Page 33 of Mystic Justice (The Other Detective #2)

I grabbed Krieg and Loki from my office and stormed down to tech where Ji-ho had his music blaring, head bobbing as his fingers flew across the keyboard. Channing was sitting next to him, a notebook open, full of his scrawl. ‘What have you got so far?’ I demanded without any small talk.

Channing flipped back a few pages. ‘Calder’s father is a fire elemental, high up, sits on the Pit.’

The Pit was the fire elementals’ ruling body, and they weren’t known for being soft and fluffy.

The last leader of the Pit, Benedict, had met an horrific end after going on a spree and torturing people for fun with his flames.

Absolutely no one had been sad at his subsequent demise: he’d been a total psychopath and the world was a better place without him.

Roscoe now headed the Pit, a far more level-headed chap who’d worked as a guardian to a portal hall for years. When he’d taken over from Benedict, he’d cleaned house. That Jane’s father still sat on the Pit told me that either he wasn’t a psychopath or he’d been too powerful for Roscoe to oust.

‘Calder’s mother?’ I asked.

Channing leaned forward. ‘Here’s where things get interesting.

Her mother was a witch, a skilled rune master.

She died a couple of years ago. Jane, being the sole heir with a hint of witch magic in her veins, inherited her mother’s belongings including a family grimoire.

Her brother, Neil, showed no such aptitude. ’

This whole time we’d been focusing on a dark witch, but instead we had a fire elemental with witch in her family tree. A grieving one. Still, it seemed a little odd for Jane to wait two years to resurrect her mum. Maybe it had taken her that long to master the grimoire’s magics.

Krieg asked the question I was thinking. ‘Do we think it’s the mum who the runes are powering?’

‘No,’ Channing said firmly. ‘I spoke to Sandra Jaxim. She told me that at a work drinks event when Jane was still new, Jane got drunk and mentioned a lover who had died. She only ever mentioned him once and Sandra said she seemed genuinely cut up about his death. When she brought it up again, Jane bit her head off. Sandra never dared mentioned him after that.’

‘All right. What do we know about the lover?’

Ji-ho grimaced and paused mid-typing. ‘Nothing – we have nothing on this guy. It’s like he didn’t exist. There were a few hits on Jane’s socials about being “deliriously happy” and “wedding bells ringing” but never a picture, never a name.’

‘Her partner was either security conscious and wanted to keep his personal details offline, or he was married,’ I mused.

Channing blinked. ‘That didn’t occur to me.’

I smiled. ‘It will, once you’ve gone round the block a few more times. All right, let’s get back to Calder.’

‘Jane was born and raised in York. Her family is still there. She came to Liverpool after her mother’s death. She was working as a trainee solicitor.’

‘What the hell? Why would she jack that in for serving drinks?’

‘Looking into it,’ Ji-ho interrupted. ‘I’m accessing her leaver’s interview as we speak.’ He pulled up several documents and his pupils shifted to serpentine vertical slits as he scanned the data. ‘Pulling up her emails.’

Next to me, Channing’s eyes widened at the blasé hacking. It reminded me again that he’d been raised Common; he wasn’t used to the ‘whatever we need to do to get the job done’ mentality. In the Other, most human laws were treated as guidelines, nothing more.

Ji-ho tapped his desk. ‘Got it! She said her fiancé died and she needed a sabbatical. Her training contract was terminated but the solicitors said she could return at any stage within the next two years to finish her training. At that point her address changed from a pricey flat on the docks to a cheap-as-chips former council building.’

‘Her budget decreased, and so did her square footage,’ I mused. ‘She was saving cash. Smart – she’s got a level head on her shoulders. Did she know then what she was planning to do?’ I rolled it around in my mind some more. ‘Okay. Good work.’

I turned to Channing. ‘Give the brother a ring see what he can tell you about this supposed fiancé – he’s more likely to know the gossip about his sister than her father.

Get me the fiancé’s species and his name.

I need to know what walking-dead thing we have to deal with.

Krieg and I will join Elvira and Bland at Jane’s flat. Keep me updated.’

‘All over it,’ Channing promised.

Krieg walked out with me, Loki fluttering between us. ‘We kick butt?’ the bird asked eagerly.

‘I don’t think the butt is there to be kicked,’ I replied grimly. ‘But all the same we’ll be ready.’

To make sure I was prepared, I donned a magically infused Kevlar vest complete with a body camera and grabbed the PR-60. Cops often joked that the PR stood for ‘public relations’ because the baton was good at getting the point across.

Krieg drove us to Calder’s flat where Elvira and Bland were parked out front. I raised them on the radio. ‘Anything?’

‘Not so much as a curtain twitch,’ Elvira replied.

‘Fine. Let’s roll. Vests and cameras on.’ I turned to Krieg, ‘You can come, but stay back. Let us take point.’

He looked amused at my order but nodded agreeably, retrieved a mace from the car boot and zipped up his leather jacket. I guessed he was good to go, no Kevlar needed.

We waited for the others to vest up then entered the graffitied tower block and ran up the single flight of stairs to bring us to the second floor.

Jane’s was Flat 2B. The apartment block wasn’t in the best area and the dimly lit halls smelled faintly of urine.

She’d downgraded her digs significantly when she’d gone from trainee solicitor to waitress.

Saving money for what? My bet would be the illegal potions she’d no doubt used to subdue Moss during the kidnapping.

A drugged prisoner was easier to manage.

I swallowed hard, pushing aside the harsh memories; now was not the time to stroll down memory lane.

I stood to one side of the door with Krieg behind me, and Elvira and Bland crouched on the other side.

Some wizards had an affinity for one element over another; mine was air so I released a small breath and used it to create a sharp blast of air that I targeted at the door lock.

Over the years I’d learnt to channel the perfect amount of air to break a lock and open a door but not blow the bloody door off.

It flew open and Elvira took point, crouching low with Bland following. The curtains were closed so it was dark inside. The apartment was a bedsit; bedroom, kitchen and lounge in one space. The only door led to the bathroom.

It took less than a minute to clear the whole place and ascertain that Calder wasn’t there. I’d been expecting it but it still sucked.

We donned gloves and started searching. I hit pay dirt when I saw a photograph on the bedside table because I immediately recognised the man in it. Several dots connected at once and I closed my eyes. ‘Well, shit,’ I murmured.

‘What?’ Elvira called from the other side of the room.

I picked up the photograph and held it out to her. Her mouth tightened. ‘Shit,’ she echoed.

‘What?’ Bland demanded. ‘Who is it? I don’t recognise him.’

‘It’s a griffin,’ Krieg said darkly. ‘His name was Harbinger.’

‘Was?’

I sighed. ‘He died about six months ago. Goddamn it, I should have made the connection. A couple months ago I was investigating two grave robberies, a wizard’s and Harbinger’s.’

‘What was taken from the grave?’ Bland asked.

‘The bodies,’ I said grimly

‘So we could be looking at three assailants?’

I shook my head. ‘The wizard’s body turned up later, newly beheaded. At the time I just thought it was some sicko, but now I’m thinking he was a test run. Jane Calder raised him from the dead and when she’d succeeded, she killed him again.’

‘And then she raised her lover,’ Elvira muttered.

‘Precisely.’

Griffins were one of the deadliest species roaming the planet and now we had an undead one to contend with.

If Amber was right and Calder completed her four-stage elemental ritual, Harbinger would move from deadly and difficult to kill to impossible to kill.

We needed to stop her before body number four hit the earth or we’d really be knee deep in kelpie waters.

‘At least that answers the question of who dropped Bogan,’ Bland mused.

‘Yeah,’ I groused. ‘That’s a real silver lining. Scour the flat. Calder and Harbinger aren’t here so we need to know where the hell they’ve gone to ground.’

We had a handful of hours to find them or they’d get a fourth death under their belt and the ritual would be complete. And then we’d be totally fucked.