by A.M. Burns
***
“Okay guys, look at this,” Tiffany instructed as we gathered around her desk staring at the computer screen.
“Wait let me put it on the big screen,” Tech said with a wink at Tiffany.
“Big screen, since when did the computer show up on the plasma?” I asked.
“Well, last night while helping Tiff go through the Reyes woman’s computer I thought it would be nice if we could route the computer through the TV when there was something that everyone needed to see, so I ran by Microcenter this morning and picked up the parts I needed. I took care of it while the security footage was downloading.” Tech looked rather smug.
I was going to have to talk to Tiffany about hormones, work and little things called unapproved changes to the computer system.
The plasma screen on the wall opposite Tiffany’s desk flashed on and her computer desktop appeared. Tech clicked on a couple of icons and media player started up with a scene from the alley we’d been in hours before. The colors looked more than a little off until I realized that it looked like mage sight.
“Okay, here’s the interesting part,” Tiffany said. The glowing form of a rather large fairy appeared and flittered over the dumpster. It paused there for a moment and then was suddenly jerked up into the air, its wings pinned to its sides by something that we could not make out clearly, probably a hand. It beat its little hands at the much larger hand holding it tightly. The hand seemed to wave it around a bit. The fairy’s mouth was working. I wished we could’ve had sound with the picture. It seemed to be arguing with its captor. Then its mouth opened in a scream as one of its wings was yanked off its body and allowed to fall almost leaf like to the asphalt of the alleyway. Then seconds later the fairy exploded.
“Wow, I’ve never seen a fairy explode before. I didn’t know they could do that.” I said as the scene flashed in my mind.
“They can’t, well not on their own.” Tiffany explained. “I think that whatever had hold of it caused it to explode, or used its explosion to cause the magical shockwave that set off the fairy dust you found from Xan’s place.”
“So you’re telling us that something turned that fairy into a nuclear fairy dust glitter bomb?” Dusty somehow managed to keep his face straight while he said it. I had to chuckle. Tech grabbed his stomach as he doubled over laughing.
Tiffany glared at us. “Essentially, yes.”
“Any idea what had hold of the fairy when it exploded?” I asked with a slight smirk.
“Not for sure, but I have a pretty good idea.” She clicked off media player and brought up a picture. “This showed up for just a split second on the feed, at the exact time the fairy exploded.” It was a fairly serpentine silhouette.
“The missing naga,” I sighed
“Looks that way,” Tiffany agreed. “And if it’s able to avoid showing up even under the filters we ran the feed through, then it’s one of the higher naga races that’s going to be really difficult to get rid of. I’d bet it’s working for whoever summoned it.”
“You need to come up with a way for us to get rid of that thing when we finally track it down. Any leads off of the copper disk or the marking on the gator?” We needed something.
“Well there is nothing on either one of them that would constitute a signature, but I did realize that the two were made by the same hand or hands as the case may be.” She pulled the copper disk out of the protective box that she had sitting on the desk. The box had a series of protections on it that would not allow any magical objects placed in it to leak energy out into the house, or allow the creators of those objects to follow their magical trails to us.
“Hands? Two people created the markings?” It was incredibly difficult for two people to work together to create magical sigals or even circles unless they had worked together a long time.
“Well if you look closely at the symbols on the disc,” she explained, pulling a magnifying glass out and handing it to me, “you can see that the style varies from symbol to symbol. I’d say either two people worked on this together, or we’re dealing with a multiple personality. Neither is good for the case.”
“Okay, so we have a couple of people working on this together. Does that help narrow down our list of subjects?”
“Since most of these people are friends, not really. I’d bet that whoever they are, they’re romantically involved and not just friends. Magic of this level is hard to work successfully with just friends, unless you are friends that are as close as we are and have been working together for as long as we have. Plus, we’ve the added angle of high magic with this. How many of these wiccans,” sarcastic distaste rolled off her tongue at the word, “have any inkling about high magic?”
“So we get to continue interviewing people?” Dusty sounded less than thrilled at the prospect, but then so far none of our interviews had gone smoothly, except for Alexia here in the office and at the police station.
“Yeah and the next one will be showing up here shortly.” Tiffany said glancing at the clock.
“Here?” It was unusual for us to interview people here in the office. I got a much better vibe off them in their own homes.
“Yeah when I called to reschedule your interview with Lenny and Katie, they said that their place was getting fumigated and they asked if they could talk to you here. I said it would be alright. They’ll be here in about five minutes.”
“Hey, why don’t you and Tech go check out their place while we interview them here? It’s kinda odd that the fumigation thing came up right now. Go over and see if they are hiding anything.” I got an odd feeling about things.
“We can do that.” Tiffany smiled at Tech.
Tech got a wide grin on his face, the kind that screamed “yeah field work!” Oh, if only he knew how boring field work could be.
“If they’re the people who called the naga, be careful. Also look for any connection with the Council there too. I still feel that there might be a connection that we’re not aware of,” I said as Tiffany grabbed her purse and Tech’s arm. “Why else go after the wers in all of this as well?”
“I’ll let you know if there are any problems,” she said as she headed for the door. “Oh yeah, your next interview is at nine tonight. The info is on the desk. You should leave by eight thirty to get there on time.”
“So when do we get to eat?” Dusty grumbled as the door closed behind them.
