Mist and Magic

by Lindsay Buroker

  Even though I’d had assignments in this county before, I hadn’t been in the health center before, and it took me a while to hunt down the stairway to the basement that led down to the morgue. Sensing a magical item somewhere on that level made me pause. I didn’t think it was a weapon. Could it be the knickknack the medical examiner had mentioned to Willard?

  I found the morgue and was about to enter, checking to ensure my camouflaging charm was still activated, when voices sounded in the hallway behind me.

  Willard and Rodriguez had arrived. Before they came into sight, I slipped into the morgue. I paused to peek out the window in the door as they arrived. Captain Rodriguez was a bullet-shaped man with a bald head and granite jaw. He looked more like an infantry sergeant than an intelligence officer.

  I moved away from the door so they wouldn’t be close enough to see through my charm’s magic when they stepped inside. It crossed my mind to make my presence known, but they might try to kick me out. I also might learn more if nobody knew I was there. Willard had shared more information than I’d expected so far, but she’d also made it clear she didn’t want me here.

  Two bodies were laid out on exam tables, still zipped into bags. Or maybe already examined and re-zipped into bags. The medical examiner was sitting at a desk, her head in her hand, and her eyes closed. Her scrubs and lab coat were rumpled, as if she’d grabbed them out of a dirty-laundry basket in the middle of the night. Maybe she had. She must have been ordered in late—or early—as a favor to Willard.

  The magical item I’d been sensing seemed to be located in a folder under her elbow. That would be difficult to extract without her noticing.

  She stirred when the officers walked in carrying coffee cups—I wondered where they had found someplace open this early. Bellingham wasn’t a big city with copious all-night coffee options.

  “Here are the reports for both of them, Colonel.” The medical examiner brought two folders to her, including the one with the magical item, then unzipped one of the body bags. “You can take a look at your agent, if you want, but there weren’t any physical marks on him, not even burns. And you’ve already seen the guy who was mauled.” She waved to the body closest to them and farthest from me. “The deep lacerations on his throat are indeed what killed him and are in line with what you’d expect from the claws of a very large cougar.” She opted for the only large cat indigenous to the area, but I doubted anything indigenous had been killing people. “He also has a broken tibia,” she continued, “which likely happened during a fall at the time of the attack.”

  Captain Rodriguez gave the coffee in his hand to the medical examiner, surprising a thanks from her. The scents from the hot beverages teased the room, and I was almost tired enough to find them appealing, though my interest was in the caffeine, not the coffee, which I detested.

  Willard was looking over the reports, so I took the opportunity to step closer to the body that had been electrocuted. That of her agent.

  My gut clenched. I recognized him.

  That wasn’t surprising, since Willard had said he was one of the soldiers in her unit, and I’d occasionally worked with them when Hobbs had been in charge, but I hadn’t expected it to be one of the ones I’d liked. Or at least liked to trade snarky comments with. Sergeant O'Sullivan. He’d always tried to get me to sell my sword to him and lamented that it was so much bigger than his.

  I struggled for detachment as I surveyed him for evidence of magical tampering—or, more likely, a magical attack. Magic didn’t leave a telltale signature, unfortunately, but it could account for sudden deaths without physical signs. Wizards could hurl lightning attacks that would appear to a medical examiner exactly like a lightning strike or other electrocution. Elves and some of the more powerful magical beings could channel telekinetic power from within and use it to squeeze a heart until it stopped beating.

  “Davie Thornberg is the name of the civilian?” Willard was reading the second report. “I wish O'Sullivan had checked in and let us know what he was doing. Was this guy a random civilian who happened to be in the hotel with him at the same time as he was attacked, or did O'Sullivan call him in for questioning?” She glanced at the captain. “You looked him up, right?”

  “He’s a local,” Rodriguez said. “A boat mechanic who works at the marina.”

  “A strange place for tigers to hang out.”

  The medical examiner raised her eyebrows. “We don’t have tigers. We do have cougars.”

  “Tigers have been on my mind.”

  I wondered if Michael might have been brought up here by boat rather than in a van. That wouldn’t change anything about where he was now, but the ogres might have tramped past this Davie and that was how he’d ended up involved. A witness who’d reported them to O’Sullivan?

  “So, are we looking at a cat-shifter wizard, or what?” Willard looked at Rodriguez.

  The medical examiner lifted her eyebrows again but didn’t appear shocked by the question. She must have seen the occasional body mauled by magic.

  “Or a cat shifter and a wizard?” Rodriguez suggested.

  Or maybe not a shifter at all. I thought of the cub sleeping in my Jeep and wondered if there was a grown-up version of her around. Would the cub react to the body—and whatever scent the predator might have left on it—if I brought her in?

  Willard tilted the folder, and the magical item I’d sensed slid out onto her palm. A slender metal stick with an emblem on a hook at the top, it looked like a fancy bookmark.

  I concentrated on the magic emanating from it and tried to guess which species had crafted it. The elegance of the work, from what I could see across the room, reminded me of elves, and the magic lingering about it did too.

  Just what we needed. Another species involved in the mystery here.

  “Nice toothpick,” Rodriguez grunted.

  “I was thinking bookmark,” Willard said.

  “That’s because you’re erudite and stuff.”

  Willard was erudite? I supposed she wouldn’t have been picked to head an intelligence-gathering unit if she was a thug, but she reminded me so much of that drill sergeant I’d had—and she had definitely been a thug.

  “I’m more into eating than reading,” Rodriguez added.

  “Are you supposed to admit things like that to a woman?”

  “I’m an open book, ma’am.”

  “A book with pictures?”

  “Yup.” He grinned.

  “You said our agent was the one with it?” Willard asked the medical examiner.

  “Yes. He stored it in an interesting place.”

  Willard dropped it in the folder and wiped her hand on her pants.

  “Not that interesting.” The medical examiner shook her head. “But he had stuffed it in his underwear. His pockets were empty except for his car keys.”

  “Maybe he thought he would be searched.” Rodriguez picked it up and looked it over, then shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s magical or some useless souvenir or what. Maybe you should call Thorvald in here.”

  I’d been about to leave to retrieve the cub and walk back in without my stealth charm engaged, but I paused in the doorway, curious if Willard would admit that she could use me.

  “Having someone who doesn’t follow orders on a team is a good way to get everyone killed,” Willard said.

  “She can sense magic though. Colonel Hobbs used to call her in to hunt down people we couldn’t.”

  “I don’t want a maverick working with our unit. It’s a liability. Especially a maverick who skulks in the shadows and doesn’t admit she’s here spying on us.”

  I arched my eyebrows. Did she truly know? Or was she guessing? I’d parked in the shadow of a dumpster in an alley behind the building, so she shouldn’t have seen my Jeep.

  “You think she’s here?” Rodriguez looked toward the corners—toward the shadows.

  “Yes.” Willard didn’t look around, but she addressed me directly. “You left wet footprints in the hallway, Thor
vald.”

  Hm, maybe she was smarter than I’d thought. Or at least more observant. Colonel Willard Holmes.

  I thought about confessing, but I didn’t want her to feel smug, so I slipped out and retrieved the cub from the Jeep before returning, this time with my camouflaging charm deactivated.

  Willard squinted at me when I walked in, and I had a feeling she was still positive she’d been right.

  “You can’t bring a pet in here,” the medical examiner objected.

  I was carrying the cub in my arms—she still hadn’t recovered her energy from the day before—and doubted the medical examiner could tell what she was.

  “She’s not a pet. She’s a young tiger from Del’noth.” I thought that was what the goblin had said. “A magical tiger.”

  All three of them looked at the claw-mauled body.

  “She’s been with me so obviously isn’t responsible for that, but I thought she might sense something.” As I walked over, the cub did perk her head up. She sniffed the air and tried to climb out of my arms to get to the body.

  I set her down, but that didn’t help her since she was too short to reach the body. With a little more growing, she would be able to jump that high but not yet. She gave me a flat look with her green eyes, as if to inform me of that fact.

  “I can’t put you on the table, kid. There’s a dead guy on it.”

  Rodriguez arched his eyebrows. “Does she speak back?”

  “Merow.” The cub pawed at the base of the table.

  “Obviously,” I told him. “Unfortunately, my translation charm doesn’t have any suggestions as to what she’s saying.”

  The cub walked around the table, sniffing at the air—sniffing toward the body. The body that had been electrocuted didn’t hold any interest for her at all.

  “Which is too bad,” I added, “because I’d like to know if she’s aware of any other larger tigers in the area.”

  Willard squinted at me. “I’d been thinking we’re dealing with a feline shifter of some kind.”

  “It’s possible, but this girl was in Michael’s boat when I got there. The same night he was kidnapped. By ogres, one of whom died on his dock with that address in his pocket.”

  “That address.” Willard snorted. “If that’s a real address, I’m not convinced we were on the right road.”

  “Have you had a chance to look at the USGS maps yet?”

  “No.” She covered her mouth as she cracked a yawn. “We were talking about doing it next over some food.”

  “You got any idea what this is, Thorvald?” Rodriguez brought the bookmark tool over to me.

  I paused in the middle of reaching for it. Before, I hadn’t been able to see the emblem on the top. Now, I could.

  “Don’t worry,” Willard said. “Our good medical examiner promises it wasn’t stored inside any body cavities.”

  “I’m not sure being nestled against somebody’s balls is better.” But that wasn’t why I’d paused, and I finished reaching for it.

  “I knew you were in here,” Willard growled.

  “Yeah. I wanted to hear evidence that you’re erudite.”

  I turned the item over in my hand, then held the emblem toward the light.

  “I’ll recite some encyclopedias for you later.”

  “That’ll be sure to keep me awake. So… this is a castle.” I held it up.

  “Brilliant observation,” Willard said.

  “Didn’t Lieutenant Reynolds mention the castle to you?”

  Willard looked at Rodriguez, who shook his head. They must not have asked to be apprised of new information related to Michael. After all, they’d come up because of the maulings and their missing agent. It was also possible Reynolds had dug up the tidbit about the bounty after sharing the address with Willard.

  “He told me about a bounty out for Michael, some unnamed person offering a reward for him if he was brought alive to the castle in Bellingham.”

  “There aren’t any castles in Bellingham,” the medical examiner said.

  “There must be.” I held up the emblem. “And I have a hunch this is the key.”

  “The key to the front door or the key that would let us find it from a neglected logging road?” Willard asked.

  “I don’t know that, but this key is magical.”

  The cub made a pitiful noise and flopped onto her side on the tile floor. She was under the table, still looking up at the body, but she seemed to have given up on reaching it.

  “Your cat doesn’t look right,” Willard said. “She was a lot perkier this morning when she was swatting at your braid.”

  “I know.” I hesitated, not sure if I should admit my fears, but maybe one of them would know something about this strange species that didn’t eat or drink, at least not on Earth. I relayed what the goblin had told me.

  “If that’s true, being stuck here could kill her.” Willard frowned, then knelt beside the cub and stroked her fur. It seemed the hardened army officer had a soft spot for animals.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. We need to hurry.”

  Hurry and do what, I didn’t know. All I had were hopes and hunches at this point that everything was tied together and that I’d find a solution for the cub at the same time I found Michael.

  “Let’s go over those maps first,” Willard said. “We’re not driving back out to that road so we can stick that bookmark out the window and wave it hopefully at the trees. Not without making sure that truly is Misty Loop Lane.”

  Though urgency battered at my nerves, I couldn’t object to the logic. It had taken nearly an hour to navigate that pothole-filled road the first time, and even if this magical key was linked to the castle, I had no idea if it would help us locate it. I hoped the cub could hold out for a few more hours.

  12

  It was still early enough, and dark and rainy enough outside, that we had an entire section at Denny’s to ourselves. That was good because Willard spread out maps across three tables. That flummoxed the waitress, who didn’t know where to set down our food. I took my sizzling skillet and plopped it down on Puget Sound, not caring if gravy tumbled off onto the map.

  Willard glared at me. “These are borrowed. Put that somewhere else.”

  I considered being recalcitrant, but for all I knew, USGS maps were worth thousands of dollars. I pulled over another table and rested my plate on it, taking bites in between looking at the fields and forests and mountains around Bellingham.

  “Here’s our road.” Willard pointed. “And it doesn’t have a label beyond a forest-service number. What makes the GPS map think it’s Misty Loop Lane?”

  “Do you see anything else called Misty Loop Lane?” Rodriguez asked, his mouth stuffed full of hamburger.

  Willard eyed his vigorous chomping. She’d sent her salad back because the lettuce had been limp and brown around the edges, and another one had not appeared. Maybe she was regretting being picky. It had been the only salad on the menu; judging by the grease coating the potatoes in my skillet meal, they didn’t cater to the health conscious here.

  I took my phone out and ran an internet search for Misty Loop Lane in Bellingham to see if any other addresses came up. I’d already Googled the One Cave address and failed to get any hits, but I hadn’t tried the street by itself.

  “No mention of it anywhere on the web,” I said. “Funny that my map app came up with a hit. Closest match on the web is a Misty Ridge Court.”

  “Does it look like the kind of place with a castle full of ogre kidnappers?” Willard asked.

  “It’s a cul-de-sac with three houses and is across from Huckleberry Park, which has slides and a picnic table.”

  “It certainly sounds like a locale that menacing bad guys would choose as their hideout.”

  I ran a search for castles in the area and didn’t come up with anything for that either. “Let me see the key.”

  Willard eyed me, and I thought she would object, but she drew it from a zipper pocket and slid it across the map. “W
hy?”

  I took a picture of it. “To see if anything comes up on a reverse image search.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  “I can see you’re warming up to me.”

  “Like a blowtorch to scrap metal.”

  I looked at the captain as the search ran. “I’m the scrap metal in that metaphor, right?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  “It’s a simile, Thorvald.” Willard pointed at a brown patch of land adjacent to our forest-service road. “Look at this.”

  The topography lines put it on the top of a hill about halfway down the road. I tried to remember if I’d noticed that spot during my drive, but I mostly remembered walls of trees to either side of the road.

  Willard glanced at Rodriguez. “I don’t remember any open areas like this, do you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Thorvald, did you and your night vision see any clearings?”

  “No, but it’s possible that trees along the road could have blocked it from our view.”

  “Maybe.” Willard sounded doubtful. “Look at the topo lines though. That’s a hundred feet above that road we were on. Even if there were trees, we should have seen a hill through them.”

  “There were lots of hills,” I said. “And a hundred feet isn’t that high. Not necessarily above the trees.”

  “I don’t see a castle on top of it.” Rodriguez pointed to the bare spot.

  “Maybe that was recently constructed.” Willard started looking for the date of the map.

  I scanned the results of my image search and found a lot of metal bookmarks vaguely shaped like our key but no exact matches. It had been a long shot.

  “Here’s your salad, Miss.” One of the cooks had brought it out this time, but he appeared as flummoxed as the waitress had been about where to put it. “Where would you like it?”