Page 27 of Mystic Justice (The Other Detective #2)

Having said his piece, Volderiss started to leave. ‘Stay,’ I said crisply. ‘Please,’ I added belatedly. ‘We’re not done yet.’

He said impatiently. ‘I know nothing about the dryad’s death, nor about the centaur’s.’

‘No, but you know evil witches.’ I took out my phone and showed both vampyrs the video of the runes lighting up on the bones of the dead.

Volderiss’s expression was tight. ‘I’ve never seen such a thing before.’

‘Me neither,’ Gideon confirmed. ‘It’s as if the runes are scorched on. But with runes like that, you’re definitely looking at a necromancer, a witch who has slid into complete darkness.’ For once the smile was gone, leaving him looking sombre.

Voltaire – the head of the Red Guard vampyrs – phased out of the shadows: the Peeping Tom had come to play. I would have been startled by his presence had I not already known he was there, which was what he had intended.

I’d already decided how I would play it. I drew up my intention and gathered the fierce magic within me. Every now and again you had to remind the factions that you weren’t weak – and Voltaire was about to get a front-row demonstration.

Blade raised, Krieg had pivoted instantly to face the new threat.

He paused as he recognised Voltaire and deduced that the vampyr was unlikely to attack me, but I was pissed off at the eavesdropper so I didn’t pause.

I released my magic in a hard column of air that blasted Voltaire, sending him careening back into the exposed brickwork.

He hit the wall with an audible thunk. He grunted, glaring at me as he picked himself up.

‘Oops,’ I said flatly. ‘You startled me.’

‘Bitch!’ he spat.

Now that wasn’t kind. ‘Sticks and stones, Volty,’ I taunted. Was that wise? Perhaps not, but I was tired and cranky and my patience had long gone. Voltaire had shown me zero respect by lurking in the shadows so he would get none back from me. In the Other realm, respect was earned.

Volderiss cleared his throat pointedly. ‘If we can all focus on business, please? Wise, show Voltaire the footage. I’d like him to see it for himself.’

I did so grudgingly, but Voltaire was an expert in all things necromantic.

It was his life’s work – and the rest of the Red Guards’ – to find and wipe out evil witches, witches that slid from naughty bloodwork to animal sacrifices to human ones.

Witches that became necromancers who could control the dead.

The walking undead often became their lackeys, willingly or not.

The dark witches subsumed the vampyrs, controlled them like puppets and then discarded them to ash once they were finished with them. Unsurprisingly, the vampyrs disliked that immensely and hunting down those witches was the purview of the Red Guard.

Voltaire watched the footage a couple of times.

‘Definitely necromantic in nature,’ he said to Volderiss.

Finally he looked at me. ‘Those runes are powering something dead. You’re looking for a dead man walking and an evil witch doing the powering.

If you find them, let me know and I’ll take care of them for you. ’ He sneered condescendingly.

‘I can take care of them myself,’ I replied coolly.

I’d proved I was tough with the whole slamming-Voltaire-into-a-wall thing, but now I needed to show I could play nice when I had to so I offered him an olive branch. ‘Inspector Elvira Garcia was attacked by five vampyrs yesterday. They were all under a necromancer’s control.’

‘Or several necromancers,’ Gideon commented. ‘Holding one of us is tricky so five at once would be harder still.’

‘It’s been known to happen,’ Volderiss said absently. ‘Five? No survivors, I assume.’

‘No. Sorry. As I said, I can take care of such things myself.’

Volderiss grimaced, then arched his eyebrows at Voltaire. Voltaire shook his head and the vampyr lord’s grimace deepened. ‘What?’ I asked sharply. ‘I shared my information, now you share yours.’

The silence hung, heavy and oppressive as they debated their options. From behind me, Krieg spoke into the tense silence. ‘I strongly encourage you to share nicely with Inspector Wise, gentlemen.’

Volderiss looked at Krieg. ‘Your Excellence,’ he said carefully. ‘What a pleasure to see you here. I’d heard you’d relocated to Chester.’

‘I was unaware you cared about my current location. Shall I send you hourly updates?’ Krieg replied drily.

‘That won’t be necessary.’ Volderiss cleared his throat again but this time he sounded nervous rather than authoritative. ‘What is your interest in this matter?’

Krieg smiled unpleasantly. ‘I couldn’t give less of a shit.’

That was a lie; he did care. I’d seen it when he’d looked at the bodies in the morgue, the flicker of regret that said he thought it a waste to have their bodies on those tables. He cared, perhaps more than he admitted to himself.

‘I’m here for Wise,’ Krieg continued.

‘Yes,’ Voltaire snarked, ‘we can see that. Why you’d choose an Inspector to warm your bed is—’

His words were cut off as Krieg exploded into movement. For a huge man, his speed was startling: one moment he was behind me, the next he had Voltaire by the throat and had slammed him against the brickwork again. If I’d gone out on a limb, I’d have said that Volty was having a bad day.

When he spoke, Krieg’s voice was deceptively mild. ‘You will speak to Inspector Wise with respect.’ Then his voice hardened. ‘Or you will not speak again. Ever.’

I could fight my own battles and did so frequently, but there was something arousing about watching Krieg fight for me. I suspected I knew now why he’d simply sat back and watched while Elvira and I had battled with the possessed vampyrs.

‘Apologise to Inspector Wise,’ he growled.

Voltaire’s fangs were out and down but he begrudgingly spat out, ‘No disrespect was intended.’

‘We all know that’s not true,’ Krieg said darkly. He tightened his right hand around Voltaire’s neck until the vampyr looked completely panicked. Krieg had a reputation for ripping off heads. ‘Say sorry.’

‘Sorry!’ Voltaire squeaked.

Krieg released his grip and the vampyr fell to the floor in a heap.

‘You know, an apology means less when it’s forced,’ I said conversationally.

‘Did you want another one?’ Krieg asked earnestly. ‘I can get one and I promise he’ll sound more sincere.’ Or else hung in the air.

I smiled. ‘No, that’s okay. I think we’ve made our point.’ I glared at Volderiss. ‘So what aren’t you telling me?’

Volderiss’s jaw was rigid but finally, reluctantly, he spoke. ‘We haven’t lost any vampyrs lately.’

I frowned. ‘Spell it out for me.’

‘Those vampyrs you fought weren’t clan. We didn’t turn them.’

‘Then who did turn them?’

‘We don’t know. They’re unregistered, unauthorised. We think they were turned by a vampyr specifically to be used as a dark witch’s henchmen. It makes it harder for us to track the witches if they’re not pulling people from our ranks.’

Voltaire joined in. ‘When a black witch kidnaps one of us, we have a starting point, a trail to follow.’

‘But some missing Common realmers, newly turned… ’ I mused aloud.

‘Exactly. All the witch needs to do is target some adults and fake some plans for them to take a foreign trip, maybe post on social media that the Common realmer is planning to start over somewhere new. It doesn’t take much to make the cops think a disappearance is voluntary, especially if the humans liked to travel.

Case closed before it even opens, missing person no longer missing. ’

The vampyrs had strict population controls in place. They were only allowed to turn a Common realmer into a vampyr in a very limited set of circumstances that had been imposed by the Symposium and were enforced by the Connection. Some of the vampyrs didn’t like the limits on their numbers.

‘Someone acting out?’ I queried. ‘Someone being vocal about population measures?’

Volderiss shook his head. ‘We’ve had those measures in place for eighty years. If someone is still unhappy about them, they’ve long since stopped bitching aloud about it.’

I eyed Gideon. ‘Someone trying to fit in with some evil witches?’

He held up his hands. ‘Whoa, come on. So far, I’m just their rare ingredients guy. I have dryads on my staff and we grow some illegal plants in the back for them. That’s it.’

I blinked. ‘Did Moss do that for you?’

‘Yeah, she was great with the plants. She was always singing while she was working and she had a voice like an angel.’ Regret danced across his face.

‘She was going somewhere with those pipes.’ He sighed.

‘I kept putting her off singing in the bar because I knew that once people heard her, she’d be out of here and I didn’t want her to go.

I didn’t want the hassle of recruiting another dryad. I’ll regret that for a very long time.’

‘Were you having sex with her?’ I asked.

‘Moss?’ He seemed startled by the question. ‘No, she wasn’t interested. She made that clear in the job interview.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘She said she’d grow illegal shit for me, but if I so much as looked at her neck she’d strangle me with a Virginia creeper vine.’

That was the first time I’d heard about that side of Moss; everyone had told me how nice she was, but nobody had mentioned her backbone.

It helped me see her a little more clearly.

Her family and friends had been right: with that combination of beauty, skill and strength, she might have well been the next pop sensation. She could have made it all the way.

I pushed down the quiet regret and focused on tracking down her killers. The fact that she’d grown illegal plants could be significant and I needed to dig into it. ‘Where do you grow the illegals?’

‘In the back room.’

‘Is there any CCTV in there?’

Gideon snorted. ‘Obviously not.’

‘Is there an exit from the room onto the back streets?’

‘Absolutely. We load the vans directly from the room.’

‘Right. So was there any CCTV covering that exit?’

He grimaced. ‘No. Again, for obvious reasons.’

‘There’s street access from the back room?’ I pressed. Not just a loading bay but street access.

‘Yes.’

Oh hell. McCaffrey was reviewing the CCTV footage for something she wasn’t going to see.

Moss had worked in the hidden back room where the street exit had been deliberately excluded from the careful surveillance that existed elsewhere.

I’d have bet my last pay check that Moss had been taken from there, from the one black spot that we hadn’t known existed.

‘I didn’t see a back room when I searched the premises,’ I said tightly.

‘You wouldn’t,’ Gideon admitted. ‘It’s hidden by a wall of illusion.’

‘Of course it is,’ I muttered, manfully pushing down the swear words that wanted to erupt. ‘You’ll show me to it after this,’ I said firmly. Gideon nodded. ‘Any idea who would hurt Moss?’

‘Someone jealous. As I said, she was going places.’

I thought of Sandra: she was jealous all right, but she’d got an alibi, as had Moss’s bestie, Lena. I was missing something, some vital piece of the puzzle, and it itched at the back of my mind because I was sure it related to something I already knew.

‘No more imp tails,’ I said to Gideon and flicked my eyes to Volderiss to include him in the command.

‘He has to,’ Volderiss said firmly. ‘He needs them to buy his way in. This operation is above your paygrade, Wise.’

‘I try to put the buyers off by telling them there’s too much heat on me,’ Gideon admitted.

‘This whole mess will help me deter them a while longer, but I can’t put them off forever.

I can’t look like I’m reluctant to do it.

I’ve just delivered one tail, so we’ve got some breathing room.

Maybe we’ll lock things down before I need another. ’

‘Unlikely,’ Voltaire grunted.

I remembered Snicklesnack, her pale skin and her tear-filled eyes. She had said the vampyr had apologised and now that made more sense. I said firmly, ‘If you have to collect another tail then you must deliver any imps you attack to the Crone straight afterwards.’

Volderiss raised an elegant eyebrow. ‘You want him to add kidnapping to the mix?’

‘I want the imps to survive,’ I snarled. ‘I want them to be healed, to have their tails re-grown. Amber DeLea can do that. If it’s tails you need, I can’t stop the operation – but you won’t take their lives.’

‘Fine,’ Volderiss replied tightly. ‘Gideon? Do it.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said respectfully.

I spoke again. ‘As to Moss Hollings and Joe Bogan, I want you to close your bar, Merrick.’

Gideon snorted derisively before he could stop himself. ‘Forgive me,’ he said hastily, eyeing Krieg, ‘but I pride myself on being open seven days a week. Everyone knows it – it’s one of my unique selling points. Botany only closes on Christmas day.’

‘Someone is targeting people linked to your bar. If you close it, perhaps I won’t wake up to a new corpse tomorrow.’

Gideon shook his golden hair. ‘The killer will already have their victim in mind, so closing the bar will do nothing but ruin my bottom line. Unless you bring me an order forcing me to close, Botany stays open.’

‘People will die and it will be on your head,’ I hissed.

‘No,’ he disagreed. ‘It will be on this necromancer’s head.’ He gestured to my phone where he’d watched the scorched runes appear. ‘Do your job, Inspector, and I will do mine.’