Magic and the Shinigami Detective Page 14

Seeming to realize I wouldn’t be towed any longer along this line, Gregson cleared his throat and went back to the main point. “I realize your concerns are valid, and I share them. I can’t just reassign her. Aside from the promise that I made her, there are two problems with the idea. One, no one else has the room to take on a case of this size. It’s a high priority case, which demands attention, and no one else has any attention to spare.”

  Likely true. Since we were so close to the docks, we did get a lion’s share of crimes, which ate up the detectives’ time.

  “Second,” Gregson continued, “is that Edwards was assigned to us for a reason. She’s one of the few detectives I have that has any knowledge of magic. I literally have one other person and they’re in the hospital right now. I don’t know who else I could assign this to.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Davenforth,” Gregson put his elbows against the desk, leaning toward me. “I know that you’re more comfortable handling the magical examinations, focusing on the lab work. If you’re truly worried about her, I suggest you shift your habits. Go with her. Safeguard her.”

  Part of me had known this would be the answer even before I set foot in this office. Still, even though I’d been mentally braced for this, I didn’t like it. “You think that just me being with her will keep her from harm? For deities’ sake, she has a Royal Mage putting stabilizing spells on her, what do you expect me to do if her core does go pear shaped?”

  “Keep her alive until we can call that Royal Mage,” Gregson answered bluntly. “I’m under no illusions here, Davenforth, I know very well that you’re magically not as capable as a Royal Mage. I also know that the only reason why you’re not a Royal Mage yourself is because of that power level. You scored number one on the National Magical Exam out of University, higher than Sherard Seaton.”

  How in the devil did he know that?

  Gregson stabbed a finger at me. “Use that lofty intelligence if things go wrong. Keep her alive. And if you’re smart, you’ll have this conversation with her, and at least plan out an emergency procedure so you can call Seaton quickly.”

  Part of me winced at the thought. Go tell a highly intelligent, independent woman that her job wasn’t safe and I wanted her to sit this case out? She’d tear a strip off my hide. “Shouldn’t you be the one to discuss this with her?”

  “No sodding way,” Gregson denied in merciless amusement, lips peeling back from his teeth in a sharp grin. “I value living.”

  By the time I returned to my lab, Warner had not sent the design of the device but instead something else entirely. She put a note on top saying she hadn’t built or tested it yet, but this was more or less something that should work. Work how?

  Far be it for me to eschew my own gender, but in circumstances like these, I preferred to read the instructions. I picked up the second page she’d tucked into the device and gave it a quick reading. So, this was to detect spectral energy? She’d devised it like a large magnifying glass, with two hexes to change the focus and a third hex to light the end with either green or red to indicate safe and dangerous paths. I reviewed her plans, the mechanics and magical basis of it, and found myself agreeing with her. No reason for it not to work.

  She also included a rough outline of what the ‘ghost chucking machine’ must have in order to work. I found it insightful if not complete, but then again, I could hardly expect her to come up with miracles in just a day. For now, it gave us a starting point for investigating, and that’s all we needed.

  That in mind, I went about making a list of the materials needed to build it and the likely shops that a brace of thieves might frequent to gather it all. It would give Edwards and me ideas of where to go, since I was apparently strapped at the hip with my partner from now on.

  Gregson, that cowardly tosser.

  I hovered in between fuming at my captain and worrying about Edwards. Seriously, how was I supposed to say this without getting her back up? I pondered the problem, mentally rehearsing several opening lines, but I didn’t know her well enough to predict what she would say next.

  This was why I avoided partnerships. People were inherently troublesome.

  A breezy knock at the door heralded Edwards’ entrance, although she prudently stopped at the taped line. “Safe to enter?”

  I waved her in. “Your friend Warner’s design arrived. I’ve made a list of possible suppliers for us to investigate.”

  “Oooh that sounds helpful.” She sauntered to the table and leaned near my shoulder to look at the drafted design. “That looks rather simple to make.”

  “It is,” I confirmed. “Simple enough that anyone with an amateur’s level of mechanical and magical knowledge should be able to construct it with little trouble.”

  “If this were a mystery novel, then only a select few would be able to create this thing, and it would narrow our pool of suspects to a handful.” Edwards chuckled at her own joke. “Ah, if only reality made it that easy.”

  “If it did, we might be looking for another line of work,” I observed. She read mystery novels? Or used to, on her own world. She was still learning Velars, after all.

  Those golden-brown eyes scanned my face for a moment before narrowing. I internally panicked. Did something about my expression give the game away?

  “You look like you didn’t get a wink of sleep.”

  “I didn’t,” I admitted, feeling the fatigue of the restless night before. I noted the dark circles under her eyes and decided to exchange tit for tat. “Neither did you. I heard you moving about several times.”

  She flicked a hand, tossing this statement away as inconsequential. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead. But it’s more than a lack of sleep that’s got you making that screwy expression. Is something about this design troubling you?”

  Stonking deities, I thought I had a better poker face than this. “Yes. No. I—” I clapped my mouth shut and tried frantically to remember some of those rehearsed opening gambits I’d thought up. Of course, all of them had vanished without a trace.

  Her eyebrows climbed into her hairline. “Do you know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you at a loss for words?”

  For good reason. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been this tongue tied.

  “Out with it,” Edwards encouraged. “Whatever it is, I won’t take offense.”

  I highly doubted that but prayed that in this instance, I would be proven wrong. “Edwards. To be perfectly frank, I’m worried about your health.”

  She froze, every muscle stiffening up. “I’m sorry?”

  “I know you’ve downplayed it, but I can see that your internal core is…somewhat chaotic,” I tried my best to phrase it diplomatically and had a feeling I’d failed when her expression hardened. “It’s also obvious to me that Seaton is keeping it stable with a judicious application of stasis spells. Normally I wouldn’t bring this up or call you into question, but you do realize that the very nature of this case is inherently dangerous to you?”

  Her mouth opened, soundlessly, then slowly closed again. Her eyes turned to the sketch under her hands and a bleak expression crossed over her face. “You think that it wouldn’t take a direct hit from this thing to hurt me. Don’t you.”

  It wasn’t a question. I answered it anyway. “Yes. I think if you’re too close on the heels of its use, just crossing spectral energy, it will throw you into complete disarray. It will have a masticating effect on the stability spell around your core.”

  “Masticating, eh?” Her eyes seemed trained on the device’s design, but I had a feeling she stared blindly forward. “Davenforth. I appreciate the concern. Really, I truly do.”

  I heard something in her tone that made me groan. “You’re going to work the case anyway.”

  Finally, she looked at me, smile twisted in what might have been humor, mostly resignation. “My body is a mess. I know that. Sherard told me point blank that I might not live a full lifespan because of it. I absolutely can’t have kids. J
ust keeping me stable is taxing to him, trying to carry a child that’s constantly developing? Impossible.”

  I felt a pang of sorrow for that, which surprised me, as I hovered on the verge of becoming a confirmed bachelor myself.

  “When he told me all of that, I realized the one thing I had complete control over was my job. I wouldn’t flinch from it, no matter how crazy difficult it got.”

  The urge to beat my head against the surface of the desk grew nearly overwhelming.

  “Our jobs are dangerous anyway,” she pointed out, surely reading every doubt and ounce of aggravation on my face with all of the skill of a psychic. “I’m more likely to take a bullet, or get in a knife fight, than I am to run afoul of spectral backwash.”

  She was likely right, but…still. “Can you promise me at least one thing? If we’re on a new crime scene, or if we’re approaching a situation where it looks like the thieves are nearby, let me go first? Your friend Warner sent over a spectral energy detector. I can guide your steps.”

  Edwards fished a pair of magical lenses from her pocket. “These won’t detect them?”

  “No, it’s not set for this kind of wavelength.” I frowned at them, thinking hard. “I might be able to modify Warner’s device so you can operate it. But in the meantime, promise me this.”

  “Promise, I’ll let you MacGyver something up for me,” she swore, for some reason drawing her finger in an ‘x’ shape over her heart. I took it to be some superstition from her own world and decided not to question it.

  A soft smile took over her face before she leaned in and pressed a quick, chaste kiss against my forehead. “Truly, Henri, thank you.”

  I blinked, so startled by the affectionate gesture that I froze solid.

  “Come on,” she encouraged, already turning for the door. “This time, lunch is on me. No arguments.”

  Somewhat bewildered and dazed, I got to my feet, following after her. How had my argument against her being on this case turned into being kissed? Treated to lunch? For that matter, how had my perfectly sound argument been completely dismissed without any hard feelings on either side?

  Women. They were formidable creatures indeed. I followed her out the door, questioning as I went, “This is the second time you’ve said that word. What is MacGyver?”

  She paused, glancing back over her shoulder, a smile lifting the corners of her eyes. “Oh boy. Where do I begin? Tell you what, I’ll explain in the car.”

  A number of the sagardian metal vendors had stores along the waterfront, so we started there. Four different shop keepers took a look at the sketch, shook their heads, and denied any unusual events in the past few months.

  At the end of the row, closest to the docks, we came to the last shop. It sat in an alley between two streets, so the building looked more triangular in shape. From the weather-beaten store front, I judged that it had been here for quite some time and hadn’t seen a coat of paint in a good decade at least.

  The store bell tinkled as we stepped through. The scent of metals and dust permeated the air, thick enough I could feel a sneeze building although I fought to keep it down. Edwards did sneeze, three times in rapid succession. Four steps inside, I stepped sharply to the side to avoid colliding with the woman I assumed to be the shopkeeper. Dwarves were never tall, barely five feet in most cases, but she didn’t even make that standard. If she stood over four and a half feet, I’d eat my boots.

  “Don’t look like customers to me,” she announced in rasp, as if she’d eaten smoke her entire life. She likely had. “Who ye be?”

  “Detectives,” Edwards answered forthrightly, reaching into a breast pocket and pulling forth her badge, which she flashed. “I’m Jamie Edwards, this is Doctor Davenforth. We’re trying to track down a group of thieves.”

  The woman spat off to the side, her rust colored braids swinging at the motion. “Good to hear. Hate thieves more than anything. Ye come about me stolen stock, then?”

  Edwards visibly swallowed what she planned to say next and exchanged a glance with me. Now this sounded promising. “You had a theft here?”

  “I take that as a no,” the dwarven matron grumbled, bushy eyebrows beetling together. “Them cops before be handing me a line.”

  I could tell from my partner’s expression she didn’t understand what the shopkeeper meant so I leaned in and murmured, “She means they were busy talking but not actually doing any work.”

  She flashed me a thankful smile before encouraging the shopkeeper, “No, we’d love to hear about it. We suspect a group of thieves got their hands on sagardian metal in order to use it in another two thefts. Is that what they stole?”

  The shopkeeper perked up, ears swiveling toward Edwards. “That be exactly it.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “When was this? How much did they take?”

  “Be two months exactly. Took off with three ingots, and before ye ask, no one saw their faces. Came in pre-dawn, darkest hours, and there’s no one about at that time of the morning.”

  I didn’t doubt that. “A report was taken?”

  She snorted. “For all the good it did.”

  “Trust me,” Edwards assured her with a shark-like smile, “we’re on the case now. We’ll find them. Do you have any idea how many of them there were?”

  “No, but guessing at least three. Sagardian ingots aren’t light. If ye want to run with one? Have to be mighty strong. Three ingots, I figure three strong men.” She patted a muscled arm. “Human strength ain’t like a dwarf’s.”

  “Three men, then, we’ll assume for now.” Edwards whipped out her notebook and jotted things down in her native tongue. “Did they break a window, leave any blood behind, anything like that?”

  “Broke a window, aye, but no trace other than that and me missing stock.”

  Poor luck. Even old blood would be useful for locating spells. But the thieves likely knew that and were careful to leave no trace of themselves behind. Except fingerprints. Although in this case, two months on a cold trail, that wouldn’t be a viable option.

  Edwards got a few more details, along with the shopkeeper’s contact information, then we stepped back out of the shop and retraced our steps. “So they stole the sagardian ingots. I can’t say that I’m surprised. Anyone without a magic license would be questioned heavily if they tried to purchase it.”

  “Actually, it’s illegal to buy any quantity over three ounces if you’re not a licensed magician,” Edwards informed me. “I learned that yesterday. They wouldn’t have had a choice but theft.”

  “Or to have multiple people buying the maximum amount throughout the city,” I pointed out, playing devil’s advocate. “Although that would take time, I suppose.”

  “And raise questions,” Edwards agreed. “Not the best approach for thieves, but a theft also sticks in the memory, and leaves something of a trail behind. I sup—” Edwards cut herself off mid-word, frowning as her head swiveled toward the docks. “Something’s happening.”

  “Someone may be in the drink.” I lifted myself slightly onto my toes, straining to get a look over the crowd gathered near the edge of the docks.

  “In the what, now?” Edwards queried in confusion.

  For a moment I was confused at her confusion and then realized that my response had been a Kingston idiom and likely one she had not heard before. “It’s a phrase we use here for anyone that has fallen into the water. I’m not sure if that’s the case, as I can’t determine from here the situation.”

  “Screaming, hysterical people usually means trouble,” she opined, already bee-lining for the area. Her stride stretched out, eating ground quickly, as she used hands and elbows to shove her way through.

  Following, I found I had to stretch out quite a bit, almost into a lope in order to keep up with her. She certainly moved when she put her mind to it. But I shared her opinion that something drastically felt off. This was not a crowd of people gathered to ogle at some curiosity fetched from the sea. Something more sinister was at play h
ere.

  Hoping to ease us through more readily, I called out, “Police! Let us through! Police!”

  Finally, those at the front caught sight of us and pulled back, giving us room, although a few anxiously called to anyone listening, “Someone fetch a doctor!”

  Doctor? Uh-oh.

  I knew what we’d see even before I cleared the inner ring. A man lay comatose on the thick timbers of the deck, soaking wet, his chest abnormally still. An unlucky dockman that had taken an unfortunate dip in the ocean, by the looks of it. This didn’t happen regularly, but unfortunately it wasn’t rare either. We lost perhaps twenty men a year to drowning.

  Edwards swore, shoved the last of the people clinging to the unconscious men aside and snapped orders to us: “Clear the area, get a physician!”

  What did she think she was doing? Bewildered, I nevertheless pushed people back. I recognized a woman on a mission, enough so to move at her behest. Besides, more knowledge floated about in this little woman’s pinky than I knew of. Perhaps she knew how to save a drowned man, although how, I couldn’t fathom.

  I kept people back, watching avidly as she moved with quick efficiency. She straightened the man’s body out, tilted his head back, then moved again to kneel at his side. With strong hands overlapping each other, she put them on his breast bone in the center of his chest and pumped steadily, strongly enough to shake his whole body. I lost count of her compressions but it seemed she did it at least two dozen times. Then she shifted again, tilting his chin up, pinching his nose shut, and put her mouth firmly over his.

  She…surely she wasn’t kissing him? Even as the thought came through, she lifted her head, drew in a breath, then did it again. The realization hit me. She was trying to force air into him.

  Would that work?

  “What is she doing?” a woman nearby uneasily murmured, shifting as if not sure whether to stop Edwards or not.

  “She’s trying to revive him,” I explained, loudly enough the whole crowd could hear me. I did so solely to keep them at bay. I had no idea if this would work or not, but if any chance can be taken to save this man, it should be done.