Fae Noir- the Murderer in Blue

by Katelynn Alexandrea

  "And the Vancouver Police Department." I finished. I was off my game. That took far too long to catch on to. Shock was a hell of a drug.

  "Of which I have exactly one officer on hand with an absolutely ironclad alibi." Channing nodded. "That's why I'm only telling you two that they were asphyxiated."

  "You want the department to be settled." Bailey nodded. "You're hoping that by making everyone think we, the green investigating officers don't expect the suspects to possibly have a badge, you'll put the suspect at ease, thinking the least competent officers possible have the case, and bungled it."

  "Exactly." Channing nodded.

  "Unless you're the killer." I pointed out.

  Bailey looked at me, shocked.

  "Movie with my wife when I got the call he was stabbed. Security cameras. Staff." Channing nodded. "Go. Verify."

  Bailey understood. "The only person with a presently verified alibi is Azura."

  "And I need you to trust me, in order for our plan to work." Channing nodded.

  "What exactly is our plan?" Bailey asked.

  "Trust nobody, and act like we're 17 steps further behind than we are when you get to the station tomorrow morning. If your chief won't let you-" I began.

  "He will. I'll have a few words with him first thing tomorrow." Channing nodded. "We can't afford for you to do this alone, and we can't afford to let anyone else in on this."

  "What's our game plan, tonight?" Bailey asked.

  "Get some sleep, LeBlanc. It's going to be a long day." I said, quietly.

  "I'm not sure I can sleep at the 6 body mark." Bailey frowned.

  "Do what I do." Channing shrugged. "Take drowsy cold medication. You need your body fresh and rested. There is a cop in this body count."

  "Yeah, but there's no way I'll have time! It's 1 in the morning!" Bailey protested.

  "Come on." I replied. "I've got a couch."

  "Probably for the best. That way, if someone comes after you, you've got someone else home." Channing added.

  "And my old apartment building definitely doesn't have grade A security." I added. "Works out both ways."

  "Deal." Bailey said, with a yawn. "But I'm not tired."

  "Ten bucks says you'll have to wake her up when you get to your apartment." Channing noted.

  "You're on!" Bailey protested.

  Channing looked disturbingly certain of his bet. I did not blame him. I could sense her own exhaustion.

  Night watchwomen

  Bailey did, in fact, owe Captain Channing ten dollars, but agreed to split it with me, if I told him otherwise. It would seem that the good Captain had greatly underestimated both black Fae greed, and the camaraderie of women in a male dominated field.

  Walking into the apartment, though, Bailey stared in disbelief. The city of New Westminster was not known for its gentle architecture, and my building was no different.

  The building was built on top of a convenience store, and there was no elevator. Just a LOT of stairs.

  Climbing up the steep staircase to the fifth floor left us both pretty winded.

  There was a door creak, before one of the neighbors made a quick motion to come closer.

  "What?" Bailey whispered.

  "There was a man, in the hallway, earlier. He tried to break into your house, but something spooked him. I spied him. Through the door peep hole." She whispered.

  "Thanks." I nodded. I reached for my weapon. Missing. Civilian clothes. I had greatly misunderestimated the plausible dangers in the current case, but my judgement had been growing increasingly impaired. I couldn’t quite figure out why.

  Bailey drew her weapon, hastily. She had the common decency to be completely unprepared for a slumber party.

  "Close and lock the door." I instructed the old woman.

  She nodded, and I didn't move until I heard the door click.

  "First time I've been happy to notice overly nosey neighbors." Bailey grumbled.

  "Mrs. Johnson is exactly why I picked this building, actually. You wouldn't believe how many homicides get solved because we have a Mrs. Johnson handy to question." I shook my head.

  "I'd feel a lot better with an extra gun." Bailey said, quietly. "I mean, don't get me wrong, for being someone who was a complete stranger four hours ago, I'd trust you with my life, but-"

  It was funny how right those words felt. My first few hours with Frank had been nothing like this at all. Hell, even under fire, Frank and I hadn't gelled so well. Without a word, I interrupted her, by drawing my wand.

  "Wish granted." I said, quietly. "That's a pun you'll get later."

  Now, it's true to point out that I had used the last bit of magic in my wand, trying to save the woman at the car dealership. I appreciate your keen mind in pointing out that my wand would be as useless as a stick.

  Not all magic is powered by belief, and as I explained earlier, Destruction magic is powered by the anger in your heart.

  My partner was dead. Someone had attempted to violate my home.

  Anger, I had in stock. In fact, if we were to discuss precisely how much anger I had available, using the metaphor of a back stockroom, one could imagine that it was late October in a big box store, and the onslaught of Christmas deliveries was threatening to eat the store room, except in this case, the Christmas deliveries were just full of angry bees.

  Something else swirled around the wand, though. A magic I wasn't familiar with. It tempered the flames. Made them more real, more forceful. It seemed to pulse all around me.

  "What's with the glow stick of destiny?" Bailey asked, staring at the glowing wand. "Is that some fancy high tech cattle prod? Where were you keeping it?"

  "It's acting up. Something is throwing it off." I frowned. "It'll do, though."

  "What IS IT?" Bailey asked.

  "I'll tell you everything you need to know once we get the house cleared, and block the door with something heavy." I said, quietly. "Just. Trust me."

  "That, I can do." Bailey said, quietly.

  Holding the wand like a gun felt ridiculous, but keeping it close made it harder for it to be disarmed in close combat. I was reasonably certain that should this exact pose ever be seen by another fairy, that I would be ridiculously belittled for it for the next 7 generations of fae, all of whom I fully intended to outlive strictly out of spite.

  We hastily ensured nobody was in my apartment, then moved the kitchen table in front of the door. It was not the sturdiest of barricades, but if anyone tried to give it a shove, we’d hear them several minutes before breaking in, provided they didn’t use a battering ram.

  "So, they'd have to scale 5 stories to break in through the window." Bailey said, quietly.

  "I would not put it past them, at this point. First point of duty tomorrow is figuring out how they got in to Gillard's house." I nodded. In fact, the giant glass balcony door did seem to be a security liability, and this assailant was increasingly becoming extra-normal to both of our survival instincts.

  "Alright. The stick. Spill." Bailey gestured.

  "It's… a fairy wand." I said, quietly. I took a deep breath, and stretched my wings for the first time in nearly twenty years. Delicate, translucent black wings unfurled, and moon-shaped designs danced in the light from the kitchen overhead lamp I almost never remembered to shut off. "I'm a really terrible fairy godmother."

  "Bullshit." Bailey said, blinking. "Do a magic!"

  A magic. Wow. Somebody was excited beyond proper sentence structures today.

  I placed the wand at the wick of a candle on a stand in the corner, and it lit the candle.

  "Woah." Bailey blinked.

  "I'm almost out of magic, though. All I have left is whatever I can make out of my own. Some magic, like fire, I can make with anger. More conventional magic will cost life force. I can't really afford to do a lot of that." I said, quietly. It was a truth. Certainly. The strange magic that had surrounded us in the hall was still pulsing around me, and I wasn’t entirely sure what it could, and could not do.
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br />   "But you're a fairy!" She exclaimed. It was readily apparent that her understanding of magic was limited to the storybook style where shouting I do not believe would cause a fairy mortal anguish.

  "I was a fairy." I shook my head. "I was a fairy godmother assigned to exactly the people we hunt as police officers. I couldn't even manage to do that for 25 years. I quit. It got too much. I ended up here. Hunting bad guys, instead of making life easier for them. I'm not a fairy. I'm a police officer."

  "You can be both." Bailey said, quietly. "Though I understand why you wouldn't broadcast it, you can still be a fairy godmother. You're an even better one as a police officer. You get to help people, and make them feel safe."

  The wand sparked at that, and I gave it an uncertain look. It wasn’t common place for the wand to react to other people. It barely reacted to me, most days.

  "What?" Bailey asked.

  I stepped closer to her, and placed it against her arm.

  It sparked again.

  "It's you." I blinked. "Strange. You don't have any latent magical talent, that I can tell, yet you're… affecting the way the wand wants to work. Increasing its potency. Not by a small-"

  Bailey, however, in her over-excited stage, was now asleep on the couch.

  I gently lifted her legs up, to prevent her from getting uncomfortable in the night.

  Changing in to my nightgown, I grabbed a blanket, and closed my eyes, as I sat down on my chair of contemplating things. I did not, in fact, own a bed. I slept in a chair, because I only ever seemed to fall asleep when I sat down in said chair, trying to focus, and think.

  My eyes closed. A second? An hour? I’m not sure.

  And then, there was banging on the door.

  "What?" I asked.

  "OFFICER NOIR! OFFICER NOIR! I HEAR FOOTSTEPS ON THE ROOF!" Mrs. Johnson yelled from the hallway.

  Bailey was awake, instantly. Her instincts were quick. It was kind of nice to have someone to rely on.

  We moved the table out of the way.

  "Do exactly what I say, okay?" I asked Bailey.

  She nodded.

  "Get Mrs. Johnson. Get her in to her house. Lock the door. Have her call in a prowler. Do NOT let on that you are there with her." I instructed.

  Bailey nodded. She hastily slipped out the door.

  I turned off all the lights, then took a deep breath, and opened the balcony door, spreading my wings for the second time this night. The pulsing was still here. It was stronger now.

  Wand out.

  I expected to need a lot of anger to generate enough destruction magic to do anything of use, yet, my mind raced to Bailey and Mrs. Johnson being in danger.

  My wand glowed bright orange. Pulsing orange. Angry orange, but also mixed with something strange. Something I had never encountered before. I tried focusing on it, and then, it occurred to me.

  Bailey trusted me. She believed in me, to keep her safe.

  Nobody had ever believed in me before. Not in any real way that mattered. Sparkles, most days, I didn't even do it.

  "That's new." I said to it. "What's up with you?"

  Wands, characteristically of magical implements that are not sentient entities, do not, as a rule, speak, unless enchanted to do so, so I was met with silence.

  I had, previously, encountered both a harp that sang country music a sword that spoke in crude limerick, and a very curious kettle that liked to sing Rossini. Enchanted objects that were never meant to be sentient had a curious habit of doing so obnoxiously, perhaps to demonstrate to other magic folk that there was a reason they shouldn't be forced to do so.

  "On the attack, then?" I asked the wand. I had to admit that it was strange to attempt to converse with the stick.

  The wand flickered like a flame, then glowed brighter. It seemed to sing. Never in my life had my wand been this filled with magic. It was strange. It felt STRANGE.

  It felt right. Like this was how I was supposed to feel.

  "On the attack." I nodded. I jumped up, and my wings pulled me onto the roof.

  The wings began to glitter with black fairy dust.

  Never in my life had I ever produced fairy dust.

  Fae didn’t produce it anymore. People just didn’t give them enough faith.

  Yet, here I was. One woman had enough belief in me to supercharge my entire sense of being, to be able to offensively use magic in a sufficiently threatening way.

  I was overcome with a single burning need.

  To Serve, and Protect.

  The terror that runs in the night

  There was a figure on the roof, dressed in black, when I landed on it.

  My own nightgown was pitch black. You might guess that I don't own colorful clothing. The effect was not something many others could see.

  Lit only by the flickering fire of my wand, black wings, and a darkened body obscured the stars behind it, making me out to be something far more terrifying than a girl in her nightgown. In the attacker’s defense, I did vaguely resemble some vengeful bat-like woman(Though we can’t go so far as to call me a woman who was a bat, because there are copyright laws).

  This was apparently the opinion of the figure on the roof, who began hastily flying down the fire escape. Figuratively flying. I should probably clarify that, given my own wings, and capacity of flight.

  I chased after him, as fast I could, though it took me a few painful steps to realize the roof was not designed to be stepped on, barefoot. It was surprisingly easy to forget that you could fly when you hadn’t hovered more than about a dozen feet in the past 20 years, all of which were in the past 15 minutes.

  Hopping up, and hovering, I dashed towards the fire escape. My wings were out of shape, and I had a hard time maintaining a good speed. I had to land a couple times. Atrophy was a thing, even in wing muscles. Well, I say muscles. Wings are only attached to Fae by magic fields. Atrophied magic fields would be more accurate, but you get the point. Regardless of the accuracy of the metaphor, I had gotten so accustomed to walking, or driving, that my body had a hard time believing that it could actually fly properly. English really does not do the explanations of magical creatures justice. It's a pity you all can't read Western American Faescript.

  This increase in traverse speed did nothing to slow the hasty escape of the dark figure, who slid down the fire escape expertly, before jumping off the second story landing, on to the roof of a van, crawling into the open sunroof, and speeding off. In point of fact, his figurative flight was significantly more elegant, energetic, and well prepared than my own, and a lesser fairy would have probably been insulted.

  Now, I'm sure you're thinking that I would chase after him, but scantily clad fairies chasing after vehicles with a flaming wand do tend to get noticed, and video phones exist. That would be an absolutely amazing cinematic moment, but I'm afraid it just doesn't fit my narrative of trying to hide my secret from everyone(barring a specific cute blonde officer from uniform). I also would like to remind you that my wings were terribly underpowered due to lack of use.

  I made it back into my apartment before the police arrived, and quietly waited for them to conduct a search. I sipped a cup of tea. You're probably expecting me to say it's some kind of fancy tea, but I live on a cop's salary. It was store brand Earl Grey. Not even from a good store. It was dollar store brand store brand tea. You can judge me for this. I accept your judgement. I hate tasting the paper tea bags, and judge myself, heavily.

  "Sorry to worry you." The local police officer said. "The old lady was sure she heard someone up there, but we checked. It's clear."

  I nodded. "It's no bother. I appreciate your efforts to keep us safe, from one officer to another."

  The officer tipped an imaginary hat, before leaving.

  I was pleased to be rid of him. It was difficult, doing his job, I knew, but he wasn't any help, and nor could he be without putting his life in danger. This case had enough bodies, already.

  "Did you get a glimpse?" Bailey asked, once we were alone again.
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  "No, they were dressed in black. I have a plate, but I couldn't exactly give it to them without explaining how I obtained the plate number of a vehicle parked on the other side of the building. I texted it to the Captain." I shook my head.

  "Damn." Bailey grumbled.

  "Couldn't agree more." I admitted.

  "Hey, uhm. Do you actually own clothes that contain any non-monochromatic colors?" Bailey asked.

  "I have duck slippers, but they didn't speak to chasing a suspect on the roof." I retorted.

  "In your black nightgown." Bailey amended.

  "Actually, the duck slippers would have helped. I cut up my feet kind of bad." I winced.

  "You fly." Bailey pointed out.

  "That took a particularly long amount of time to catch on to. I can fly. I don't fly. It attracts the kind of attention that gets videophoned." I retorted.

  "We do know one thing for SURE." Bailey said, shaking her head.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "You know something critical to this case." Bailey pointed out. "And whoever is responsible knows it."

  I blinked. "You're right." It was obvious. The only answer, actually. Why attempt to murder me? If Frank had the information, but I didn't, the body count would end at Frank. There was, however, the rub. "But I don't know what it is." Yeah. That rub.

  "Run it through with me. We've got all night. I won't be able to sleep, after Peter Stalker decided to climb up the side of the building." Bailey nodded.

  "Alright. We started the day looking for Tracy Lincoln." I nodded. "Her co-worker reported her missing after her second work shift was missed. Eva is the girl's name. Frank questioned her boss, but it sounded more like they were talking about the Lions losing, than Tracy going missing."

  "Okay. I'm not surprised. A lot of detectives use commonplace ploys like local sports teams to build a rapport while questioning. Frank must have noticed something about the guy that made him jump into football." Bailey nodded.

  "Rugby." I corrected.

  "What?" Bailey asked.

  "That is not football. They don't even play it with their hands. Frank is a fan of the team that plays rugby. It took me forever to adjust to Americans calling rugby football, and soccer just sounds stupid. I'm an 'earth sports is a second language' girl, and calling rugby by its proper name is the only way I keep them apart." I explained.