Page 26

Thursday, April 30, 2167

The Fringe

Dragon Heights, Wyoming

The chiefof police serving the Fringe handled my interview personally, and he forewent any recording devices. With the drugs in my system rendering my statements inadmissible in court, he wanted to have a chance to talk to me, learn what he could, but keep me as protected as he could considering the circumstances.

“Your parents expressed some concerns about your draconic powers, as you have a thoroughly mixed heritage. Part of the reason I’m here is to help figure out what sort of magic you worked to escape and find a trainer for you if necessary. While your parents are quite powerful, they’re only powerful at their primary colors. Neither can do what you seem to be able to do.”

“Everyone is going to know they’re my parents, aren’t they?”

“Not necessarily. That’s part of why I’m not recording anything,” Chief Hawthorne replied, and he offered a smile. “We try not to agitate the little hatchlings, especially when they might be packing some surprises. Is it true you’ve already begun manifesting abilities?”

“I have an active purple talent,” I confessed. “I’ve had it since I was little. I bloomed early, but it never developed much beyond the opening volley.”

“Which class of purple talent?”

I stared at him. “Pardon?”

Chief Hawthorne bowed his head, let out a breath, and said, “Your parents didn’t teach you about color classes.”

Not a question. A statement.

In some ways, I appreciated his frustration, as I shared his feelings. “I know there are colors, and I know the colors have varying abilities, but my parents prefer I naturally discover any abilities my heritage has to offer. Jars pose no obstacle to me, and I have one purple ability.”

“Ah. Tin. Yes, there are definitely tin dragons in your lineage. Which purple ability do you have?”

“I can read wounds, sir.”

Chief Hawthorne raised a brow. “If I take you to some of our bodies, and I asked you to read the body, what would you learn?”

“I’d learn what caused the wound, and I generally can get a feel for the weapon and who wielded it. The stronger the emotion associated with the injury, a better a read I can get from it.” Something relaxed in me, as though confessing my ability somehow liberated me from everything that had driven me away from Miami—and Erik—in the first place. “It’s not pleasant, but I can usually identify the murder weapon and a general description of who wielded it. In Miami, it helped me eliminate the innocent from our direct suspect list. There’s no point investigating a woman when a man held the weapon, for example.”

“A very useful ability, yes. We have some purples in Dragon Heights with that ability, but it’s rare compared to the other healing arts. Such sight doesn’t help in operating rooms. You have no known healing abilities?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Good. We won’t have to fight with the purples over having you, then. I’ll be blunt with you, Kinsley. I’ve looked over your Miami record, and there’s going to be a city-wide brawl between the wards to have you. Your solve rate is stellar, your ethics are what we expect from dragons in the force, and your willingness to make personal sacrifice for the sake of another is exactly what we look for in our officers. I recommend that you make it clear where you want to work if you do come back to the force full time. Working as a private investigator would let all wards have access to you, and your skills could be invaluable during difficult cases.”

I considered the chief, raising a brow at his blunt admission. “Do you think working as a private investigator is a good idea?”

“I do. It’d let any ward have access to your skills. If that’s a path you’re interested in, I’d push to get a contract working with the police for a set number of hours a month. That way, you could have full benefits while still being free to pursue private work.” Chief Hawthorne pulled out his cell phone and tapped at the screen. “We’d get you for twenty hours a week under those terms, and we don’t bar double dipping as long as your client gets equal information with the force.”

In Miami, any private investigator found to be working twin cases faced heavy penalties and the loss of their license. “You allow double dipping in Dragon Heights?”

“We’re dragons, Kinsley. We’re arrogant and egotistical on a good day. We’ve found a private investigator with their fingers in multiple pies gets the job done better and faster. We don’t always like the result, and we require truth verification for those cases, but we are after the truth. And sometimes, it takes allowing interference from the outside and a double dipper of a private investigator to find the truth. We do require that the private investigator notify all parties that they are working the case from multiple angles. But sometimes, a private hire will ask the questions we miss, which leads to the truth being unveiled. We have to walk the straight and narrow on those cases, but it usually works out for the better. We would rather a private investigator tear down our prosecutor and determine the innocence of our favorite suspect than punish someone undeserving.”

“It boils down to disclosure, then?”

“It does.”

Some rules were easier to follow than others. “That’s easy. I won’t hire any clients that aren’t willing to share information; my job isn’t to support people or the police. It’s to find the truth.”

“And that’s why I think you’ll do well. The first thing I want to figure out is how you escaped from that mansion. When we arrived, it was seething with maddened dragons. The fools had poisoned themselves with their own element.”

“I only saw one woman, but yes, she seemed more than a little crazy.”

“Madam Merorie. She was, until Thursday, the leader of that group of mercury dragons. She is no longer among the living. Your father caught her wearing your blood. She lasted about ten seconds after he sniffed you on her.”

Damn it. I’d heard about the dragon Erik’s mom had killed over Dragon Heights, but nobody had told me that my father had gotten in his hits, too. “How is he dodging a murder verdict?”

“Considering she was ranting and raving about how her latest prize had given her the slip, and that she wasn’t done with her operation, all he did was spare us all from a long trial. Considering you were still a little hatchling and passed out nearby with the Millson hatchling, nobody was getting between your father and his prey. It’s not justice like you get in Miami, but he did that woman a favor, especially after what we found in her house. Her prints are all over the tools used to dissect her victims. Justice was served, but so was mercy. She was mad—and she was far enough along there wasn’t anything anyone could have done to help her.”

“She had been wearing horns with liquid mercury in them.”

“We’d found those, yes. Those were designed to leak when worn, and there were small blades to allow the mercury to pollute her bloodstream,” the chief informed me.

I grimaced. “How badly was I exposed?”

“The purple dragons would have taken care of that as part of your treatments. If you had been exposed, you’re either resilient, you have immunity to mercury from your bloodline, or it was caught early enough to treat. Mercury dragons like to think they’re immune, but in reality, they aren’t. You might be mercury immune, but that’s a test nobody likes doing, especially on a hatchling.”

“Ah. She showed up after Erik’s father brought him over but before I got to a hospital?”

“Your father waited until the ambulance and a purple dragon arrived before helping you shift back to human. He didn’t let anyone other than the commissioner near you, and he helped you shift back once medical staff had arrived. A few more than he appreciates have seen you as a hatchling, but we’re all going to keep our mouths shut about it; we try to let the hatchlings discover themselves without unnecessary influences. Take your mother, for example. She’s as much orange as she is red, but she got heavily pressured to embrace her red heritage. She is both, and she wants to remain both in equal measure. Most choose to believe she’s red with some orange coloration. I know better, as do those who have bothered to get to know your mother. Many underestimate her. A rather lethal decision, really.” The chief leaned back in his seat, which squeaked. “This chair was retired out of our interrogation rooms because laughter is not what we’re looking for sometimes. We bring this one in when we know we need a lighter mood.”

I snickered; I’d dealt with more than a few interrogations where something silly had lost me valuable time. Laughter could help—but it could also firm the resolve of someone determined to avoid prison for a crime they’d committed. “I don’t miss the interrogations, honestly.”

“That Millson boy said as much when I spoke with him before he got to go to the hospital. He hitched a lift on his father while your mother accompanied you. Your father needed to be detoxed in case of mercury contamination. Anyway, I’d like to figure out how you’d gotten out of that mansion. When we arrived and went to clear it out, there were at least thirty crazed dragons in there—dragons who hadn’t seen you at all. Once we saw how much mercury they had out in the open, we went in in hazmat suits, but nothing I’ve heard indicated you were suffering from mercury exposure.”

“I walked out,” I admitted. “I only saw the one woman who wore the mercury horns. She left the room once, took her horns off, and tried to pretend she was somebody else.” For the second time, I walked the chief through the moment I’d woken up in the mansion to being startled into my first transformation. “I had no idea there was anyone other than that crazy person there.”

“Time skipping,” Chief Hawthorne murmured. “You hopped a split second forward or backwards, so you were not quite in the same space and time as those around you. That’s an ability of chrome dragons. That would let you get out in the fashion you’re describing. Cameras can pick up someone who is time skipping; they appear like blurs on any type of photography. They have security footage at the mansion, so we can review to see if that’s what it is. The biggest risk is when you stop time skipping; if you emerge in the same space with someone else, it doesn’t tend to end well for anybody.”

That matched my experience at Shrine Hill, although it’d begun before I’d reached the site. “What does it look like for someone witnessing someone doing this time skipping?”

“Something about the magic makes people forget about the person who is time skipping.” Chief Hawthorne tapped at his screen. “I’ve made a note to get you an appointment with the clan leader of the local chrome dragons. With your lineage, I’m absolutely unsurprised that ability came to life. You get your metallic abilities from a splinter group of dragons that left Dragon Heights several hundred years ago. One of the daughters of the clan, who had a bit of everything, married into your father’s clan—his great grandmother to be specific. The bloodline is diluted, but it’s not so diluted that you can’t manifest the powers of your lineage.”

Did everyone know everything about my family? “Is that common knowledge?”

“No, not at all. Your parents talked to me about your lineage so we can help make sure you get the appropriate training. They want you to grow as a hatchling without them influencing you. In this case, it’s my job to research the possible abilities you have access to and may have used escaping from your kidnapping. Chrome dragons have limited abilities; if they aren’t time skippers, they’re able to make any metal shine to its full potential. They can also manipulate chromium, which is useful enough—and treat chromium toxicity. No other dragon color can do anything like their time skipping ability. While invisibility is possible through your father’s timeline, invisibility doesn’t bar people from perceiving you—or you from perceiving them. There aren’t any other abilities I can think of that match what you’re describing.”

“I didn’t break any laws, did I?”

“No. Dragon-kin can be anonymous like you are, and you’re being registered as a dragon. Of course, your exposure to Shrine Hill and pressure from your parents is taking the fall for your status as a hatchling. But you can still maintain your status and test in. As a hatchling, you don’t need to, but testing will prove your worth. You’re fine. You’ll have to go through mandatory education, but the education is catered to your confirmed abilities. Your ability to pop open any jar does not need training, for example.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“If you’re up for a drive, I’d like to take you to the mansion so you can walk us through where you were and how you escaped. And if you time skip again, I can call in a chrome dragon to help you control your talent. Hopefully, going in a safe fashion will prevent any problems.”

Hopefully. I leaned over and snagged my backpack, which contained my camera and laptop, along with my wallet. “Maybe we’ll find my phone, too.”

“With some luck, we will—and the forensics team will be there, so they can check it for prints and other evidence before we give it back.”

* * *

Thursday, April 30, 2167

The Fringe

Dragon Heights, Wyoming

Chief Hawthorneand the three captains responsible for managing the Fringe took me to the mercury mansion. We entered through the front doors, following a path of plastic to deeper within. The plastic walkway spared us from having to put on scrubs and booties, but my skin crawled at our lack of gear.

My captain would have tanned my hide had I entered a crime scene without the appropriate gear.

The forensics team members glared at us, and the chief came to a halt, engaged one of the older men in a staring contest, and waited.

“We found more bodies.”

Ew. The time would account for their unhappiness; putrefaction had no mercy for the living, and once a body ripened beyond a certain point, forensics work became messy at best. In Miami, I’d had the misfortune of dealing with a few cold cases with heavily decomposed bodies. I’d put some serious thought into attending therapy over it.

A man had decided to butcher his ex-lovers; if he couldn’t have the women, no one could—and he’d made the decision to rob them of dignity after death.

I’d dedicated six months of my life making certain that piece of filth had his day in court and enjoyed a long visit in a maximum security prison.

The chief grunted, his expression one of displeasure. “Any place specific we shouldn’t go?”

“Third door on the right once you’re in; the bodies were hidden behind a false wall. It should be blocked with plastic. We’re testing samples. We’ve gotten the obvious sources of mercury cleared out, but you have to wear hazmat suits if you want to go into the new room.”

“Find any phones?”

“We found one downstairs. Ask Dr. Wilheimer; he’s already examined it and has it put aside.”

Chief Hawthorne nodded before we resumed our journey to the basement. The situation had improved in some ways. Most of the bodies were gone, and the bodies that weren’t gone were bagged and waiting for someone to remove them. The further down the hall we got, the lower the temp became.

“You’re refrigerating the basement?”

“There are some bodies we can’t move yet, so a team of oranges are turning them into freezers temporarily,” the chief explained. “All right, Kinsley. Walk me through where you went in here.”

I nodded, headed down the hall and peeked into the rooms until I found the one I’d been kept in. I made certain to step on the plastic paths, went to the doorway of the room I’d been held in, and gestured to it. “This is where I woke up. At the time, the door was closed and Madam Merorie asked me questions, mostly about being a brothel worker, which I’m not. I’m not a pilgrim, either. Well, intentionally.”

“You’re not a pilgrim,” the chief assured me. “You don’t classify using any of our definitions for it.”

That was something. “What do I classify as, then?”

“An unfortunate little hatchling,” he replied, and he winked at me. “We only tease the hatchlings for six months to a year. By then, some other unfortunate little hatchling comes along. But as you’ve had a rough week, we’ll tease the other unfortunate little hatchling more.”

“You really should tease him, else his ego will surely reach the bursting point. I don’t want to know what a bursting yellow dragon ego looks like.”

“A lot of strutting. The yellows know they’re pretty, and they’re not shy about it,” Captain Langley replied, and he rolled his eyes. “Those other yellows should know the Langley clan has the most beautiful dragons of all in it.”

“Nobody had warned me yellows were the egos of the dragon race.”

The three captains and the chief had a good laugh at my expense. Captain Langley stepped into the room, eyeing the bed. I worried he might start blowing smoke. According to his expression, the entire mansion offended him. “This room is enough to trigger most dragon-kin into sprouting scales, Robert.”

The chief nodded. “If I woke up in a prison cell like this with a crazed woman, I certainly would be thinking about how to get out using any means necessary.”

Captain Palmer, who was responsible for the northern portion of the Fringe, joined the chief in the room. “From our understanding of the situation, you were dressed in the same clothes you’d been kidnapped in, correct? We claimed the scraps for evidence.”

“That’s correct.” I spied some clean booties on a table in the lab, snagged a pair, and put them over my shoes before stepping into the bedroom. I walked the four men through how I’d woken up, what injuries I’d noticed first, my impression of the stitching job, and the madwoman’s first appearance.

Then, prepared to take a beating to my pride, I walked them through my escape path, noting how all the doors had been left open and the state of the bodies when I’d passed through. On our way upstairs, I’d explained I’d just picked a direction and stuck with it, figuring it didn’t matter either way.

In the room where I’d made my break for it, I discovered the screen was still out, the room remained untouched, and I wondered what had happened to the poker I’d made off with. I pointed to where the poker had once stood. “I stole a poker from there and used it to help pop the screen out before climbing out the window.” I then pointed at the tree I’d hidden behind before following the sounds of sirens and lights to the spot I’d been ambushed by my own father. “I don’t know what happened to the poker.”

“You dropped it when your father startled you,” the chief informed me, and after putting booties on his feet, he came into the room to examine the window. “We’d noticed the screen had been knocked out, but the dust hadn’t been disturbed.”

I stared at the floor, which we’d disturbed on our way in. “Clearly, I walked on air in my eagerness to get out of this murder mansion.”

With a low laugh, Chief Hawthorne shook his head and leaned out the window for a better look outside. “It’s either that or one of the mercury dragons did some sweeping. They were sweeping all the rooms and making more than a little dust. Honestly, we aren’t sure where all this dust came from. A lot of the windows were open, but there’s dust everywhere.”

While dust could accumulate in spaces people lived in, I’d never been in a place with so much of it. I crouched, eyeing the dust on the ground. “Has anyone grabbed a sample for the lab?”

Captain Palmer stepped outside of the room to ask, and a few moments later, a member of the forensics team came in armed with several vials and a toolkit used for gathering samples. I pointed at the places I’d touched, although I doubted much could be gathered with so much dust.

“I’ll admit, I don’t really remember it being quite this dusty,” I confessed.

“You were suffering from blood loss while under the influence of at least one drug. It’s more surprising you were as coherent as you were. With your injuries, how did you get out?”

I pointed at the chair, which was still located near the window. The screen was still on the bed, although a thick layer of dust disguised its presence. “Oh, the screen is still there. I mean, I remember getting dust on me from pulling down the screen, but I don’t remember it having been this bad.”

“How did you get through the window? Your leg was injured.”

“Very carefully.” I grimaced at the memory. “I made sure to put most of my weight on my good leg, and then I tried to pretend it didn’t hurt like hell. I was more worried about my side, though.”

“Both injuries were unpleasant. You’re feeling well now?”

“I’m mostly fine. I’m tired, but that’s to be expected.”

According to my parents, I would be tired for at least a week.

After a moment of thought and a shrug, the chief climbed out the window, making use of the same chair I had. “Well, let’s go have a walk and see what there is to see on the same rough path you took.”

Amused, I climbed out, appreciating his help on the other side. The captains followed.

An exasperated voice within exclaimed, “Seriously?”

I giggled, clapped my hands over my mouth, and decided to let the chief defend us all from a wrathful forensics staffer.

“Get Dr. Wilheimer to bring out the phone you fine folks found while we continue our investigation. With this much dust, you aren’t getting much in the way of evidence out of this room—and it’s not the place we need the evidence from.”

“While you present a good point, still. There could have been evidence.”

“In huge piles of dust a vic disturbed busting out of the place?” The chief snorted. “I can handle the commissioner if he gets upset with me. Just blame me, and I’ll deal with it. Bring the phone outside and make certain Dr. Wilheimer knows that it’s probably the property of a vic and that she’s getting it back.”

“Roger.”

Once the captains had climbed through the window, I walked to the tree, pointed out the containers of mercury hanging from the walls, and admitted I had no idea which way I’d gone because I’d followed the sirens and lights. Chief Hawthorne pointed in the right direction, and I was able to retrace my steps for the most part.

To my dismay, I’d gone almost an entire mile after escaping the mansion.

“Can you even see lights or hear sirens from a mile away?” I asked, unable to keep my unhappiness out of my tone.

“You were about to shift for the first time, so you had heightened senses. That’s normal,” the chief assured me. “What do you think, boys?”

The captains eyed me and exchanged glances. With a long, slow sigh, Captain Langley said, “We’re going to be dealing with more jurisdiction issues than I care about. If you toss it over to one of the Millson boys, between the lot of them, we can make the jurisdiction issues their problem rather than our problem. We’ve got bodies from every ward in Dragon Heights, and while we have the primary scene of the crime, everything originated elsewhere. If we call dibs on her resume and rope her in on working on behalf of the Fringe, we can smooth a lot of those issues out. The commissioner will go for it; he’s the one who wants her assets on our team. There’s personal involvement from top to bottom, and the FBI doesn’t want anything to do with this case because it’s either legal brothel workers or known criminals as the vics. And no offense meant to you, Kinsley, but you’re the only vic so far who doesn’t have a criminal record or a history of working the brothels. The FBI was crabby over a former cop having gotten dragged into this mess, but otherwise? They don’t care.”

I could understand that; the FBI tended to go to bat for humanity. Dragons could—and did—take care of their own law enforcement. As long as the problems stayed within the limits of Dragon Heights, which included the Fringe, I suspected the FBI only cared when fiscal crimes were involved. “What if a regular human had been involved?”

“We’d be dealing with the FBI making a mess of our investigation,” Chief Hawthorne admitted. “Let’s just say we’re relieved that’s not the case. But since brothel work is legal in Dragon Heights, any humans involved fall under our jurisdiction. But most brothel workers here are dragon-kin within six generations, which removes their qualifications as human for the FBI’s purposes.”

I wondered if the mercury dragons had known that and worked those lines, understanding they could possibly get away with murder due to the FBI refusing to become involved. I considered the chief through narrowed eyes. “Do these mercury dragons understand that?”

The chief and the three captains heaved sighs, warning me there was likely a canyon-sized gap in law enforcement in the area.

After a long and rather uncomfortable silence, Chief Langley nodded. “Dragon Heights is responsible for its laws and law enforcement, and the FBI only comes in for very specific issues.”

“Fiscal crimes?” I guessed.

“Only of a certain level, but yes. Murders that fall outside of Dragon Heights” jurisdiction are also handled by the FBI. But the permanent residents here know it—and they know the limits. Federal law is not kind to dragons who break laws beyond the Fringe. So, yes. They would know the limitations quite well. And they would have picked their victims with care. What we don’t know is what the mercury dragons wanted with these bodies—nor do we know what happened to the missing women we now believe are associated with this case. That’s what we’d like you to help with.”

The lax nature of my questioning began to make sense. By wanting me to work on the team, treating me as an equal rather than a standard victim would change the tone of the relationship—and make me more inclined to work with them. As I already had promised to help, I would. But I would have to be up front about it. “I’ve already told some people I would be poking my nose into this matter independently.”

“That’s fine. Private investigators have the right to do that. That level of disclosure is fine; the restrictions are simple. Anything you give to them needs to also be given to us.”

“I’ll make sure they know I’m working with you about this as well.”

“We’ll get along just fine, Kinsley. I’ll take you to the station and get you set up to work with us. That way, we can try to make sense of what these dragons were doing and why.” The chief heaved a sigh, staring in the direction of the mansion. “Will we ever learn the truth? I really don’t know. I worry the truth went to the grave with Madam Merorie, but we will do what we can to secure justice and find out more about the victims and if there might be living bodies waiting to be found.”

Well, that would bother me for a while. “I’ll do my best to help you get to the bottom of this.”

“As shall we.”