Sapphire Flames

The killer reached over Sigourney. That gloved hand looked odd, misshapen somehow . . .

“Then we need to find out! Don’t you have someone? Like a snitch or an informant? Something!”

“This isn’t a TV show,” I said gently. Also, we were not hardened NY detectives who didn’t play by the rules. “Confidential informants typically report on neighborhood and gang crime, because the people involved in those crimes don’t know how to keep their mouths shut. This is a professional hit by a high-caliber magic user.”

Runa squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled. Her fists relaxed. She opened her eyes. A little bit of the crazy had gone out, and I jumped on the chance.

“Your mother said she had no regrets. She was aware that her actions carried consequences. She did something, Runa, something that led to this murder. The sooner we figure out what that something is, the sooner we can find her killer. The answer is probably somewhere in her files.”

“Okay,” she said.

The forensic review didn’t yield any results. After three hours, my eyes started to glaze over.

I turned down the sound and pulled up the video of Sigourney’s murder in video editing software. Bump up the contrast, sharpen, levels, zoom . . . I ran the clip again. The glove’s details came into focus.

It didn’t look like a glove, more like a hand with greenish skin mottled with brown and orange, like a carapace of some beetle or the tail of a raw lobster. The tapered fingernails resembled claws, sharp and black.

This made zero sense.

A century and a half ago, several labs across Europe synthesized the Osiris serum. The Spanish were the first, followed by the English, Russians, and Chinese. They came to the discovery almost simultaneously, following up on the same research trail, with Germans and Americans being only slightly behind. Those who failed to discover the serum bought it or stole it.

An injection of the Osiris serum brought about one of three equally likely results: you died, you became a monster and then died, or your latent magical powers awakened. Despite the horrific odds of success, the serum spread across the planet like wildfire. The World War loomed on the horizon, and the major powers scrambled to crank out mages in hopes of gaining the upper hand. They gave it to everyone: the soldiers, the fading aristocracy, the captains of industry, people who had everything and those who had nothing.

Then the World War hit, bringing nightmares and atrocities beyond anyone’s imagination, and it was quickly and unanimously decided that having people who could incinerate entire city blocks and spit poisonous gas into the trenches was a really bad idea. The Osiris serum was locked away, but by then it was too late. The magic proved to be hereditary.

The serum was inaccessible, but the experimentation into enhancing one’s powers never stopped. Countless families and labs kept trying to find a way to make their magic stronger, and the only way to do it was to experiment on human beings, preferably those with some magic and very little money. Sometimes that experimentation caused a cataclysmic response, twisting the bodies of the research volunteers into inhuman monstrosities. The majority died on the spot. The few who survived were no longer human, physically or mentally. They became warped.

According to the numerous articles and scientific papers I’d read, the transformation permanently altered the subject’s magic. Instead of their original powers, all their magic was now dedicated to keeping their warped bodies functioning. The constant magic drain killed them within two to three years.

No one magic-warped could have a magical talent by definition. Yet Sigourney’s killer clearly did.

Not only that, but a warped human couldn’t have pulled off this hit. It required critical thinking and performing a succession of tasks: break in, move quietly, kill the target, turn off the computer, stage the scene, set the house on fire. Nevada knew a warped woman, Cherry. Before Cherry died a couple of years ago, she’d spent her days swimming in the brackish water in a flooded part of Houston, eating fish and garbage. She couldn’t carry on a conversation for longer than a minute. If you somehow convinced, bribed, or forced Cherry into assaulting a House, she would probably crash through a window or bang on the door until she forgot what she was doing there.

Maybe it wasn’t a clawed hand. Maybe it was some sort of specialized glove. I peered at the screen.

My cell rang.

Across from me, Runa groaned. “Please answer it. My head hurts.”

I took the call.

“Greetings, Ms. Baylor,” Mr. Fullerton’s precise voice said.

I put the call on speaker. “Hello, Mr. Fullerton. I hadn’t expected to hear from you so soon.” He had told me it would take at least twenty-four hours for the DNA results.

“The official results will be available tomorrow; however, under the circumstances, I felt urgency was in order. Is Ms. Etterson present?”

“Yes,” Runa said.

“Very well. I can confirm that one of the bodies is that of Sigourney Etterson.”

As expected.

“The other body doesn’t match any of the profiles in House Etterson. It shares no similar genetic markers.”

Runa jerked upright in her seat.

“Could you please repeat that?” I asked.

“The other body isn’t Halle Etterson.”

“Where is she then?” Runa demanded.

“I don’t know. I know where she isn’t. She isn’t in the Forensic Institute’s morgue. I hope this was helpful. Ms. Baylor, Ms. Etterson, good day.”

Holy shit.

The three of us, Bern, Runa, and I, stared at each other.

Leon strode into the kitchen. He wore his bloodstained T-shirt on his head, like a turban, and his bare chest peeked through the gap of his open jacket. He was carrying a bucket of fried chicken in one hand and a bank deposit slip in the other.

“I closed Yarrow,” he said. “The three of you look like you’ve just been slapped by a ghost.”

“Neither of the bodies from the Etterson fire belongs to Halle Etterson,” Bern said.

“Wow.” Leon put the deposit slip in front of me, dropped into a chair, pulled the cardboard lid from the bucket, and fished out a drumstick.

“So, does this mean Halle’s alive?” Runa asked.

I glanced at Bern, sitting at the table, but he apparently decided to impersonate a statue from Easter Island, because all I got back was an enigmatic look. I was on my own.

“No. It means that the other body in the morgue isn’t your sister.”

“So she could be alive?”

Runa jumped up and paced around the kitchen, circling the island. She was desperate and drowning in grief. The small chance that Halle might have survived was a lifeline and she clung to it. She was irrational before, and she would be completely unpredictable now. I had to make sure she stayed put. The last thing we needed was her running out to “investigate.”

“She could be alive. If they killed her, why go through the trouble of planting a body? However, we aren’t sure where she is or what condition she’s in. Somebody went to great lengths to make sure she was officially dead. They didn’t want anyone to look for her. We have to tread carefully here. We may endanger her by our actions.”

Runa stopped pacing and stared at me. “Catalina, if there is the slightest chance that my sister is alive, we have to find her. Nothing else matters; not revenge, not finding the murderer, nothing except Halle’s life.”

“I understand. Halle is the first priority.” I turned to Bern. “Were you able to find that two million Sigourney liquidated on the day of her death?”

Bern frowned.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“I’ve checked all of our accounts,” Runa said. “It’s not there. It wasn’t wired in and then wired out or withdrawn. It didn’t come in as a big chunk or in smaller deposits.”

“Ramma munnuf,” Leon said.

“Swallow your food,” Bern told him.

Leon gulped his iced tea. “Ransom money.”

Thank you, Captain Obvious. Just because we hadn’t blurted it out in front of the client didn’t mean we all weren’t quietly thinking it.

Runa froze. “Do you think Halle was kidnapped and Mom withdrew the money to pay the ransom?”

“It’s a possibility,” I said, keeping my tone measured.

“Catalina, stop treating me like I’m made of glass! Everything is ‘may’ and ‘possibility’ and ‘we’re not sure’! I deserve an honest answer.”

You know what, fine.

“Okay. Here is the truth: I don’t know. I’m trying not to get your hopes up, because you’re grieving, and it makes you prone to rash decisions.” There, that was honest.

“Dun dun dun,” Leon intoned dramatically.

“Rash decisions? Like what?” Runa demanded.

“Like poisoning the man who could’ve told us who hired him to cover up this murder.”

Runa waved her arms. “My mother’s body attacked us, I freaked out! And besides, it was your boyfriend who stabbed him.”

“Please. Conway was a dead man walking before he left the room. You poisoned him so well that his body grew an inch of black fuzz after he was already dead. And for the last time, Alessandro isn’t my boyfriend.”