Magic and the Shinigami Detective

by Honor Raconteur

  “This is Detective Jamie Edwards,” Pinkerton introduced to me. “Edwards, this is Henri Davenforth, our Magical Examiner.”

  I held out a hand and she accepted it without a blink of an eye, her grip sure and firm. “Pleasure, Detective.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir.” A nice voice, slightly husky, not one of those shrill sopranos.

  “Davenforth,” Pinkerton continued, nearly shifting his feet with the desire to be on the move, “Captain requests that you and Edwards work together on this one. She’s, well, an expert on magical criminals, and this has all the earmarks of a rogue witch breaking inside.”

  ‘Expert on magical criminals.’ Was that how we were phrasing it now? Thirteen months ago, when this woman first appeared, she did so in a flash of blood and fame by killing the most famous rogue witch in the country. Daresay on the entire continent. I didn’t have all the details, but part of the reason why the Department had fought so hard to bring her into the fold was because of her history with Belladona. I wasn’t sure killing one insane witch was enough to give her blanket confidence in situations like this, but I was willing to withhold judgment until I saw her in action.

  “Certainly. Pinkerton, get the area clear. I can’t work with people tramping madly about.”

  “They’re taking inventory of what’s missing—” he began to protest, round face scrunching up into defensive lines.

  “They’re making a mess of any trace evidence the criminals left behind,” I cut in firmly, not giving him any wiggle room. “Get them out of here. They can take inventory after I’m done.”

  The man wanted to protest, obvious by the way he pulled his black jacket sharply down over his paunch, but he didn’t. Spinning on a heel, he barked out orders to stop and clear the area.

  Edwards didn’t say anything, but the set of her mouth and the way she looked at me suggested she approved. “Pinkerton,” she called after him.

  The man spun, the set of his mouth rebelliously close to a snarl.

  “Can you have a few uniforms canvas the area?” Edwards requested with a sweet smile. “See if there are any witnesses. Someone might have spotted our thieves running madly away from the area.”

  Semi-appeased to be more involved, Pinkerton gave her a nod and a tip of the hat. “I’ll get men right on it.”

  “Thank you.” She watched him go for a moment, then turned her back to him. From her pocket, she pulled out a pair of white gloves and tugged them on. I watched in bemusement. “You wear gloves on scene?”

  “Always. Less chance of me smudging fingerprints and corrupting trace evidence.”

  I blinked at her. “Fingerprints?”

  From the patient tone of her words, she’d explained this before, at least a hundred times over. “No two individuals have identical fingerprints. Not even identical twins. If you can find fingerprints at the scene, you can match them up with the criminal later, and prove in a court of law that he had been there.”

  Fascinating. I’d never heard of the like and had to wonder at the veracity of her words. “Which journal did you acquire this information from?”

  She gave me a smile that somehow seemed amused and sad all at once. “I’ll explain it all later, if you don’t mind. Let’s process the scene first.”

  That did seem the best option as night fell quickly at this time of year. We had the climbing temperatures of approaching spring, but winter’s influence lingered in short daylight hours and cold nights. Electric lights hadn’t quite made it to this part of the yard yet, leaving only gaslights, and those flickered badly enough to make the eyes play tricks. I wanted to see everything I could before natural light failed me entirely. “Detective, do you have any magical lenses on you?”

  “Yes, one. I’ll use it and stay out of your hair, don’t worry.”

  At least she was competent enough for that amount of common sense. Daring to hope she wouldn’t blunder into my way later, I waved her on, pulling out my own tools and equipment. Not that I needed much for my initial scan. A journal for recording the findings in, which would become the queen’s evidence later, two tracking crystals to record the scene in its entirety, and several magical evidence boxes that I could store things into and preserve for later examination. I grabbed a charcoal pencil, as well, to mark things with, tucking it behind an ear, then swore when my curly hair pushed it out again. Catching it, I stuck it in again, more firmly. Better.

  As I turned from the wagon, I saw the last of the officers leave the area and huffed out a satisfied breath. Two patrolmen remained, setting a perimeter, which I thought sensible. They chose to set it outside of the scene’s area, and I gave them a nod of approval. They wouldn’t hinder me there.

  Gathering it all up, I started recording first, as I always did, trying to preserve the scene in as much purity as possible before I touched anything. My black box gave a magical hum as it worked. I do so admire recording boxes as they do an excellent job in taking a ghostly image of the scene, something we could project later for precise examination. I’d had to tweak these models as the projection lens and power supply were subpar, in my opinion, but after modification, they were up to snuff now.

  I kept an eye on Edwards as I recorded, but she seemed to realize that I couldn’t have anything disturbed at this point. Indeed, she walked the perimeter of the brick building instead, pacing a little out, then coming back in, studying things at every level, even getting down on her knees at one point.

  I now understood why she wore a man’s trousers and coat, if her scrambling about on crime scenes was the norm for her. Certainly the proper female clothing of long skirts and billowy sleeves would hamper her in situations like these. Even if her clothing choice bordered on immodesty, I gave her points for the professionalism.

  Coming back to me, she stopped a foot to my left and behind. “Can I talk to you while you work?”

  “In this stage, yes.”

  “I don’t see any signs of forced entry. No smashed windows, broken locks, or any sign of tampering.”

  I turned my head enough to frown at her. “Are you certain?”

  “Not through the usual means, at least,” she clarified. In illustration, she held up the half-moon spectacles and waved them a little. “My magic specs are registering a strange energy absolutely everywhere so they’re less than helpful at the moment. I know the front doors are blasted open, but I’m not sure if that’s because they were trying to get in through the wards, or out with their loot. How were the wards set?”

  Frowning, I paused for a moment. “The wards are set to keep evidence logged inside, not to bar entrance.”

  “So, they could feasibly have gotten in, then had to break out in order to take the loot with them?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Then help me figure out other possible points of entry.”

  True, the run-of-the-mill magic specs issued to the department wouldn’t be of much help here. “Give me a moment. After I’ve finished the recording, I’ll take a comprehensive look at the doors and windows for you.”

  “I appreciate it, thank you.”

  Silence descended, and normally I’m quite good with silence and would leave it alone. This seemed a rather unique opportunity, however, to get a few clarifications about this strange woman that had joined our department four months ago. She was one of only two female detectives, the other being a fresh faced young girl who routinely handled the female domestic troubles. Our good queen demanded more equality in the workforce, but it hadn’t come out in waves, only spurts, and our department had some of the few female officers in the whole city.

  Prying was not really in my nature, but asking a few harmless questions to satisfy my curiosity didn’t seem crass. “Where’s your normal partner?”

  “Nursing a broken nose and explaining to his wife why he thought it a good idea to proposition his female partner,” she responded tartly, retrieving a notebook from her front pocket.

  I winced. Alright, maybe that hadn’t been su
ch a harmless question.

  “I can tell by that question,” she continued, eyes thoughtful on my face, “that you really don’t know much about me. Do you.”

  When in doubt, try the truth. “I don’t really listen to much gossip. And people are hardly banging down my door to come share the latest juicy tidbit. My lab…distresses people.”

  “Is that right? Well. Most people, you know, lead off by asking me why I’m called Shinigami.”

  A line of tension ran through her spine, a certain air of resignation about her features, and I had a terrible feeling that people opened old wounds with unnecessary prying. I hoped she wouldn’t think me capable of the same crassness, but I knew nothing of her, nor she of me. I didn’t want to work with such obvious tension between us, so I offered candidly, “I’m of course curious, but you don’t need to explain.”

  Her eyes, those richly metallic, gold brown eyes, lingered over my expression for a long moment. “It’s the first thing I said to the Kingsmen when they realized I’d killed Belladonna. ‘I’m a regular Shinigami.’ For some reason the word didn’t translate automatically through my linguistic spell.”

  “If you don’t inherently understand the word, only know it through repetition, it wouldn’t translate,” I offered. I didn’t question why she had a translating spell, not with her obviously foreign features.

  “Ah, is that why? Anyway, when I said it, I was being facetious. But they took it and ran with it. Now everyone’s calling me by a death god’s name.” Rolling her eyes, she grumbled something under her breath.

  “Is that what it means?” The inquiry fell out of my mouth before I could check it.

  “That’s what it means. It’s a death god from another culture. Tongue in cheek for me to be called that, as I’ve only ever killed in the line of duty.”

  Interesting. It didn’t seem to bother her much, but then again Belladonna had been more like a mad dog that needed to be put down. “I see. I’m not sure if you’re aware but Kingston citizens have a tendency to attach to anything new.”

  Edwards snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  For a moment I thought she was serious, but her tone relayed that it was a response, not an invitation to actually say something. Still, I thought it wise to add something in this moment of candor. “You’ll be the first female officer I’ve worked with, so if I do say something offensive, give me warning? I’m quite attached to the set of my nose.”

  The tension eased and she grinned at me. “I don’t think I’ll have much trouble with you. You’re already more polite than half the force here. Or at least you’re not as offensive.”

  I didn’t follow. “Offensive in what sense?”

  “Most officers here feel I’ll either eat their face off or be fine with casual deviant sex.”

  This time my whole body flinched. “Good gads, Detective, don’t tell me you’ve been subjected to that kind of indecency from our fellow officers!”

  To my surprise, she laughed, a light and feminine sound. “You know, I think I might like you. To be fair, only one of them had the asinine opinions about sex. The eating face thing came from the young cadets who got trolled.”

  I didn’t know the phrase ‘got trolled’ but I gathered the gist of it well enough. “I do hope you reported this all to the captain.”

  “No, I broke their noses and let them report why to the captain,” she answered mock-sweetly.

  That was evil. Not that I blamed her. In her shoes, I might have done the same. Glancing down, I saw that my recording had only a second more before being finished. “Almost done here. If you’ll hand me that black box with the—yes, thank you. I’ll take another recording of the exterior of the building on all sides, then a third of the interior before we really set to work. I can do a cursory examination of the points of entry as I record.”

  “Good. Lead the way.”

  I did so, slowly, as the recording device will take in every jittery step if you don’t keep it steady. One of these days I’d find a better way to do this, or invent it, but for tonight I was stuck with the normal method. Edwards showed no impatience, shadowing my footsteps and taking another, closer look at the exterior as we progressed.

  “These fingerprints you mentioned, how can you detect them?” I prompted.

  “Fine charcoal dust will reveal them easily, if applied with a soft hand and a brush,” she answered. “Fingerprints are left behind because of the oils of the skin. It’s barely a trace and often they’re smudged or only partial prints. Occasionally you get a full print, though, which is helpful. We say ‘fingerprints’ but toes and feet also leave behind recognizable prints.”

  “The oils of the skin,” I repeated thoughtfully, my mind turning over what I knew of anatomy and determining that what she suggested was very possible. “How do you determine the difference between prints?”

  “Every fingerprint has different patterns to it. There’s arches, loops, whorls, and line movement. If you can match print with finger, you have a win.” She shrugged, as if there was nothing magical about this process. “It’s not rocket science.”

  “I’m sorry, rocket science?”

  Sighing, her shoulders slumped for a moment. “There’s far too many idioms in the English language.”

  I received no further explanation than that. After several seconds of silence from her end, I took it to mean she didn’t want to explain. Clearing my throat, I restarted the conversation. “And how do you preserve these fingerprints? I would imagine that keeping the object they’re attached to might prove cumbersome if it’s a wall or door. Can a photograph preserve it?”

  “With enough lighting, yes.” She turned to look at me, thoughtfully. “I usually get arguments about how this isn’t a valid investigative technique. Or how absurd it is.”

  “I have a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy,” I responded with a quick glance up. “Your supposition is entirely possible. I’m curious enough to put it to the test on this case.”

  “In that case,” she challenged, tone somewhere between amusement and relief, “put on gloves.”

  Snorting, I realized that by carelessly touching anything, I would obscure the fingerprints. “I will after I’m done recording here.”

  “Okay.” Satisfied, she went back to examining things.

  ‘Okay?’ Another word I didn’t recognize. It sounded like agreement. I made a careful mental note of it before turning my mind back to the investigation. Nothing remained out here except some windswept garbage, weeds poking through the cracked pavement, and a few cigarette butts. I took those in with a frown. “They’re not supposed to smoke out here.”

  “I’ll bet you even money that some smoker came out, lit a joint, and went back in without remembering to lock the door behind him. Our intruders might have had some elaborate plan for breaking in, but I bet they didn’t need it. Human stupidity got them in smoothly enough.”

  “I don’t take sure bets.” I frowned at them. “Will fingerprints show up on paper?”

  “Yes.” She took a half-step and caught herself. “Can I gather those up?”

  “In three, two, one, yes now you can.” I appreciated that she had checked with me before moving. It would have disturbed the image otherwise. I continued to walk as she gathered them up into a small envelope and clearly labeled it with a pen before catching up with me.

  “I checked the door and it is locked,” she observed, turning to walk backwards for a moment. “Either our theory is false or the idiot realized an unlocked door would reflect badly on him and found a moment to relock it.”

  “A theory we’ll test,” I promised her.

  “Finished here?”

  “Yes. At least with the recording.” Closing the boxes back into my bag, I hefted the strap onto my shoulder and headed back around to the front. I put everything down again and reached for a different set of tools, recording journal and wand. Using both, I gave a quick and dirty analysis of the area and frowned at the readings.

  �
��What are you seeing?” she prompted.

  “Madness.” I didn’t know quite how else to explain it. “The wards are in tatters, as Gerring reported to me, but it’s more than that. They’re masticated, as if a giant hand shredded right through the center of them. You said that you saw a strange energy with the magical glasses?”

  “Yes, a sort of bright green glow splashing around.”

  “I see it as well, in numbers, but it’s not from an energy source that I recognize.” My cerebral fascination did a sharp uplift even as my curiosity rose. Even though I wasn’t happy that someone had broken into my workplace, I did love challenging cases like this.

  Edwards stared straight at the building, tone ruminative. “This isn’t a rogue witch breaking in.”

  “Not in the usual meaning of the word, no,” I agreed readily. “This is something else entirely.” The last of the numbers scrawled out over the page, and they were strangely high. Higher than necessary to break through a single building’s ward. Something about it set alarms off in the back of my mind but I had no answers at this point. I carefully put it all away, gesturing for my impromptu partner that it was safe to enter the building.

  We entered the building cautiously. The way things precariously balanced on top of each other, often barring any sort of entrance, made our attempt at forward locomotion challenging to say the least.

  Edwards plucked at my sleeve, her head inclining toward the right. “This way. I see a clear path in. No doubt the one they used for a quick exit.”

  Following her lead, I found her to be correct—the clutter didn’t prevail so thickly here. They had indeed left themselves a clear path.

  “Now we take fingerprints.” From her jacket pocket, she took out a slim wooden case and drew out a glass jar with a screw top. She flicked it off with a practiced rotation of the wrist, then drew out something that bore a remarkable resemblance to a woman’s powder brush. Dipping the brush into the charcoal grey powder, she went around the door handle carefully.