Things had been quiet lately, which most police officers would have considered a blessing, but to Keagan it just meant boring desk work. He was a homicide investigator, he should be out there, solving murders and preventing others, but when nothing was happening it made him feel almost useless. Some of the beat cops wanted him to go on patrol with them, but he always made excuses not to, it wasn’t his job to catch stupid people in the act of doing something stupid. He heard the quiet cat-calls from some of the other officers as the door opened, and the first thing he wanted to do was throttle them all, that was his sister they were doing that to, not just his sister, his twin, so it had an added sense of creepiness to it when they did it, “Afternoon, Maria.”
“You said you were going to come over for lunch,” the woman smiled with a pair of matching blue eyes, only hers weren’t protected by the pair of glasses in front of them, “So I decided to bring it here.”
“Yeah, thanks, I got kind of caught up in the work here. I just wanted to get everything done so I wouldn’t have to think about it in the morning.” He sat up to make sure he wasn’t slouching and he carefully unwrapped the food she had prepared for him. It was just a sandwich and some potatoes on the side, but as always it was perfectly prepared, “It looks wonderful. Thanks.”
The woman smiled brightly as she sat on her brother’s desk, “You’re very welcome. Just don’t leave me at home wondering again, I thought maybe one of those killers got you.”
Keagan chuckled at the idea, shaking his head, “No one’s going to murder me, so you don’t have to worry about that. Why would they want to? If they’re angry I caught them, they’re already locked up, or have been hanged. If someone else is upset, then they are likely hanging around the wrong crowd and will get caught for something else.”
Maria rolled her eyes as she shook her head, some of her long dark hair dancing against her back, “You really need to be careful though.”
“I’m always careful,” he looked at her a bit irritated as he still had a piece of the rather delicious sandwich in his mouth. Keagan hadn’t thought about what to drink with it, so he did his best not to choke before he spoke again, “It’s you who should be. You always go out alone, you never want anyone with you, sometimes even at night. It’s dangerous out there, you know that.”
“I’ve also told you the very same,” she smiled, jumping away from the desk to give her brother a hug, “I’ll talk to you later. I need to get some things for dinner, alright? You won’t be late for that will you?”
He shook his head, trying to get away from the eyes of his compatriots that would likely be making fun of him the second she left the building, “Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”
“Good!” she smiled again, still a mirror of himself whenever he felt triumph. With a quick turn she headed for the door, giving a wave to some of the other officers, “See you later boys!”
Keagan ducked his head as they responded like nervous schoolboys as she left, hoping to finish his lunch in peace. That wasn’t going to be the case though when he caught the commissioner stepping out of his office from the corner of his eye. The man had a stack of files with him, and with that came a sense of dread. The detective sat up, hoping he was wrong, but knew deep down he wasn’t, especially when the man dropped the papers on his desk, “New case?”
It took a moment, but the older man sighed, “Yeah. As much as we’d rather not, we need you on this. Turns out it’s getting worse.”
“What are you talking about?” he gave the man a confused look just as he started opening the first file. It was simple enough, young woman, early twenties, dark hair, found dead in her home and according to what Cedric, the mortician, and a necromancer had reported after examining the body; it had been from extreme lead poisoning. They had initially ruled the death a very unfortunate accident, but there were follow-up notes from just over two weeks later when they were asked to reexamine the body and Cedric had changed it to ‘suspicious’.
“Keep reading Gillette,” the man huffed, crossing his arms as he leaned against Keagan’s desk, “Let me know when it gets to the part where I regret my decision.”
“Alright,” Keagan shook his head and moved to another file, this one had the same follow-up notes from Cedric, and had been the one that made him go back to the previous file. Same circumstances; young woman, early twenties, dark hair, found dead in her home due to severe lead poisoning. Deciding he didn’t need to look into any further specifics of that one, he moved to another file, same thing, another one, and it continued until he had flipped through ten files. By the time he was finished his eyes were wide and his palms were both sweaty and cold, “This is a serial killer…and he’s going after a specific type of woman.”
The commissioner looked over at the man, pushing away from the desk, “Yeah, this is where I regret this, but honestly I don’t have any other choice. We need you on this case Keagan, your eyes are better than anyone else for finding clues and putting those bastards behind bars. I just need to know if you think you’re up to it.”
Keagan looked up at the man, his hand still on the pile of files that had been almost ceremoniously given to him. He needed to find the murderer, quickly, before anyone else was killed. Especially because it meant if he didn’t, his beloved sister was in danger, he didn’t want the murderer to find Maria, “Of course I am. I’ll catch the guy. Don’t worry.”
“Good luck Gillette,” the older man patted Keagan heavily on the shoulder, “Go talk to Cedric and see what you can find. I have people on the lookout for any suspicious activity.”
He nodded, but didn’t noticed when the man walked away, leaving him to do a bit more reading, but still nothing was giving him what he needed, so he gathered up the files and made his way to the morgue. He had always found the mortician to be a strange man, yet at the same time Keagan felt he was his partner in his efforts to get killers off the streets. The detective stepped inside the cold room where the man in the lab coat was covering up a cadaver with a white sheet, shaking his head a little at the loss of life, “The chief put me on that serial case.”
“Did he now?” Cedric looked up, adjusting his small wire-framed glasses, “Well I suppose it was only a matter of time before that happened.” He walked over to the younger man after washing his hands in an old sink in the corner, “Well now, what is it I can help you with in your investigation, Keagan?”
He went over the dozens of questions in his head, trying to put them in the proper order before he held the files out to the mortician, “They all say the victims died of massive doses of lead. How do you think it was administered?”
“There are multiple theories,” Cedric took the files back, flipping through them aimlessly, “My first thought was injection, but there are no puncture marks on the body. I then moved to ingestion, but the rate of digestion that had passed with the food left in their stomachs didn’t match the lead.” He handed the files back to the detective, “My next theory was that someone could have forced it upon the victims, which is plausible, except generally people would have fought back, and none of the bodies have any sign of struggle.”
“I take it your next theory is magic?” Keagan watched the man walk over to a corner desk and sit down, “Have the other detectives questioned anyone from the House of Masks yet?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Cedric let out a small chuckle, “You know how it is, the boys generally don’t come and tell me the progress of the investigations. They only come to me after someone has died, not before.”
He didn’t want to agree with the man, but it was true, that was generally the job of a mortician, and there were times he wondered if the man was lonely, but always told himself it was the decision Cedric had made, and never really pushed the issue, “Alright. I’ll ask around and see what I can find.”
“Good luck detective,” Cedric chuckled again, leaning back in his chair, “Any more young women come in here I’m going to have to start explaining things to my wife.”
Keag
an shook his head and left, he was too busy to entertain the man’s rather dark sense of humor. He walked all around the city, trying to find something from the various crimes scenes, but nothing stood out, though he was starting to lean more towards the idea of magic being involved somehow as well. It just made more sense, especially considering he couldn’t find a substantial source of lead in the locations the deaths had happened.
He likely would have gone to the House of Masks that evening if he hadn’t looked at his watch and remembered he was already late for the dinner he’d promised his sister he wouldn’t be late for. He managed to catch a carriage for a quick ride to her apartment, and tried not to look like he’d just run up the stairs when he made it to the door, knocking frantically. He was also sure to smile brightly when she opened the door and looked as though she were about to hit him, “Sorry!”
“Dinner’s almost cold,” Maria let him inside before she locked the door, nearly pushing him into the chair next to the small table, “You promised you’d be on time.”
“I know, but they gave me this new case, and I just got kind of sucked into it,” he picked up a piece of bread, still looking up at her with eyes that begged for forgiveness, “I really didn’t mean to be late.”
Maria stood there quietly for a moment, staring at him with her cold blue eyes before shaking her head, a smile coming to her face, “It’s fine. If they gave you a new case, I can understand, that’s just how you always get. Can you tell me about it?”
He was about to start telling her all about it, but stopped himself, he couldn’t let her worry, or think she needed to be responsible for something. No, it was up to him to make sure she was safe, “I can’t, not this time. I’m sorry. The commissioner wants me to keep this one quiet, it hasn’t made it to the papers yet and the last thing I want to do is start any sort of panic, even if it is just in you.”
“Fine, you don’t have to tell me,” the woman smiled as she started to enjoy her own meal, “So tell me how the food is this time. This is a new recipe I’m trying, so you get to be my official poison tester.”
Keagan ignored the irony in her statement as well as the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, and instead decided to enjoy his meal. It wasn’t the best thing she’d ever made, and it actually needed a bit more salt, but she was so proud of it he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. She said she’d bring him lunch and make him something completely different the next day, once again made him promise not to be late as he was leaving.
When it came to sleep, it was a fleeting effort and something that came in the brief moments he wasn’t staring at the ceiling trying to desperately figure how to go about catching the murderer. Sadly he wasn’t any closer to finding an answer when he made it to the precinct the next morning, he’d planned on going to the House of Masks, but he figured giving a bit of a report might be for the best, though he managed to make it to his desk before he passed out on the floor. He had almost fallen asleep when suddenly there was a new stack of papers dropped onto his desk, which caused the man to jump, “What’s this?”
The commissioner was standing over him, a deep frown across his face, “Read this and get to Cedric. It’s the police report from what happened last night.”
Keagan’s heart sank and he almost didn’t do what he was told, but eventually he did pick up the report; another woman dead, this one was again found inside her home when her husband made it back from his job at a local mill. It felt like he was a mile away when he finally made it back to the morgue, this time he got there in time to witness the necromancer doing his work. There was a body on the table, a needle in her tongue, and sobbing, “Is she talking yet?”
“Sometimes it takes a bit for the realization they’re dead to stop making them hysterical,” the man in the suit responded with a quiet sigh, he was blonde and looked to be in his mid-thirties. He waited for the woman to stop crying before he spoke again, “Tell me what happened.”
“I was in the kitchen, I was making dinner so that when Timothy came home it would be ready, but I started feeling sick, so I decided to lay down,” her eyes looked at the man that had cast the spell to recall her soul, “I must have had a bad fever, it looked like the drapes were covered in beetles. I fell asleep sometime after that. Then you called me here. Is Timothy alright?”
Instead of answering the question, the necromancer pulled the needle out and the woman looked as though she had instantly fallen to sleep, “The symptoms are the same, this is definitely another victim.”
He could understand why the magician hadn’t answered the woman’s question; it wasn’t important to the investigation and nothing he could have told her would have comforted the woman, but still Keagan felt it was a bit cold to just release her. He glanced over as Cedric jotted down some notes on the other side of the table, “We really need to get this guy. This is getting out of hand. I think we can safely rule out mundane causes of death. It’s definitely being done with magic.”
“Yes, and the transfer of things such as poisons and afflictions are something we learn rather early,” the necromancer turned his attention to the detective, “though honestly murder isn’t something anyone at the House is particularly interested in. Death of course is on our study list, but we are more focused on the preservation of life, not ending it. I’m not sure who would fit your list of potential suspects there.”
“That’s good to know, I’ll consider it when I’m filing my report,” Keagan nodded, but his eyes were still on the dead woman on the table. She was shorter than Maria, as was her hair, but everything else was the same, “I’ll come by later.” He made a quick turn to leave the morgue, he needed to stop looking at her, it was making him sick and he really needed to focus. He read over the report he’d been given again, the husband was already ruled out as a suspect since he had a solid alibi that night, and he also didn’t have the slightest clue regarding magic. Keagan was about to see the most recent crime scene when Maria walked inside, as promised, carrying the lunch she said she’d bring for him, “You almost missed me.”
“That would have been a shame,” she smiled as she held the food out to him, but that quickly became a frown, “You look awful. Did you not sleep well?”
“Not really,” he tried his best at a reassuring smile, “It’s fine though, once I catch this guy I’ll sleep for two days straight and be back to normal.”
For some reason his words didn’t get rid of the concern in the woman’s voice, “My dear brother you work too hard sometimes…”
“It’s fine, this is a lot more interesting than medical school, I like the puzzles here better,” he gave a small smirk, knowing well his comment would change the subject enough to get her off his back. He’d tried going to medical school, the same as her, but that hadn’t gone as well as he was hoping and he moved his area of focus to law enforcement. Maria had stuck with it though and became a nurse; she helped save people’s lives. “Thanks for bringing me lunch though. Are you going to be out long?”
“I have to pick up some things from the market. Will you still be coming by for dinner?” though it was something she asked all the time, this time her voice was weary, as though she was expecting rejection.
Keagan smiled, her ability to make him feel guilty was always impressive, “Of course. I’ll even try not to be late this time.”
With a victorious laugh Maria hugged him tight, “Wonderful! I have another new recipe for you to try! I’ll see you then.”
He waved to her and waited for his sister to leave before heading out himself. The latest victim’s house was small, but as he was expecting he hadn’t found anything there of note that would have contributed to the woman’s death. There wasn’t even a mouse hole. Everything was neat and tidy and in its place, and when he looked out the window it was just facing the next building, so if anyone had been standing there, the victim likely would have seen them. Keagan recounted what the woman had said, moving from the kitchen over to the living space to stand next to the couch. He eve
n glanced over at the drapes, which were still hanging from the pole above the window. They had a floral print on them, which made it so he could easily see how a lead-induced hallucination could have made them look like insects. This was getting him nowhere, and that was making him angry, it was almost as though the killer was taunting him, just out of reach.
That couldn’t be it though, it wasn’t possible the killer was targeting him. At least that’s what he kept telling himself as he rode back to the precinct. The fact the victims looked like his sister, and by proxy him, was just a coincidence, everyone had a type, the one in this case just happened to be young, blue-eyed, and raven haired. He sat at his desk and stared at the files when he got there, he just wanted the answer to lift out of the paper and tell him so he wouldn’t have to keep stressing about it. His thoughts were jarred when he heard the clock chiming and he jumped out of the chair when he saw the time. Keagan wondered how many apologies he’d need to make for being late this time, and he hurried out of the office. He tried to think of another excuse as to why he wasn’t on time again as he knocked, but when he had time to think of more than one Keagan looked to the door and knocked again, “Maria?”
Silence was the response he was getting, and at first he thought maybe she was angry with him. Keagan could understand that, he would be mad too if any time something actually happened at work he so absorbed he lost track of time and was constantly late. Something was wrong though, that sick feeling was coming back and Keagan pounded on the door again, fearing the lack of response he was getting. He should have come by sooner; he should have kept his promise. He tried the door, but it was locked, and he was suddenly wishing he’d asked for a key all that time ago. He took a step back, figuring he could ask for forgiveness later, and brought up his boot to kick the door open.
When he stepped inside, his heart was already pounding in a panic, especially when she didn’t come from around the corner to demand why he’d damaged her door. Instead there was nothing but a teapot screaming from the stove, and Keagan didn’t even bother to stop it as he rushed around the small apartment. Maria wasn’t in the kitchen, wasn’t in the living room, and short of him bursting into her bathroom, he hurried down the hallway towards where he saw the open door to the bedroom. Dread was the only thing he could feel as he pushed it open, and he was forced to grip onto the doorknob tightly when he found Maria on the floor, lying on her side covered in sweat and breathing shallowly. Keagan hurried over and tried to wake her up, but her body was limp and freezing cold. Tears were pouring from his eyes when she stopped breathing, and no matter what he did nothing would wake her up. His frantic screams had alerted her neighbors, but by the time the hospital’s coach arrived, it was too late.
He was sitting on the steps outside when the police arrived, he knew they’d asked him what happened, and Keagan was fairly certain he’d told them, but he didn’t remember any details. He just knew he needed to catch the person who’d killed his sister. He stumbled into the precinct at some hour of the morning he could no longer read, his desk was still covered in the files he’d left there, and as much as he tried to sort through them, the tears blurred the ink and his vision, making it impossible. Keagan looked up when he heard a door open, by the general shape of the blur, he guessed it was the commissioner coming in early, “Maria…”
The man stopped, as though surprised by the presence of someone else, then rushed over to the detective’s desk, “What? Are you…oh Gillette, you look like hell, what are you doing here?”
“I need to find him…” Keagan’s words spilled out of his mouth like water, “Maria, he killed her. The bastard killed my sister!”
The commissioner watched as the man pushed everything related to the case onto the floor then slumped into tears, “Gillette, I think you should go home…you obviously need time to rest.”
“No…” Keagan shook his head, never once looking at his commanding officer, “No, no, no. I need to find him. He killed Maria.”
“That’s it, you’re going to hate me, but I don’t have any other choice given the circumstances,” the man pulled the mourning detective out of the desk chair, “You’re off the case. You need to go home, be with your family, and give yourself some time.”
“You can’t pull me off this case!” Keagan pleaded, but even still he was being led towards the door, “I need to find out who killed those women. Maria! I need to find the man who killed Maria!”
The commissioner frowned, though still he flagged down a carriage for the detective, “I’m sorry, Keagan, I really am, and I promise I’ll make sure this is top priority in the office, but right now, you’re not in any state to be working, especially on a case like this. Now go home, get some sleep, be with your loved ones, and trust in your fellow officers.”
He tried saying something else, but it only came out as whispers and tears as Keagan was put into the carriage coach. He kept his head leaned against the side as it bounced, never taking a glance out the window. When he stepped out in front of his own apartment he looked up at the stairs, and decided those weren’t something he was able to use at that moment and instead started walking. He vaguely noticed people giving him a wide birth, but he didn’t care, he just kept moving, and the next time he looked up, Keagan was standing in front of a bar, The Crossroads. He made his way inside, sliding up to the bar. The bartender likely asked what he wanted, but the detective just raised his arm and pointed to a bottle against the mirror, “Whatever that is. Just give me the bottle.”
“You’re the boss,” the man shrugged and did as he was asked, he likely was going to ask if he should bother getting a glass, but Keagan had already started drinking, so he just walked away.
The memory of leaving the bar was blurred and far away, however as Keagan stood in front of the House of Masks, the words the necromancer had told him about how they were trying to preserve life echoed in the back of his mind quite clearly. He pushed his way through the large door and stumbled up to the front desk, “I need to know something.”
“Alright,” the desk clerk leaned away from the detective whose breath smelled heavily of various types of alcohol, “What can I help you with?”
“How can I bring someone back from the dead?” Keagan managed to not completely slur the words as he spoke, “I want to talk to someone who can do that.”
It took a moment for the clerk to fully comprehend what he’d been asked, “Communicating with the dead is rather simple I could get someone if you’d like.”
“No! I don’t want to talk to them,” he once again did his best to annunciate his words so the clerk wouldn’t misunderstand, “I want to bring them back. Someone I love was killed, and I want them back!”
“I’m sorry, but that type of magic,” the clerk looked up at the detective, his eyes full of sympathy, “it doesn’t exist.”
“It has to!” Keagan shouted, causing the man to jump a little, “It has to! She shouldn’t have died! Someone has to be able to bring her back! You guys are all about preserving life, what about restoring it? It has to exist! Tell me who can do it!”
The clerk shook his head nervously at the increasingly upset man, “No, it doesn’t. Anyone that’s tried has failed; it’s not something that can be done. I’m sorry, I really am. Now please, I think you should leave.”
“No!” Keagan insisted. He could feel the tears returning as well as a sour taste in the back of his throat. He was making a scene, he knew that, there were blurred shapes all around the room of other people watching, “Someone has to! There has to be someone here! Anyone that can do this. I need to bring her back!”
“You’re making quite the racket this morning,” came the voice of an older man, wearing a rather nice shirt with a cane in his left hand. His eyes were dark, hair white, and his expression rather annoyed by the sound of the man yelling, “By your yelling I take it you want to bring someone back from the dead. Resurrection?”
“Yes! I need to! She shouldn’t have died!” Keagan turned to the man,
unable to stop himself from yelling, “Can you do it?”
“No,” the man held up his hand before Keagan started shouting again, “However, with the right kind of studying and time, it could prove possible. What’s your name, boy?”
“Keagan,” he coughed, looking around the small foyer at the amount of attention he’d drawn for other magicians in the building, most of which seemed surprised the old man was even giving him the time of day, “Detective Keagan Gillette.”
“Well, Detective Gillette, my name is Vernon Hess, and if you so desperately want to bring someone back from the dead and return them to the living you have a lot of work ahead of you,” the man slammed the cane into the wood floor to get the attention upon himself, “From now on, this man works for me. Is that understood?” he waited for the acknowledgement of the other magicians nodding their acceptance before he pointed the cane at the rather surprised and a bit confused detective, “You, come with me.”
It took him a moment to remember how to, but eventually Keagan followed. He didn’t remember much else from that day, or that following evening, everything was simply a black wall in his memory filled with alcohol and tears. The only thing Keagan remembered was waking up behind the desk of his own study, a large book full of magical script and circles open under his cheek. He needed to learn, he needed to study, and then one day, Maria would be back, just like the phoenix he would raise her from the ashes. They would see each other again, they would have dinner, and he would always keep his promises.
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Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!
If you liked this, and want to see what happens to the characters once their paths do cross, please check out The Light Rises
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Uncrossed Paths Page 5
