I shouted loudly and kicked at the pile of ash and cloth, unbelievably frustrated that I had fallen for such a cheap trick. I heard shouting below me in the building and glanced back at the door. Wilson and Hanley would be on the roof in less than thirty seconds, and I would have to dispose of the evidence before they arrived.
I kicked at the pile of ash on the ground scattering it to the breeze, then picked up the vamp’s clothing and ran towards a nearby vent. It took two solid kicks to knock the grating out of the vent, but once it was open, I started shoving the vamp’s clothing into it. I could have just incinerated them, but that would have been more difficult to explain to a couple of my fellow cops than why I was investigating an open vent.
The vamp’s shirt, shoes and pants went down easily enough, but I was having trouble pushing the jacket in when I realized that there was something thick in one of the pockets that was keeping it from going down.
It was unusual for vamps to commit suicide, though when they did it usually meant that they were protecting something big. A bleed farm wasn’t enough for a vamp to risk himself for. A leather-bound book inscribed with higher vampire sigils and warding spells, though? That was a sign that something else was at play.
I grabbed the book out of the jacket pocket and tossed the jacket into the vent. The book looked old, and I couldn’t fathom why the vamp would have killed himself without trying to destroy the book, too. “I guess he didn’t have a choice.” I mumbled to myself as I turned the book over, being careful not to touch the sigils with my bare hands. vampire magic generally isn’t nearly as refined as that of human wizards, elves or other species, and I didn’t want to lose a finger because someone misspoke a letter when they were carving the symbols into the front of the book.
A clatter came from the direction of the door and I stuffed the book into the back of my pants, being careful to ensure that the sigils were facing away from my body. As I was trying to get the thick book adjusted to where it was semi-comfortable, the door to the roof flew open as Hanley and Wilson came stumbling out.
“Where is he?” Wilson gasped, clutching at his side and breathing heavily. Hanley was in no better shape, and stood behind Wilson, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.
I raised an eyebrow at the pair and shrugged. “No idea. He was gone by the time I got over here.”
“Gone?” Hanley choked the word out with a sneer. “We’ve got about a dozen questions for you, and until you answer them, we’re not going to be happy!”
I slid slowly around the pair, giving them a toothy grin as I headed for the door into the building below. “Sorry, boys. You’re welcome to look around all you want.” I paused at the door and shrugged again. “Maybe if you two hadn’t been so afraid to jump a little gap we could have caught him together.”
“Silver!” The shout echoed behind me as the door to the roof closed. I bounded down the steps, taking them two at a time as I skipped along, stopping only once I was across the street and felt secure that I was alone.
“Idiots.” I mumbled to myself as I reached behind me and pulled the leather book free. I was trying to act like the appearance of Hanley and Wilson didn’t bother me, but the truth of the matter was that it did. Very much so. If they hadn’t been there I might not have been so distracted that I missed the suicide pill in the vamp’s mouth, or I might have checked the room he was hiding in first and avoided a flashy chase.
“Or I might not have to deal with their crap tomorrow.” That was undoubtedly going to be the worst of it. Being found at an obvious crime scene out of uniform was going to be tricky to explain, to say the least. I could handle the paperwork forgeries in the system easily enough to downplay my presence there, but if they talked to the chief—and I knew that they would—he’d be on my ass again.
Whatever, I thought. I’m more interested in what you are, my darling. I held the leather-bound book in my hands and ran my fingers along the spine, still avoiding the sigils carved in the front. The magic in the book was deeper than I had first detected, and even holding the thing made me nervous. The magic was dirty—angry, even.
“What would a freaking vamp be doing with something this powerful? I guess there’s only one person who I can ask, eh?” I checked my watch and cursed. “Damn. Two hours till my shift. Guess I’ll have to stop by there tomorrow.” I tucked the book back into my pants and headed for the rat hole I called home. I’d have to leave the book there until after I got off my next shift and could visit the only person I knew would look at the book without immediately confiscating it, killing me for it or handing it over to the Council. The man who had singlehandedly saved me nearly a year ago. The man who made it possible for me to even be a wizard at all
Sullivan O’Dalley.
Chapter 2
There’s nothing like a rousing seven-in-the-morning meeting to make you feel like your brain is going to ooze out of your ears, puddle on the ground and then start trying to crawl away to escape the agony. Functioning on an hour a sleep a night is tough, even for a wizard. There are only so many spells and potions you can use on yourself before the side effects catch up to you.
While I was sitting upright and watching Chief Barnaby (yes, that’s his real name) droning on about crime statistics, departmental changes and blah blah blah, I was in a completely different place mentally as I thought about the book from the night before. Aside from a couple of short breaks I was going to be on patrol for the rest of the day and late into the night, at which point I’d have about twelve hours to get back to my apartment, get a few minutes of sleep and then take the book over to see Sully.
Sully is a unique individual. He’s an old family friend, though he’s one of the few old family friends that I don’t automatically shun. I guess I should give you the quick rundown on that, eh?
The Family Silver is one of the oldest, most powerful and most influential wizarding families to ever grace the face of this world. That, unfortunately for my parents, didn’t mean that their lives were entirely without care or worry. In addition to their duties to the Council and in helping to ensure stability between Normals and the Touched races, they had me to worry about.
See, I was born with a genetic condition that renders me unable to draw power from the Void. The Void is the source of energy for all magic and otherworldly powers. If you can’t tap into the Void, you can write, dance, twirl and sign all the incantations, spells and curses you want, but they won’t do a darned thing. That, according to the Council (if they were to know about my condition), means that I’m not really a wizard.
After being over-protected by my mother for fear of what it would mean for our family name if my condition were to become known within the magical world, I ran away from home. A cliché? Yeah, maybe. It was a rough few years and I did more than a few things I still regret. Well… one in particular.
I managed to make my way in the wizarding underworld well enough without any real magical abilities thanks to my being able to throw my family name around and a few feats of legerdemain to impress anyone asking too many questions. Flash paper and sleight of hand goes a long way when
you have the confidence to back it up. I soon found myself rising up the food chain in one of the premiere criminal organizations until one day I found myself sitting across a table from a young couple who were desperate for a cure for their daughter.
The group I was in was more than happy to deal with Normals and they weren’t averse to selling the young couple a vial that glowed with magical energy but in actuality contained nothing more than sugar water. I still remember the smell of the hospital as I stood out in the hall, watching that little girl pass from one world to the next.
After digging my soul and conscience out of the patch of manure I had dumped them in, the group I was with was no longer keen on having me around. I was found half-dead in an alley by one Sullivan O’Dalley, an old family friend who took me in and patched me up. Upon discovering my little secret he revealed to me one of his own.
Apart from being a dwarf who had somehow managed to become a brilliant wizard, he was also something of a tinkerer. He had been experimenting with fusing technology and magic together and had more than a few ideas for getting around my genetic anomaly. We worked on those ideas together for three months straight to build the Void Energy Channeler. It’s basically a battery that taps into the Void, collects Void energy, stores the energy (like a battery) and then feeds said energy directly into my body via a few surgical implants. The end result? I can sling spells with the best of them.
So why am I working as a cop instead of schmoozing with the wizarding elite and basking in the glory of my family name? I can’t get past the look of hope in the eyes of that young couple as they passed over every penny they had for that worthless vial. I can’t get the small of that hospital out of my head or how the slow, steady beeps turned into a continuous, monotonous one. Feeling a person pass from one world to the next is frightening. Feeling a little girl pass over and knowing you were partially responsible for it? That’s an entirely different level of hell.
I make no excuses for what I did. I was a piece of crap and deserve to be called every name there is plus a few more to boot. I wanted to die in that alley—I should have died in that alley—but when Sully saved me, everything changed.
So I joined the force with a mind hell-bent on effecting change in the city. Spent eight months fast-tracking through the academy and then they put me out on the streets. My lack of a background in the Normal world wasn’t an issue (you’d be amazed at what a bit of magic can do to a computer database) and as long as I stayed away from anyone in the wizarding world who had connections to my mother or the Council, I knew I’d be fine. And maybe—just maybe—one day I’d be able to do enough good to make up for a fraction of those hopeful eyes and that awful smell.
“Silver!”
I jumped in my seat and glanced around, realizing with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that everyone else was filing out, leaving me as the loner sitting in his seat, obviously not paying any attention to the briefing. Shit.
“Stay out too late last night, Silver?” The chief was a big man, broad shouldered with a military haircut and an attitude that would make a rabid badger seem cuddly.
“Sorry about that, sir, I—”
“Can it, Silver. Hanley and Wilson filled me in on the details this morning.”
Shit. How much did they tell him? I had remembered to dip into the files on my way into the station before the chief arrived and alter them enough to minimize my presence there. If he had talked to them, though, that was going to be a problem. “I don’t follow, sir.” There we go. Play it casual.
The chief rolled his eyes. “Their report was quite specific, Silver. They were investigating a lead and you were off duty, in the area and went in to assist. Normally I’d applaud initiative, but you were off duty and out of uniform, Silver. There was no need for you to be there.”
I nodded apologetically while suppressing a sigh of relief. “Sorry about that; I was just trying to help, sir.”
“Your helping is going to get your ass kicked out of here faster than your head can spin. You’re a rookie beat cop, Silver.” He advanced a few steps and glared menacingly at me. “You’re not a detective. You’re not an investigator. You’re not anything important to anyone anywhere. Your job is to stop pickpockets, hand out tickets and generally try not to make that uniform look awful. You got me?”
I gritted my teeth and tried to keep from rolling my eyes as I nodded. “Got it. Sorry again, sir.”
“Stuff it in a sack and get the hell out of here.”
I didn’t bother to reply as I turned and headed out of the briefing room and toward the entrance of the building. I could feel multiple sets of eyes on me, but I ignored them and kept going until I was out on the street. “Asshole.” I muttered as I clenched my fists, feeling Void energy charging through my hands and arms.
It wasn’t going to be a fun day.
Chapter 3
It was nearly two in the morning when I was finally leaving my apartment after a long day of walking around and smiling at people. I couldn’t remember a day when I had felt less useless, and that fact bothered me to no end. As I walked out of my apartment building with the book wrapped in an old towel and tucked under my jacket, I felt a strange sense of unease building up inside me. The walk to Sully’s shop wasn’t a long one, but I kept glancing over my shoulder, checking to make sure no one was following.
The feeling was especially odd since I had taken care to place warding spells on the towel surrounding the book to help ensure no one could detect its magical aura. I was naturally immune to being tracked via my aura since I don’t actually have one to begin with. It’s a curious little side effect of being born with a Normal’s genetic structure, but one that comes in handy now and again.
I started thinking about the day’s events as I walked along, trying to take my mind off the odd feeling in the back of my head. I had handed out thirteen tickets, given a warning to a group of teenagers skateboarding in front of a grumpy old man’s dumpling shop and had four reports of shoplifting and pickpocketing, none of which I had managed to sort out.
Then there had been the scuttlebutt that was going around the precinct in the morning and earlier in the evening when I stopped by to close out my shift. While the chief hadn’t addressed the rumors directly during his briefing—at least I think he didn’t—there was talk going around about the bleed farm that Hanley and Wilson had investigated and how it might be connected to a serial killer that the precinct had been trying to track down for a few months.
The killer had surfaced shortly after I signed on at the academy, though he wasn’t well known due to the fact that we suspected most of his victims just went missing. Only two bodies had been found, and they matched a longer list of six other people who had all vanished. The people who had gone missing were all vagrants and low on the list for an investigation, and since I hadn’t seen any signs of magical involvement (nor had I seen any signs of the Council investigating) I had taken no notice.
Still, though, it was odd to have that many people gone missing or dead without a shred of evidence and a bleed farm was the obvious explanation. With no evidence of exsanguination on the two bodies that were found, though, there was very little to go on. Vampires—the ones higher up, not the vamps—are incredibly clever and I had no doubt that if the killings were their doing then they had covered their tracks thoroughly.
There were a lot of random thoughts rolling around in my head and bouncing off of one another when I stopped in front of Sully’s place. O’Dalley’s Pawn Emporium was a brownstone shop and the very definition of a hole in the wall. The bell practically shouted at me as I pushed open the door and began winding my way through the maze of overloaded shelves between the front door and the counter near the back.
Sullivan O’Dalley was working behind the counter when I rounded a corner. He looked up at me and his great thick red mustache rose in delight. “William!” He hopped off of his stool (nearly disappearing behind the counter because he is a half Dwarf) and came around to give
me a hug. A thick mop of raggedy red hair adorned his head, and his beard nearly scraped the floor. He claimed that his mother was a Dwarf and his father was an Irishman, though it was hard to tell where his tall tales ended and the truth began.
“How are ya, m’lad?” He could scarcely get his arms around me due to his barrel chest and I grinned broadly as I returned the embrace and stepped back.
“Doing well, Sully. It hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen you, though.”
Sully dismissed me with a wave as he trundled back behind the counter. “Nonsense, lad. A week’s as bad as a year in my book. How’re things down at the station?”
I shrugged. “Not quite what I expected.”
Sully smiled mischievously. “Word around th’ town is that th’ Council is getting’ all stirred up by th’ strange Normal who keeps leavin’ little magical presents for them to pick up. You sure you’re not attractin’ any undue attention?”
I thought about Hanley and Wilson, both of whom I knew had been suspicious of me over the last couple of months. “Eh. I may have gone a little bit too far here and there but I’m on top of it.”
Sully raised an eyebrow and tsked at me. “Willy, if y’aren’t careful, you’ll be caught b’fore y’know it.”
“You know I hate that name.” I gave Sully a glare and he chortled.
“What can I do for ya, William?”
Even though I knew that there was no one else in the pawn shop besides myself, Sully and his wife somewhere in the back or upstairs, I still glanced around and lowered my voice to a conspiratorial tone. “I need some advice from you.”
My change in tone made Sully frown and he motioned for me to follow him. “Come on into th’ back. Samantha’s busy baking somethin’ or ‘nother so we can sneak past.”
