Page 3 of Mystic Justice (The Other Detective #2)

Chapter Two

While I was determinedly not thinking about Robert Krieg, the High King of the Ogres, the same could not be said of him. My phone blared and lit up with his name: Krieg calling.

I bit my lip. Until the sub-wizard was here to wipe the wits’ minds and the SOCO and ME arrived, I had time to take the call. I moved a few steps away from the others –then a few more for good measure – and swiped up to answer. ‘Wise,’ I said briskly in case the others could still hear me.

‘Krieg,’ he responded, tongue-in-cheek humour laced through his tone. It made my lips twitch despite myself.

‘How are you doing?’ I asked, turning my back so no one would see the smile that had somehow appeared on my face at the sound of his voice.

‘You work even harder than I do,’ he said. ‘When can we go on our date?’

Only two weeks earlier we’d shut down an elitist circle of murderers, people so rich they didn’t think the rules applied to them.

Since then our schedules just hadn’t aligned.

We’d spoken on the phone surprisingly frequently but I hadn’t seen him in the flesh since the day he’d bowed low and kissed the back of my hand.

I still tingled in interesting places at the thought, which was absurd.

Six hundred and eighty-two days celibate and ruefully counting.

‘I just caught a case,’ I admitted reluctantly. ‘It’s going to be hectic over the next few days. Sorry.’

He let out a rumbling sigh. ‘Between both our schedules, it’s like trying to get the stars to align.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘It’s not ideal.’

‘You’re not avoiding me, are you, Inspector? Because if you don’t want to see me, you only have to say and I’ll—’

‘Of course not!’ The words burst out of me. I could hear the hint of insecurity in his voice and it made him worm even deeper under my skin. He was a king, and he was beginning to think I didn’t want him. And boy, did I want him.

Dating Krieg would be a complication, I knew that, but something drew me to him, something I couldn’t ignore.

Something I didn’t want to ignore. And yes, I was pretty sure that he thought I was his mate, which didn’t seem possible since I was human, but a very small part of me couldn’t help but wonder… What if he was right?

‘Good,’ he said slowly, drawing the word out like an indecent caress. ‘I’m glad to hear that. So let’s make the stars align, shall we?’

I looked up and grimaced as I saw that not only had SOCO arrived but so had the dryad contingent. Stalking towards me was my ex, Sam, and none other than the green-skinned Ash Aspen.

Ash was a doppelganger who also went by the name of Jude Jingo.

The Al Capone of the magical world, he ran drugs, weapons and illegal potions.

He viewed the Connection as a fly to swat.

And me? I got the impression he viewed me as dessert, something to lick and devour, albeit he knew it would ultimately be bad for him.

Luckily for us both, I had no interest in being on his menu.

It was my turn to sigh. What did it say about Kreig’s and my relationship prospects that we were both sighing so much? ‘I have to go,’ I said, looking at Sam’s envy-inducing wavy hair, ‘SOCO is here.’

‘Ed?’ he asked lightly. He’d met Ed before when Ed had worked the scene for Krieg’s goddaughter Helga’s murder.

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Sam Radcliffe.’

There was a heavy pause before Krieg spoke again. ‘Your ex?’

‘Yeah. No big deal, we weren’t even that big a thing,’ I lied.

I had liked Sam, toyed with the idea that I might even be in love with him.

He’d been comfortable; he knew my world intimately and I knew his.

He was a safe choice. And yet… Something in me had held back and we’d never taken that step to be fully intimate.

But when he’d dumped me, that had stung.

I’d never been dumped before, I’d always been the dumper, not the dumpee.

My ego had taken a battering and for a long time I’d thought it had been my heart – but now I wasn’t so sure.

I’d never smiled at the sound of Sam’s voice.

‘You took him home to meet your mum.’ Krieg’s voice was flat.

I snorted. ‘I took you home to meet my mum.’

‘Exactly.’ He hung up and I had the feeling I’d mis-stepped somehow.

I was at a crime scene and I didn’t have time for this right now. I grimaced; I shouldn’t have taken the call because Krieg distracted me and I had to be fully focused. The dryad bound up in the tree deserved that much. I pocketed the phone and went to meet the incoming team.

Samuel Radcliffe was an excellent crime-scene manager and he also happened to be a weak witch.

As far as I knew, he’d never practised much magic – if any – and our power disparity had always been an issue for him.

Stepping out with an officer of the Connection had made him feel uncomfortable and we’d mostly dated in human pubs or stayed in.

He thought my profession painted a target on my back – and consequently his.

With a little time and distance, I could admit that he’d probably not been wrong.

What bothered Sam was the fact that I could deal with such a threat; that, and the fact that I’d refused to shag him until I was sure about my feelings.

I still wasn’t quite sure why he’d dumped me; it was either due to blue balls or the fact that I’d defended him against a fire elemental. Apparently that sort of thing was emasculating and our relationship hadn’t lasted long afterwards.

He’d binned me via text message and ever since then I’d longed to dive into his mind to see what exactly I’d done wrong.

I hadn’t because of two things: one, I had morals, and two, Sam had avoided me like the plague.

Besides, Dad had taught me that the phrase ‘curiosity killed the cat’ wasn’t just an idiom but a way of life.

If I peeked into other people’s minds, one day it would kill me.

My father had warned me of that with complete certainty and I had believed him.

I still did. On rare occasions that hadn’t stopped me when lives had been on the line, but knowing why Sam had dumped me wasn’t a matter of life or death.

I was a subterfuge wizard, something I’d kept a secret my whole life.

For most, the title was synonymous with being immoral because it meant I could slip into others’ minds and affect their thoughts and memories.

And I was powerful, too; as a level-five wizard, I was as magically strong as a salamander in the desert.

If the Connection knew what I could do, I wouldn’t be an Inspector but a black-ops operative kept in a bolt hole somewhere to use and abuse just like spidery Dwayne Witterhall.

And that thought was enough to make me break out in hives.

Sam walked briskly towards me. His blonde hair in loose waves around his face coupled with his designer stubble lent him a surfer air, which was wholly inaccurate. Sam didn’t even like swimming. ‘Wise,’ he greeted me coldly.

Ouch. Direct hit.

He was dressed in a white overall with blue booties and blue gloves. As I watched, he masked up, shoving his hair inside the hood and snapping it tight around his face. He pulled on some clear glasses and he was good to go.

I made sure that not a single iota of hurt showed on my face. ‘Radcliffe,’ I responded. I gestured at my shadow. ‘This is Detective Channing, my new partner.’

Sam nodded but said nothing.

I’d taken pictures of the scene when I’d arrived but Sam began taking contextual shots of the area as a whole before he narrowed down on to the scene itself. I guessed our conversation was done.

I watched him as he set to work placing numbered markers next to anything of interest. He placed an L-shaped evidence scale marked in millimetres, its monochrome edge against the partial print in the mud; the scale helped to accurately assess the height and width of the footprints.

Content that Sam was doing his job correctly, even if manners had passed him by, I turned back to the dryad delegation. I recognised Aspen immediately but I didn’t know his female companion.

I drew them away from the human witnesses. Constable Frost was eyeing them with interest, but she said nothing. ‘Jingo,’ I said tightly to the kingpin. ‘What are you doing here?’

He smiled and gestured expansively. ‘Why, I’m here to help you, Inspector.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I said dubiously. ‘And this is?’ I nodded at his companion.

‘Fern Bellvine,’ she introduced herself. She held a hand to her heart and bowed. ‘My honour to meet you, Inspector Wise.’ Other realmers didn’t greet each other with handshakes because too much information and power could be given away by touch.

I returned the gesture and the greeting. ‘Thank you for coming,’ I continued. ‘We need to wait a few moments for the Common realmers to be dealt with.’

‘Witterhall was parking up as we drove in,’ Jingo confirmed.

It was telling that Jingo knew the sub-wizard. Corruption and bribery were rampant in the Connection and Jingo had to have people in his pocket. Witterhall might well be one of them.

Sure enough, lanky Dwayne Witterhall was striding towards the humans.

As they moved to greet him, he held up a hand with a flourish and they froze.

‘Clear,’ he intoned. A moment later there was a flash and the old man and his grandson started blinking rapidly while their brain assimilated their altered memories.

Channing strode over and quietly explained that they were free to go before Frost gently escorted them away, the Cornels still blinking rapidly.

Witterhall and Channing joined me and the dryads. ‘I removed the memories of the tree being in the lake, the cocoon and the green skin,’ the ginger sub-wizard confirmed. ‘I left everything else.’ The less we modified, the easier it was for the new memories to take.

‘Thanks.’

‘Need anything else?’ he asked ostensibly to me, though his eyes flickered to Jingo.

‘No, we’re good here. I appreciate your time.’ I did, even if I didn’t trust him. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer and all that.

The wizard grunted, gave a second pointed glance at Jingo then left to go back to his government sanctioned bolthole or to another job. The internet and smartphones kept sub-wizards busy wiping minds of things they shouldn’t have seen.

The Other realm could protect itself to a degree: if a human glimpsed a griffin soaring through the skies, they’d simply see a large eagle instead.

The Other was always ready with a whisper, an alternative explanation to soothe the rational mind.

But some things defied even the firmest of suggestions and that was when we needed a sub-wizard.

With the humans gone, we could focus on gaining access to the body. I turned to Fern. ‘Can you get the tree to open up its—’ I gestured to the cocoon ‘—leafy pod?’

‘It’s swaddling the deceased,’ Fern said softly. ‘Comforting her.’ She walked towards the willow tree.

‘Could you do that?’ I asked Jingo curiously. ‘Get the tree to unfurl?’

‘My dryad powers aren’t the strongest,’ he admitted. ‘The very nature of dryads conflicts with the doppelganger instincts. Still, being a dryad has its uses. For now.’

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear; the last thing I needed was Jingo shucking off his stolen form because at least now I knew what he looked like. Not to mention that he’d need a host to die in order for him to assume a new form.

Fern’s hands lit up then she sank into the tree up to her elbows. A beat passed before the nest of foliage slowly unfurled like a flower turning to the sun to reveal the corpse cradled heartbreakingly within.