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Monday, April 27, 2167

The Gray Ward

Dragon Heights, Wyoming

If I wantedto succeed at investigating either case, I needed to determine the true beginning of the attacks and murders. While access to police records might help, I wanted to get an independent view of the issue. While the internet could lead me astray, it might help as well.

I began with the brothel workers; humanity liked to show its ass, and people were willing to gossip and speculate about women at the earliest sign of trouble. With growing dismay, I realized Dragon Heights had its fair share of problems. Violence happened daily, and the various news outlets delighted in sharing the tales of turmoil and suffering within the city.

Any time someone attacked a pretty woman, the reporters speculated if she’d sold her body for money. Humans, dragon-kin, and dragon alike faced the same scrutiny. Whenever possible, the reporters spun it so the woman held responsibility for the actions of others.

In the past five years, there had been twenty-seven successful lawsuits of news reporting outlets over their defamation of women. Even the compensation, which ranged from several hundred thousand to over a million dollars, did little to deter reporters from adding a spin to the reporting.

When I limited my searches to only women injured with small blades, I found a long trail of attacks.

Most cases were reported as either unarmed or with a firearm, and very few made no mention of how the victim had been attacked.

The first victim, Marie Selbanno, had been cut with a scalpel seven years ago, resulting in a six inch scar along the length of her arm. The wound had hospitalized her for three days, as her attacker had managed to sever an important artery. Only the quick work of a nearby paramedic had saved her life.

According to the article, following her recovery, Marie had left the city, afraid of being attacked again.

Unlike a lot of women, the reporter did not indicate she had been a sex worker or selling her body. I suspected her work as a nurse played some role in that. The next attack, taking place a month later in the Gray Ward, had involved a single mother of three.

Like Marie, Theresa had almost died from her injuries, and she’d packed her bags and left the city with her children.

In the following six months, there had been eight other small blade attacks in Dragon Heights, and like Marie and Theresa, the women had been described as beautiful. They’d also been cut in the arms, but the attacker had either learned how to control his blade or someone else held responsibility.

Like the cases plaguing Cecilia and her brothel workers, those women had escaped with a few stitches.

The articles described the attacker as a larger man carrying a short blade, a close enough match to the individual hunting brothel workers that I took the time to save the originating news reports on all of them for later review.

Over the course of the next few years, the pattern held; every month or two, a woman would be attacked by a large person believed to be male, leaving her with a cut or two along with a hefty dose of trauma. Until six months ago, none of the women had been associated with brothels.

Six months ago, the frequency had changed, with several attacks a week being scattered across the city. Every article I found indicated the reporter believed the woman to be involved with the sex trade in some fashion or another.

Copycat? Changed motives? The method appeared to be the same, involving superficial injuries meant to scare more than harm, with only one woman dying from a pre-existing condition and one having been at any risk of death—and like the woman who had died, she’d only been at risk due to complications from a pre-existing condition.

Why would someone want to scare women? Did Marie and Theresa hold some secret as to why they’d suffered such severe injuries compared to the other women stabbed in a similar fashion? Had the killer learned what not to do when attacking them, assuming he’d wanted to scare more than harm?

Why might someone want to inflict such an injury on someone else?

Magic worked in mysterious ways. However, my own magic provided a clue of sorts. My purple heritage allowed me to see the past through wounds, even old ones. Could the killer have a similar ability? Was there a way someone might be able to harvest pain or fear through a cut?

After meeting Monster, I’d learned a bitter truth: I knew very little about necromancy. Could a necromancer do such a thing? And if they could, why would they want to?

I checked the time, decided my parents would be awake, and picked my father as my target. I dialed his cell number, held the phone to my ear, and waited.

“I’m about three minutes from knocking on your door. Can it wait that long?” he answered.

I got up, unlocked the front door, and went to check on the animals to determine the pair slept off yesterday’s excitement. “I suppose. Don’t knock, just sneak in. The beasts are asleep. They had a busy day yesterday.”

“Observing you getting escorted away by police if the rumor mill is to be believed.”

“I have a criminally cute kitten and deserve to be cuffed. It’s not my fault this city is apparently infested with yellow dragons and their offspring. However, you and my mother will pay for not telling me Erik’s father is the police commissioner.”

“Ah.”

I huffed. “Try not to wake the beasts when you come in. If you hadn’t terrorized the entirety of Dragon Heights, someone wouldn’t have done a wellness check on me. You only have yourselves to blame. Also, well played on tricking me into believing I came from a small but sane family. There is nothing small nor sane about our family, is there?”

“There really isn’t. We’ll be there soon. Try not to drive yourself crazy overthinking things.”

“I’ll try.”

* * *

Monday, April 27, 2167

The Gray Ward

Dragon Heights, Wyoming

As partof interrogating of my parents, I sat them at my table and fed them breakfast to lull them into a false sense of security. Once they were settled, I targeted my mother and asked, “Why did you play at being so normal while I was growing up?”

I’d known about being a dragon-kin, but a lot of the details of their life had slipped me by, right down to understanding what sort of work my parents did when I wasn’t around. Logically, I’d understood my parents had ways of earning money, but I’d never put much thought into it.

My mother grinned, leaned back in her chair, and replied, “Honestly, we thought you’d question our family a lot more than you did. You were great at questioning everyone and everything else. But us? You gave us the benefit of the doubt. You trusted if we were hiding things, we were hiding them for a reason. And we were. Erik is good at playing down his wealth now, but before he met you, he was as egotistical as the next dragon-kin hatched into a life of wealth and prosperity. That his line tends to become cops helped him a bit. But the entirety of that family has just begun to learn the value of life without advantages. By giving you a life without advantage, we were giving you independence, the ability to cope when things didn’t go your way, and resilience.” My mother heaved a sigh. “I sometimes think we did too good of a job raising you.”

My father grinned. “No one believes we could possibly have children. Even one. In public, we play to expectations, challenging each other, bickering, and blowing off a lot of steam we don’t normally get to. You’ve seen us at home. How are we, truly?”

I understood what my father hinted at.

At home, while my parents postured, love backed their every move. Posturing happened, but not at the same style or intensity I’d witnessed in the city. For those who believed only what their eyes saw, love had nothing to do with my parents’ relationship. “I mean, outside of learning I have a lot of relatives here, you’re not that much different. You just posture lovingly versus doing a good job of convincing everyone you’re going to destroy the city if provoked. They sent a cop over to make sure I was still alive. The cop happened to be one of Erik’s brothers. I never would have guessed Erik is the baby of the family.”

“He’s the baby of the family,” my mother confirmed. “But did you ever feel neglected having distant family you rarely got to see?”

I thought about it, and upon realizing it hadn’t made a difference to me whatsoever, I shook my head. “It never bothered me. I mean, logically, I know I have grandparents. But I’ve never had any burning desire to go meet them.”

I viewed family as the bonds fashioned by love, not ties by blood.

“When we all get together, we fight. Your father spent all of yesterday arguing with all four of your grandparents. They thought about invading Dragon Heights. I had to remind his mother that you look just like her but a little younger, and her showing up would completely ruin hiding you under the noses of those nasty busybody dragons.” While wrinkling her nose, my mother waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “For now, your grandparents will remain outside of Dragon Heights to give you time to settle. Once the busybodies here figure it out, they’ll stage their invasion to properly meet you. You’ll like it, as they’ve been hoarding presents for you every year until they could come swooping in. And they haven’t missed anything. They just got their first meetings with you in video and picture format. We’ll do all those little family things once you’re exposed, including going on some trips and seeing the world. We should make a betting pool on how long it takes for them to realize we’re not just being horrific menaces.”

“Good luck with that, Mom.”

She laughed. “So, there is a reason we came calling today.”

I raised a brow. “It wasn’t just to be a horrific menace?”

“Well, that, too. We postured outside, had a bit of a fight, and made sure we drew some attention before invading. Don’t be surprised if you receive an invitation from someone in this city to go on an unexpected outing. Try not to kill them, scope things out, and if they irritate you, you’ll probably sprout scales. If they put your life at risk, I would expect a great deal of scale sprouting. You’re the right age to start sprouting scales, you’ve been properly exposed to the shrines, and you’re an early bloomer. I wish I could say nobody is stupid enough to cross us, but I’ve been hearing whispers of how there are a few groups that want to rescue you from our clutches. To find out why we are so interested in you.”

What the hell sort of deals had my parents done in Dragon Heights? I narrowed my eyes. “You think someone is going to kidnap me?”

“Oh, I know at least four groups who would do so without hesitation. And they’ll get away with it because they’re all delightfully stupid. One would question you and release you back into the wilds, probably in a fancy ward after feeding you, promising they’d try to keep us at bay, and spoiling you more than you’re already spoiled. Another would figure out you’re our precious little hatchling after about ten minutes with you, as they know your father’s family more than we prefer—at which point, you’ll be spoiled and set loose after you’ve been fed and pampered. The other two would be trying to rescue you because they’re terrified of us.”

I got up and checked on my kitten and bird to discover the pair had woken up and stared at Garnet’s gemstone collection, which was on its shelf where it belonged. After pulling out the kitten’s favorites and moving the smaller pieces closer so she could play with them if she wanted, I praised them before returning to the kitchen. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Why are you blaming me?” my mother complained. “I’m not the one who thinks rescuing you from us is a good idea.”

“That you think people are going to go to drastic measures to rescue me is pretty crazy. How did you go from being good but a little eccentric as far as parents go to terror demons freshly imported from the depths of some dark hell?”

My father snickered. “We’re dragons, Kinsley. That’s the beginning and end of it. We’re dragons, and we’re confident in our superiority. We just wanted to temper you as a child, so when you grow into your ego, you do so because you have earned it.”

My parents must have lost their minds before I’d been born. I found some comfort in knowing I hadn’t been the one to push them over the edge. They’d long since dived off into the realm of the insane before my arrival. “And this business broker nonsense I’ve been hearing about, Dad?”

“Children aren’t cheap. And that’s half the reason people are so jealous of my superiority. I’m good at what I do, and people pay me obscene amounts of money to be good at what I do. We took care to hide those realities from you as a child. And while you were willing to challenge most everything, you never cared much about what I was doing when I went off on my unexpected trips. You were upset I had to go, but all I had to do was tell you it was important, and you accepted that. You had tantrums, because all children have tantrums, but we got lucky with you. You always respected when I went into my office to work, and the few times you wanted on my lap while I was working, you were looking for a warm place to sleep. A few of my clients are aware you exist, but they are not the kind of people to gossip with dragons. As such, the dragons remain oblivious—and you have the freedom to conquer Dragon Heights however you see fit.”

As I would be a fool to even try to convince a dragon conquering wasn’t something to be pursued, I let my father maintain his delusions regarding me conquering anything. Well, I could see myself doing a little conquering of Erik in the near future.

That left me with one major question I couldn’t even imagine the answer to. “How did you manage to hide having me from a bunch of nosy dragons?”

My parents snickered, and after exchanging glances, my mother waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “They were so happy to get rid of us for a few years that they didn’t stop to think why we might want to skip out of town for a while. Once you’re discovered, we’ll settle in and have a few more children. Honestly, we were going to bring you here in your teens, but we quickly came to the conclusion what you wanted and what we wanted for you didn’t align. As such, we went with your wishes rather than our own.”

My father smirked. “I had you figured out when you were six. You are not fond of unearned praise and attention, and the nosy busybodies here would shower you with both in an effort to win our approval. Dragons take their hatchlings quite seriously. Only a fool targets young hatchlings. Dragon-kin over the age of eighteen are fair game, but the younger the hatchling, the more likely only some blood and a few bits of organ will remain of those who push their luck. This rule also applies to hatchlings who just sprouted their scales. Anyway, this city of weak little dragons wouldn’t be able to handle the thought of your mother in throes of pregnancy hormones.”

That I could believe without hesitation. “How did you two even survive through hiding all that ego for so many years?”

My parents grinned at me, and my father shot me a salute. “It was not easy, but you are worth the effort. We decided, before we even made earnest attempts to have you, that we would do our best to raise a good child. We hate entitled little brats. They’re annoying and undeserving of their ego. When you develop your ego, it will be because you have earned it, not because of some perception you are deserving of handouts.”

That I could also believe. “Well, you did a good job.”

“Perhaps we did a little too good of a job,” my mother confessed. “But at the end of the day, only one thing matters. Are you happy?”

I considered my life, from my first memories to the moment I’d left Miami to spare Erik from us both being dragged down—and to the moment I’d begun to realize that while I’d burned bridges, detours could be made or new bridges could be built. Buried beneath the struggles, most of it self-inflicted, I came to a single conclusion.

Happiness wasn’t about feeling joy all the time, but rather in harboring confidence I was at the right place at the right time, muddling through and finding satisfaction in the life I’d chosen for myself. When viewed through that lens, especially with the arrival of Garnet and Tourmaline along with reuniting with Erik, I could see myself as the definition of what it was to be happy.

I had no desire to go anywhere else or be anyone else.

I had a purpose.

Life, while strange, held meaning.

“Yes, I am.”

“Then we have done our job as your parents. We gave you every tool you needed to become a happy adult. You don’t need wealth to have happiness.” My mother gestured to take in my tiny apartment, which held up only because of my willingness to work to maintain it. “I would rather you have this happiness than all the money in the world. That said, the table goes. I will light it on fire if I have to.”

I laughed, aware that my table met nobody’s standards, not even mine. “The table can go, and you can work at convincing these helpful people to grab me off the street if you must. But if I get grabbed, you have to explain yourselves to Erik—and make certain Garnet and Tourmaline are fed if we’re separated.”

“We’ll make sure your babies are well cared for. Now that we’ve gotten that business out of the way, what are you up to? Why did John give us a call with a warning you’ll have a private investigation license by the end of the day?”

Busted. “I’m going to investigate who is killing the pilgrims and why, and I’m going to be competing with Erik to see which one of us can find the asshole stabbing the brothel workers first.”

“They’re the same person,” my father announced.

I blinked. “Pardon?”

“The culprit is the same person.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And how, precisely, would you know that? Have you been coming to Dragon Heights at an alarming rate to stab brothel workers?” If my father knew the truth behind who was hurting the women, I’d beat the information out of him. “You’re speaking with way too much confidence for that statement to lack supporting evidence.”

“When you first mentioned the petitioners to me, I decided to do some digging myself,” my father confessed. “It helps I talk with John multiple times a week, and that we’re usually seeing each other at least once a week. I brought it up to him, and we had a talk with some of his kids about the situation. He thinks that the killings and the attacks are linked. The numbers are essentially equal. Every time a pilgrim turns up dead, a brothel woman has been attacked. The woman is usually attacked one to three days prior to the pilgrim’s body being found. The body is either fresh or only a few hours old—never older than the attack on the woman, and the reports indicate there’s at least three to six hours at a minimum before the attack.” My father engaged me in a staring contest. “Now, why do you think that might be?”

I sucked in a breath, well aware of the magic that had driven me away from Erik and my dream job in the first place. “You think it’s necromancy?”

“I do. What I don’t understand is why or how. But necromancy is the only form of magic that can harvest power from someone’s fear and pain. And that’s all the attacker is accomplishing with the women: he causes a little pain and a lot of fear, which a necromancer could then harvest to fuel his other powers.” My father huffed, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest. “You probably haven’t had time to profile the pilgrims, but they’re all male. Women typically go the safe route and petition—and the petitioners have been left alone thus far. It’s like this necromancer wants to maintain some form of balance. But why kill the male pilgrims and spare the women? But if Erik is willing to compete with you about the brothel workers, it means one thing: law enforcement in Dragon Heights has tired of the pilgrims being killed. But there is one consideration that is bothering me.”

“The pilgrims killed aren’t ideal people, are they?”

My father sighed. “They’re really not. If those men were to become dragons, there would be victims, and many of them would be women. It’s like the killer is exacting a price now to prevent a worse evil done to them later. But what sort of necromancer would do that?”

“The same kind that would see a dying kitten and put his soul into a new body so that kitten could have a happy life,” I whispered—and I wondered. “Cedrick’s father has a cat named Monster.”

My mother’s expression turned serious, and I spotted some old sadness haunting her eyes. “We know about Monster. Dragon Heights had to do quite a lot of thinking the day that kitten was given a second chance at life. Most dislike necromancy, but we could not begrudge someone for giving a kitten a chance for a better life. Monster would have died, and the necromancer was willing to do the work with a conjured body. And, after some serious debate among the powers that be within the city, it was determined that Monster was an innocent and should not be robbed of his new lease on life. And so, Monster lived.”

“And the necromancer?”

While my mother wrinkled her nose, she also sighed, a frustrated sound. “He passed away a few years back. He had a heart attack, and he refused to do what he’d done for Monster. He was a weird one—and did a lot of good changing some thoughts on necromancy. Of course, he was also the first to admit it’s very tempting to use those powers for something other than good. Honestly, if that mean old bastard still lived, I would have gone knocking at his door for some tea and to ask a few questions. He would have been willing to talk to us. Right now, Dragon Heights doesn’t have any openly practicing necromancers for good reason. They wouldn’t be driven out, not like in Miami, but the dragons would definitely be keeping a close and careful watch out, especially the purples. They do not like the reputation they have because of necromancy.”

“So, what you’re saying is that Dragon Heights seems to have a necromancer problem?”

“So it seems.”

My father got up, went to my fridge, and peered inside, making disapproving sounds. “We should take our child grocery shopping after teaching her how to do proper meal planning. There is nothing but chaos in here. Chaos, potatoes, and milk. Aren’t those charmed jars? Why are they in your fridge?”

Right. Chester had been in charge of handling prepping Garnet for the trip while I’d wiggled into leather. “I don’t think Chester realized the bottles are charmed and put everything in the fridge before we left yesterday.”

My parents heaved their most dramatic sighs, and my mother said, “Gather the beasts. We will be going to get you a new table. While I applaud its persistence, your father and I are going to take it onto the sidewalk and put on a show while we pulverize it. I want to see who comes calling—and how you conduct yourself.”

“Mom, most people don’t want their child to be kidnapped. Don’t sound excited about someone kidnapping me.”

“We aren’t most people, and neither are you. Don’t make such a fuss. It’s just a little kidnapping.”

“You are a terrible person,” I informed my mother.

“No, my darling hatchling, I’m a dragon, and it’s time for you to learn what being a dragon is truly about.”