My body tensed. The determined look on her face had hardened and, I have to admit, she scared me.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.”
We stared each other down and I hoped I wasn’t going to have to fight her. Then, I realized that it wasn’t hostility in her eyes. Not quite. It was something closer to desperation.
“I’m not here to cause you problems, Mr Phillips. I’m here to hire you. Whatever you know. Whatever you found out. I want you to use that information to make me strong again.”
I sat back in my chair, happy that I didn’t have to fight off a vengeful feline, but stumped about how to explain myself.
“Miss Rosemary, that’s not what I do.”
“Well, why the hell not? What are you saving up all your energy for? Helping little old Elven ladies cross the street? I want to be whole again, and I don’t know who else I can ask for help.”
I growled into my mouth and shook my head.
“It wasn’t magic that came back into the Vamp. It was something else. He gave in to the same temptation you’re feeling right now, and it destroyed him. I hate this new world as much as you do, but there’s no going back. You got out of it better than most. Hold onto that, and be thankful.”
She curled her fingertips, scraping eight little lines into the desktop, then lifted one hand up to her face.
“This isn’t me. Your kind killed me. Everything I was and everything I had. I am not this person. In this place.” She looked around, disgusted with where she’d found herself. “What even is this place?” A tear rolled down her cheek and the trail it left behind turned to ice. “You don’t understand anything, Mr Phillips. Not a thing.”
I tried to bite my tongue but after years of exercise it had learned to fight back.
“I know the magic isn’t coming back. I know that when people try, it gets them killed. Move on, Miss Rosemary. Find something else to look forward to.”
She looked like she was about to rip out my throat. Back in the old days, perhaps she would have. My soft Human flesh wouldn’t have stood a chance against a Lycum like her. But that strength was gone. It had vanished the moment the sacred river turned to glass. Instead, she picked up her scarf, got to her feet and walked to the door.
She looked at the sign that was painted on the window: Man for Hire. She read it out loud to herself, rolling the words around inside her flushed cheeks.
“Man,” she said, wrinkling up her nose. “I see what you’re going for. You’re a Human. You’re male. I’m sure it made sense to you. But look at how you live. Listen to the way you talk.” She didn’t bother turning to look at me, she just stared at the pane of glass and tried to break it with her eyes. “You’re a boy, Fetch Phillips. A stupid boy, playing with things that aren’t yours. Put them down before you hurt yourself.”
Then she was gone.
I looked for a bottle to wash her words out of my head. What did she know? She just wanted to be strong and she hated me for standing in her way. What was I supposed to do? Lie to her? Pretend I could go out on some quest and come back with magic that would make her whole? It was impossible. The magic was gone and the sooner we all accepted that, the better.
Ring.
I picked up the phone and heard the weary voice of Sergeant Richie Kites. There was some kind of commotion happening behind him, but he kept his words to a whisper.
“Fetch, can you get over to the Bluebird Lounge, up on Canvas Street? Simms wants your opinion on something.”
That was a first. Usually the cops tried to kick me out of crime scenes, not call me over so I could take a peek.
“Sure. Why the invitation?”
Richie whispered into the receiver. “We got a dead guy here with a hole in his head, and it wasn’t done with any weapon we know about. I don’t know what to tell you, Fetch. To me, it looks like magic.”
3
I was having the kind of day that wasn’t supposed to happen. Beautiful women didn’t come knocking at my door before noon, cops didn’t call me up to ask my opinion, and nobody blasted anyone else with any kind of magic. Not anymore.
The Bluebird Lounge was a Human-only members’ club on Canvas Street in the inner west; a two-story granite building without any signage out front.
The entire Sunder City Police Department was crowded around the entrance. Usually, you were lucky to see more than a couple of cops at a crime scene. In our new, dark world, even murder had become mundane. So it was strange that these police were acting all excited instead of sad and half-asleep. Again and again, this day was different.
Sergeant Richie Kites stood by himself, leaning against the granite. His heavy Half-Ogre body looked like it could push the whole place over.
“What’s going on, Rich? You cops so lonely you have to travel in one giant pack these days?”
He shook his head, obviously annoyed by the crowd.
“When they heard the story, every asshole made an excuse to come on down and take a peek. Come inside. You’ll see why.”
Richie led the way, waving off another cop who tried to protest my arrival.
“He’s got clearance. Special request from Simms.”
I was just as confused as the cop but I tried not to show it. Some part of me suspected I was being lured into a trap and they were all about to force my hand onto a murder weapon and frame me for the crime. That seemed more likely than them asking me for help.
The walls inside the Bluebird were covered in wooden tiles with white marble inlay. It was a warren of narrow hallways that led to small, private rooms for two to six people. Everybody was whispering. The staff, cops and other “specialists” hovered in alcoves already working on the rumors that would soon take to the streets. The crowd was bigger at the end of the hall and I followed Richie into the room that was getting the most attention.
The booth could barely accommodate two velvet seats and a square, black marble table. There was one empty glass and another half-full, held by the man sitting on the other side. He was impeccably dressed in a three-piece woolen suit with a blue cravat and pocket square. His fingers, wrists and neck were wrapped in garish gold jewelry. His hair was plastered back with shiny product and his eyebrows were groomed into narrow arcs. He must have been quite handsome before someone opened up his face.
One of his cheeks was ripped apart, revealing the bottom row of teeth all the way back to the molars. His fingers were curled in tight hooks, one hand around the glass, the other at his side. The blood had pooled on his jacket above his collar bone, overflowed, and cascaded down his chest. His eyes were open, frozen in shock, and the whites were red and wet.
He was only a dead man. Far from the first, and unlikely to be the last. Even so, there was something peculiar about him. Something more unsettling than the blood or the ripped flesh or the rigor mortis. I was still trying to work out what it was when I heard a voice that sizzled like water hitting hot coals.
“It happened in an instant,” said Detective Simms as she sidled up behind me. “Look at the shock on his face. He didn’t even let go of his drink.”
She was right. Death, as we know it now, is slow. You get sick or too old or too cold, then you cling onto life for as long as you can until the darkness takes you away. Maybe someone beats you in an alley or you get stabbed in the gut and stumble around till your heart stops singing, but even then, you have time to take it in. This guy looked like he was halfway through a story when a bomb went off at the back of his throat.