“You might want to check his right forearm,” I called after the officer. “He’s carrying at least a dozen primed knockout spells.”
The officer glanced at me and frowned, but I saw the spark of recognition in his eye. He turned back to the man and pulled up the tailored suit sleeve. A pouch no larger than a small coin purse was secured to the man’s arm with a strap.
“That’s not . . . Uh,” the man started, sweat pouring down his face. “Who the hell is she? I want my lawyer.”
“You’re going to need one,” the cop muttered, pushing the suspect forward. He gave me half a nod of acknowledgment before I turned and resumed my trek to the front.
“Why am I not surprised to see you here?” an eerily familiar, and not completely welcomed, voice asked from off to my right.
I spun, my gaze darting around the busy front lobby of Central Precinct. I didn’t see the dark-haired woman, who had always been clad in black leather during my short experience with her a few months back and who should have stood out in the precinct. Of course, I didn’t fully expect to spot her with my eyes—she wore so many charms meant to make the gaze slide over her that, even knowing who and what you were looking for, it was often hard to focus on her. But I expected to sense the magical armory she carried. Any other time I’d encountered her, my ability to sense magic had zeroed in on the massive amount of weaponized magic she carried like a spotlight.
At least half the people in the lobby carried a spell or two. Most were mundane, a couple were less so, but no one carried so many as to stand out in a crowd. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe I hadn’t heard—
Briar Darque stepped directly in front of me.
I jumped, stumbling back before catching myself.
“I take it from your expression, this spell was worth every penny I paid,” Briar said, smiling a wolfish grin. I only frowned at her. It had annoyed her that she couldn’t sneak up on me during our previous acquaintance. Apparently she’d found a way around a sensitive’s abilities.
Letting my ability to sense magic stretch, I mentally reached for Briar. At first all I could pick up was a single spell surrounding her like a haze. It was large, but not terribly interesting or threatening, which was why my magic had skimmed over it initially. Under that, though, when I focused on piercing that veil, I could sense her magical smorgasbord. I’d never encountered a spell that camouflaged magic before, at least not without it shining a huge blinking light on the thing it meant to hide.
“Damn,” I whispered, my voice breathy both from being startled and from respect for the piece of magical craftsmanship in front of me. “Who crafted that spell? And how?”
Briar’s grin only widened. Then her gaze moved past me and she held up her badge, flashing it at the officer approaching us. “I need to talk to someone who can brief me on your current open cases, in particular your more bizarre or unexplained ones.” She paused and then jerked a thumb at me. “Probably anything she’s involved with.”
The officer, who looked young and likely fresh out of academy, didn’t say anything. He scrutinized Briar’s badge for a moment, and then he turned on his heels and walked back the way he’d just come. I assumed he was going to retrieve someone with more authority.
“So what’s been happening, Craft?” Briar asked, walking over to lean on an empty desk. Her big biker boots and leather made no sound as she moved, as if she were more mirage than flesh-and-blood woman. “Keeping your magical nose clean, I hope? I see you’re still glowing.”
I cringed. “Can we not talk about that here?” Most people couldn’t see the telltale glow that emanated from under my skin, betraying my true heritage. The fae chameleon charm I wore let people see what they expected to see—which for most people was just a human witch. But once someone saw the truth of my fae nature, the charm didn’t work on them anymore. Briar was now immune to that particular visual deception. “How are you here already, Darque? The weird shit only started about an hour ago.”
She lifted one leather-clad shoulder. “The MCIB has a robust staff of precogs. Sometimes I get sent places a little early. Works out better that way. So define ‘weird shit.’”
I glanced around. No one was paying particular attention to us, and the officer Briar had sent scurrying for someone higher in rank hadn’t returned yet. Briar was an inspector with the Magical Crimes Investigation Bureau. When we’d first met, she’d told me she was the one they sent to clean up magical messes—and those who’d made them. A corpse trying to steal priceless artifacts sounded to me like a “magical mess,” so I told her how I’d sensed the walking corpse before it had entered the museum, about the soul I saw, and about the body’s quick decay after the soul’s departure. I left out the part about my magic being instrumental in the body and soul’s separation because Briar was . . . unpredictable.
Briar sat with her arms crossed over her chest as I spoke, attentive but unmoving, her expression unreadable. The situation made me twitchy, my fingers searching for something to fidget with as if to compensate for her uncanny stillness with excessive movement. I half expected her to pull out a file of neatly written facts about the case, like the one she’d shoved under my nose the first time we met, but when I finished, she only nodded.
“And you’re sure the corpse wasn’t a vehicle for a ghoul to enter this realm?”
“Yes, I’m sure. The ghouls we fought back in September had a tie back to the land of the dead. Once the soul left this body, it was just a corpse.”
She pursed her lips, but I thought that there was a look of relief in her dark eyes. No one liked ghouls. “Did you sense any spells on the body?”
“My best look at him was when we were both tied in a paralyzing spell, after he’d already successfully snatched an artifact from behind even more wards and we were inside a museum of magic—there was a lot of magic everywhere. I didn’t feel anything I would think would make a corpse walk, but I didn’t really have time to parse it out.”
“Hmmm. Interesting.” She pushed off the desk, her gaze going over my shoulder.
I turned. A visit from an MCIB investigator was clearly a big deal because the chief of police was headed straight for us, flanked on either side by a homicide detective.
“Well, if I have any more questions, I know where to find you,” Briar said, as she stepped around me.
“I’d like to talk to the man’s shade,” I called after her.
She only half turned. “Like I said, I know where to find you.” Then she held out her hand, greeting the chief.
I’d been dismissed.
Chapter 3
“You’re late,” Ms. B chided as I walked into the Tongues for the Dead office the next morning.
I glanced at the large clock looming in the back of the small lobby as I set my dog, PC, down by my feet. I was only five minutes late, but punctuality was second only to neatness in the brownie’s personal priority list. Since she’d appointed herself as office manager for the firm, she’d held Rianna and me to her standards. I failed regularly.
“I had some commute issues.” Which was true enough. Since the Faerie castle I’d inherited had forced itself into the mortal realm a month ago, my daily commute had gotten interesting, to say the least.
Ms. B just looked at me with her large, dark eyes, and I forced myself not to cringe because, yeah, she and Rianna both lived in that castle as well, and they were both on time. Regardless of what she thought, Ms. B didn’t say anything, but dug into the top drawer of her desk, pulled out a bone-shaped dog biscuit, and threw it to PC. The small dog wagged his tail and gobbled it down happily. Then he pranced around, making the white plumes on his head and feet—the only places beside the tip of his tail where he had hair—flop around. Ms. B chuckled in her deep, gruff way and tossed him a second treat. She actually wasn’t that much taller than the small Chinese Crested, but she liked my silly dog. Which was good. That wasn’t the case with every brownie I’d encountered. Dogs were messy, and as a whole, brownies were fastidious.
“My clients didn’t beat me here, did they?” I asked, as I noticed my office door was open—I always closed it at night.