Something Nocturnal
By
Paul Hazen
Lee Kepraios
Caitlin Kittredge
Ravenna McQuill
Eli Piatt
Kristol Rubendall
1. A Body in the Street
So much goes to waste these days. 
A dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, crime is rampant in the streets, sick twisted creatures are running around raising all kinds of hell and nobody seems to know what to do about it. And there’s no end to it. It’s gotten so that the entire country, quite possibly the whole world, has become completely immune to the daily slaughter. The casual violence. Look out any given window, on any given day, and it won’t take you long to spot another brutality being committed. It’s like a disease, a plague that won’t stop spreading, threatening to pull all things in this world apart at the seams. It saturates you. You’re overcome. The mind reels. 
Detective Rick Doyle stepped out of his car. At 3 am, all these old deadly thoughts beset him, unattenuated by coffee and nicotine.
	Doyle had spent most of his life on the east side, near the docks and the tenderloin, and he had always known he would be a cop. His dad was a cop, like his grandfather before him, going back to time immemorial. Back in the old country one of his distant ancestors had probably danced around the standing stones and pledged his blood eternal to the god of cops. He was tall, good-looking in a blue-jawed sort of way, with a bit of a baby face but a hardness around the eyes that made people think twice. He was quiet, but liked to joke around with the guys. Except on nights like these. On nights like these, the reality of it all, of man’s inhumanity to man, became undeniable, like a brick to the face. Doyle hated nights like this.
	The scene was already a zoo. Red and blue flashers lit the corner of 81st and Pike, like lightning from some mad god. The corner streetlight flickered, tightening the screws of tension in his forehead. The night was cold, and a thin drizzle misted down. Doyle secretly wished for a downpour. Then, at least the city wouldn’t smell like a wet dog. He rubbed his left temple. Felt like another migraine coming on. First order of business, grab some caffeine. He snatched a steaming Starbuck’s cup from one of the boys in blue. Then he stepped under the yellow tape that a fresh-faced rookie held up for him, toward the mess across the street. A Yellow Cab, now permanently off hire, sat on 81st, waiting for a light that would always be the wrong color. He noticed the driver’s door was open, and the trunk was popped. A body sprawled on the ground beneath. Hard to tell what the stiff looked like, lying in the shadow of the cab. Doyle stood back to get a feel for the layout before stepping up to the body. He liked to reconnoiter the scene as a whole before looking for details. Where was his partner? She should be here already—she’d been closer when the call came in. Just like a woman, always late.
	CSU was already on the scene, taking pictures, marking evidence. “Any sign of Esme?” Doyle asked the photographer, who was filming the corpse from various angles. “If she’s not here in five, she better not come at all. I don’t need another dead weight partner.” The photographer, a Filipino man whose name he couldn’t remember, said nothing. He just continued taking his pictures. Doyle stepped carefully toward the cab now, looking for anything on the ground that the first wave might have missed. Pretty clean crime scene. No tags where spent shells might have fallen, no broken glass, no blood. Just the body and the car. Wait—there was someone behind the car, hunched over.
	“Hello, dead weight,” Esme smirked. “Took you long enough.” Esme Crowley. All business, her. As if his last partner hadn’t been bad enough, they had to stick him with the least likable person on the force. Again. And a woman, too. Not that you could tell, most days. Her features were a little too strong, her jaw a little too square, but if she ever learned the most rudimentary application of makeup and got a decent haircut, she wouldn’t look too bad. A little too severe for his tastes, though. Well, at least she wasn’t stupid. He moved closer to scope out the stiff. A decent-sized guy, the cabbie. Most of his face and the top of his shirt were thick with char—burned, unrecognizable. When the wind picked up, black flakes swirled upward. No sign of a struggle, though. 
	“So, who’s our overdone lamb shank? Hey, you the one who called this in?” Doyle asked as a young officer came running up.
	The patrol officer nodded. “I was just cruising, doing my route, you know? And I see this cab stopped on a green light. Door open, trunk open. I honk my horn, and nothing, so I get out and…” He trailed off, looking back over his shoulder at the yellow cab parked under a flickering streetlamp, the driver’s door thrown open.
	Doyle came around and clapped the young officer on the shoulder. “We’ll take it from here, son. You did good. Go wait for the ME and the meat wagon.”
	He turned back to Esme, muttering “Fuckin’ rookies.” 
	Esme stood back and let Doyle take the lead. It was what he did best, after all. Nineteen years with the department, every year making his ego bigger and his temper worse.
	Doyle sat back on his heels. “Well?”
	Esme shot him a look. “Well what?”
	“You feel anything?” said Doyle impatiently. He may treat Esme like a second-class citizen, but he never hesitated to use her abilities when it might make him look good.
Esme scanned the intersection, letting the impressions hit her. They came thick and fast. She wasn’t surprised. This part of town was ninety percent nonhuman, or demihuman, or whatever politically correct term was the fashion. More mages than any other neighborhood in the city. She sensed the sharpness of magic-tuned entities, the tingle of misplaced energy, the oppressive feeling of too many powerful minds too close together. And under it, something black and oily and malicious, sliding along the edge of the collective unconscious…
	“Pain,” said Esme, staring into the distance. “Fear. Panic. What you’d expect from a murder scene.”
	“Ain’t you a great fuckin’ help,” muttered Doyle. He stood, brushing off the knees of his khaki slacks. “Look, we both know what this is. There’s nothing else that smells like that.”
	Esme nodded. “Magefire.”
	“Fuckin’ magicians,” said Doyle, stepping over the body and looking into the cab. “Yo! Crowley!”
	Esme sighed and turned back to Doyle. He was holding up a snub-nose .38. “Under the seat,” he said. “Still in the holder.”
	“If he was being attacked, why wouldn’t he draw his weapon?” Esme asked, more to herself than Doyle. “Could he have known the killer?”
“Dunno. Maybe.” Doyle looked past her. “Meat wagon’s finally here. About damn time!” he yelled at the medical examiner’s team. They ignored him, crossing the tape with two men carrying the heavy steel footlocker that served as a portable crime lab. 
	“We need to get witness statements,” Esme reminded him. 
	“Please,” said Doyle. “Like anyone in this block of freaks’ll talk to us. We’ll get burned crispier than our friend Robbie there.”
	The patrol officer came panting up, all smiles. “Detective Doyle?”
	Doyle glared at him. “What now?”
	“Well, there’s two traffic cameras on either side of this intersection. They might have picked up something. I mean, he was still steaming when I found him, so…”
	“Have CSU burn us a tape and bring it to the station,” said Esme before Doyle could brush the kid off.
	“Nothing’s gonna be on that tape,” said Doyle. “Wizards never show up on tape.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “God, how I long for a good old-fashioned gang war. This shit will end me.”

2. Something Lost, Something Found
	“Excuse me, detectives.” One of the CSU investigators approached them. Esme recognized him as Miles Lowndes, a man she genuinely liked. He gave her a sincere smile, shifting it to smug for Doyle. There was bad blood between Lowndes and Doyle, but Esme hadn’t figured out what it was yet.
	“Find something?” she asked politely.
	“You guys are gonna crap,” said Lowndes. “Check out the trunk.”
	“Thanks,” said Esme curtly. “We’ll take it from here.”
	“I like her, Doyle,” said Lowndes. “She’s a firecracker.”
	“Hope she burns your ass,” Doyle muttered after Lowndes walked back to the CSU wagon.
	Doyle walked around to where the trunk hung open, peering into the depths as he pulled out his maglite. He flipped on the light and whistled. His eyes skimmed over the guardian runes carved into the metal of the trunk, then immediately lighted on the drugs. “Holy shit! If I was corrupt, I could retire right now!”
	“Shut up, you idiot,” Esme hissed from behind him. “Your rep’s already in the shitter. Don’t give them anything else to speculate about. Especially if you’re going to drag me down with you. And while you’re at it, take another look. Your eyes are working but you forgot to turn on your brain. You have a brain, right?”
	“I know, I know. It doesn’t make sense. What’s all this other shit? Why didn’t they take the drugs? I hope that’s not cocaine in that bag. And that must be, what, a pound of weed? Why did they leave without the stuff? Something must have spooked them.”
	“Well, you’re getting closer,” Esme chided him. “Look, Doyle. With both your eyes this time. See how everything’s been moved around? Look at the carpeting—how it’s mashed down, there and there. Something heavy was sitting in this trunk not too long ago. It’s not here now.”
	“OK, I see it now. So what’s it supposed to be? We’ve got, what, a couple grand in narcotics here, and they took a bowling ball case? Explain it to me.”
	“I’m not sure what it was, but it feels bad. Very bad. To me, this looks a lot like the imprint of a case of some kind. You know like a metal briefcase. Like the kind you see in the movies, that always has something nasty in it. Anyone using Norse runes on their car trunk is carrying something relatively serious. And someone else was damn determined to get what was in this car.”
	“You mean, like plutonium?” Doyle laughed. “You and your imagination.” 
	“Yes. Like plutonium,” Esme said. She was starting to lose patience with this buffoon. Explaining things to men was a lot like pulling teeth. “Like plutonium, or dragon’s blood, or hell if I know. But not good, whatever it is.”
	“Don’t you think it’s probably cash in the case? That makes sense to me.”
	“That’s not what it feels like. Besides, you have to think. What drug dealer rides around with money and drugs in a warded trunk at the same time? You make the deal, trade one for the other. You don’t have both. Never. They weren’t stolen, either. The cabbie is a Courier.”
	“So what? Just because he’s a courier doesn’t mean he’s not a thief. This shit was in his trunk, after all.” Doyle was getting a little sick of her attitude. He reached in his pocket for his smokes, and then realized, for the hundredth time today, that he’d quit last week. It was taking a long fucking time to adjust, and the headaches weren’t getting any better.
	“No, dimwit. Put your withdrawal behind you for a second and let me explain this to you. I’ll go slow. Look at the mark, on the back of his neck. See that, it looks like a tattoo—the yellow swiggly thing. It’s a rune, and it means he’s a Courier. He’s with the Thieves’ Guild, and he’s taken the Oath.”
	“What oath? Is this more hoodoo bullshit?” He hated knowing she was right, and he hated the fact that she saw things. Like his headache. She was a psychic, low-grade for sure, but she tested and she had the card. She had no control, but sometimes saw things. Little things. It might come in handy, some day. But mostly, it made her more annoying than useful.
	“It perpetually amazes me how terrible you are with magic. You know, for someone with the blood of the Sidhe in his veins…”
	“Hey, not all of the fey folk were great wizards. Some were great warriors, great lovers.”
	“The blood must be running thin. The oath I’m talking about is the Unspeakable Oath. He’ll be loyal to the Guild, even unto death. Or some really bad stuff will happen to him.”
	“Bad stuff? Like what?” He hated all this hocus-pocus shit, but felt compelled to ask.
	“Bad stuff. I can’t say. It’s Unspeakable. Something to do with the Devourer of Souls, I think. Did you sleep through Thaumaturgy at the Academy?” she asked, smiling. Esme never missed any opportunity to goad him.
	“Forget it. Let’s take another look at the stiff, make sure everything’s tagged and bagged, and get the hell out of here.” He bent over the body. “Magefire, you said? Maybe. But look at the marks on his neck. Since tonight’s going to be one of those nights, I’d say we have an unregistered vampire on the loose.”
	She knelt down to get a closer look, muttering under her breath. Meanwhile, Doyle looked inside the cab. The front seat was a ruin of fast food wrappers and empty packs of Marlboros. The ashtray bristled with discarded butts, and Doyle’s craving returned with a vengeance. Empty soda cans littered the floor. Mr. Pibb, the vilest toothrot around. How could people drink the stuff? It made Mountain Dew seem palatable. He pulled on some latex gloves and then knelt next to Esme.
	Esme watched while the CSU team took notes on the condition of the body and catalogued the injuries. Doyle pulled some latex gloves on, then carefully drew the man’s wallet from his back pocket, provoking glares from the CSU team. Doyle studiously ignored them. He flipped through the wallet, holding it by the edges, careful not to apply pressure where prints would adhere. He glanced at the driver’s license and credit cards, then checked for money. “Name’s Robert J. Coker. His cash is still here. So I guess we’d better completely rule out robbery, right?”
	“Don’t rule out robbery until we know what was in that case,” Esme warned.
“You mean, when we know what might have been inside what we presume may be a missing case. That may or may not exist. Right?” He ignored Esme rolling her eyes. “Our courier had quite a wad, and—what’s this?” He pulled out a folded sheet of yellow paper. “This looks like a list of some kind. A bunch of names.” He drew Esme aside, away from the CSU team.
	“Names for what?” asked Esme. 
	“That’s the million-dollar question, ain’t it?” Doyle looked past her. “I’m not sure. Six names, it looks like. Dr. Gillespie, Trumbo Kellyfreeze, Kane Krueger, Cyrus Mackilwraith, Natasha Segovia, J. Threadstone. Threadstone. Fuck me,” Doyle reached into his back pocket and pulling out a flask. “My night just keeps gettin’ better.”
“Why? You know him?”
	“Her. And yes, I do.” He took a drink and shoved his hands into his pockets, sign language that he didn’t want to talk about it. “Gillespie and Segovia are crossed out. There are some funny squiggles on the bottom, too. Runes or something.” 
	“Wait a second. You said Threadstone? The black magician? I though he’s dead.” Esme looked confused for the first time that Doyle had ever seen.
	“She’s the daughter. I’ve dealt with her before. Apple doesn’t fall too far, you know?” he said.
	“Her too?”
	“As bad as the old man, maybe worse, but we can’t pin anything on her yet. She’s slippery, that one.”
	“And on this guy’s list.” Esme stood up. “We’ll have to take him back and do a decent autopsy. I need my equipment. Black magic, maybe. He has the smell of magefire all over him.”
	“Magefire, that’s a felony. Jenny, Jenny.” He grinned voraciously. “How I want to nail her ass. We lost three good men taking out her old man. And this makes her suspect number one. Mackilwraith sounds familiar, for some reason, but I can’t place the name. Not quite. We’d better talk to them all, just in case.”
	“I agree. Let me see the list.” Doyle handed Esme the list. She studied it and said, “These runes are self-destruct runes, but he forgot to cross the squiggle here. Holy Hell! Kane Krueger, I know that name. I’m surprised to see him on the same list as Threadstone. They don’t operate in the same circles at all. He’s not exactly small-time, but he’s a low-life. And a dwarf.”
	“‘Small folk’ is the preferred nomenclature, Esme,” he corrected, just to annoy her.
	“He’s also a werewolf. Afflicted, I think. Can’t control his changes without medication, which makes full moons lots of fun. He’s licensed and tagged, of course. Bet you the drugs in the trunk belong to him.”
	“Why don’t we ask him?” Doyle growled.
	“You know what else he does? It’s kind of a sideline.”
	“What’s that?” 
	“He sells souls on eBay,” Esme sighed.
	“People are still falling for that BS?” Doyle laughed. “Born every minute, I swear.”
	“No, he sells souls. On eBay. Not fake souls. Real ones.”
	“I thought that was illegal.”
	“It is. The FTC banned all trade in souls, spirits, shades, and other personal metaphysical entities. You don’t keep up with any of this, do you?”
	Doyle didn’t rise to the bait. “How do you know so much about it?” 
	“I was on the team that brought Krueger in last year. He’s connected, by the way.”
	“How do you figure?”
	“We had an airtight case, two weeks ‘til trial, and all the evidence disappears from the locker. All of it with any street value, anyway.” A bitter twist entered her voice. “Blew us out of the water. He walked.”
	“How does that make him connected? There are some crooked cops, you know.”
	“Exactly.”
	“We’re moving the body!” Lowndes called. “Be at the morgue in about fifteen minutes.”
	Esme waved them away, watching Robert J. Coker’s pale face pressed against the transparent body bag. Droplets blurred his features until his eyes were black sockets and the burns on his skin were mere shadows. He seemed to stare at Esme.
	Watching me…
	She shook herself. Residual echoes from a violent death could hang around for decades. It would be a long time before Esme could stand on the corner without seeing Robert Coker sprawled in the street and smell his burns plugging her nostrils. 	
“We’re done, then?” said Esme. Doyle shrugged. 
	“Hang around on the street corner if that’s your thing. Me, I’m gonna go file my report and clock out on time.” He looked at her, then at the chalk outline the rain was quickly effacing. “Let’s get out of this fucking weather,” said Doyle, stalking back towards the car.
	“Rain washes the city clean,” said Esme, following him slowly. She could still feel Coker’s pain at her back. And underneath it, crawling in the shadows of the psyche, something…
	“Shit, Esme,” said Doyle, sliding behind the wheel of their cruiser. “If only that were true.”
	“If only,” agreed Esme. She looked back once as they drove away, but there was nothing but oily pavement and Coker’s cab, fading to a pinpoint under the faulty streetlamp.

3. I’ll Retire When I’m Dead
	Doyle reached into his pocket for the eighth time in the last hour and a half, and for the eighth time he remembered that he had quit smoking two weeks ago. Nothing like a ream of paperwork to bring on the craving for the soothing effects of a cancer stick. Doyle hated forms, of course. Having just gone cold turkey he hated everything, including Hannigan, a cop he’d known for years, the cop who now sat across from him on the other side of the desk, the cop who’d given him the god-awful forms in the first place.
	Hannigan used to be famous for saying “I’ll retire when I’m dead.” That was before he’d taken a .38-caliber bullet to the temple. Now he was famous for being the first of a series of cops brought back from the dead to work desk jobs, file documents and other mechanic tasks. The government began practicing necromancy when they realized zombies didn’t require health insurance or pay. Still, only a truly devoted cop, with the highest sense of justice would sign up to be an undead paper pusher who allowed more living men to get on the street and out from behind a desk.
	Hannigan had been overweight, and now that he was dead his fat sagged and drooped in odd, unsettling ways, like a trash bag filled with too much pudding. His dim blue eyes were glazed over but his cheerful smile was still eerily present. All the cops who’d been brought back had something like that, something reminiscent of whom they used to be hanging about.
	Doyle made a mental note to get the proper paper work done to ensure his coffin stayed locked and buried after he kicked the bucket.
	“Hey Hannigan,” Doyle said, trying to sound as chummy as possible. “Any way we could make all this paper go away and you just give me the traffic tapes?”
	Hannigan continued his zombie gaze into nothingness “All paper work must be filled out in triplicate unless I receive direct orders from the chief to do otherwise.”
	“What if they were direct orders from the president?” Doyle asked as he slid a small stack of dollar bills across the desk towards Hannigan.
	Hannigan kept his gaze straight ahead “All paper work must be filled out in triplicate unless I receive direct orders from the chief to do otherwise.”
	It was like talking to a parrot that only knew one phrase.
 	Doyle returned the dollars back into his wallet next to his Blockbuster card. He was still on the first form, at this rate it could take days to get done, weeks. Hours would go by and he would still be on the first form, reading disclaimers and signing waivers. It was tiresome, frustrating and no matter what Doyle asked Hannigan his answer was the same.
 	“Do I really need to do all this?”
 	 “All paper work must be filled out in triplicate unless I receive direct orders from the chief to do otherwise.”
 	“Am I just supposed to initial here or put my full name?”
 	“All paper work must be filled out in triplicate unless I receive direct orders from the chief to do otherwise.”
 	“Can I set fire to your desk?”
 	“All paper work must be filled out in triplicate unless I receive direct orders from the chief to do otherwise.”
 	 Doyle could see days off, vacations, holidays disappearing under a massive pile of paper work. In a fit of nicotine-withdrawal fueled frustration Doyle seized the mighty stack of forms and slammed it down in front of Hannigan. “That’s it, I’m done with this,” Doyle said, the fury in his voice going unmasked. He was all set to call up Esme and get her to do the bloody paper work when Hannigan took the forms and filed them away. From a dark, towering filing cabinet the pudgy, dead policemen retrieved two VHS tapes and handed them to Doyle.
 	“Thank you for being patient. Have a nice day.”
Doyle swore. His luck had been going down hill ever since he went smokeless. One of the traffic cameras had broken, giving a fantastic view of nothing useful. He removed the tape and stuck the second into the VCR/ TV combination he’d scared up. The camera pivoted from right to left. After a minute or two, in the left hand corner, the very tip of the taxicab appeared, that was all, just the tip of the hood, nothing more. 
 	Esme walked into the room, still trying to get the last faint traces of sleep from her eyes without success. It was early and Doyle was cursing, his hands searching pockets for a smoke. He was about to eject the tape when someone ran across the screen, a short guy with a vermilion mohawk. The mohawked man stopped and waved at the taxi, before dashing across and into a block of apartments. “Kane Krueger,” Esme muttered. “We’re going to need a troll.”

4. Kane and Natasha
	It came as something of a surprise to Doyle and Crowley that the traffic camera tapes showed Kane Krueger crossing the street where Robert Coker caught it, bare minutes before the murder occurred. 		
As for the bite marks, a call to the Office of Undead Policy turned up Natasha Segovia, registered vampire and a name on Coker’s list.
	Doyle and Crowley sat with their hands folded on the cherry oak desk in front of them. It was Esme’s desk, but Doyle seemed content to make himself at home there whenever he pleased.
	“The question now is,” Crowley broke the silence, “who do we bring in first?”
	“Can’t you see I’m thinking? That’s exactly what you should be doing right now,” Doyle answered.
	“How are we ever going to keep on working together if you always misinterpret everything that I say or do? I’m surprised we’ve even lasted this long,” Esme` said.
	By this long, Esme` meant five years. She moved to New York to join the force just after majoring in Criminal Justice from the University of Southern California. The chief automatically partnered her up with Rick, since his last partner had quit the force in the throes of a nervous breakdown, that rumor said had been brought on by Doyle. Esme was lucky that way.
But the chief didn’t care how they got along, as long as they closed their cases. Their pleas for reassignment fell on deaf ears, and eventually he had to threaten both with unpaid suspension if they wouldn’t shut up and do their jobs.
Esme still believed that Rick felt an invasion of his space whenever she came near. Obviously, he wasn’t adjusting well to having a female partner. He had been going at her from the very first day they’d been introduced and Esme never tried to let it get to her, but of course, always spoke her mind. 
	Doyle let out a big sigh, going back to his thinking position on the desk. There wasn’t a day that went by that Esme didn’t bitch him out about something. As much as Doyle hated it, he had to be impressed. Esme was one tough woman, and she never backed off of him when she knew he was wrong. This was more than Doyle liked to admit, even to himself. “I’m thinking we should bring Krueger in first,” he said aloud, “I mean, at least we have a physical image of him at the crime scene, minutes before it happened.”
	“I was already thinking the same thing, but it seems to me that Natasha poses more of a danger than Kane,” Esme said.
	“Well, let’s look at the facts. What do we really know here? We’ve been to the crime scene, examined the clues left behind by whoever did do the crime, and reviewed the tapes. So far we know that it was Krueger we saw walking up and down the street before Coker caught it, but we’ve also seen two small puncture holes left on Robbie Coker’s neck. That makes it look like vampire work. Plus, of course, the smell of magefire. So what is it, a conspiracy, cabal, or cover-up? We found a list of names, whatever that has to do with it, and a fuckin shitload of contraband in the trunk. But as far as solid evidence, we have nothing to go off but the pictures of Kane on the traffic tapes. The marks left on the victim’s neck could be from Natasha, but we don’t have any proof. No physical evidence to go off of there.” Doyle stopped, surprised at himself. 
Esme noticed.	“You have a point on the facts—for once. But what do you mean no physical evidence? We both have seen enough vampire dental impressions to clearly tell that’s what those marks are on Coker’s neck—what else could they be?”
	“Let’s see, how about puncture marks from a needle or a writing utensil for example. Couldn’t that work?”
“Yes,” said Esme with a straight face. “Coker had overdue books at the city library and was stabbed to death by an enraged, pencil-wielding librarian.”
“You’re funny,” Doyle told her. “What I mean is, let’s bring Krueger in first since we’ve already seen his face and it’s pretty evident that he had something to do with this. I don’t know what the illegal items were going to be used for, but this is a start. What’s the worst that could happen? Kane ends up being an innocent suspect and we have to start all over again? No, because that’s where we would go ahead and bring your suspect in for questioning. Someone has to lead us to something.” 
	“Impressive train of logic there, partner.” Esme stretched, neck popping. The night had been too long, and the cots in the break room were hard. “I thought about needle marks too Rick, but these look a little bigger to me. I think they’re bite marks, and if they are, then Natasha is our number one suspect. And who knows what she might do next?” 
“Geez, woman, it’s a constant struggle with you isn’t it? I’ll tell you what, you do what I want this one time and I’ll promise to hear you out more often,” Doyle proposed.
“Oh please. You should know I’m not going to fall for that one again,” she replied.
The last time she’d heard “that one” was when they were working undercover, waiting for an armed robber to come out of a local convenience store. The guy was taking forever to exit the small building and Rick happened to spot a strip joint across the street. Being the pervert that he is, Doyle wanted to abandon Esme` and leave her to attend to the robber while he happily jacked off in the dance club. 
“I know what you’re thinking, and I was not going into that club for pleasure,” Doyle said. “I saw one of my Vice buddies and I was going to…say hello.”
“Fine,” Esme yawned. “The dwarf-wolf it is. Don’t blame me when he has nothing to do with this.”
“I knew I’d get my break one of these times.” Doyle saw Esme’s eyebrows beginning to scrunch together even more as her lips came to a snarl.
“What’s the address?”
“Don’t worry about that, I’ve got it.” 
Esme` was already beginning to get up and leave the room.
“Wait, wait a second,” Doyle called, “I don’t want to leave here on bad terms again, lord knows it will only make the rest of our shift even worse. Accept my apology?”
“First of all, what apology?” Esme snapped. 
“You know what? Forget it. Try to be nice and this is what I get…”
“The word ‘nice’ isn’t in your limited vocabulary, Doyle.”
He glared at her, looking more hurt than annoyed. “You are a cold bitch, you know that?”
“Alright, alright, apology accepted. Can we please go?”
	“Let’s go.” 

5. Ken Doll
	Doyle sat and tapped out a beat with his fingers on the van’s steering wheel as he listened to Esme’s Best of Queen CD. Say what you wanted about her personality, her taste in music was flawless.
	Esme went to get a troll while Doyle waited in the police motor pool. Trolls were the ultimate back-up, standard issue for apprehending violent non-human suspects.
	Esme rapped on the passenger window and Doyle unlocked the doors. The van’s shocks belted out a sharp sound of pain as Juris Petrauskas, all seven feet and four hundred pounds of him, stepped inside. According to Juris’s paperwork, he was just your regular half-troll who’d been imported from Lithuania to help deal with the increasing amount of mystically powered crooks. Juris, being half-human, was smarter than your average troll, and thus doubly useful.   He wore a classy pinstripe suit and didn’t say a word as they drove to Krueger’s residence.
 	Scant minutes later Esme and Doyle were patiently waiting as Juris pondered the best way to open the door to the two room apartment, had they been there a few hours early, they wouldn’t need Juris, but since sundown had been awhile ago, there was no telling what state Krueger was in. The moon was nearly full, after all.
	Juris decided to just break through the door, and the detectives followed him through the now-gaping hole. Esme came behind Juris, and Doyle brought up the rear, his .45 at the ready. The floor was coated in a thick layer of food wrappers, comic books, and dust bunnies that could devour a small child. An ugly black couch sagged in the corner, next to a nicked and stained coffee table with a TV and three bongs resting on its surface. The kitchen counters were lined with Tupperware containers with badly written runic labels and containers of old Chinese take out. Kane was living the American dream.
 	Since the kitchen and living room bled into each other, there was only one more room to check. Again Juris pondered how to open it, before deciding to rip it from its hinges. As Juris freed the door from the confinement of the wall, Kane, in full werewolf form, leapt out and ricocheted off the door, still in Juris’s hands, and out into the hall. Juris dropped the door and gave chase. 
 	Kane dashed down the hall like a greyhound on fire, as Juris slowly closed the gap between them with great, floor shaking steps. The two detectives had no chance of keeping up. Kane slid around a corner, his claws making deep gouges in the wooden floor, and bounded up a flight of stairs to the third floor. Juris bellowed for him to stop in Lithuanian, the stairs creaking under foot. When the troll reached the top of the flight, he saw Kane’s hind leg disappear into an open apartment a few doors down. Juris headed straight for him, crashing through the wall into a kitchen where a nice old couple sat eating soup. They stared in dismay as Juris plowed through the next wall, pipes and electrical wires snapping and breaking out of his way like he was smashing through a house of cards. 
	When he crashed through the last wall, the werewolf was waiting for him. Kane launched himself at the troll, forcing him back into the last apartment. The elderly tenants screamed, ran about flailing their arms and cursing as Juris struggled with Kane on the tiled kitchen floor. The werewolf tried with all his might to sink his teeth into the troll, but the troll kept one hand over Kane’s mouth like a makeshift muzzle, while trying to remove the heavy beast from his chest with his other hand. He flung his free hand against the miniature terror, again and again. In one last wild attempt, Juris hit Kane in the testicles, causing Kane to roll off Juris chest with painful howl. Even a shot to the dirty bits couldn’t keep the wolf down long. Kane coiled and readied himself to launch again. 
	Juris quickly grabbed a frying pan off the stove and swung like Babe Ruth, sending the wolf flying over the sink, through the window, and out into the open air above the street. Kane landed, unconscious, on the hood of a Lincoln Town Car, oblivious to the blaring of the car alarm. Esme and Doyle came panting through the hole in the wall.
	“Nice shot,” said Doyle, truly impressed. Esme looked at the puncture wound in Juris’s arm. Trolls were immune to lycanthropy, but he was still bleeding profusely.
	“Is nothing,” said Juris modestly as Esme wrapped a dishtowel around his injury.

 	The interrogation room back at the precinct was furnished in cold steel: the table, the chairs, the bars on the window and on the door. Doyle waited in the corner, the shadows enveloping him and the metallic mood of the room making him depressed. He’d never tell anyone, but he was a closet follower of feng shui and the flow here bothered him. Of course, Esme probably knew that too, and that was why she’d made him set up the tape recorder while she and Juris brought Kane.
	The troll, unable to make a silent entrance, burst through the door with the snarling Krueger in tow, like a big dumb child leading a misanthropic puppy. Krueger was between his dwarf and werewolf forms, making him, at 3' 4 (4'5 if you included his ears) the shortest werewolf in the precinct’s history. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in, because although Kane did a good job of staying in during curfew (or at least not getting caught) and renewing his tags, he did a terrible job of not dealing drugs.
 	As Juris chained Kane into his chair and removed the muzzle, Esme settled herself into one of the steel chairs with her yellow pad and nodded to Rick.
	Doyle produced a police force med-kit from his pocket, taking from it a hypodermic needle and a vial of purple liquid. As he filled the needle he looked down at the growling Kane and grinned. “This is going to hurt a whole helluva lot.” 
 	Howls of intense rage swiftly altered to screams of deep agony as Kane was forced to change from wolf to dwarf. His thick coat of hair fell off to reveal a tattooed playground of flesh—everything from skeletons to a naked fairy eating a dragon was displayed, punctuated by metal piercings and a formidable mohawk that sprouted up as the other hair fell away. His clothes had been ripped to shreds with the exception of his pair of tattered purple sweatpants. 
 	Changing back to his normal form, especially when someone forced the change by sticking him with a needle full of Wolf-Away, was the most painful thing Kane could imagine. First his organs shifted around, and it felt like thousands of tiny demonic Smurfs running through his insides while driving wheat threshers, or like every atom of his being was trying to vomit at the same time. He literally felt pain everywhere. Kane knew a guy in a chat room who said he got off on the feeling, but he couldn’t believe it.
	As the process continued, his claws retracted, feeling like rusty tacks being hammered back into fingernails, and not quick either. Slow. Chinese Finger Torture pain.
	Finally, his hair—most people thought it just fell off. It did, but with chunks of flesh attached. The skin keeps splitting and falling off until the second skin, the real skin, is all that remains. Stings, to say the least.
 	When the pain subsided enough to allow Kane’s eyes to focus and thoughts become cognizant, he saw Doyle looking at him, smiling like he just used the bathroom all by himself for the first time. Shit, thought Kane, he’s 5-0. Doyle was wearing a detective badge on his belt and holster with a gun that so huge that Kane concluded he must be built like a Ken doll between the legs. A troll stood in the corner, the muscle in case things went bad.
 	“This is a violation of my rights, Pig. I don’t remember anyone reading me my Goddamn rights.” Kane didn’t even bother trying to stand. He knew if this guy was worth shit, he’d was already shackled to the chair.
 	“Do you remember anything from when you are a dog?” Ken Doll asked, smooth n’ smarmy.
	Has me there, Kane thought. He said aloud, “After one of those nights all I can remember are little flashes and what I feel the next morning, feels like I got hit by a fucking car last night. The last thing I do remember is falling asleep watching old episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark. When I woke up I saw your ugly mug undressing me with your eyes.”
 	Ten years ago, Kane met a kid named Englund in his remedial high school art class for “fuck-ups and retards.” They sat in the back and talked about which Friday the 13th movie was the best and what comic books they read. One day Kane and Englund were dropping acid in Englund’s Chevy Nova, when Englund suddenly went berserk. His clothes ripped, his body grew, he wolfed in broad daylight, he lunged at Kane, and the next thing Kane could recount was waking up with a funny taste in his mouth and no shirt on.
	“Did you know a guy named Robbie Coker?”
 	Kane tried to think. Was he the guy who helped him sneak beer into that Zombie Movie Marathon? No, that guy was like, Jason Van-something. That guy who tried to sell Kane some “ecstasy” that was obviously Flintstones Chewable Vitamins? No, that guy didn’t have a name. 
 	“Did you know Robbie Coker?” Ken Doll was angry now.
 	 “No, I don’t know any guy with the name Robbie Fuckin Coker.” Kane made sure the contempt in his voice could be heard.
 	 “Esme, he says he doesn’t know any Robby Coker.”
 	“Funny, Kane.” The woman detective spoke for the first time. She smiled at Kane, not a bad smile either. Kane saw Ken Doll give her a sidelong look. 
	“He knew you,” Esme said. She nodded to Juris, who picked up a closed cardboard box and tossed the contents of the box on the table. Drugs, lots of drugs. Kane’s drugs.
 	“Who? This Coker guy?” He’d forgotten about the little episode in the street. “That shit isn’t mine.” Kane wasn’t good at lying. Most werewolves weren’t—it was some sort of genetic defect, in Kane’s opinion.
	“Were you giving Robby a good deal to smuggle this stuff for you?” Doyle asked.
 	 “That. Shit. Isn’t. Mine.” 
	Esme frowned. “Okay, we have nothing to hold you on so, you’re free to go.” Kane missed her silent communication with Doyle. Telepathy wasn’t one of his many talents.
 	Doyle played along. “What?” 
	“We have nothing. He says those aren’t his drugs and he doesn’t know any Coker. He’s kept up with his license renewal.” At that she paused and looked at the papers in the folder, Doyle reading over her shoulder. She looked back at the dwarf. “You know, Kane, you’re supposed to be getting your license renewed today by twelve noon. You’re in violation of the Lycanthropy License Act. I recommend the maximum jail sentence.” 	
	“Five years,” Doyle chimed in, filling Kane with a killing rage. “You also broke curfew last night, jumping out of that window.”
 	“Fuck you!” Kane screamed “I have no fucking control when I change! Did you expect fucking Lassie to be waiting for you?”
 	“Breaking curfew can get you another five years. Bet a dog could learn a lot of new tricks in prison.”
 	“Fuck it.” Kane decided he may as well start bargaining while he had chips left. “What do you want?”
 	Esme’s voice got soft, like she was going to share a secret with the angry dwarf or tell him what boy she was crushing on. “We want to know all we can about Robbie Coker and his murder.”
 	 “So I make up some shit about Robby and you let me walk?”
 	“If this was Monopoly, you’d still get $200 for passing go.”
 	“Even if those drugs were mine?” It sounded way too simple.
	“Even if you killed Jesus.” Esme smiled. Even if her power wasn’t strong enough to do much, she could still give a gentle nudge in the right direction. 
 	“I was walking back to my place after this kick ass concert at this little shit hole club called The Kerzinger. I had just been moshing to my favorite band, The Springwood Slashers. They fuckin’ kick ass. Any ways, I was still rollin’ on some X I’d taken and I see Robbie’s cab sitting at the light. I figure the fuckers there to drop off my shit. He knows I’ll fuck him up if he’s late with deliveries. Knew, I mean. 
	“So, I head up to my room to wait for him, after awhile, I swear I smell cheap whisky. I look out my window and Robbie’s lying there in the street burning like my moms cooking. I was too fuckin’ high to do anything but smile and eat a Puddin Pop.”
	“Well then, you did your part, didn’t you?” said Esme with the same smile. Kane smiled nervously back, not sure how to respond.
 	Doyle grinned as he watched Esme work. Why play good cop/bad cop when you could just play psychic cop. At her silent request, he motioned towards the troll. “Juris, will you take him to a holding cell now?”
 	If Kane could have, he would have jumped Doyle and cut out his voice box with a butter knife. “You bitch! You said I could walk.”
	“And you can,” said Esme. “All the way to a holding cell, you little junkie freak.”
	“You’ve got nothing!” Kane screeched, crashing against his bonds.
 	Doyle reached into the box and pulled out some Tupperware. He held it out in front of Kane’s nose “You know selling souls is illegal in this state.”
 	“I never knew souls looked like Tupperware.”
 	“Should we look inside?” Doyle began to push at the lid with his fingertips. You never let a soul out of its container, not unless you want to reenact the Arc of the Covenant scene from Indiana Jones. A soul is taken as a person dies, and keeping it from going to the happy hunting ground is like teasing a chained Rottweiler. 
 	“Don’t fucking open it, you dumbass! You want us all to die?” Kane yelled. “Look, I don’t know who killed Robbie, but there’s this creepy bitch he knew. He sold her blood, I think. She works at Starbucks or some coffee place, and her name’s Natasha. She’s like a succubus or something.”
	Doyle raised a vindicated eyebrow at Esme as Juris dragged Kane out of the room towards the cells, the little wolf using language that would make the cast of The Sopranos blush. 
	“Fucking Ken Doll!” was the last thing Kane screamed before Juris took him out of earshot.

6. Coker Cut-Up
When the body of Robbie Coker was brought to the medical examiner, Esme and Doyle were called to the autopsy bay. 
The ME’s team had a busy month, having just dealt with an entire team of vampire hunters who were ambushed and drained. Medical examiners hated dealing with vampire-related deaths. First they had to check for bites (many vampires stopped the biting on the neck these days, instead targeting less obvious, more concealed areas), then if bites were found, they would have to be burned away and the subjects staked in the heart. Part of procedure. The Coker autopsy was a lucky fit in. 
The head examiner’s name was Eggs Benedict. Nobody knew his real first name. Somebody saw him eating the breakfast dish in the cafeteria his first year assigned to the county and so eventually everyone around the office started to call him Eggs Benedict without bothering to know what his name was. Just like in high school. Eggs was just about ready to start the initial incision when the detectives showed up. 
“You here for the Coker cut-ups?” sniveled Eggs, peering up through his horn-rimmed glasses. 
Esme ignored his attempt at an icebreaker. “Are we on time?”
“You’re right on times!” he said. He was overly excited. But Eggs was three-quarters dwarf. They always get excited about shit, thought Doyle.
“Where do you want us, Eggs?” he asked.
“Uh, right over there,” he said pointing a side of the medical exam table opposite the one where he was standing. It took Esme a moment to realize he was standing on a footstool with a few telephone books on top of it. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and instructed his guests to do the same. 
He pulled a scalpel from a tool tray he kept on a small metal table beside the body. The tray had a sticker on it that said “Dwarves Do It in a Two-and-a-Half-Some”. He shouted “Start recordings!” to the ceiling, activating ceiling-mounted tape recorder. Making the initial cut he began confidently, like a deli worker, slicing away carefully at layers of sinew and tissue. “Take notes that the outer layer of skin looks to have been burned by magefire,” he called. It looked like he was addressing God.
“Any idea what type of magefire?” Esme asked.
“Powerful,” he answered. “In my experience with Magefire, we’ve started classifying it in letters ranging from A to E, A being your seven-year-old witch trying to light a candle, E being basically equal in strength to the fire that held off the armies and allowed the Jews to escape through the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments. What this is,” he said pointing to the open corpse beneath him, “is a medium grade thing. It’s from a fairly powerful source. The burns only have affected the surface of the skins. That’s a sign of well-controlled magic, there. I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of that.” 
“A mage powerful enough to control where the fire went.” Esme shuddered. “So who could have done this?”
 “Oh well, I’d have to say they’re a professional, if I had to guess,” Eggs said. His over-pluralization was the oddest speech impediment either of the detectives had ever heard, even from a dwarf.
Eggs hopped down off the telephone books and waddled his way over to a haphazardly arranged cluster of books on a nearby desk. He pulled an enormous, leather bound tome off the well-worn wooden surface and began thumbing through the 800 or so pages. “You’ll pardon my insistences on keeping my favorite desk down here, detectives,” he said with a chuckle. 
The desk was the only thing wooden, the only object with any soul or character in the whole room and it was fancy at that. Chinese dragon patterns were ornately carved into the sides and the whole thing was mahogany. It must have weighed close to a ton. 
Eggs then let out a bizarre squeal of delight at finding the right page. “This here,” he said pointing out the page to Doyle and Esme, “this is the exact same burns as your friend there. Now high-quality magefire leaves a pattern like this.” The burns on the victim in the book, like those on Robbie Coker, were a deep, dark, and very crisp shade of black. “The thing about magefire is that the striking kind of black charred color on the skins—like your victims here—speaks of the higher quality stuff. That’s when you get a stronger shades of blacks like this. They’re like fingerprints, really. Each individual burn tells about the person who cast and conjured it. This particular one tells me you’re dealing with quite a powerful sorcerer.”
Doyle added, “Or sorceress.”
“Are you sure?” asked Esme.
“Has to be,” said Eggs, “only a city dweller coulda done somethings like this. He even knew how to use this fire to make it look like it was done by someone else, someone with less power and expertise. The burns are in random places rather than in a concentrated area. But they’re of such high quality, it’s unlikely that anyone that skilled at practicing magic would have such bad…oh what’s a good word….aim.”
“Are you saying that this was staged?” Esme demanded, raising an eyebrow.
“Like a Chekov piece, Es,” said Doyle. Eggs put his hand up to his mouth like a kid in one of those lame commercials where the kid can’t believe what he just said. 
Doyle made flamboyant gestures to help his increasingly grandiose summation. “Our killer hit it and quit it. It’s a ruse. The drugs, the burns, it’s just to throw us off track.” He pointed to the burn marks on Robbie Coker’s body as his evidence. “Look at where these burns are. His chest, his upper torso. And yet, they didn’t take his wallet or burn his face and fingertips off to prevent ID. That were-dwarf Kane couldn’t have done this. I doubt he has the brains, and at his height?” 
Esme nodded. She had to give Rick credit there. “He would have to have been standing on a stool.” 
Eggs looked down at his own stool. “And as a rule, dwarves aren’t magically inclined. Not in our blood.”
Doyle’s voice bore every indication of full sureness. “You see? Burns did not kill this kid. They’re a fraud.”
“What about the bite marks?” Esme asked. 
“Not your regular vampire,” said Eggs. Doyle and Esme exchanged glances. Neither investigator had ever been to an autopsy quite like this one before. It was tantamount to one of those late night freak fests that had become so popular in the city, where groups of the city’s most amusing citizens, from all persuasions of bloodline and deformity would get together and have a kind of high-class Gothic ball, the centerpiece of which was usually the feasting of some form of human. Coker looked as if he was a victim of that. 
“There are a few discrepancies here,” Eggs said. “I swabbed for DNA and there is no saliva around the bite area.”
“So?” said Doyle.
“So,” said Eggs, “there should be some. Also, real vampires are not Bela Lugosi, detectives. Their real bites are not neat, perfect, little rounded punctures. They do not both look the same, nor are they clean and flat. Vampires are not distinguished, socialite opera fanatics who go around seducing rich young vixens with cheesy Eurotrash accents. They are vile scum who when feasting, rip the flesh of the necks off their prey. And they drools.” Rick and Esme had heard this much before. It was part of their training on non-human entities at the academy. 
“So can we close the file on Kane, Rick?”
“I doubt it,” said Doyle. Eggs watched from below, amused by any tension between anyone. “The purebloods need their murderer to be some kind of freak.”
“Don’t you think that’s a cynical attitude?” asked Esme.
Doyle grinned devilishly at her. “You’ll see.” 

 

7. Inside the Walls
	The guard at the gate squinted at Rick through oversized sunglasses. “Help you?”
	Rick flashed his shield. “Detective Doyle, homicide.” 
	Esme cleared her throat loudly. Rick sighed. “And Detective Crowley from the MPA division.”
	“You’re not on the list,” the guard rumbled. 
	Rick shoved the badge closer to the guard’s doughy face. “Here’s my invitation, sunshine. Open up.”
	The guard muttered something and turned to the phone in his booth. “You’ll have to wait just a minute.”
	“This is bullshit,” Rick declared.
	“Just be patient,” said Esme. “He’s only doing his job.”
	“Yeah, well, I’m going to put my foot in his ass, he doesn’t do it a little faster.”
	Esme shook her head and looked out her window at Heavenly Hills, an all-pureblood housing development on the city’s outskirts. “It’s pretty here. Guess that’s a bonus of being a privileged minority.”
	“Who are you here to see, Detectives?” asked the guard, holding his hand over the phone speaker.
	“We’re investigating the Robert Coker murder,” said Rick. “Records have his address inside the walls here.”
	The guard’s mouth twitched once. “Damn shame. Took you two long enough to get here.”
	“Look, pal…” said Rick, his face reddening.
	“Thank you,” said Esme, clamping her hand on Rick’s shoulder to keep him in the car. “Thank you very much.”
	“No problem,” said the guard, saccharine smile only making Rick’s blood pressure shoot higher.
	The gate swung open and he pressed his foot hard on the accelerator. The tires screeched.
	“You’re a case for impulse control counseling if I’ve ever seen one,” muttered Esme.
	“Like you would have done different.”
	“Yes, actually. I control my emotions and maintain professionalism.”
	“What the fuck ever, sweetie. You and I both know you would have nailed that smug bastard to a wall if you got the chance.”
	Esme shook her head. “Believe what you want, Rick.”
	“Thanks, Esme. I will.”
	Robbie Coker’s house was a beige rambler with a dead lawn the same shade as the paint. A small red hatchback was parked in the driveway, and someone had attempted to spruce up the premises with potted geraniums by the front door. They were dead and black.
	Rick got out and locked the car, shivering once, as he looked up and down the street, identical houses in different colors.
	“Look at this place. Like a fuckin’ film set.”
	“Just so long as it’s not that movie where they kill you when you turn thirty,” said Esme, going up the walk. Doyle followed her, muttering something about the neighborhood being spooky.
	Esme silently agreed that it was, although not because of the indistinguishable dwellings and the silence granted by the high wall around the entire community. “It’s quiet,” she said, pressing the doorbell.
	“Shit yeah, Captain Obvious,” said Rick. “There’s nobody here to make any noise.”
	“No, I mean the airwaves,” said Esme. ‘Airwaves’ was the term her Psychic Detection instructor had used at the academy, and it had stuck. “There’s no activity here, no energy surges…like someone turned off the breaker.”
	“What d’you expect from a gang of purebloods?” demanded Rick, pounding on the door. “Open up! Police!”
	“Hold your horses, man!” a voice shouted from inside. “Lemme get some clothes on.” 
	The door opened to reveal an unshaven man in boxers and a bathrobe tied with a mismatched cord. “Hey,” he said. “You guys cops?”
	“Bright lad,” said Esme. 
	Doyle waved his badge. “We’re investigating the death of Robert Coker. You his roommate?”
	“Yeah, man,” the guy said. “About time someone showed up. And you better not do some bullshit cursory inquiry, either. Everyone thinks you can just sweep purebloods under the rug. We’re the black sheep of the establishment, man…”
	“Shut the fuck up, you little commie stoner,” Rick snapped. “We ask questions. You give short, concise responses. Capiece?”
	“There’s no call to get hostile, you know.”
	“What’s your name?” asked Esme. 
	“Randy. Randy Winters.”
	“Can we talk inside, Randy?” Esme said, feeling eyes on her back. She turned to see an older woman glaring at her from the house across the street.
	“Yeah. But make a note I’m just inviting you in. I don’t give any rights to search the place, or question me without a lawyer, or—“
	“Thanks,” said Rick, pushing him back and stepping inside. Esme shut the door behind them.
	“What did you know about Robbie?” she began.
	“He was my roommate,” said Randy. “He paid his rent on time, spotted me when I was out of a job. Man of the people, you know? Cab driver.”
	“We know,” said Rick. “Did you also know that he was a member of the Thieves Guild?”
	“The Thieves Guild gives back to the people,” said Randy authoritatively. “You’re just against the blue-collar man, is all.”
	“Randy,” said Esme, meeting his bleary eyes. “Robbie was a Courier. He dealt drugs to the blue-collar man. He was not goddamn Robin Hood. I know you think you’re doing him a favor by sticking it to the cops, but you’re not. Tell us what you know. It will help us catch the person who burned him over sixty percent of his body and left him to die on the street.”
	Randy swallowed. “Cops that came by didn’t tell me that.”
	“You knew what he did?” said Rick. “That he was a criminal?”
	“Robbie was into a lot of weird shit,” said Randy quietly. “I didn’t ask about it. Figured it was safer.”
	“Did you ever notice a tattoo on his neck?” said Esme. 
	“Sure. He said it was from when he was in high school. Rebelling against parental authority and all that.”
	“It meant that he dealt with contraband magical artifacts,” said Esme. “Did he ever stash anything from his courier route here?”
	“Hell no,” said Randy. “Robbie lived in that cab. He was barely ever here except on his day off, and even then, he’d go out clubbing.”
	“He ever mention any names? Friends, contacts?” said Rick.
	“Kane Krueger. They’d get high together sometimes,” said Randy. “I only met him once. He was a scary little dude.”
	“Breaking Guild law…” murmured Esme. Rick glanced at her.
	“Huh?”
	“It’s against Guild law for members to socialize with buyers,” said Esme. “That may have had something to do with his death.
	“Hey,” said Randy nervously, “those Guild bastards aren’t gonna like, knock on the door and break my kneecaps, are they? I mean, I wasn’t mixed up in Robbie’s life. I was just the roommate…”
	“I seriously doubt it,” said Esme. She took her business card out of her wallet and handed it over. “If you remember anything else, give us a call.”
	“Yeah, sure,” said Randy, laughing humorlessly. “I’ll phone up Big Brother just like a good little citizen.”
	“You little shit,” said Rick. “I don’t put my life on the line to be preached at by some pothead who doesn’t even know what day it is.”
	“Rick, be quiet,” said Esme. “Let’s go.”
	“One more thing,” said Rick, closing in on Randy, who swallowed and backed up a step. “Something was stolen out of Robbie’s trunk—whatever he was murdered for. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Randy?”
	“No,” said Randy. “I already told you…”
	“Are you a mage, Randy?” asked Esme. 
	“Shit no!” he exclaimed. “I’m a pureblood! You wouldn’t catch me within ten feet of those magical freaks of nature. They’re genetic defects, you know.”
	“Yeah,” said Rick with a smirk. “That’s real enlightened there, Randy. Real liberal.” He patted the younger man’s face. “You have a nice day.”
	“Thank you for your time,” said Esme, following Rick outside.
	“Asshole,” Doyle said as soon as the door shut.
	“I concur,” said Esme, heading for the car. “But not a guilty asshole.”
	“So we’re still stuck in first, with no leads. Brilliant.” Rick ran his hands over his face. “I need a smoke.”
	Esme’s cell phone rang. She listened and hung up, turning to Rick. “That was Juris. Patrol just brought in Jenny Threadstone for questioning.”
	“The way this day has been going, that’s actually good news,” Rick muttered. “Ain’t that fuckin’ sad.”
	“A little,” said Esme with a small smile. “Just a little.”
	Rick started the car and drove back towards downtown.

8. Two Coppers and a Mage
	Juris Petrauskas gazed up at the Threadstone Building, a pure-black edifice that gleamed in the weak afternoon sunlight.
	The lobby was done in shades of black and silver, right down to the security guard at the imposing carved desk. He smiled at Juris, and the troll noticed the man’s eyes were pure silver.
	A revenant—a specter taken form that could snatch the soul right out of anyone who got rowdy.
	“Police,” Juris said. “Ms. Threadstone.” He had meant to add more words to the sentence, but ghosts always made him nervous. 
	“Of course,” said the revenant in a whispery voice made of shrouds and coffins. “Please take the center elevator to the top floor.”
	Juris jerked his head and the two patrol officers followed him into the elevator. 
	It opened into a large office, old and replete with bookshelves lining the walls and a huge desk in the center, made of blackest mahogany and supported by gargoyles that were a bit too lifelike for Juris’s taste.
	“Good afternoon, officer,” said the young woman sitting in the chair. At first glance she was nothing special—long black hair pulled into a simple ponytail and dark blue eyes, the color of a winter ocean. Her face was too angular to be beautiful and too intense to be ugly. A face capable of great wrongdoing, Juris decided.
	“Hello,” he said. “We have come to request that you come to station for questioning.”
	“What about?” she said, leaning forward. “I swear, if it’s another bloody complaint from the MPA…”
	There was a large portrait behind her of an older man with a hawkish nose and the same glowing deep-blue eyes. The portrait and Jenny wore similar expressions of contempt.
	“Is about murder,” said Juris. “We ask that you come freely, but we will arrest if needed, ja.”
	“Oh bloody hell!” Jenny swore. “It’s Doyle, isn’t it? That slimy little Irish sod!”
	Startled by her outburst, Juris managed a quite “Ja.”
	“Fine!” Jenny shouted. “But if this turns out to be some bullshit complaint, I’m having your badge!”
	“Is okay,” said Juris, trying to calm her. He helped her on with her black wool coat and earned a look that would linger in his nightmares for the trouble. 
	With a toss of her head, Jenny went into the elevator ahead of Juris and the officers, as if it was natural they should follow her. Juris looked at the big portrait again and sincerely hoped that the man in it wasn’t the one to come bail Jenny out. She was frightening enough on her own.

“So why did you kill him?”
Jenny stared into Rick’s bloodshot eyes. “Didn’t,” she said. “You’ve got the wrong bird, Ricky.”
Rick’s face twisted up like a wet tissue, and it was obvious to Jenny he wanted to lunge for her. He looked at Juris instead and sighed, yanking at the abused knot in his tie.
“I know it was you, Threadstone. We have you dead to rights.”
“You mean you think it was me, Doyle. You want it to be me, and you hope it was me, but you don’t know.” Doyle could tell that if Jenny hadn’t been handcuffed, she would have crossed her arms smugly. In a lot of ways she reminded him of Esme.
“Help yourself out, Jenny. Tell us why you did it.”
“It’s ‘Jenny’ now, is it? Didn’t know we were on such civil terms, Detective.”
“We aren’t,” Doyle said curtly. 
“Oh, good. I was beginning to be worried.”
“Be as smart as you want, Jenny, but you aren’t wiggling out of this.” He opened the interrogation room door. “I’ll be back. You think about what I said.”
“I’m counting the seconds, darling,” Jenny spat.
Esme got the nod from Doyle and pushed open the door. Unfortunately, Jenny wasn’t as dumb as Kane Krueger. Magicians were always the hardest to crack. “Ms. Threadstone?” she said, not pausing for an affirmative. “My name is Esme Crowley. The law requires me to tell you I am a licensed psychic and have agreed to respect any mental blocks you may have in place. Come with me, please. Juris, help Ms. Threadstone.” 
Juris took Jenny’s right arm in what to him was a gentle grip and propelled her out of the interrogation room. “Letting me go?” Jenny asked.
“No such luck,” said Esme. “We need you to ID the victim.”
“You’re MPA, aren’t you?” said Jenny. “Mystical & Paranormal Affairs?”
“Yes,” said Crowley. “And I know who you are, Ms. Threadstone, so there’s no use in trying to scare me with your reputation. This way.” Crowley guided Jenny through swinging double doors. She saw the younger woman wince at the scent of bleach and death that exuded from the space beyond. “Do you need a mask?” Esme asked, doing her best to be sympathetic. Being the good cop was a pain in the ass sometimes.
“No,” Jenny muttered, trying not to breathe through her nose. 
“She’s used to dealing with dead flesh. Aren’t you, Jenny?” Doyle hunched by an observation window with its curtains pulled. 
“Rick,” said Crowley in a warning tone.
“What?” he asked irritably. “I’d think anyone with Jenny’s talents would be proud of her profession, don’t you?”
“Piss off,” Jenny told Doyle. Doyle kept glaring. “He’s right, in a way,” Jenny spoke to Esme. “I am proud of my profession. Never much good at necromancy, though. That was my father’s area. Used to be a saying—Albert Threadstone could make the dead get up and do a dance, forwards, sideways and backwards. Always disappointed Da that I never picked up the knack for it.”
“That’s nice,” said Esme. She pressed an intercom button. “Dr. Benedict, we’re ready.”
The body was naked, sheet folded to the waist. 
Jenny tried hard not to let the shock show. She was nearly positive she hadn’t. It wasn’t enough. She felt the brush of Crowley’s mind against her own, like a knock of elbows in passing. Fishing for guilt.
“Ms. Threadstone? Do you recognize the deceased?”
Jenny swallowed. All her bravado had melted, and she was pale.
“Yes.”
“Care to expand on that?” said Esme. She almost felt sorry for the Englishwoman—almost. Esme reminded herself Jenny may have been young and vulnerable, but she was the most dangerous mage in the city, and a potential murderer.
“It’s Robbie Coker.” Jenny suddenly understood the look of wary triumph Doyle was sporting in the interrogation.
In his mind, he did have her dead to rights. 
“Still don’t wanna talk to us, Jenny?” Doyle said.
“Ms. Threadstone,” said Esme, “it really would be in your best interests…”
“I’ll talk,” Jenny said quietly.
Doyle nearly did a double take, but restrained himself.
“Back to Room 2, Juris,” he said, mouthing “nice work” to Esme. She ignored him. It wasn’t technically illegal to scan surface thoughts of suspects, but using shock tactics like this on anyone always made her feel vaguely dirty.
Eggs covered Robbie Coker’s face with a sheet again, making him just another white lump on a cart, surrounded by similar ones. 
Back in interrogation, Doyle pulled up a chair, straddling it backwards. “Talk, Threadstone.” 
Juris had taken leave, but with Jenny in witch-irons, the magical handcuffs made of pure cold iron that kept magic-users from focusing spells, Doyle figured he’d be safe enough.
“How’s your back?” Jenny asked with a smirk. Doyle felt red-hot rage instantly shoot through him and he gripped the back of the chair hard. He didn’t need another excessive force complaint on his record.
“You little bitch…” he growled.
“Come on, Doyle. You asked for it when you left my father uncuffed and turned your back on him. Yes, let’s get nice, docile Mr. Threadstone a cup of coffee. But cheer up—I’m told they do amazing things with skin grafts.”
Jenny could tell Doyle wanted to hit her. Hard and repeatedly. To his credit, he just stood and paced the room once before turning back on her.
“You’d better cut the shit, Jenny. My partner is out there right now calling the DA to formally charge you with murder one. You want to bargain, now’s the time.” He sat down again, shoulders tight, and pulled a flask from his pocket.
Jenny remembered Robbie Coker’s face and shivered. “If I’m going to tell you this properly, I have to start at the beginning…”

“Robbie Coker may have been innocent once, but by the time I met him he was far from it. Drugs and booze, probably, nothing terribly interesting.” Jenny attempted to shift her position in the metal chair and failed. “Personally, I think he was just crazy. You’d have to be a bit barmy to be in his line of work and—well, be ill equipped to defend yourself, shall we say. Purebloods are a snack for some of the people he dealt with.”
“True,” said Crowley, leaning over to check that the tape is spooling correctly. “I know cops that won’t go near the neighborhood where we found him.”
“I know drug dealers who won’t go near it,” Jenny said. 
“But Coker wasn’t one of them?” asked Doyle. The mage nodded.
“I never used him for that, but I’d guess he had an extensive clientele. His stuff was always top-notch, very pure.” 
Doyle cocked his eyebrow. 
“Not that I’d know anything about that,” Jenny added hastily.
“We found your amulet,” Crowley said. “Would you like to explain what you want with a genuine Valefor summoner?”
“Coker was your supplier for illegal magical supplies?” Doyle asked. Jenny was unfazed by their one-two punch.
“Robbie got me things that are difficult to obtain through normal channels, due to this city’s barbaric and paranoid anti-magic laws, yes.”
“Let’s not get sidetracked,” said Esme. “Did you kill him?”
“Are you the bad cop now?” Jenny inquired sweetly. “If so, someone should clue in Detective Doyle.”
“Cut the shit,” Doyle snaps, again. “Why did you kill him?”
“Doyle, for the last bloody time, it wasn’t me.”
“Then explain the burns,” Esme said. “The magefire burns that are covering sixty percent of Coker’s body. I’ve met up with a lot of wanna-be black magicians in my time, Jenny. A lot of posers and losers who think that summoning an imp or too makes them a hot ticket. But power—real power—is something else. I’ve only met one or two other magicians who could do that much damage.”
“Maybe it was one of them,” Jenny suggested.
“I doubt it. They’re both on the department payroll,” said Esme. 
“How bloody convenient.” 
“Just admit it!” Doyle shouted. “Coker screwed you; you got hacked off and fried him. What your old man would have done, for sure.”
“Well, Rick, it would be awfully hard for him to screw me, since he hadn’t even delivered the sodding amulet when he was killed. Unless you think I’m like your partner. Which I’m not. Telepathy spell would be bloody useful, though. Should look into that when I get released.” 
“There was an item missing from the trunk. Don’t suppose it was yours?” Doyle asked.
“I have no idea what was in Robbie’s boot, Doyle.”
“Your name is on that list,” said Esme. “And right now, you’re looking pretty good as a suspect, so I suggest you quit jerking us around and tell us the truth.”
Jenny sighed. “I meet—met Robbie in a little pub called The Newcastle downtown. He was late. I left. Figured I’d think up something nasty to do to him later.”
Crowley and Doyle exchange glances. “Late?” Doyle asked. “Had he been late before?”
“Not usually. You couldn’t set your watch by him, but he was reliable. I’m not a violent sort, but he had at least one customer who would rip him a few new orifices if he didn’t show.”
“Who?” Esme asked, leaning forward. 
“Short little nancy by the name of Krueger. Werewolf, I think. Coker gave him my name once, a long while ago. Tracked me down and gave me some spiel about selling souls on the internet. Wanted me to open a hole in the veil so he could add to his ‘collection.’”
“What did you do?” said Esme.
“I told him to go take a flea bath.”
Esme’s mouth twitched. Under different circumstances, she and Jenny would have probably gotten along. “I think that will be all for now,” she said, standing. “You coming, Rick?”
“I got a few more questions,” Doyle muttered. 
“Play nice, you two,” Esme warned before walking out. Doyle scooted his chair closer to Jenny.
“Know something, Jenny? We talked to Krueger.”
“Yeah?” She stared him in the eye and Doyle felt a shiver down his back. He shook it off.
“Yeah. He fingered someone else.”
“Pity. Guess that makes me innocent.”
“Hardly,” said Doyle, turning off the tape. 
“Free of you, finally,” Jenny said.
“Not quite,” said Rick, leaning in so his skinny, broken nose was less than an inch from hers. She recoiled at his whisky breath. “I’m going to stick you for this, Threadstone,” he whispered. “You feel those irons, draining your power? Sapping all that potential down to nothin’?”
“I noticed,” she said quietly, returning his glare.
“Well get used to ‘em, sweetheart, because when I’m through you’ll be wearing a pair for the rest of your natural life.”
“Doyle, don’t take out the fact that you’re an impotent idiot on me. I’ve had a long bloody night and I may do something unladylike.”
After three court-ordered anger-management seminars, Rick knew all the warning signs. The shortness of breath, the tunnel vision, the overpowering urge to lash out. He slapped Jenny anyway, hard across the face.
“You’re not gonna do a fucking thing to me, Threadstone,” he snarled. “You screwed the pooch and I was there to catch you. You’re mine.”
Jenny shook her head once. “You do that to all your women friends, Doyle?”
“Just you.”
 “Then don’t I feel special? As to your ‘case’, there isn’t one. Now how about releasing me for lack of evidence?”
“Not this time,” Rick told her. His hand stung. “You can just stay and cool your cute little heels for the full seventy-two hours. Suspicion of illegal magic use.”
“You have got to be joking!” Jenny shouted.
“Threadstone, you see me laughin’?”
Jenny didn’t, and Doyle still wasn’t laughing when he walked out and left her cuffed to the hard, cold steel chair. 

9. Fortune Cookies at Bruncheon
Rick slid his lanky frame into the narrow booth. Contorting his body into twisted shapes was not the way to start a lunch. He preferred tables to booths for precisely this reason. 
Esme sat across from him with her manila file on the suspects and evidence in the case, drinking tea and finishing her wonton soup. 
Doyle was not in the friendliest of moods. He had no desire to be chatting with his partner over egg foo young like they were friends who enjoyed spending quality time together. He was just so hungry that when she had suggested lunch, her treat, it had seemed like a good idea. Get on the partner’s better side, he thought. She’ll be easier to take during this case that way. Be a pal. Plus, it was a free hot meal. 
	Doyle was not the type of cop to feed himself well. He came home to a peeling one-bedroom duplex every night stinking of cigarettes and mouthwash and checked his fridge for the magical delights it had to offer. In other words, the numbers of each of the places from which he ordered delivery on the door. He didn’t want to know the contents of his fridge. Monday, Chinese. Tuesday, a pizza. Wednesday was drive thru day on the way home from the precinct. Thursday was fried chicken delivery night. Doyle loved fried chicken. Friday, the great belt loosener: ribs. Saturdays were always something exotic for pick up: Thai, Indian, Mexican or Greek. Sundays were a wild card. Submarine sandwiches, teriyaki, Italian sausage and peppers, fish and chips, whatever Rick felt like that day. His place was always buried in food packaging. 
Sitting, watching Esme pour herself another cup of tea, it occurred to him that seventy percent of his income must be spent on food. The woman who had once shared his life used to cook for him. She had been an expert in three cuisines, and she would whip up anything Doyle wanted after a hard day’s work. French, Italian or Spanish. She had left him about the same time his old partner went bonkers.
On his own, Doyle had mastered three cuisines himself: canned, frozen and take out. 
	Esme poured her green tea, which was darker and thicker than most Chinese restaurants sold, the kind used in tea ceremonies. She liked it that way. Most American teas were basically flavored water. But good Asian tea, true tea made her feel rested and relaxed. She took great care in the pouring. Growing up in her peaceful California farming town, her parents always encouraged her to savor something like the pouring of tea. She found pleasure in the doing of simple tasks. Anywhere she was off duty was a place of gentleness and patience. Working with Doyle certainly threw off that balance. Still, she had decided a long time ago to treat Doyle’s outbursts, his behavior, his attitude, his way of working and everything else she hated about him as an obstacle in her path. In another life, she might have been a fine monk. Rick Doyle is merely a challenge and test of my patience and my ability to make decisions, she repeated to herself. In that sense, she was kind of glad to have him as her partner on the case. 
	She tried to assure herself that wasn’t a load of crap. It sure sounded like it.
	“I’m starving,” Rick announced. 
	“I ordered for you already. Mongolian beef.” She didn’t look up from the dossier.
	“Fine,” said Doyle. “Is this a brunch?” 
	“Could be,” she said, still not looking up. 
“What is a brunch?” asked Doyle. Esme didn’t answer right away. She could feel Doyle’s nervousness go up a notch. He was wondering if she was angry with him.
	“I think it’s lunch for old people. Happens at eleven. Lotta fruit involved.” 
	Doyle forced a chuckle and then abruptly went silent. Was he really that uncomfortable in social situations? The life of the party and hero to the rookie officers can’t handle a one on one with his lady partner? He pursed his lip at the thought.	“Or maybe it’s a luncheon,” he muttered.
	“Maybe,” said Esme.
	“Except a luncheon is where people are invited, I think,” Doyle said. What a dumb thing to say. Who cares what defines a luncheon? Wait, why was he so concerned with what Esme thought?
	“I don’t trust that Threadstone woman any more than she can throw a spell,” Esme announced.	
“I don’t trust anyone we’ve met on this case so far, Es.”
	“Well, you don’t trust anyone to begin with, Rick.”
	“There’s a reason for that.” Doyle regretted speaking as soon as the words were out. Esme instantly perked up and looked him in the eye.
“Oh?” 
No use trying to hide it from her, Doyle knew. If she didn’t yank it out of his mind, she’d go read his file. “Rick?” said Esme expectantly.
“I’m not telling you this because I wanna share my feelings or some bullcrap like that,” said Doyle. “It’s because I know you’ll just yap until I do.”
“Fine,” said Esme. “What happened? No daddy at your birthday parties? Mother not hug you enough?”
“My fiancée left me for my old partner two weeks before our wedding.”
Esme blinked. “Rick, I…”
“Save it. Found out she’d been with him behind my back for almost a year. I went to his apartment, guess I was going to beat the shit out of him or something.”
“And?” Esme took a sip of her tea.
“The reverse happened,” said Rick, rubbing the bump on his nose. “Hit me in the face with his service revolver. I woke up later in the alley outside his building, dragged myself to the ER. He retired and married her and I’m still here.” Doyle grinned, but there was no humor in it. “Ruined my looks permanently. Ladies used to say I was a red-headed Robert Redford.”
“More like the mutant love child of Robert Redford and a young Clint Eastwood,” said Esme. “I’m sorry about that, Rick.”
“Fuck it,” said Rick. “It was a long time ago. We have more important things to talk about, like this freak parade of suspects.”
“I don’t trust them either,” said Esme.
“That’s ‘cause they can’t be. I knew that since before Moses wore short pants.” He sipped his tea. It was unexpectedly pleasing.
	“How much you want to bet Kane and that Threadstone are working together.”
	“Why?”
	“Well, think about it. She’s the brains, the talent with the magic. He’s the insider. He can make it happen.”
	“Es, you’re getting them confused. Remember motives, motives, motives. Why kill the messenger? They’re both involved sure, but for the same reason? Come on, Detective. The Joker is not the Riddler.”
	“I’ll tell you what else,” said Esme, sounding like she had a big secret. “Whatever was in that case in Coker’s trunk is definitely worse than drugs and amulets.”
	“Well obviously,” said Doyle. “Why else would the killer take only that? And why the fuck is our order taking so long?” It occurred to him that he was already growing sick of this case. 
	“That’s exactly my point,” Esme said putting her hands on the table. “It was so obviously a frame up, making it look like two perps. Whoever did this would know it didn’t look as convincing as it could have.”
	“What do you mean ‘it could have’? Is the killer trying to say something to us?”
	She cleared her throat. “I’m saying that considering how well those burns were done, the killer could have made them a lot more convincing looking to an investigator’s eye. But he chose not to.”
	“Why would ‘he’ do that?”
	“Obviously to make it look like there’s some kind of mastermind at work here. We know it’s most likely one person that did all that to Coker. So any witness we question now, we’ll think is lying and knows more than they’re telling us. We’re already thinking things are not what they seem and people know more than they choose to show us about this case. Am I right?”
	Doyle nodded. When Esme was right, she was always right. A waiter finally arrived with the plates.
“Okay, let’s assume this isn’t a random murder,” Doyle said with his mouth full of food. 
Esme leaned forward and lowered her voice. “If there is a mastermind type at work here, we’re going to be scattershot, thinking every witness is hiding the truth. How do we stay focused and find out who did this?”
	There was a pause while both detectives dug in to their meals. 
“I’m just going to have to find the right suspect and beat it out of him,” said Doyle.
“Rick!” Esme slammed her chopsticks down in frustration.
“It’s a joke! Jesus! Besides, every suspect is, in fact, hiding the truth. So one of them has to know it.”
	Esme sighed. “How’s your beef?”
	He made the level-handed so-so signal. “The sauce tastes like garlic and Lysol.”
	She laughed. “I hear the chef will change his shirt upon your request at this place,” she said.
	Doyle tried to guffaw with his mouth full but found it difficult not to spit his food out. “I gotta bring Juris here.”
	After the meal, Esme opened her fortune cookie and read it aloud. Normally she kept the fortune a secret from all those at the table, a practice fueled by a childhood belief that doing so would ensure it came true. Still she read, “Happiness spreads out from each person like a beam of light, and you are no different.”
	“That’s not a fortune, that’s a horoscope.” Doyle muttered, opening his cookie.
	“What’s yours say?”
	Doyle read his fortune. “I think someone’s playing a prank on me. It says ‘Join the Nintendo Fun Club Today!’”

10. A Little Knowledge Can Be a Dangerous Thing
	So far, Doyle reflected, the leads didn’t look too promising. They had a couple of good suspects—a drug-dealing dwarf with acute lycanthropy, and an irate black magician. Not bad, but not career-makers either. And no proof that either one killed the courier. Kane and Jenny didn’t break under questioning, and they still had a lot of evidence to sift through. These damn background checks, for instance. Natasha Segovia was next on their list, but Doyle knew in his gut she wouldn’t turn over any decent leads, either. Normally he liked to farm this work out. Let Esme or one of the junior detectives handle the grunt work. But not this time. He wanted to take a close look at everything—holy Christ in a chariot-driven sidecar!
	Doyle stopped and stared at the computer screen, jaw gaping. He read the fourth entry five times, making sure it said what he thought it said. 
Esme, perhaps sensing something amiss, stuck her head through his office door. “What is it?” she asked. “You look like someone just dropped a gallon of hot coffee on your crotch.”
	“Listen to this, Esme,” Rick said, a little distantly. “Fourth on the list. Cyrus Mackilwraith, born December 5th, 1927—”
	“So he’s an old bastard,” Esme cut him off. “Not too old to be a suspect.”
	“If you’d let me finish,” Doyle said. “Born December 5th, 1927. Died June 2nd, 1963 at Citadel Hill State Penitentiary. The electric chair. You know who this is, right?”
	“No, I don’t. It’s just a name on the list. But I’m sure you’ll tell me all about him.”
	Doyle leaned across the aisle, facing Esme. “Cyrus Mackilwraith was a serial killer. He’s the one that killed all those people around Hoyden Park in the late fifties. My granddad helped out on that case. He was the arresting officer, as a matter of fact. You think we’ve got a relative or something?”
	“That would be odd. Mackilwraith can’t be a very common name. Wait a second…Mackilwraith—isn’t he the one who skinned and ate his victims? I think I remember his case from the academy. But our victim doesn’t look like his work. You think it’s some wacko who wants to keep the legend alive?”
	“I’m not sure, but we’d better check it out. I’ll get the case files from downtown.”
	“You do that. I’ll take a look at the others.” Esme slid her chair over to his desk, and started scrolling through the data that flashed on the screen. “I’ll just make a copy of this so you can have your desk back.” She smiled at Doyle, who had moved back to preserve his personal space.
	While Doyle called the Archives downtown, Esme read through several pages of criminal background checks, credit reports, and medical history. Krueger and Segovia checked out. Or rather, they didn’t. Krueger had a list of petty collars going back to his juvenile records, which were sealed—in a very thick envelope. A werewolf also, but at least he was registered. And Segovia a vampire. Hell, all they needed was Frankenstein’s monster and they’d have the coveted triple threat. Maybe Mackilwraith would count—if he was, in fact, a formerly dead serial killer.
	The other three were no better. Bo Kellyfreeze, an actuary who should have lost his license years ago but instead boasted some very powerful clients and a firm in one of the best parts of the city. Indicted for one count of credit fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and two counts of forgery. And twice brought in for possession of cocaine. Esme noted Rick’s signature on one of the collars. 
Esme entered the next name. Beatrix Gillespie was a bio-engineer and college professor. Several ethics inquiries from the State University, where she was employed. Her application for a thaumaturgy license dated to nearly twenty years ago. She also had a permit to keep exotic animals within city limits. 
Jenny Threadstone had the worst record of all. Three prior arrests, two for illegal use of magic, one for possession of illegal artifacts, and one for assault with a deadly spell. None of the indictments had gotten a conviction. Three of the four arrest reports bore Rick’s name as the arresting officer. After Doyle got off the phone, Esme planned on asking him exactly what was up between him and the mage. The last thing she needed was a partner who was obsessed.

11. Manson Lamps and The Swiss
Visits to suspect’s employers were the thing Esme hated most about her job. Two visits were on the itinerary for today, the first to a local coffee shop, then the University. 
	Rick and Juris stood in the hall outside Doyle’s office having a laugh. Probably another one of Doyle’s lame anecdotes, thought Esme. Many around the station enjoyed Doyle’s rambling, sexually explicit, macho guy stories. He’d go on about prostitutes he’d busted and what kind of twisted shit they’d be doing when he’s busted them or about his involvement in the Vampire Nest Raids of ’98 and how many of those undead bastards he’d fried with the new sun lamps, which because of the raid were now standard issue for all vampire-related investigations.
	Juris stood there soaking it all up. His big, square teeth showed every time his chunky frame shook with laughter. “Is funny, ya!” he said. 
	“Are you guys about ready to go?” Esme said politely. For her, patience was the buzzword for the day. 
	“I don’t know. Who gives a shit?” cried Doyle. He and Juris busted out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
	“Ya. Who give a shit?” said Juris, capitalizing on Doyle’s irreverence. Esme rolled her eyes and smiled. Juris was so good-natured she couldn’t be angry with him.

	Raimi’s Coffee Shop was on the outskirts of the city, a long way from where Robbie Coker was murdered. Mostly suburban hipsters and business drones on their way to work stopped here. But it tried to be one of those places that boasted Internet hookups, books, board games, newspapers and a stage for weekly readings of moody poetry from college kids. All of it designed to entrap the customers into frittering their time away inside, drinking overpriced lattes and eating packaged biscotti.
	Esme hated that kind of business; one where you can’t just can go in and get what you want. She found the ambiance disingenuous. There was something inherently pretentious about coffee and the way people used it.
	As she opened her car door, Doyle put a hand up in protest. Apparently, none of them could exit the vehicle until he and Juris were finished singing along to Boston’s “More Than a Feeling.”	
“I’m questioning Segovia’s employer. You coming?”
	Juris shushed her. “Not until ultimate song is over!”
	Esme got out and marched into the coffee shop on her own.
	The owner was a younger man. He wore expensive clothing, all name brand but oddly mismatched. His stare could be classified one of practiced consternation. His ears were pointed, although it was difficult to tell whether from birth or surgery. Neither would have surprised Esme.
She introduced herself and told the owner, who identified himself only as Harper, that she would not be long. “You employ Natasha Segovia, is that correct?” 
The pointy-eared owner nodded. 
“What kind of worker is she?” Esme asked.
	Harper ran his fingers through his goatee. “Alright, I guess. She hasn’t really been here that long. I haven’t gotten to know her very well.” He pursed his lips. “And I like to get to know all my employees. It helps a business when you have that kind of connection with your sales force. Besides, looking like she does, I’d want to get to know that one a little better.”
	“Are you aware she’s a vampire?”
	“Yes,” Harper said. “It’s practically written on her forehead. She has that…indefinable giveaway. Or it might just be the necrophiliac club kid wardrobe.” He shifted his eyes.
“Is there a problem? She is registered, you know.”
	“Do you notice anything strange going on in the shop when she’s on duty?”
	Before Harper could answer, Doyle and Juris strode in with all the subtlety of a Jerry Lewis film. 
“Sometimes, we get sick customers,” Harper said, looking nervously at the two men. “Some customers puke in the bathroom. Others we find asleep at their seats. They wake up saying they don’t know how they got so sleepy. In a coffee shop! Can you imagine?” 
	“You think she’s drinking on the job?” said Esme.
	“I wouldn’t put it past her,” said Harper shrugging his shoulders. “She has this way of…persuading you. She’s late all the time, and rude to customers, but honestly, I’d be afraid to fire her. She’s intense.” 
	“Any poisonings ever?” said Doyle.
	“No. She never poisoned anybody. She always…who is this guy?” 
	“My partner,” Esme said grudgingly.
	Doyle put on his serious face. “Did she ever mention a Robbie Coker or any of her friends or former business connections, anything like that?”
	“Not to my knowledge, no” said Harper. He motioned to Juris. “Can I get you something? Our café du jour is New Zealand Peaberry.”.
	“Do you got any just coffee?” asked Juris. New Zealand Peaberry was above him.
	Harper lit a cigarette. “When did you hire her?” asked Doyle. The longer he watched Harper smoke, the more he began to hyperventilate. The coffee shop owner produced an employee list. Esme put her glasses on, which always made her more self-conscious and ran her finger down the smattering of names. Natasha’s name was on the list. Next to it, in large letters, was stamped TERMINATED.
	“This says she hasn’t worked here in three months,” said Esme. Harper tensed up and put his head slightly to one side. “Why don’t you tell me the truth before you’re in real trouble?” Esme said quietly, in her most dangerous tone. Doyle flashed a nasty look.
	The color went from Harper’s face, like he’d already been handed a sentence. Law-abiding citizens were usually a pushover. 
	“She quit,” he said putting his head down.
	“Why did you lie to us?” asked Doyle.
	“She told me she didn’t want to the government to know that she was going to be without a job,” Harper responded. “I told you, she’s persuasive.”
	Doyle passed the coffee an attractive girl in a blue apron handed him to Juris and returned to glowering at Harper. “Why did she resign?”
	“I think I need my lawyer,” Harper said nervously. 
	“Just answer the question, dipshit,” said Doyle. 
	Harper stood up and said something to the effect of “What the fuck?” as Esme tried to calm him down and assure him that there was nothing to worry about. 
	“She told me it was because she was starting a new business venture,” he finally admitted. “Something she didn’t want anyone to know about. She didn’t tell me what, though. And that’s all I know. I swear.” 
	Esme took her glasses off, and let him see the trusting smile she brought out to reassure victim’s families and distressed eyewitnesses. “Thank you. You’ve been very cooperative.”		“Yeah, thanks a lot,” said Rick. He and Juris followed Esme out.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Esme immediately demanded.
	“He should know better than to taunt someone that’s got the disease!” Doyle was furious.
	“How should he know right off the bat you quit smoking?” 
	“I hate this shit. They told me this would happen. When you quit, you get really pissy and everything makes you angry. I swear, I want a slash so badly.” Doyle pouted and tensed up his face, opening up his eyes wide. Esme had dealt with teenagers that were more mature. 
	“Don’t you give me your goddamn Manson Lamps, Rick,” said Esme. “Just once, try not to piss off and threaten every witness and suspect we encounter. Please?” She couldn’t help feeling just an ounce of sorry for him and she stopped frowning to show it.
	Doyle gathered up all his aplomb and said he would. 

	It was a long drive to the University, which was far removed from the distractions of the city. Doyle parked their cruiser in the “No Parking” zone. They had a scheduled appointment with an elderly teacher named Dr. Honor Andress, Beatrix Gillespie’s advisor during her undergraduate and graduate study. His name was also a reference on her grant applications, all of which had been turned down.
	At the information desk, Doyle asked the student who seemed to be running things where to find the doctor. The young girl, with more piercings than a tackle box gave the detectives a look like a dog that’s been shown a card trick. 
	“Dr. Andress. Is he in?”
	“Oh, you mean The Swiss,” said the young lady, brightening. 
	“Is that what the students call him?”
	“That’s what everyone calls him,” she said. “Everybody knows The Swiss. He’s like the cornerstone of faculty excellence around here. His course is always full. My friend Shari had him last semester. She was lucky to get in. She said there was nothing like it. I was so jealous.” 
Doyle smiled. Her geniality was infectious, like some kind of wonderful disease. 
	Walking through a labyrinthine floor of offices and meeting rooms in one of the main faculty, it was like searching for some token some sacred token in a Greek maze chamber with the Minotaur hot on the trail. 
	“Doesn’t The Swiss sound more like he’d be a mobster or something?” Doyle said. 
	“I was thinking that myself,” said Esme.
	Rick found the right room and knocked on the open door to small office, where a stately elder man sat at a manual typewriter pounding the keys. He waited to finish his sentence before he acknowledged Rick and Esme’s presence. To them, The Swiss appeared a conductor fighting is way through the end of a mighty symphony. His fingers came down forcefully, yet with grace upon the keys.
	“You must be The Swiss,” said Doyle.
	“Oh, that name. I’ve really grown to love it. I am Swiss, you know,” said the professor, getting up for a handshake.
	Rick and Esme each took a seat in the office. Shelves and shelves of scholarly books made for dignified wallpaper.
	“We won’t take up much of your time, sir. We’d just like to ask you about one of your former students.”
	 “Well now, you expect me to pinpoint just one?” said The Swiss. “That is not an easy trick. Unfortunately, the verisimilitude of my age finds me forgetting certain things but…what can you do?”
	“What can you do?” repeated Doyle. He had instant respect for this man.
	“We’d like to know if you remember a Beatrix Gillespie. She was your student for a few years, wasn’t she?” Esme asked.
	The Swiss sat back in his chair, stroked his chin, then grinned. “Yes, I remember her. One of my brightest students. I’ve taught several faeries. They learn quickly. Of course, they have a natural talent, being faeries, but she was always wanting to learn more, learn outside of her species. I admired that.”
	“That must have been some years ago,” said Doyle.
	“Yes, it was,” said The Swiss, “might have been my third or forth year only. Man, those days.” 
Doyle forced a chuckle. He spotted a beaker full of water on the desk behind The Swiss bubbling under the flickering life of a Bunsen burner. 
	“Doc, your water’s boiling there.”
	The Swiss turned around for a second and remembered. “Yes, I had forgotten to take it off. Would you like some tea?”
	“Tea? Oh no, thank you, that’s not my brand.” Doyle replied civilly. Definitely the weirdest conversation he’d had all day.
	“So Beatrix was an exceptional student?” asked Esme.
	“She certainly was. Never missed a class, loved the work, completed it early, did the optional assignments, talked passionately about the subjects with the others. A pleasure for a professor to teach. I knew she was going to go far. I wonder what she’s up to now.” 
	Doyle and Esme looked at each other. The Swiss was not going to like hearing this. 
	“Um, Beatrix is a suspect in a homicide we’ve been investigating,” Esme said. The Swiss’s wrinkled old almond eyes widened. “We know there’s very little you can give us and we understand that. We just want to know one more thing. Try to remember this as best you can. I know it might be hard.”
	“Go ahead, miss,” said The Swiss.
	“Was Beatrix ever…did she ever show any signs of anti-social behavior? Did she ever appear really angry and defiant? Is there anytime you can think of where she was down and out?”
	“I can’t remember. That’s probably because there was nothing really. She would have talked to me if she was feeling depressed. I suppose you could say she was a little withdrawn at times, a bit odd. But it was nothing that would give cause for worry. The only time I saw her truly angry was when the University turned down her grant applications.”
	“There a reason for that?” asked Doyle.
	“They felt her work was…extreme. Unnecessary, although how you can say that about bioengineering I don’t know.” The Swiss looked annoyed.
	“Thank you,” said Esme, closing her small notebook.
	With practically nothing gained and Doyle and Esme both feeling a little sorry they could not have stayed in The Swiss’ presence longer, they left the campus. Neither detective said anything. Esme was thinking about how thankful she was that Rick kept his calm. This time, anyway. 

12. Natasha
Natasha Segovia sat waiting for the officers who had brought her to this small and murky room to return. She felt like the walls were beginning to close in on her as she apprehensively stared at the table in front of her. 
The large, rectangular mirror on the wall her left showed no reflection. She ran her hands through her hair just the same, a nervous gesture. The need for blood was taking over her body as time gradually went by. 
Finally, she heard a clicking noise and the heavy door opened. A man and woman casually walked in and closed it behind them. Natasha let out a small sigh. 
	“I’m Detective Doyle and this is my partner in crime, Detective Crowley,” said the man, keeping his face carefully neutral. Natasha smiled to herself as she saw his eyes roam over her body. His hair was standing up and he looked as if he had not shaved in days. He was wearing mud-brown slacks and a collared shirt, however his tie was loosened and hanging down the center. Many restless nights left bags under his eyes, which were rather glassy. It rarely happened, but this man appeared so impure that Natasha would not care for his blood. Not at all. Besides, she liked her men rich and brainless, and the detective didn’t appear stupid. Just a slob. She went back to staring at the table.
	“Let’s do this the easy way so we can all get out of here as soon as possible,” Doyle proposed. 
Natasha remained silent.
	“We just want to know what happened on 81st Street,” said Esme. “Robert Coker delivered blood to you, yes?” 
Again, the vampire looked up, but maintained her silence.
	Natasha wondered what the woman detective was doing with her lout of a partner. The woman’s strawberry blond hair was pulled back in a rubber band and she wore blue jeans that fit her size four body just perfect. Her eyes were a pretty blue color, the kind of blue you would see in tropical water, and her skin was evenly tanned. She appeared seductively beautiful to Natasha, but she could see from the way the detective carried herself she didn’t think so.
	“I know nothing,” Natasha answered softly. She kept her eyes fixed on Esme and saw her take a step back. Could she sense Natasha’s growing blood craving?
	“We wish it were that easy, but we know that can’t be the truth. There are rumors going around about whom you claim to be and what you do. We’ve already spoken with your current ‘employer’ at Raimi’s and he tells us that you haven’t been there for three months and when you did work there, he had a lot of sick customers. Tell us what you know about the Coker murder and we forget about your little white lie to the Undead Licensing Bureau. It’s that simple,” Crowley said.
	Natasha felt a connection to Esme. Only a human, but she crackled with energy. She smiled at her and the detective nervously smiled back.
	“Tell your partner here that I’m only speaking with you. He can listen, but I’m only talking to you.” Natasha looked over at Doyle. “Do we have a deal Detective…what is it? Doyle? How charmingly provincial.”
	Doyle gave Crowley a flustered look. Esme knew what her egocentric partner wanted to say, probably in the most profane way possible.
	“Wait Rick, we might have something here. Just let it go this time,” she pleaded.
	Scratching the back of his head with his, Rick turned away and listened. He hated when she was right, or even if her ideas were good—hell, they were always good. Goddamn woman, he thought.
	“Okay, Natasha. It’s just you and me in this conversation. Let’s start over. Please tell me what you know about Robbie Coker, and anyone else he might be associated with.” Esme knew she’d pay for it later, but right now it felt good to be on top. Doyle and his strong-arm tactics be damned, she was the one who got results.
	“What I said about not knowing anything is true. All I can tell you is my connection with his other customers, but there isn’t much there either.”
	“That’s just fine. Any information you might have could be useful. Go on.”
	“The only one I know is Dr. Gillespie.”
“Beatrix?” said Esme in surprise. 
“Yes,” said Natasha. “She used to come into Raimi’s quite a bit. Close to the University, you know.”
“How do a vampire and a bioengineer become friends?” Esme looked puzzled.
“I am not as innocent as I look,” Natasha said. “I worked at Raimi’s, true, I am a vampire. I was born into a royal family in Romania in the 12th century, the youngest of four daughters. It’s really the stereotypical vampire story. I was cursed by an evil lord and damned with eternal life, so when the curse took over I massacred my entire family. I’ve made peace with my fate, Detective, and I realized that if I were to survive, it would be as a queen among mortals. I went to Dr. Gillespie as a friend, for advice on how to achieve my goal.”
	“So help me understand,” said Esme. “What could Gillespie do for you?”
“The question should be what could she do to me?”
“This is bullshit,” Rick declared. “You’re letting her talk you in circles, Es.”
“I said I didn’t want him talking,” Natasha snapped, starting intently at Esme. Esme blinked once and then shot Rick a look. 
“Rick, just be patient, please.”
“Patience, hell. I’ve seen retarded monkeys conduct better interrogations.”
	Esme said nothing further to Doyle. She knew that if she was to keep responding that he would never stop. That’s the way Doyle was—stubborn.
“So what are you and Beatrix up to?” Crowley asked Natasha.
	“Beatrix is working on an experiment to cut you humans out of existence so that our kinds can take over. Her scheme fits right into mine,” said Natasha matter-of-factly.
	“Just kill me now,” Doyle said, rolling his eyes. “This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”
	“Why would I be making this story up, detective? Answer that one.”
	“Look, lady—for the lack of a better word—I don’t know why you would be making this shit up but I know for a fact that it’s a lie. People have always been claming to destroy the world and end all life as we know it and nothing ever has happened to make me believe that’s possible. All I know for sure is that there are some crazy people out there.” He lets out a small laugh. “That’s for sure.”
	“Is that all the information you can tell us Natasha?” Esme asked.
	Natasha still appeared mesmerized by the woman detective. “I know nothing else.”
	Of course Doyle had to put his two cents in.
	“I’d like to ask one more question.”
	“Just drop it Rick,” Esme snapped. She returned Natasha’s look.
	Natasha and Esme locked eyes. No one said a word. A full minute ticked by.
	“You two are freaking me right out,” Doyle finally said.
	There was still no word from either of the two women. “Esme?”
	Natasha placed her eyes back on the desk and Esme finally turned to look at him.
	“Sorry Rick, what was that?”
	“Uh, nothing. Let’s put Miss Segovia in a holding cell for now. She is in violation of vampire conduct laws.”
	Natasha’s head snapped up to glare at him, and Doyle swore he heard her hiss.
	A uniform took Natasha away, and Esme leaned against the wall of the interrogation room. She felt weak all of a sudden and thought maybe all of this was getting to her head a little.
	“Need a break?” Doyle asked her.
	“I’ll be fine,” she told him. “I just need a minute.”
	“What was that all about?” Rick asked. “She was sure givin’ you the eye.”
	“She was trying to enthrall me,” said Esme. 
	“What!” Doyle exclaimed. “I should have her indicted right now!”
	“Forget it,” said Esme, rubbing her temples. “I’m going to go get some coffee.”
	“Right behind you,” said Doyle. “So where did you learn psychic martial arts?”
	Esme gave him an eyebrow. “Psychic martial arts’? You’re such a loser, Doyle.”
	He grinned at her. “Whatever. I think that Segovia chick has the hots for you.”
	“Again, loser.”
	“I may be a loser, but you love me.”
	“Sure, Doyle. Keep thinking that.”

13. Home Court Advantage
Deep in the heart of the city, where the skyscrapers and office super-complexes could be found, where restaurants had month-long waits for a table, where everything was clean and gray, sat a building that was not quite like the others. It looked the same as all the others on the outside. Inside the building, however, became an architect’s delight. The designer, a renowned engineer of heedless imagination, who normally did not specialize in skyscrapers, took the opportunity in designing the building that housed the office of Bo Kellyfreeze to go in a different direction. 
Clashing classic decoration with ultra modern design, the architect’s creation was a marvel to Rick and Esme. As Doyle looked up the floor and section number, Esme surveyed the lobby with wide-eyed interest. The walls were lined with intricate fresco. Ornate chandeliers, masterpieces of steel design, with amethyst crystals hanging from them scattered droplets of light about the room like a giant sprinkler. It was a soothing feel for a space, Esme thought.
	After having been told by the guard at the desk that, “Mr. Kellyfreeze is extremely busy,” the detectives gathered their resources for his questioning in the elevator. It would be difficult to intimidate a suspect when he would be surrounded by his creature comforts. It’s easier to lie when you have the home court advantage. 
	“Let’s go through this one more time, Es. He’s an actuary, which means...”
	“Call me Esme, Rick,” Crowley broke in. “At the very least. Let’s pretend to be professional.”
“Whatever,” said Doyle clearing his throat, “…which means that he’s an expert at assessing the likelihood of certain events and what risks they have. He’s trained in methods to reduce the likelihood of undesirable events and how to decrease their impact when they do occur. He can read human behavior. His analytical skills are every bit as good as ours. Now, I don’t trust this guy any more than I can throw a stone with my dick. He’ll try to smoke screen us, both with his words, the way he says them, and his body. Do not trust a move he makes. You got that?”
“Yeah, I got it,” said Esme. “You make him sound more dangerous than that mage we questioned.”
“He’s basically a high-powered accountant,” said Doyle. “Businesses hire him to help them watch their figures and keep their books. Also, he plays a huge role in helping them make the risky decisions. The bad companies hire him to cook their books. You may not guess it, but things like that take cojones of steel.”
“Do you have the recorder?”
“Yeah, it’s on,” said Doyle pointing to the tape recorder in his pocket. The actual microphone stuck out a tiny bit through a hole Doyle had made in his jacket. 
Esme took a deep breath. “I feel like we’re talking to Hannibal Lecture or something.” 
The elevator door finally opened on 52 and as he exited, Doyle said, “It’s Lecter, Es.”
“Whatever,” said Esme, mimicking his tone.
They wandered the hall until they reached a tremendous double door. The carvings looked like something out of the Mongol empire. Gruesome battle scenes were depicted on it, as well as sexual images, graphic in their depiction. The longer Esme stared at the door, the more sick things she spotted on it. Scenes she viewed carved into the metal depicted decapitation, evisceration, bestiality, sadomasochism and necrophilia. She wondered what kind of perverse and jaded personality would necessitate a door like this. The only thing it was missing was a moat of blood and peasants on spikes. 
There was no buzzer, only a massive handle on each door. Doyle grabbed one and banged it violently against the door. The sound of old metal hitting old metal resonated through the wall. “Big knockers,” he said. 
Esme was getting a feeling that she would have a hard time getting anything important from a suspect like this. It was not the time for jokes.
	When the massive explicit doors parted automatically and the detectives entered the floor’s office area, they were expecting to find another ornate and intricately designed space for the office. Instead they came into a plain white waiting room with an average looking desk.
	“Must be the secretary’s desk,” muttered Doyle.
	“Where the hell is she?” asked Esme.
	“Maybe she has the day off.”
	Opening and passing through another immense door, Rick and Esme finally found what they were expecting. The office was huge, but not in the same style as they had previously seen. Much of the furniture seemed to have come from the 1980’s. Kellyfreeze’s space contained not a single bookshelf. Clusters of over-padded couches and chairs that looked like the designer went for aesthetics rather than comfort were grouped together seemingly at random. There were a number of sculptures and other objects of art, but each one was outlined by neon tubes. “Classy,” Doyle observed.
	The detectives noticed huge mahogany desk and an enormous black swivel chair facing opposite them at the head of the room. 
Not a moment after, the sound of a dumbwaiter opening came from the left side of the room. At the base of the wall, a trap door opened and revealed a waist-high chute. Doyle and Esme exchanged glances. That kind of thing meant dogs. Esme could sense what was coming. She sprinted over to the desk and pushed the swivel chair out of the way, frantically opening drawer after drawer to find what she was looking for. 
Two animals with the body of a dog did spring from the chute. Doyle didn’t react and reach for his gun right away. He was too distracted by the look of the creatures that were hurtling towards him. They had the bodies of guard dogs, but their heads were pointy and hairless. They were not the heads of any mammal Doyle had ever seen. The mouths were in a permanent half-open grin. There were no eyelids that Doyle could find. The half-dollar sized eyes were completely black and without emotion, unlike any dog. Shot glass-sized teeth decorated the oversized pointy face. Doyle realized he was being attacked by dogs with the heads of sharks.
He panicked, let out a scream and dashed for the elevator. Halfway there, he realized he would not make it in time to close the doors. Dropping his first plan, his heart racing and beads of sweat forming on his head, Doyle changed directions and made for one of the couch clusters. He leapt completely over a white leather settee and stood behind it, pulling it back towards the wall and trapping himself in an opening too narrow for them to fit though. The shark-dog creatures leapt up on the couch and attacked Doyle frontally, but the detective had already grabbed a large cushion and used it as a shield, pushing away the creatures with the leather. It was enough to keep them at bay, but it wouldn’t work forever.
Just then, the dogs stopped their attack and calmly got off the couch and walked over to Esme, who stood at the desk blowing on a small whistle. Doyle could not hear the note, but the shark-dogs were rendered helpless under the spell of its silent ring.
Esme kept blowing until the dogs came all the way to the desk and sat in front of her. She lowered it slowly from her lips. A perfect moment of control, until out of the corner of her eye, Esme watched as Doyle strode over to the desk, pulled out his gun and shot both the animals, killing them instantly. Esme dropped the whistle and took a step back.
“What the hell did you do that for? I had it under control.”
“You saw the same animals I did. Come on, Es. Those things needed to go. Good thing you found that whistle and blew it long enough for me to get my gun.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Esme.
“I agree,” said a voice from the door. 
An impish little man with a rat-like face, crazy red hair that must have taken hours in front of a mirror to look so bad and a poor complexion that he was obviously trying to hide with a tan stepped in. 
“That was not a wise thing to do,” he said. “Those animals cost me an arm and a leg. You’ll be paying for that. With an arm and a leg, no doubt.”
“Not likely,” said Esme. “We’re police.”
“What the hell were those things?” Doyle asked.
“They’re a kind of shark/dog hybrid. I call them sharkweilers. They’re new,” said the redheaded imp, taking a seat at his desk. Esme and Doyle each took a chair.
Bo Kellyfreeze looked unusually content and satisfied with himself for a man who was being questioned for murder. Those who don’t appear to look guilty usually are. And those that do look guilty, they’re guilty too, thought Esme. 
	“He looks pretty happy about something,” she whispered. 
	“I think he’s retarded,” Doyle whispered back. 
	“That could also be,” Esme nodded. “So you’re Trumbo Kellyfreeze, huh,” she said as she sat back and tried to give Kellyfreeze the appearance of comfort. Whoever designed the chairs she and Doyle were sitting in had unspeakable contempt for the human back.
“I was when I got up this morning,” he muttered, staring at the wall to his right. His apathy was the kind of thing that could set Doyle off again.
Sure enough, he spoke. “I was reading about you. You worked for some of the biggest company outlets in the city. What the hell are you doing as a suspect in our case?”
“You tell me, Mr….” 
“Detective,” said Doyle.
“Detective what?” asked the actuary. He looked bored out of his skull.
“Detective is fine, Mr. Kellyfreeze.”
Bo finally reacted and turned to face his inquisitors, “Oh, come on now I don’t have time for this Humphrey Bogart Dragnet nonsense! Just tell me what’s the charge, so we can be done here!”
Doyle shot to his feet. “You’re done here when we say you’re done, you got that? What, do you got a date or something?” 
Esme looked at the white marble floor. Doyle had already lost his temper and done the standing up and pointing the finger yelling part. Interrogators usually worked up to that and saved it for the sake of getting a juicier, more important fact. Rick just couldn’t wait. It made him look so amateurish. This was one of those times when she hated her job.
“Three, actually,” said Bo, “now what’s the charge?”
“Murder One,” said Esme.
“You think I had anything to do with it?”
“We’ll ask the questions,” Crowley said, leaning forward as Doyle sat back. She understood his frustration. Kellyfreeze had this way of making everything he said sound like a challenge, defiance or insult. Every time he opened his mouth, she wanted to hit him. 
“What was your connection to Robert Coker?”
“Who?”
“You heard me,” Crowley said with ice in her voice. She sat back and took a deep breath to keep from doing the same thing Rick had just done.
“I had seen him around a few times. He worked as a courier back when my services were employed at Eon Foundries.”
“So you knew him?”
“I’m amazed I remember him. Some dumb kid. I don’t have time in my life to remember people like that. Not a man with a six-figure income. You know, I have a sauna in my kitchen.”
	Crowley relaxed. “Did you ever speak with him at any length?”
	“Few times.”
	“What was the nature of the conversation?”
	“Money. The only thing I really like to talk about. He stopped me in the hallway after he had just made a delivery or something, I don’t know, and he told me he was interested in making an investment.”
	“In what?”
	“In some hoity-toity little distribution for a new type of hard liquor made in Europe. Armenyak. Some dumb thing. It was supposedly made with mage dust and one drop of human blood to appeal to the vampires, sort of a Jagermeister for the undead. Total bullshit. Believe me, I can tell that sort of thing. I’m part mage. Stuff was one notch above Lysol. I told him ‘Robbie, take my expert advice, do not’ but he was so insistent it would work. He said it would be the next vodka. Can you believe he came to me for startup money?” Bo started laughing. He was very amused. He then excused himself and assured the detective that he would be back. Esme got up and again began going though the actuary’s desk.
	“What are you looking for?” Rick asked her. She put a finger over her mouth to shush him. Then she broke her own rule by announcing, “Paydirt!” 
Doyle’s eyes widened in anticipation. “It’s his checkbook,” said Esme. “The last one was written to, guess who?” 
Doyle shook his head. Esme smirked. “Beatrix Gillespie. Fifteen thousand. That sure doesn’t look guilty.”
	“Good going, detective. Now get back here before he charges you with illegal search.” Esme promptly returned to her seat.
	“His checks have scenes from Three’s Company on them,” she whispered. Doyle chuckled. 
About a minute later when Bo re-entered the room, he was unusually apologetic. “Sorry, I had a call on the hot-tub phone that I just had to take. I hate it when my secretary has the day off and I have to do all this bullshit.” He returned to his big, padded swivel chair.
	“Why did you refuse Robbie Coker the money and consultation?” asked Crowley.
	“Because money talks and bullshit walks and he didn’t have any of the former,” said Bo. There was a silence.
	“Let’s talk about the….”
	Doyle cut Esme off, “Can we get back the sauna in your kitchen? Why do you have a sauna in your kitchen?”
	Bo cracked a devilish smile, “Because I like to eat sandwiches and stuff in there.” There was another silence. “Boy, this is really some heavy duty police questioning,” he said chuckling.
	“You know, you’re really an asshole,” said Crowley. 
	Doyle changed threads, “You said you were part mage. That’s not all you are, is it?”
	“No, nobody’s perfect,” said the actuary. “I’ve also got a little bit of faery in me. And a touch of dwarf. That’s why I’m only 5’4.”
	If Kellyfreeze was all those things, he didn’t look any of them. His hair was not dark, his ears were of normal appearance his skin was of a hue that many humans possessed, albeit it a little more tanned.
	“You must get mistaken for a human a lot, Mr. Kellyfreeze.”
	“Yeah, people ask me all the time. They’re rare beings these days, because they’re weak, mentally and spiritually, but I still take it as a compliment. As for the tan, well I summer in Miami Beach these days. What’s left of it, anyway.”
	Crowley looked over at Doyle. They had to step up the questioning. 
	“Do you know why we came for you? We had to track you down, not to mention dealing with the James Bond villain arsenal,” said Doyle.
	Bo laughed again. “It took a Dick to find an Asshole. Two in this case.” 
	“Do you know why we picked you up?” Doyle repeated.
	Bo leaned over towards his interrogators as if he was going to tell them a secret. He cleared his throat, “In my lifetime, I’ve noticed that the biggest difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich teach their children about money, the poor do not. People say that things will continue to get worse with the economy forever because the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is why. Most people, yourselves included, would think that I believe only certain people can obtain wealth and thus power. But that is not true; anyone in this country can be rich. The problem is, most people were not taught as children about how money really works.” Crowley and Doyle exchanged glances.
Bo continued. “Then it’s simply a matter of judging how much of a risk your investment is and whether or not you can manage that risk. Of course then you have to take note of things like the return rate and you’ll have to study the risk you are taking and assess it from every conceivable angle.” He put his finger up, a teacher reiterating the crux of the lesson. “Never forget that money is, above all things, a measurement, like a ruler or a barometer or a Richter scale. It is a tool for measuring how much a person can do. How much, detectives, as in “how much can I get away with?” And I can tell by the expressions you showed each other a minute ago that you were about to bring out the big guns and hold my feet to the fire but let me tell you this….” Bo paused to make sure he had their full attention. “I made more connections to big people last year than either of you have made in your entire careers, because I know what money is and what it measures. I could make a few phone calls and have you swimming in muck till you’ll be begging to retire.”
	Esme produced a document and pushed her glasses up her nose with her index finger. “We have here that you’re a benefactor to Beatrix,” she said.
	Bo looked up. “Do you now?”
	“What’s the connection?” asked Doyle. He was in full Jack Webb mode. “What are you planning? Covering up a homicide, maybe?” A long silence started. Each passing second made Doyle feel more and more the fool. He took a breath and tried a different approach. “Come on Bo, can’t you just give me a name I can feed my superiors? Make me look like I’m earning my twenty grand a year? Believe me, their gaping mouths drop to the floor when I so much as mention a name in an investigation. Can’t you pay the piper just a little? You know what communication problems are like.”
	Bo chuckled smarmily. “The falcon cannot reach the falconer!” 
In a move that took a few seconds for Esme to process, Doyle leapt from his chair, reached across the desk and grabbed Bo by the collar, pulling him by the neck across his own work surface. The accountant cowered and made choking noises as he felt the sting of his face against the rich mahogany. Doyle was screaming, “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” 
Before she partnered with Doyle, Esme had only seen detectives lose patience and rough up the suspect in movies. She had only seen them leap over the table in comic books. She had only seen the cop pull out his gun and put in the suspect’s mouth…..well, come to think of it, she had never seen that. This was a first. 
	Doyle eased the barrel of his pistol in. “Are your mage friends going to save you Kellyfreeze? Are your corporate sleazebag benefactors going to return the quid pro quo?” 
	Bo fought for air to breathe and when Doyle pulled the barrel of his gun from the actuary’s mouth, the only thing Bo could say through the chokehold was “Cliché!”
	Doyle lifted himself off his prey, but not before pistol-whipping Bo square under the left cheekbone. “I’ll have your job for that!” Bo screeched. “My friend specializes in voodoo!”	“Now Bo, why did you make me go and do a thing like that?” asked Doyle in his church voice. “I mean, you strike me as a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Are you?” 
Bo nodded, rubbing his face. 
“Good. So I want to know why you’re not giving me the meat and potatoes of what you know. You’re giving me is some frozen peas, a napkin, a stale roll and parsley garnish washed down by a glass of shit.”
	Esme never heard one like that before. 
	Bo then spoke in a way Esme and Doyle hadn’t heard. “I’m going to say a few random words. They’re going to come out now—just two words in random order. I don’t know and can’t say what they might mean to you, these two words, but here they come: Jenny Threadstone. Whatever she’s telling you, it’s a lie.”
	“And why should we believe you?” Doyle inquired.
	“Because I’m rich,” said Kellyfreeze. 
	 
14. Off the Record
	Kellyfreeze’s house was no less spectacular and tasteless than his office. Esme didn’t know what the point was of staking the diminutive actuary out—someone that slimy would never slip up.
Still, she jabbed Rick, who was nodding in the driver’s seat, when his long black limo nosed out of his Gothic iron gates. “Something’s happening,” she said, as the limo glided away down the street.
	“About fucking time,” Rick muttered, starting the car and pulling around the block to the rear of Kellyfreeze’s mansion.
	“Doyle, what are you up to?” said Esme, not liking the look on her partner’s face one bit.
	He parked the sedan near a heavy metal door. It had a lock the size of a coffee can set into one side, and no visible hinges. The kind of thing rich, paranoid corporate types had installed to prevent real life from creeping in. 
Doyle got out of the car, grabbing his jacket. “Come on!” he yelled at Esme when she hesitated.
Esme sighed. She knew where this was going. “Rick, we can’t just break into his house. We don’t have enough evidence for a warrant. We don’t have any evidence, except for his name on that list.”
“Then I think it’s high time we find some,” said Doyle, taking out a small battered case from his pocket.
“Rick,” said Esme, “think about what you’re doing. You could lose your badge for this—Kellyfreeze would have you booted in a second. Your reputation would go in the toilet…”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, sweetie, my reputation is already in the toilet.” He glared at Esme. “And more to the point, what makes you think I give a shit?”
Esme bit her tongue against the comeback she wanted to make. It would only aggravate Doyle more, and while that wasn’t something she normally cared about, having a screaming match in Kellyfreeze’s backyard would only get them into more trouble. “I hope there aren’t any more of those creepy shark things in there,” she muttered.
Rick popped a thin metal rod into the lock and manipulated it for a few seconds before the door swung open. “Jackpot,” he muttered, stepping inside.
“’Jackpot’?” Esme said. “Why do I feel like every second I spend with you, this case gets more and more like a bad cop movie?”
“Hurry up, before someone sees you!” Rick snapped, grabbing Esme by the wrist and yanking her inside.
It was Kellyfreeze’s kitchen, large and stainless. A maid’s uniform hung on a hook by the door. Rick peered out into a hallway, paneled in soft wood. “Looks clear. No one’s around.”
“This is so illegal…” Esme murmured.
“Yeah,” said Rick with a smile. “Exciting, ain’t it?”
He walked down the hall, up a broad flight of stairs that muffled their steps in carpet, and into a modern study.
“You’ve been here before,” said Esme accusingly.
“Don’t get psychic with me, Crowley. I’m not in the mood for it.”
“I don’t need to be psychic to know, Doyle. What’s the connection with you and Kellyfreeze?”
“I came here on a raid when I worked Vice. Jesus Christ, do I have to explain every action in my life to you?” Rick searched through the middle drawer of Kellyfreeze’s desk. “Nothing.” He tried the other, which was locked.
“Rick…” Esme warned, but before she could stop him he’d used the gold-plated letter opener resting in a monogrammed stand to break the lock. “Shit,” she muttered, putting a hand over her eyes. “I am not witnessing this action, Doyle. I will not be hauled into court by Internal Affairs when they find out about this.”
“They won’t unless you tell them, Esme,” Rick said. “Look in the closet.”
Esme was ready to protest, but a tickle in the back of her skull made her open the door and look. Her eyes widened when she saw a large silver briefcase. It appeared to be the exact size of the one missing from Coker’s trunk. It was also broken and empty. “Rick…” she said, picking it up with a glove on.
Doyle crowed, holding up a black shoebox in triumph. “What have we here?” He ripped the lid off. 
Esme’s eyebrows went up. “That’s a curse kit.”
“Yep,” said Doyle. “I knew it. Now we have enough to bring him in, the smug dick.”
“Where would someone like Kellyfreeze get his hands on a curse kit?” said Esme, shifting the contents.
“Probably one of his black mage buddies sold it to him. You do know Kellyfreeze is in the habit of hexing anyone he considers competition?”
“Or rather, he hires the city’s premiere magical talents to do it for him,” said Esme. “I’ve heard the rumors.”
“This one is homemade, high quality, runs about two grand,” said Rick, sitting on the edge of Kellyfreeze’s ruined desk.
Esme raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you know anything about the occult black market?”
“Jenny Threadstone,” said Rick, producing a small white business card like a magic trick from the bottom of the shoebox.
Esme took it. “Guess he wasn’t lying through his crooked teeth.”
“Yep. I’ve know she and Kellyfreeze were doing business ever since that deadly spell arrest last year. Now I can finally nail the bitch…” he trailed off.
“Excuse me?” said Esme. “We don’t know she did this. At most, we have distribution of illegal artifacts. Slap on the wrist, if she doesn’t walk again.”
“She won’t,” said Rick grimly. “Not this time. This time she’s paying for what she did to me.”
“Doyle, you are—to put it bluntly—talking crazy. What do you have against Threadstone? What did she ever do to you, besides bruise that massive male ego you drag around like a rucksack?”
Rick’s face twisted. “You wanna know what she did to me? You want me to justify my actions? Well I can’t, Esme. I can’t. I just know she’s rotten like her old man. I can’t prove it, but I know, and I’m going to bring her down before she can do any damage to me.”
“Damage to you?” Esme shook her head. “I’m talking to the lieutenant. You need some time off. And possibly a fresh psych evaluation.”
“You want to see what Albert Threadstone is capable of?” demanded Rick, loosening his tie. Esme held up her hands, but Rick shed the tie and his shirt before she could protest.
He turned around, and Esme’s hand migrated to her mouth. “Sweet Goddess.”
Rick’s back, from the waistline of his pants to just under his shoulder blades, was a mass of spiderwebbed white scar tissue—skin grafts forced to grow on an area totally ravaged.
“Still think she didn’t murder Coker?” he asked Esme. “You can call me obsessed, you can call me whatever you want. But I will get Jenny Threadstone. And I’m going to make the bitch fry, just like her old man did to me.”
“Excuse me, but what the fuck are you two doing in my home?” asked Kellyfreeze from behind them. Esme started, and looked to Rick, who had his shirt halfway over his head.
“Er…”
“Am I interrupting something?” Kellyfreeze said with a smirk. “Because I could have my driver circle the block.”
Rick put his tie back on and held out the curse kit. “You’re under arrest, Kellyfreeze. Cuff him, Es.”
Esme cuffed and searched Kellyfreeze. “We need to talk about this,” she told Rick as they escorted the diminutive actuary to their car at the back door. He made an idle threat about how he’d have both their badges.
“Whatever,” Rick replied. “It won’t change anything.”
Esme helped him put Kellyfreeze in the back seat. “I’m beginning to understand why your reputation is down the tubes.”
“Yeah? You don’t understand anything, so keep quiet.”
For once, Esme took his advice.

15. Thaumaturgy vs. Forensics
	“Forensic and Thaumaturgical Examiners are here,” Rick hollered at Esme as he passed her office. 
	“I’m busy. You go watch them!” she shouted back. “I have to get the warrant for Gillespie, and fill out the paperwork for that little fuckup you call breaking and entering.” 
	Rick went into the morgue, slamming the door behind him. “You called me in out of my damn lunch break, so make it fast.” 
	The experts paid him no mind. They’d worked with him long enough to know that he was naturally abrasive, and not to take it personally.
	“It smells like magefire, but its not. Look. Chemical compound is incompatible with the compounds involved in magefire burns. You could do it on yourself and I’d be able to show you the difference. That’s ethanol. Not magical leftovers. I think they used a cheap whiskey to burn him up.” Dr. Bell, a toxicologist who looked more like a beardless Santa, gestured angrily at the body.. 
	“Yes, but it smells exactly like magefire and it looks like magefire burns. Witness the localized charring on his body. The burns start at the top of the head and go all the way down the right side of the body. It looks like controlled magefire.” Dr. Gaiman, an Ichabod Crane with no hair, would not be upstaged. 
	Dr. Bell picked up a pair of tweezers and snatched a small, silvery, sticky thing off the left side of Coker’s head. “If I’m right, that’s duct tape.” 
	Dr. Gaiman rolled his eyes and groaned. 
“Well, good news, Detective Doyle. We have a few theories as to what actually killed him.” Dr. Bell said. “You see, those weren’t the vampire’s teeth marks. They don’t match. It seems that it was misfired syringe. Doesn’t match any vampire on the books. Not a single one.”
	“You mean I was right?” said Doyle incredulously.
	“And did we mention that those don’t look like vampire marks at all?” Dr. Gaiman added. 
	Doyle glared at the two nerds. “Anything about what actually was injected?”
	“Well yes, in fact. Although I don’t think you’re going to like it, detective. It makes this look almost like a serial killer.” Dr. Bell said. “See, it was an injection of a very powerful pesticide. Caused heart failure.” The portly doctor held up a vial. 
	“A… what kind of sicko are we dealing with?” Doyle ruffled his hair. “Is that all, boys? Or are you going to tell me it was an enraged librarian?”
“What?” said Dr. Gaiman.
“Never mind,” Doyle muttered. 
	The two scientists nodded, and continued bickering over the corpse as he left.
 	
While Doyle was dealing with the toxicologist and the thaumaturge, Esme took the broken case recovered from Kellyfreeze’s closet uptown, to the Museum of Supernatural History. Dr. Vilnius, a paranormal archeologist of some note, had developed a technique for analyzing the psychic vibrations of objects, ostensibly to further the interests of science. But as far as Esme knew, he made a hell of a lot more money off the cops who brought him magical weapons and artifacts to ID. Not admissible in court, but his readings were useful to get a stalled investigation back on track. She and Doyle weren’t stalled, exactly; they had more than enough to deal with. But Vilnius’s analysis might get them focused in the right direction. Assuming, of course, that the case they found was actually the one they were looking for.
	Dr. Vilnius was away when she arrived. His lab assistant, a lanky man with a nervous smile and uneven teeth, took the case. Fingler, his name badge said. She’d dealt with him before. Maybe not a man to inspire a lot of confidence, but he was capable enough. He sure looked professional in a rumpled white lab coat and foggy glasses. And he handled the case carefully, with thick, padded gloves, as if it were a child. Or a bomb. “Very bad here,” he told her, shoving the case into a locked cabinet as quickly as he could. “Wherever did you find it?”
“I’m afraid that’s confidential,” said Esme.
“Well, if the residue is that bad, I’d hate to think what was inside,” said Fingler with a disturbing smile. 
“Likewise,” Esme agreed, wanting to get the hell out of there. After Fingler signed the paperwork, she drove back to the station. What had been in that case? Something so terrible that non-psychics were frightened by it. And an innocent human murdered for it. 
It was becoming essential that she and Doyle find out.

16. A Very Bad Day at the Vet
“Beatrix Gillespie lives in a cemetery? Isn’t that an oxymoron?” said Doyle with a grin.
“It’s some kind of moron,” Esme agreed.
Juris got out of the car first and walked slowly up the path, towards the entrance of the crypt marked “Alberic.” Witchlight glowed off the marble stones that lined the entrance foyer. A small gold plaque on the right side of the main entrance read “Dr. B. Gillespie.” A small indent under it appeared to be a makeshift doorbell. 
	“Juris, would you like to serve the warrant?” Esme asked. Gillespie was sixty-two years of age, and had possibly given a man a lethal injection of pesticide. What did that say about her? 
	No one wanted to serve a warrant to an elder. Juris, who had been raised by his grandmother in Lithuania, shook his head and handed Doyle the warrant.
“Fer Chrissake,” Doyle growled. He stormed up to the door, stating quite vehemently that he thought it was the fucking Threadstone bitch anyway 
	“We have Threadstone in a holding cell; she’s not going to get out, Doyle.” 
	Rick slammed on the front door, and a strange sound began to come from inside. It sounded like barking, but snappier, like the jaws of the thing had lots and lots of sharp teeth. 
	A bellowing noise was heard, as though a very old drill sergeant lived within. Esme looked at Rick with apprehension. 
	“Are you sure we have to arrest her?” Juris said from behind them. 
	Both detectives replied, “Yes.” 
	The door opened with a low creak, and a pair of yellow eyes glared out from a thin and wrinkled face. Iron frame glasses perched on a hawkish nose, and atop her head was a nest of graying black hair. From her back sprouted a pair of grey-black wings, battered and torn with age. 
	“Dr. Beatrix Gillespie?” Rick asked, voice as stern as possible while speaking with a woman of her age. 
	“That would be me, yes.” Her voice was strong and hard. Clearest voice of an old lady he’d ever heard. “What can I do for you?” She kept the door closed so that only the edge of her wings and her head were visible. Whimpering came from behind her. 
	“We have a search warrant for your mausoleum, lab, and residence. If you don’t let us search, then we’ll have to force our way in,” Rick stated. This was what his job had come to—harassing old ladies. 
	A thin strain of laughter exited the woman’s mouth. “Sir, if you tried to force your way in here, I’m afraid my babies would stop you straightaway.” She smiled politely. 
	“Babies?” Esme asked. 
	“Rosencrantz! Guildenstern!” Beatrix cried, and two shark-headed dogs appeared on either side of her. “These are my two latest.” 
	Their necks had a sort of grotesque line of clotted blood where the shark began and the Rottweiler ended. Matted fur against sandpaper skin. 
	“These again?” Esme asked, trying to hide the fact her skin crawled.
	“Sharkweiler.” Beatrix replied with a smile. “I see you’re familiar with the breed.” 
	“Call the creatures off, please.” Esme said, staring at the rows of teeth set in a doglike grin. 
	“Certainly. Stand down!” The ‘dogs’ responded to her quite quickly, and trotted away into the mausoleum. “Come in.” Beatrix moved away from the door. She was at about five and a half feet, dressed in a tattered and dirty lab coat, a long brown skirt, with a blouse in green. 
	Esme followed the doctor down the stairs while Doyle left Juris instructions to search the main foyer and keep the sharkweilers at bay. 
	“You’ll have to forgive me if I work while you’re here investigating. You see my rabbits are on a rather tight schedule and I wouldn’t want to destroy my research just because I have guests. I don’t have guests very often.” 
	Esme stepped into the laboratory, and her body stiffened with both awe and fear. 
	The crypt had been opened up so that there was enough floor space for the main animal keeping area. In one corner there was a rabbit hutch. All the rabbits were huddling in a dark corner, as though they didn’t like the light. 
	In a cage directly next to the door were cobras. Hissing and spitting, they flapped their wings and rose to the cage to the roof. 
	Across the way there was another cage with a panther in it. Esme really didn’t want to know what this crazed doctor was doing but she knew that there was something going on here. 
	Beatrix filled a hypodermic needle with glowing solution and took the first rabbit out of the cage by the scruff of the neck. Esme turned away and began to rummage through the cabinets that held chemicals, trying not to look at the experiments throughout the room. 
	“I have a pool on the next level for the aquatic research. Right now I’m doing a crocodile human. Below that are my operating rooms and the insect stations. In the lowest floor are my personal quarters. I don’t need much space, along with my research books and notes,” Beatrix stated as she jabbed at the rabbit with the syringe, trying to get the needle into the right place. Esme saw her hands shaking. 
	Rick walked in and went down to search the rest of the quarters.
	“What sort of insect research are you doing, if I might ask?” Esme began, trying to make conversation with Gillespie, who was now taking a sample from one of the cobras. It seemed almost happy in her arms. 
	“Spiders.” 
	It was at that point Esme decided she didn’t want to know any more. 
	A half hour passed. Rick and Esme made full survey of the property, including checking the woman’s license of practice—legitimate and her firearms license, which was somewhat questionable.) 
	“Do you have a thaumaturgical work license, Doctor?” Rick asked. He knew the answer, but he wanted to see if the old bat was a liar. 
	“Yes, although I haven’t been called for an examination recently. Might that be a problem?” 
	“Not at all… ma’am. By the way, what’s you’re connection to Bo Kellyfreeze?” Rick began as he picked up a grey stone jar, sealed with lead. There were some funny line drawings in the lead on the side, the sort of thing you bought at a flea market for ten bucks. 
	“I sold him several sharkweilers for his… Please put that down,” Beatrix said with a sharp tone in her voice. 
Rick set the jar down. “What’s in it?” 
	“Demon brains.” 
	“Ah,” said Rick. “I’m afraid we’re going to need some additional questions, Doctor.”	
	“Very well,” said Beatrix, flapping her wings with irritation.
“What’s a convenient time for you?,” Rick asked.
“You may obtain my hours from the University. Any time I’m there is alright.”
“Thank you,” said Doyle, going back into the main room, where he discovered Juris on the floor playing with sharkweiler puppies. 
	“Can we stay just a bit longer to play with the babies? Ja?” Juris asked, giving Esme a pleading look. Crowley looked at him in a way that revealed her disgust for the creatures on the floor, and shook her head. 
	“No, we have work to do.” 
	When they retreated to their car, Juris held a puppy in his lap. Esme stared at. “Rick, I think she might know more than she’s telling.” 
	The puppy yelped with joy, nipping playfully at Juris’ hand, and the two detectives turned in surprise. 
	“What are you doing with that? In my car!” Doyle shouted. 
	“It vos cute, Doyle. Ja?” 

17. Bird Lady
A few hours after the curious people from the police had arrived at home of Beatrix Gillespie, she retired to her office in the University. Tenure was something that she had not really enjoyed, but with the money it was easier to continue her work with her “babies”. A few more papers to grade and she would be finished for the evening. 
	A less than polite knock came on the office door.
	“Gillespie office, come in.” 
	She had forgotten all about the two odious detectives who had disturbed her research that morning, but here they stood.
	“Dr. Gillespie, I’d like your permission to make a circle on your floor for your own protection. Myself and my partner, would like to ask you some questions, but previous to that I’ll need to be certain that I cannot read your mind,” the woman one said. 
	Beatrix peered at her for a moment, and then noticed the pin on her lapel that labeled her a mind reader. “Certainly. Go right ahead.” 
Esme draw out a small packet of green powder, and chanting a few words, made a circle about her. In a small puff of light, an iridescent dome appeared. 
	The man spoke. “Dr. Gillespie, I’ll be questioning you today. Now, we’d like to know what kind of relationship you had with Robbie Coker. You understand that we are not looking to charge you on anything at this time.” He spoke as though he were speaking to a small child. Clearly, Doyle really didn’t think the faery lady had done anything. “We’re aware that you are a scientist. We just want to check up on a few more things. So…” 
	“Mr. Coker was a man who ran a very useful business. He was a Courier, and a very discreet one at that. He agreed to transport parts for my babies in exchange for cash and it was of a use to me. I am getting old now, and it is not as practical as it used to be for me to collect my own rabid dogs...” Beatrix folded her wizened hands on the counter, eyes resting directly on Doyle’s. 
	“So, you used him to bring you illicit objects for your somewhat questionable work?” Esme said from behind the magical window. 
	“They don’t believe me when I say that one day I will be able to make a pureblood into a magical being, but one day I will create angels on this earth, and other things.” Gillespie’s eyes lifted to the ceiling. 
	Esme looked more intently at Beatrix, as though she were trying to get into the old woman’s head. “Doctor, I did wonder—do you perchance have any medical conditions?” 
	“I do suffer from mild Rheumatism. In my joints, you know. I am old, sixty two this year, in fact.” 
	Esme nodded. “From your… workplace, I assume that you can use a syringe proficiently.”
“Of course,” said Beatrix.
“You teach medicine and biology here at the University and studied bioengineering. You know anything about chemistry?” Doyle began, giving Esme a silencing look. 
	“Only a very little. Not enough to do anything really, I’m more likely to blow my experiment up than I am to have it work,” Beatrix replied, chuckling a bit.
	“Are you right-handed?” Esme asked, ignoring Doyle.
	“Why, yes.” Beatrix nodded. 
	“Are you a religious woman, doctor?” Doyle had to know. 
	“As much as any scientist can be. God created the world and we are put upon this earth to take his tests and follow his direction. The power that God gave me was to test the bounds of His creation. To see what has been brought before the earth and see how Lucifer himself could change the world. So yes, sir, I am a religious woman, but one with a very strong understanding of the world.” 
	Esme seemed a bit uncomfortable with the topic at hand. She had never been fond of religion. “Dr. Gillespie, what do you think of purebloods?” she ventured.
	“They were put upon this earth by God, but I believe they should have interbred. They were meant to become like us, the Changed, the people who have mutated into the Other. The Children of God. They have angered God, and he will punish them and send them to the Pits of Hell for their transgressions.” Raising her voice, Beatrix folded her hands in what may have been a gesture of piety. 
	“So, Dr. Gillespie, would you say that you have committed sins in the eyes of God as one of his children?” Rick asked. 
	“I have committed only the sins that He has put me on the earth to commit.” 
	“Do you go to church?” 
	“I do not. I pray, and I read my Bible, and I do what any good woman of God does: I do what I can to serve Him. And I believe I do that well.” Beatrix had slowly come to a religious fervor. 
	Esme murmured something under her breath that sounded like ‘self-righteous zealot’. Beatrix heard her, and the comment enraged her. Her wings lifted and opened behind her, bringing her out of the chair and over the desk, straight for Esme. 
	“I am a woman of God! You cannot stop me from doing his will! You may mock us, but we are the righteous and we will ascend to heaven when the rapture is begun!” 
	Beatrix fell like an injured falcon over her desk. Doyle approached cautiously and cuffed her.
	“May God bless my dying soul.” Beatrix murmured. 
	Esme looked at Doyle. “No, Rick. It wouldn’t be right.” 
	Doyle grumbled, but took the cuffs off and placed the old woman back into her chair. 

	Beatrix did not know how much time had passed, but when her vision cleared, Detective Doyle was standing in front of the desk, Esme in her little circle, telling him not to do anything. 
	“Listen you old bird, I want to know a few things, and then we’re putting you into a cell for some cool-down time. Got it?” His words were harsh, but his tone was meek, like he was trying and failing to scold his grandmother. 
	 Beatrix nodded, unable to comprehend what was going on. 
	“What were you doing when Coker was killed? And just for my personal edification, why the fuck did you sell sharkweilers to Kellyfreeze?” Doyle looked infuriated.
	“I was hunting down feral cats. I needed some for an experiment I’m doing. And he paid me very handsomely.” 
	“What kind of experiment?” Esme asked.
	“I’m looking to see if it’s possible to re-animate animals. I know I can do it transferring dead parts from one animal to another live one, but I’d like to see if I can do it with just the corpse.”
	“And what stops you from doing experiments with humans?” said Doyle. 
	“Because then you people would arrest me for murder.” Beatrix’s golden yellow eyes flashing with anger. 
	“Doctor, we have you as a suspect on Murder One. What did Mr. Coker usually bring you?” Esme cut in before Doyle could say anything damaging. 
	“Sleep drugs, some body parts that I couldn’t get on my own, poisons…some plants that have been outlawed by the International Herbalists Association. I’m sure you found those on your search.” 
	“Black Hellebore, both forms of Nightshade, Water Hemlock, Hemlock, and bloodroot.” Esme listed off. “There were a few other poisons, but those were the violations of the International Herbalist laws.” 
	The bird woman nodded. “You also found my arsenic, cyanide and foxglove, I assume.” She spoke dully, knowing that they would have noticed. 
	“Would you say, Dr. Gillespie, that you know how to use these drugs?” Doyle began his line of inquiry again. 
	“Yes, sir. I would admit that to God. I do know how to use them.”	
	“Doctor, the autopsy report stated that he died of a chemically induced heart attack. Do you know if any of these drugs would cause that?” 
	“Not that I can think of. I’m not a poisons expert, nor am I a chemist of any real value.” 
	Esme nodded. “Doyle, a word?” 
	Esme and Doyle walked out of the office, consulting behind the closed door over information that they would not wish for Beatrix to hear. They had left Beatrix alone, bound to her own office chair, wings tied together painfully in the back with what seemed to be rope. Indignity at its worst, for a faery. 
	They came back into the office, and Beatrix watched Doyle sit down across from her. Esme stayed in her little mind readers circle. 
	“So, you don’t care for purebloods,” Esme reiterated.
	“They are a necessary part of the city. I am not a woman who particularly enjoys watching them struggle in this world of magical beings and proper children of God.” 
	“Indeed. Have you ever offered your services to a pureblood to change them in some way, to make them like you or me?” Esme asked. 
	“Yes. But only because it seemed that they would want the change. Every time however, they have turned me away.” 
	“I still think it’s that fucking mage,” Doyle muttered under his breath, loud enough for both Esme and Beatrix to hear. 
	“I think those are all the questions that I have for you today, Dr. Gillespie.” Esme said as she stood up, voice hardening, eyes shifting to stare at Doyle. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to take you back to the station with us.” 
	As Beatrix was loaded into a squad car, she heard the detectives speak. 
	“Can’t be her. She’s too fucking old. It’s the fucking mage brat,” Doyle snarled at Esme. 
	“I’m not sure, Doyle. We still have a serial killer here, and she seems pretty off keel.”
	At the station, they threw Beatrix into a holding cell. She could be heard murmuring under her breath. “How dare you put me with a mage, a vampire, some horrific actuary and a wolf-brat.” 	

18. A Talk With the Doctor
	The Museum of Supernatural History closed early during the off-season, and Doyle had to pound on the door for a minute before a guard showed up to let them in. The security guard was a fleshy man, with an oily black pompadour, who had more than a passing resemblance to Oscar Wilde. Esme doubted it would be politic to point the fact out. “Lucky you showed up,” Doyle growled at the guard. “We could have just broken in, as long as you took.”
	“If you tried, I’d be mopping you up right now.” The guard laughed, pointing over Doyle’s shoulder. Doyle turned to look at the large stone lion beside him. Two identical statues flanked the museum doors. While Doyle stared, the stone lion yawned soundlessly, displaying large stone teeth. The guard smiled. “They’re functional as well as decorative. C’mon. Let’s go. Dr. Vilnius is waiting for you.”
	The guard led them past the fully articulated skeleton of a dragon that dominated the vast entry hall, through an unmarked door, and down another dimly lit hall. The museum smelled faintly of dust and ammonia, and their footsteps echoed in the corridor. They stopped and entered an elevator. The guard made no attempt at conversation, but continued to sneak glances at the pair—especially Esme. “What?” growled Doyle, as they neared the sub-basement. “You got a problem?”
	“Sorry,” replied the guard, looking anything but. Finally the elevator doors opened, to the detective’s relief. Something about the guard was definitely off-putting. “Dr. Vilnius is in room 408,” he told them
	Esme and Doyle left the elevator and entered yet another long dim hallway. Large stainless steel doors broke the otherwise featureless expanse of wall. Heavy doors, many of them etched with arcane symbols—runes of protection. Despite her best efforts to shield herself, Esme felt some very strange—and dangerous—vibrations from within a few of the rooms. When they reached 408, Doyle started to knock, then jerked back abruptly as the door swung open.
	“Good evening, detectives,” said a short man in wire-rim glasses and a white lab coat. “I am Dr. Vilnius.” His voice bore traces of an Austrian accent. “You may have a problem here. A very bad problem.” He looked at each of them in turn, letting the weight of his words sink in.
“The case that you brought me bore a strong aura of corruption, very strong indeed. I took the liberty of describing it to a friend of mine at the Bureau of Alchemy, Thaumaturgy, and Fetishes. Your case matches exactly one that was recently stolen from a secure government facility.”
	“Holy shit!” exclaimed Doyle.
	“So that means—” Esme started.
	“Exactly,” the doctor cut them off. “This case was, until recently, the resting place of a tremendously dangerous bio-agent. No, that’s not precise enough. It contained a reliquary, sealed with protective runes, that contained an avatar of Tzulscha, a Demon of Plague. The BATF is, of course, interested in recovering this jar. I suggest finding it immediately. Were the plague jar to fall into the wrong hands, thousands or perhaps millions will suffer and die.”
	“Gee, is that all,” said Doyle, although his sarcasm fell flat. Esme felt fear from him for the first time since they’d worked together.
	She didn’t have much to say to that. They left quickly, sharing the same unspoken thought: we’d better find this thing fast, before the plague is loosed—and before the feds come in and fuck up our case.

19. Interview with a Madman
	Night had fallen when Esme and Doyle returned to the precinct, but they found a message waiting for them with the desk sergeant. While they were out, Cyrus Mackilwraith, or the man who used that name, had been picked up by a black-and-white.
“Officers Ulrich and Simms found him sitting in a park,” said the Sergeant, reading the report. “He had been feeding the ducks, but his outdated clothing made him conspicuous. The park is adjacent to a daycare center, and the officers didn’t like the way he watched the kids more than the ducks. Until they asked his name, he’d just been a potential perv wearing funny clothes. They recognized Mackilwraith from the APB, and when they questioned him, he began to curse and gesticulate, shrieking gibberish. Simms and Ulrich tried to restrain him, but Simms got a broken nose for his trouble. You know Simms, the big guy with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do? He couldn’t even land a punch on him. According to this report, Cyrus ‘melted away from his grip and flowed like water, smiling a loony grim the whole time.’ As Simms staggered back to the car, Cyrus walked up to Officer Ulrich—you know, Doyle, the blonde you can’t stop drooling over—and docilely held out his hands. She read him his rights. The end.”
	“That’s a good story, Sergeant,” Doyle said. “Making Simms look like a fool. He can usually handle himself pretty well. So where’s this crafty bastard now?”
	“State Mental Hospital.”
	“Oh yeah?”
	“Yeah. We had to get rid of him. He did it all, I tell you. Foaming at the mouth, cursing, ranting about cannibalism. Pretty fucking scary. I don’t think he was making it up. He’d calm down, have some lucid moments, but those were even worse. He had a cold eye. You know what I mean?”
	“Nope, sure don’t,” Doyle replied with a grin.
	“But we’re about to find out,” Esme finished. “Unless you have any objections, Rick?”
	“Me? Nah. Besides, what else would I do, sleep?” 
It took thirty minutes to reach the State Mental Hospital at Arkenridge. A large, imposing stone fortress dominated by rows of narrow, barred windows, the hospital stood on a clear patch of land that rose out of the hardwood forest. The grounds were ringed with concertina wire and cyclone fences, complete with guard towers. Klieg lights illumined the lawns and the driveway as Rick drove through the gate.
Upon entering the asylum, Esme and Doyle noticed Juris leaning against the wall of the lobby. “I come to make sure he do not escape,” Juris said. “He is waiting inside. That is one scary bastard.” He grinned, displaying teeth like tombstones. “I’ll be out here. You need anything, call me.” It always felt good to know that Petrauskas was on your side.
	“Esme,” Doyle said. “Hold up a minute.”
	“What?” she said impatiently. “What’s bothering you?” she asked with more concern, seeing the look on his face.
	“It’s this Mackilwraith guy,” Doyle said. “You’ve read the original case files, right? That was my granddad’s work. Hiram Doyle. Back before he died, he told me a few things about the case. I still remember what he said.”
	“What did he say?” Esme asked, becoming very quiet.
	“He said that the day he arrested Cyrus was the first day he really believed in a devil. He’d seen bad things before, but mostly stupid crimes committed by stupid people. This was the first time he’d come face to face with real, thinking evil. Also the last, thank God. After that case, he started going to church regular, when he had never gone before. He also started drinking more than he used to. To balance things out, is what he said. He died of cirrhosis, you know.”
	“So what does that mean to us? I’m sorry about your granddad, but what the hell? You think this Cyrus Mackilwraith is the same guy? He’s long dead. Forget about it. Let’s get this over with.”
	“I’m just saying keep an open mind. We’ve seen enough strangeness this week, after all.” He straightened up, putting on his “bad cop” face. “Let’s do this thing.”
They entered the padded chamber.
	A slim, dark figure slouched against the wall, restrained by a straightjacket and padded shackles, paying no attention to the pair of burly orderlies who flanked him. Or to Esme and Doyle. The two detectives whispered to each other. They looked down at the picture from the old case file—it was the same guy, down to the small scar tracing back from the corner of his right eye. To the cops, his lack of concern was both insolent and threatening. Sometimes, perps would fake indifference, but his was genuine, and it made them nervous. They were used to being in command of the situation. Except here, in this padded room, where all the rules were different. Esme and Doyle knew a few things about this guy, who so carelessly hung against his restraints. If he was who he said he was. To all appearances, they had in front of them a man once thought to be an urban legend—the Butcher of Hoyden Park. Cyrus Mackilwraith, in the flesh. Except Cyrus had died in the electric chair forty years ago.
	A few things were wrong here, however. This man couldn’t be much more than thirty-five, for one thing. He wasn’t dead, for another. Not obviously, at least. He wasn’t a zombie, and he certainly wasn’t a vampire, not if he could run around in broad daylight. 
“He doesn’t feel like one of the walking dead,” Esme said. 
“Don’t fucking do that,” Doyle hissed. “At least pretend like you can’t read my mind whenever you want.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to. I’m nervous.” She hated admitting that, especially to him, but it was the truth. “He feels so wrong, but it’s hard to say how. Maybe it’s his mind.”
The man claimed to be Cyrus Mackilwraith, and the picture confirmed it. Shit. Esme vaguely remembered the Mackilwraith case from her Academy days, from their psych profiling textbooks. Doyle was even more familiar with the details. One of the worst serial murderers in the city’s history. Any time now, they’d be getting the casebook from the archives downtown. Then they could put this thing straight. There was some serious fucking weirdness going on this week, and Cyrus was only a part of it. They had a murder, and five other suspects, each stranger than the last. And the missing artifact. 
	Cyrus Mackilwraith didn’t look like much. He wasn’t overtly dangerous. A small, trim, pale man with dark hair and darker eyes, almost mild. Despite thick sideburns and a goatee, he had a slightly feminine cast, with fine, chiseled features. Even in white pajamas, he projected an indefinable sense of menace. Wire-frame glasses hung from a slender chain around his neck. With longish black hair slicked back from his forehead, he had a vaguely Mafioso look. His long-fingered hands drummed idly on the bare steel tabletop.
	“Let’s get this fucking show on the road,” Cyrus bellowed, startling the detectives as well as the uniformed men. His voice was loud and surprisingly deep, full of jovial good humor with malice beneath. “I haven’t got all night, so if you’re done with the preliminary circle-jerk, let’s get a fucking move on. With all due respect.” He grinned, displaying straight, even white teeth.	Before the orderlies could stop him, Doyle walked over and casually backhanded the suspect. Cyrus rocked back in his chair. His hair spilled over his eyes. A droplet of blood ran down his forehead where the detective’s academy ring left a small cut. Cyrus gave Rick a smile, but his eyes blazed with murder and mad glee. Jesus Christ, thought the detective, this guy is off his fucking nut. He backed away, regretting his display of temper. It had already been a long night, and his nerves were wearing thin.
	“Shit, man,” one of the orderlies said, stepping forward.
	“You can’t do that,” the other orderly chimed in, but without much concern in his voice.
	“Doyle, don’t fuck this up,” Esme snapped. “Get over here, and apologize.”
	“I’m sorry, Esme. I’m wound tighter than a nun’s panties. Not smoking, you know.”
Raising his hands, Cyrus shook the padded cuffs. “Let’s see you try that without these, you numb fuck. I’ll show you the true meaning of Christmas.” He laughed to himself, then lost interest again.
	“Enough of that,” the Esme said, glaring at her partner. “With just a little cooperation, we can all get out of here by morning.”
	“I’m not a vampire,” Cyrus interjected. “Don’t fucking matter to me, one way or the other. I’ve got time. Plenty of time. More than I have a right to, if you take my meaning. If you all want to take your thumbs out your asses and start asking questions, maybe I’ll answer them. Or not. We could wait here until Jesus comes back, if you want. These things are damn uncomfortable, though.” He waved one arm above his head. An empty handcuff fell against the one still fastened on his wrist. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, as the detectives looked at him in stunned disbelief. “My cuff appears loose.” 
The two orderlies edged away, reaching for their nightsticks.
“Shit,” Esme muttered. Doyle reached for his service pistol, before remembering that he wasn’t allowed to carry it into a mental institution. 
	“Will you feel better if I put this back on?” Cyrus asked, his voice dripping with false innocence. “Give me a smoke, and I’ll cooperate.” Esme nodded. One of the orderlies fished a cigarette from a case in his pocket, put it in Cyrus’s mouth, and then snapped the cuff back around Cyrus’s wrist. 
“Anybody got a light?” Cyrus asked, looking up toward Esme. Esme tightened the handcuffs, then walked out of the room, and returned a few seconds later with a lighter and an ashtray. Esme lit the butt for him, then stepped back and watched him smoke. Cyrus inhaled deeply. “Ah,” he said. “There’s nothing better, not even sex,” he leered at Doyle. “And who but a fool or a madman would willingly give up this taste of paradise?” Esme saw Doyle’s hand shake and begin to form the shape of a fist. Cyrus took another drag, and said, “I may die happy now.”
	Exasperated, Esme stalked over and snatched the cigarette out of his mouth. About to snap it between her fingers, she stopped, reconsidered, and put it back in his mouth. Cyrus took another long drag, tapped off the ash, and stubbed out the mostly intact cigarette. “A vile habit,” he said, looking at her. “One of many, I’m afraid.” He resumed his studious disinterest.

	While the idiot fucking cops fumbled around, Cyrus watched and waited. His mind was a machine, wheels within wheels. It wasn’t his fault if sometimes the machine had gremlins. He had died, after all. He thought he was doing damn good, considering. When the cops had grabbed him on the street, he had been waiting for something. He couldn’t remember now. Never mind. These things came and went. He was sure he’d remember when he got out. That’s what he had to focus on right now. The woman detective—how times have changed—she was the one to worry about. She had a nice little body on her, but she was also dead fucking smart. He wasn’t too concerned about the man. And the orderlies were just your typical muscle-monkeys. They could have been brothers, or clones. One had a mustache, but otherwise they were identical.
	The room was your basic padded cell. Grates over the dingy little window. Heavy steel door. Like the cuffs, not a problem if he really wanted to leave. The big fucking sonovabitch in the hall was another matter. He wasn’t sure if that guy was a troll, or maybe a body-builder, but he was a big bastard and looked mean. In a fight, Cyrus could take anyone in the room, but the one outside, maybe not. But why worry about escape? What he wanted more than anything, was information. What had he been doing out on Broadside Street? Who died, and why? He’d gathered that much from the orderlies and their idle talk. Loose lips and all that shit. More importantly, why the fuck was he here? What was the point of coming back from the dead if you didn’t even know why?
	To elevate his mood, he had bantered a little with the cops, showed them how fucking crazy he was, and then slipped off the handcuff. Priceless! It was a good trick back in Houdini’s day, and it still played well. It had their attention, at least, but now that he had it, he didn’t want it. They couldn’t tell him anything, anyway.
	The cops could have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they took him at his word. About who he was, at least. He could remember it all, his former life. His childhood, the beatings and the abuse. On the streets as a youngster, what they called a teenager now. First the voices. Then the murders. All of the women, and the cops who got too close. Detective James Casey, the man who finally caught him. He remembered it all. He could vividly recall the smell of ozone and burning meat as he rode Old Sparky at the State Pen. The pain that seemed like it would never end. Five jolts it took, at 2000 volts each, he later read. It all felt like the same hell to him. And there, at the end, he swore…What? Did he swear something? He couldn’t remember. It was all black after that, until he woke up a week ago.
	At first, he had been confused. The world was strange, and the voices were gone. It took some getting used to, but in the end, it was so very rewarding to have his mind to himself. Looking back, he had been fucking crazy. No wonder they electrocuted him! There were no voices now, just the missing time, those blank spots in his recent memory. His old life went up in smoke, and his new life had holes in it. But life was still sweet, and he loved a challenge. Maybe he would play with the cops some more.
He could tell them the story about how he had waived both his right to meet with a clergy member and his right to a last meal before execution. Unless, the state would consent to let his last meal be the clergy member. 
	More important things to find out, though. He knew about some lapses in memory, but he would have been shocked to realize just how much of his new life had evaporated, and with what dire results. The blackouts, unbeknownst to him, came with greater frequency and for longer lengths of time. For Cyrus Mackilwraith, self-control had always been an illusion, and now, even more so. Once commanded by sinister voices of his own imagining, he was now under the sway of a far darker force, something outside himself. His uncanny metamorphosis and subsequent return from the dead had merely made him a more useful host for the demonic hitchhiker that rode him back from Hell.

	“I’m ready to cooperate now, detectives,” Cyrus said. “Not that it will be much help. I’m afraid my memory isn’t what it used to be.” He smiled disingenuously. “But go right the fuck ahead. Try to keep your questions insightful and amusing.”
	“Shut up,” Doyle growled. “You’ll answer whatever questions we ask.”
	“If I shut up, how the fuck will I answer your questions?” Cyrus chuckled, rolling his eyes.
	“Let’s start from the beginning,” Esme said.
	“Cyrus Mackilwraith. Born December 5th, 1927.” Esme attempted to speak, but he continued. “Died June 2nd, 1963. Electrocution. I deserved it, that’s for sure. They convicted me on 19 counts of first-degree murder, and 2 counts of second-degree murder. But I’m sure that doesn’t interest you. You can’t execute me for the same crime twice. Even if you believe that I am who I am. So, what is it now? What great and terrible crime do you think I committed?”
	“You are implicated in a murder,” Doyle said. “I were you, I’d help us out. Make it easy on yourself.”
	“What we want to know is, where were you Tuesday night? And were you with anyone who can corroborate your story?” Esme asked.
	“I’m sure I can’t remember. No alibi either. Tough luck.” Cyrus shrugged.
	“Do you know Robert Coker?” Doyle asked, standing over Cyrus.
	Cyrus leaned back. He fought the urge to stand up and slam the bony front part of his skull into the stupid Mick’s jaw, but instead smiled politely. “Robbie? Well, now. He was under the mark of the Guild, you know. I feel bad for whoever killed him. Not me, certainly. You are crowding me, by the way.” Doyle took a couple steps back, reluctantly, as Esme placed her hand on his shoulder.
	“Okay but how do you know him? What’s the nature of your relationship? We found your name on a list in his pocket,” she added.
	“Strictly business, I assure you,” Cyrus grinned. “I don’t drive; he’s a cabbie. And he delivers things to me. A list, you said. Who else was on that list?”
	“What kind of deliveries?” asked Doyle, ignoring the question.
	“Groceries, mostly. I have a very strict diet. Most stores don’t carry what I eat,” Cyrus leered at Esme appreciatively. “Now who the fuck was on that list?” 
	“I’m asking the questions here. Do you know how much trouble you’re in? Who the hell do you think you are?” Doyle snarled, his patience clearly fraying.
	“I am Cyrus Mackilwraith, you whiskey-guzzling tosspot!” Cyrus shouted. He rose from his seat, spittle flying from his mouth. “I killed all those people. I ate them and made funny hats from their flesh! Do you know why? Because I could! Because I am a wolf among sheep and a god among men!” His outburst spent, he slumped back into his chair. “You are all cattle,” he said in a quiet, composed voice. “I am free, free from law, free from morality. You, you live in cages, cages that grow tinier year after year. You eat the flesh of other animals kept in cages, watching TV, fattening up for the slaughter.”
	“This is fucking nuts,” Doyle whispered to Esme. “And they found him outside a preschool?”
	“Shh, listen,” she hissed. “This could be important.”
	“Yes, you better listen.” Cyrus stared at them, eyes blazing. “In the old days, men would hunt. When they ate, they would thank the buffalo for his strength and the antelope for his speed. Now what? You live in safe little homes, lined up like cattle pens. It was bad enough in my day; now it’s even worse. Job, church, home, family. All bullshit. Work your life away. Go home and sit in a cage, staring at a screen. Not me. You live like caged animals, and call me insane. They fatten you up for the slaughter. You’re willing accomplices in your own destruction. Not me. I am free. You are property. Who the fuck owns you? You don’t even know.” He stood in front of the overturned chair, panting, his cuffed hands twisted into claws.
	“You had your little say?” Doyle asked. His hands clenched into fists. The urge to hit the little fuck was overwhelming, intoxicating almost. Still, he held back.
	“You gonna let me go? Either release me or charge me with something. I’m sick of this bullshit. I’m not insane; I’m a frustrated genius.”
	“We’re holding you,” Esme said, her voice flat. “On suspicion of murder. You have the right to remain silent, and the right to an attorney. With the Doctor’s approval, you’ll be remanded into out custody. Take him away.”
	“Even in a cage, I’m more free than you will ever be,” Cyrus said, looking up at the ceiling.
	The orderlies hauled Cyrus to his feet and propelled him toward the door.	“What do you make of that?” Doyle asked after the door shut. “You think he’s the one?”
	“I’m not sure. He could be. Let’s get him blood-typed tomorrow. At least we might prove who he’s not.”
	“He’s crazy enough.”
	“Crazy? I’m not sure,” Esme rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I think it was an act. Some of it,” she said, heading off the objection she knew was coming. “Did you get a good look at him when I asked about the night of the murder?”
	“What do you mean?” Doyle felt another of her damn hunches coming on.
	“Just a feeling. But when he said he couldn’t remember—I believe him,” Esme looked at Doyle.
	“Hell, that’s not the craziest thing I’ve heard tonight,” Doyle grinned, a thin, tense grin. “You know what’s crazier?”
	“What’s that?” Esme asked.
	“I believe him too.” Doyle turned for the door. “Let’s get some coffee.”
	“You don’t need any coffee, Rick. What you need is sleep.”

20. Making the Pieces Fit
Doyle and Crowley sat at a fake-oak table in the precinct’s break room.
	“That last one with Mackilwraith was great wasn’t it? He sure has a personality on him,” Doyle said.
	“Don’t they all?” Crowley said with a slight smirk.
	“You know, Es, you did real good in there. Mackilwraith is a creepy fucker, and you didn’t blink.” That was just the thing people didn’t get about Crowley, Doyle reflected—she looked like an angel, but if you messed with her, she was not afraid to show you her bad side.
	“Thanks, Rick. That means a lot to me.” Sometimes Esme thought how funny it was to know Doyle liked her, but showed it in the crudest, most obnoxious way possible. “We still don’t have nearly enough to bring any one of them down,” she said aloud.
	“True,” Rick agreed. “But it’ll break. It always does.”
	“I’ll agree with you on that one, but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.”
	“I told you we’d need to beat it out of them.”
	“Right,” said Esme. “Let’s make a list first—we have six suspects, one murdered cabbie, and a missing jar of plague demon that may or may not be in the hands of a lunatic.” She closed her yellow pad. “You know, beatings may be what it comes to.”
	“We could question them again.”
	“And what exactly would that accomplish, Rick?”
	“Dammit, why do you always have to do this? Right when I think you’re starting to be alright, you turn into my mother! Look, all I did was give another suggestion and you jump on me!” Doyle pushed back his chair and stood.
“How the hell are we ever going to get anywhere if you keep acting like a child?” Esme yelled at him.
	“I keep acting like a child because you keep talking to me as if that’s what I were,” he exclaimed back.
	“I’m sorry, Rick. I think this case is getting to me. I just can’t wait until this whole thing is over with.” Her voice got softer. Rick sighed, and then placed a hand on her shoulder. Esme looked at it in surprise. It was a scarred hand, definitely masculine and heavy for Doyle’s bony body.
	“How long have you been a cop, Es?” he asked her.
	“Five years,” she said.
	“I’m coming up on twenty. I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but it doesn’t. Same shit, different year.”
	“Yeah?”
	“Yeah. Take my advice and quit while you’re ahead.”
	“And let you get all the credit for solving this? No thanks.”
	Doyle’s mouth quirked a little. “That’s my girl.”

21. Holding Pen
Crowley and Doyle cleared out one of the drunk tanks and brought the suspects into it for “post-processing.” The idea was to let the six talk to each other, and see who talked to who. Not exactly the most surefire way to find anything out, and the drunk tank was impossible to bug, but it would be interesting to see who talked. And who didn’t. They might be able to learn as much from who avoided each other. They left the detention area, to give the suspects some space, but watched the interaction from the security monitors. Juris sat on a bench across the hall from the tank, out of earshot of whispered conversation, but close enough to step in if a fight broke out.
The first few minutes were tense, of course. Throw six dangerous people into a small, confined space and watch the fun erupt. Everyone eyed the dwarf cautiously, having noticed his lycanthrope tags and the tattered remnants of his purple pants. Tomorrow the full moon began, but some werewolves felt the change early, especially when they were under stress. 
Cyrus Mackilwraith sat down next to Jenny, who looked at him for a long moment, and then very deliberately got up and changed seats.
“Making friends already,” Doyle said.
When Beatrix noticed Jenny staring sidelong at her, she smiled a vague smile and began to clean her glasses. Kellyfreeze spent the first few minutes sneaking glances at Natasha Segovia, radiant in her dishabille. Soon he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. Doyle could fully appreciate the appeal of that perfect, seductive form. Natasha, for her part, smiled and batted her eyes coyly at the accountant. “That rich, lucky stiff,” Doyle said to Esme.
For a fast-talking accountant, Bo said very little in jail. He seemed totally mesmerized by Natasha, staring openly at her. The other two women gave Natasha sharp, nasty glances.
“If he wasn’t such a slimy shitbag I’d warn his ass about that vamp’s powers of, ahem, manipulation,” Rick muttered.
“Not your problem, Doyle. Everyone watches the video in junior high health. Don’t Date Vampires! Or whatever they’re calling it now. If he chooses to forget, that’s his own damn problem. Still, I think they might need a room before too long.” On the screen, Natasha glided over to Kellyfreeze and sat next to him, leaning dangerously close. She whispered lasciviously into his ear; even on the black-and-white screen they could see his color rise. Esme saw the raw hunger—not lust—in the vampire’s gaze and shuddered. “Men are pigs. They’d date a rotting corpse if it filled a dress like that.”
Jenny whispered something to Kane, and they both stared at Cyrus, who now had a bench all to himself. He nodded at Kane and gave Jenny the same tainted smile he’d bestowed on Esme. Jenny returned with one of her heart-stopping glares, but no one spoke. That would have been a kind of blasphemy. It seemed wrong, sitting there in that cell, to break the silence. 
“Let’s let ‘em cool it for a while yet,” Doyle said. “If nothing else, we might see Kellyfreeze make a fool of himself.” The actuary gazed into Natasha’s eyes with rapt fascination. A trickle of drool escaped his lips. He looked willing to pledge his blood, his life, his Swiss bank account numbers. “I want to see what’s going on between Threadstone and Mackilwraith, too. You can practically feel the love from here.”
Beatrix leaned over and spoke to Jenny, who said something caustic in return. The mage and Kane laughed.
“You still think its Threadstone, don’t you?” Esme asked.
“I’d stake my reputation on it,” Doyle replied. Esme rolled her eyes, but apparently the irony of that statement was lost on Doyle. 
“I have an idea,” he said abruptly. “Let’s follow them. Let ‘em go and see what they do. We can’t legally hold them much longer without charging them, anyway.”
“For once, I think you’ve got something,” Esme agreed.

Cyrus hated not speaking almost more than being locked up. He hated being alone with his thoughts, stranded with the flickering light of his undead conscience. He clenched his fists in his lap, hard as he had the strength to do. Hurt like hell, but he didn’t care. He had to do something to express his anger and frowning and breathing hard just wasn’t doing the job. He sat there thinking about how badly he wanted to go over to those bars and pull them right the fuck apart, so he could hop out to freedom and rip the heads off those goddamn cops. He turned his attention away from the bars, because the fact that something so simple as a few shaped pieces of metal were restraining him was so stupid, it stopped him from thinking. He looked over at the row of people near him and came to the conclusion that he was thinking he’d like to maybe go over and smash that mage’s face into hamburger. She was watching him with her blue eyes and Cyrus got the uncomfortable feeling she could see him inside and out.
Jenny lit up a cigarette and blew smoke in the general direction of Cyrus, and then Beatrix. The older woman waved it away with her wings.
“That is a filthy habit,” she told Jenny.
“Bugger off,” Jenny replied, punctuating the statement with the middle finger of her cigarette hand.
“Now, children,” said Cyrus. Jenny pretended to ignore them both, but she was doing the opposite. The skinny guy had the smell of the hellbound on him, and she just didn’t like faeries. Always grasping at magic and never quite mastering it. Acting like it was their birthright just because they were fae. Magic was a talent, not a gift. Gillespie smiled at Jenny, and Jenny narrowed her eyes in response. The bint just wanted what wasn’t hers.
Natasha whispered something in Kellyfreeze’s ear. Kane saw it. “Go for it, dude!” he exclaimed, laughing. His giggles turned to coughs, and then to growls.
“Oh, shit!” Jenny said loudly as Kane wolfed not a foot from her.
Bo jumped away from Natasha and narrowly avoided getting bitten. Natasha swore under her breath.
Beatrix and Jenny stood on the benches as Kane hurled himself against the bars, now sharing the same predicament of being shackled with witch-irons. Cyrus called out, “Nice doggie!” and then cracked Kane across the muzzle when he snarled. Jenny reached out with her foot and shoved Cyrus off-balance, making him fall against a bench. He grinned up at her, blood running from a split lip. “I’ll enjoy wearing your face, darling,” he said calmly.
Kane howled. Juris came bursting in and injected him with anti-serum, shoving Cyrus out of the way like he was made of paper.
“The real fun was just beginning!” the serial killer protested. 
“That’s it!” Doyle yelled, arriving out of breath from the observation room. “Everybody calm the fuck down!” 
Esme was a few steps behind him and restrained Kane until he’d turned human again.
“Unless anyone wants to press charges here, you’re all free to go,” Doyle growled, looking at Cyrus and the dwarf.
“No harm done, detective,” Cyrus replied gallantly. “And sir, if I gave offense, I truly regret it.” He bowed low to Kane, making a flourish with his right hand, then turned to leave. Kane, weak after his metamorphosis, didn’t even look up. 
“Get the hell out of here.” Doyle held the cell door open. “You can pick your shit up at the front desk. Let me help you with your cuffs, Miss Threadstone,” he said, grabbing her wrist with more force than was strictly necessary. He unfastened her cuffs, and the blue light that wreathed her hands faded. “All clear,” he grinned, then cried out as something sharp bit into his finger.
“I’ll thank you not to manhandle me, Rick,” Jenny whispered. “Your job hangs by a thread, and a charge of prisoner abuse could easily sever it.” She smiled sweetly at him, her eyes cold. “If you understand me.”
“Just get the hell out, while you still can,” he said gruffly, rubbing his hand.
“Ahem,” came a cough from behind him. Dr. Gillespie stood there with cuffed wrists outstretched, radiating impatience. “If you please, detective.” Doyle released her without a word, then moved to where Esme and Juris held the dwarf.
“Before I leave, Mr. Doyle, a question?” Beatrix said, as the cuffs were removed. Doyle seemed not to notice. “Has the Guild been making inquiries into the case at all?” 
Doyle twitched, giving the woman a dirty look, as all the other prisoners momentarily shut up. 
“No, the Guild, has made no inquiries.” He turned his attention to Kane. “You all settled down?” The dwarf nodded. “All right then.”
“You’re free to go,” Esme told Kane, “but you better keep on your medication. If we find you running the streets as a wolf, we’ll pick you up and turn you over to the Humane Society. Got it?”
The dwarf gave a surly nod. Juris released him and followed him down to the front desk, making sure he left without incident.
“So whaddaya think?” Doyle asked Esme once they were alone.
“We’ve got ‘em, I think. It’s got to be either Threadstone or Dr. Gillespie. No one else has the brains to pull something like this off.”
“That’s what I think, too. Let’s tail Threadstone.”
“Why did I know you’d say that? I think Gillespie’s the one, Doyle. I really do.”
“The little old lady? C’mon, Esme. You gotta be kidding me. Threadstone’s the one. Your psychic thing can be wrong sometimes. Besides, we can keep track of the Doctor through the University. Once Threadstone leaves, she’ll be gone. She’ll hop on a private jet and next thing you know, someone even worse will have the Plague Jar. You don’t want some wacked-out occultist getting a hold of that kind of power. Trust me on this.”
“You’re wrong, Rick,” Esme said coldly, “but I’ll go along with you. Again. Just to prove you wrong. I just want it clear that I’m against you on this.”
“Sure. If I fuck it up, it’s my ass. I’ll make sure everyone knows that I pulled rank on you, despite your vast intellectual fucking superiority.” He stalked off, clearly wounded. She started after him, then thought better of it, and held back. When his pride was hurt, he was as friendly as a wounded lion.

As Rick and Esme both knew, it took a while to check out of custody. The desk sergeant had to call the officer who brought their personal items from the safe, and then they spent almost an hour checking the receipts and collecting signatures. Dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s, appeasing the gods of bureaucracy. By the time Jenny Threadstone left in her black stretch limousine, Doyle and Esme sat in an Unmarkable car in the alley behind the precinct. Rick still wasn’t talking to her, so Esme let him drive as a salve to his pride. She was pretty pissed, herself. Why couldn’t the jerk listen to her for once? She was right, dammit.
After the limo passed, Doyle waited a couple seconds, then stepped on the gas and turned out of the alley. Unmarkable cars were the latest thing, a natural extension of military stealth technology. Some wizard at Lockheed-Martin had developed a spell—better than invisibility—that made people just not notice whatever it was cast on. In common parlance, this stealth technology was referred to as dim. As in, “that dude’s so dim they’ll never see him coming.” According to accepted theory, the only effective countermeasure against dim technology was to be completely unobservant. Then, you might get lucky and just happen to notice it out of the corner of your eye. Anyway, Doyle reflected, it wasn’t likely that Threadstone could spot them. If she could, she was even more dangerous than he believed.
The limo turned east and he followed. “Weird,” he said to Esme.
“Yeah, her house is north, up on Golgotha Heights. And the Threadstone Building is downtown. Where’s she going?” In a few minutes, that question was answered, as the limo drove into the gates of the Crown Hill Cemetery. 

22. On His Way To A Cemetery To Rob An Old Lady
Beatrix peered around the corner and into Kane’s apartment, ever careful not to make a noise. Kane stood with his back to where his door had been, just staring at the mess Juris had made and cursing under his breath. Beatrix slowly and unflinchingly pulled out a gun and put two tranquilizer darts in the dwarf’s back, knocking him out before he could even turn around. Without fuss and without muss. Beatrix shoved his tiny body into a large black sack and dragged him down the stairs. Oh the things she could do with a werewolf, the tests, the experiments.

 	Without knowing why, Cyrus walked toward the Crown Hill Cemetery. From time to time, these compulsions would come over him. How he hated them! In some ways, they were worse than the voices; at least the voices had spoken to him, told him what they wanted. At times like these he felt like a puppet, a vehicle for an irresistible force. As he crested a small hill, he saw the Alberic family crypt, and was surprised. A small figure dragged a large black sack through the clearing where the cobblestone paths met. Beatrix Whatshername, that shriveled up hag from the holding cell! What the hell was she doing here? And why the fuck was he—
 	Searing pain, pain such as he had never felt, brought him to his knees. Cyrus Mackilwraith had lived a hard life—two hard lives. He had felt depths of pain and deprivation that many cannot even imagine, and had inured himself to them. But he had never felt anything like this. Many women have known similar pain as they became mothers, but what Cyrus felt was far worse, no less for being so unnatural. He screamed, a forlorn wail of true despair. Beatrix looked up to the crest of the hill and smiled. Right on time.
. In spite of it all Cyrus smiled his enigmatic smile. It split wider and wider, until it was beyond the limits of the human muscle structure, two small hands reached out of Cyrus’s mouth, peeling the man in half like an obsolete piece of clothing. A small, hunched demon stood where Cyrus had been, a black snout and long white fangs giving it a piggish appearance. Then it ran, leaping and cavorting, down to where Beatrix waited.

	 By the time Jenny left in her black stretch limousine she was aware of at least one of the four officers that were following her. By the time she got to the Crown Hill Cemetery she had cast enough spells to lose two of them, but Esme and Doyle knew better. 
Jenny decided that if she couldn’t deal with a psychic and a part-fae drunk she wasn’t nearly the mage she believed. And when did a chance like this come along, after all? A chance for real, ultimate power. 
Putting what happened together had been easy. Cyrus was a demon, and Beatrix a faery. The only other two magical beings on Robbie’s list, so naturally they had to be the ones using…whatever it was. Jenny didn’t know what they were up to yet, but she wanted in.
She left her limo at the gates and went on foot, following the twinge in her head generated by Cyrus’s demon. She saw it transform, and go towards Beatrix.
“Hello,” said Jenny, stepping from behind a tombstone. “What do we have here?”
Casting a quick cloaking spell on herself, she followed Beatrix and the Cyrus-demon into the old woman’s mausoleum. 

Natasha followed Doyle and Esme with a half-hearted interest. She’d spotted him following Jenny, and Bo had mentioned Jenny usually knew the right place to be. 
Bo Kellyfreeze buttoned the last button of his black suit and slicked back his hair, looking like a man who knew what he was doing, and he did. Tired of cooking books and finding loopholes, he was on his way to a cemetery to rob an old lady and he had never felt better about himself. If he got there early, things would be easy, simple smash and grab, if he got there at the wrong time, well, long since grade school he had mastered the art of out running beings bigger then himself. His silver Mercedes rolled up to the gates of the cemetery . He parked in the cemetery parking lot, the only other cars being a hearse, a limo, and a police squad car, but the last one he didn’t even notice. 

23. Ritualistic Tendencies
	Beatrix shuffled about, humming a light Irish tune, something with the words ‘be thou my battle shield, thou my delight’, and painting a large pentacle on the floor in chicken’s blood. 
	Kane was inside a rattling cage, shaking at the bars and shouting about how she was a ‘awful bird bitch’ and how she ought to do plenty of things to herself. 
	“You’re going to stay here, well, until I decide what to do with you. In fact, I do believe that I’ll be feeding you to my guardian demon. He needs some dinner, and I don’t see anyone else around here that’s fit for demon snacks.” Beatrix chuckled and then snapped her fingers. A sharkweiler arrived, putting its vicious snout at the bars of the cage and keeping a deadly grin upon its face. Kane began to cry with fear as he saw the silver orb slowly rising into the sky, the chickens began to cluck and rustle with fear, and Beatrix slowly began to call up the hill.
	“Come to me my darling one, come to me and we shall have our vengeance upon the world.” Her hands beckoned to the writhing form of Cyrus, crawling his way towards the woman in the lab coat, crawling towards the crazed woman with the machete on the floor, the chickens in the cage, and the giant stone jar sitting by the fire that was slowly beginning to rise in the center of the pentagram. 
	Jenny began to run through the tombstones, feeling the energy in the cemetery rise and knowing that whatever was going to happen would happen soon.	
Beatrix may have been clever, but she forgot simple things. Like putting warding spells on the doors of her mausoleum. Still cloaked, Jenny was able to slip inside.
	She drew up sharply when faced with two growling shark-dogs, who couldn’t see her, but could smell just fine.
	“Fuck,” said Jenny. “Nice doggies,” she muttered, coming uncloaked. The sharkweilers responded with a cross between a growl and a roar.
	Jenny cut her losses and ran, stumbling through a narrow hall lined with alcoves for cremated ashes, which now housed a variety of specimens in jars.
	Beatrix’s head snapped around as the mage came stumbling into the main room of the mausoleum, cleared of coffins. An inverted pentacle was painted on the floor in a sticky red substance, and the demon stood at one of the points. It hissed at Jenny.
	“You!” Gillespie cried.
	“You,” said Jenny without surprise. Beatrix moved in quickly to block Jenny’s view with her wings. Jenny sidestepped and caught a view of what was suspended in the circle, what had already begun to glow. A stone jar. Jenny’s eyes widened.
	“Tzulscha,” she whispered.
	“And there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Beatrix smugly.

	“Chicken blood?!” a strident female voice with a London accent demanded from the open area ahead of Esme and Rick. “What kind of wanna-be loser magician uses animal blood in rituals? That’s just barbaric, woman!”
	“I’m only doing what your father taught me to do many years ago, Jenny. You didn’t think I smiled at you for a reason did you?” 
	“My father would have considered you to be a barmy old bird!” Jenny cried, slowly moving towards Beatrix. 
	“You be quiet. I will not be berated by an arrogant child!” Beatrix shouted. She snapped her fingers and two growling sharkweilers sprang at Jenny, who screeched and leapt out of the way.
Unsurprised by Jenny’s voice, Doyle simply chuckled. 
	“What have you gotten yourself into this time, Jenny.” He murmured, not noticing that Esme was halfway out into the room, gun drawn. Doyle yanked her back.
	“Don’t get in the middle,” he hissed. “You’ll just get hurt!”
	“I don’t care about myself!” Esme hissed back. “A lot more people will get hurt if we don’t stop them!”
	“I care!” Doyle practically shouted. With the cacophony from the sharkweilers no one even noticed him. “You’re my partner, and I care! Goddammit, Esme!”
	Esme gave him a small smile, then chambered a bullet in her 9mm and stepped into the open.
	“Freeze! Police!”

24. Cemetery Showdown
The still nimble, sixty-something faerie was caught off guard for the tiniest of seconds, at the arrival of the detectives. She was expecting them, but something inside her couldn’t help being surprised that they had made it this far, and showed up it this very moment to stop her. The fools, she thought. 
	Esme was still processing Doyle’s comment. He cared. She was also realizing the enormity of the situation. Whatever was going to happen was happening now. This was what she and Doyle had been spending so many long hours trying to prevent. Had they fingered Beatrix Gillespie as the mastermind in this equation, Esme would not be standing here, with her gun drawn and her knees shaking, in a smoky crypt with only one other officer, face to face with perhaps the city’s most powerful faerie at the full command of her power along with, a werewolf dwarf, one large demon, a mage, the floating stone jar that was all the trouble, those awful sharkweiler creatures and six or so large demonic thugs that had appeared out of the blood circle. 
	“Well Detectives, glad you can join the party,” said Beatrix with her signature welcoming smile.
	Doyle drew his gun. He was frightened, perhaps for the first time in years “Un-cast your spells, call off these creatures, surrender that jar, and put your hands behind you head. In that order!” His standard issue pistol looked puny in the face of so many evil forces. He felt hideously unprepared.
	“Rick, call for backup!” crackled Esme. She was trying not to yell. A violent wind was starting to blow through the cemetery and a draft filled the spacious crypt area that sent a chill through the Detective’s spines. 
	“Not until we have everybody under control,” snarled Doyle. 
	Esme spoke slowly and tried to maintain calm. “I’ve got control of the situation, detective. Now go call for back up.” Kane let out a howl with the cocktail of sadness and frustration that resonated throughout the cold stone edifice. 
	“Do you really believe that you’re going to stop all this?” Beatrix asked her prospective captors. She was not the least bit phased by the long arm of the law. Jenny stared at the detectives, then back at the jar. With the cops on the scene she began ruminating on just where her sympathies lay. She’d have to act fast to get this just right. 
	“Do as he says,” yelled Esme, “or we will be forced to open fire.” It just occurred to her that they were sorely outnumbered in every possible way. The demon formerly known as Cyrus Mackilwraith snarled a long, throaty growl, baring a set of razor sharp, hungry fangs. The 7-foot demons under Beatrix’s command also growled their discontent, their blood red eyes glowing from the dark orange fleshy pouches that made up their sockets. They began spreading out from behind the faery and the mage to the left and to the right, forming a semicircle that closed in on the detectives.
	“Make me,” said Beatrix. Doyle could see she held all the cards. “Really Detective Doyle, if I sick these creatures on you, and this does not include the spells Jenny and I can cast, do you honestly believe you can gain the upper hand in this situation?”
	Doyle wouldn’t be silenced with the truth. “You are in violation of the Hexes and Curses Act, The Unlicensed Spell agreement, The Unregistered Creatures act and the murder of Robbie Coker. Put your hands…”
	“Cut the tough cop act for a moment detective, will you please,” said Beatrix, aggressively silencing Doyle, “and answer my question honestly, as a citizen of this planet.” 
	Doyle unexpectedly felt his nervousness melting away, even with a dozen pairs of demonic eyes fixed upon him. He was back in his element, his most comfortable place; sticking it to the perpetrator. “You know something, all throughout this case, I thought there was something more going on here. You didn’t just want the jar. And even with all of these beasts and spells and animals and nonsense, it’s still not the brainteaser my partner and I thought it was going to be. You see, that’s the trouble with you mages and faeries. You think whatever you do is okay because you the higher beings, who can raise the dead, control the living, and destroy whatever you want to are the ones doing it. But it all boils down to this; in the end, you’re still just a petty thief and a common murderer, no better, no worse.” Doyle’s breathing became heavy. He was sweating through his clothes something awful. “My partner and I found you using our wits, our skills, our training, our intelligence, and a little muscle.” 
That was putting it lightly, thought Esme. 
“Not with incantations, or by waving our arms around or by getting some beast to do our dirty work for us. That’s why I’m holding a gun on you now, and why you will never stop thirsting for the false sense of power that you obsess over. It’s easier this way. Now move.” 
Kane rattled in his cage. 
	Esme wanted to applaud, but she held her gun straight. Jenny stared at the stone jar, its lead fittings and leather strapping. The rune symbols binding it shut. She thought about the power it contained, contemplating whether this is what she wanted. Doyle thought she did, which meant for now Beatrix thought she was on her side.
	Beatrix pursed her lips at Doyle’s speech and after a pause she picked herself up. “Why are you so nervous, detective?” 
Doyle stood there, gun still drawn, not saying anything. Beatrix changed streams. “I don’t know how much longer these pets of mine can go without flesh,” said the dark faery, pointing to the sharkweilers. Jenny, being the closest thing to them that resembled a snack, grimaced. 
	“Well they’re not yours technically,” called a voice from the entrance. Bo Kellyfreeze strode in, but not with the usual stride he was known for. He was followed by five of his classic goons. Big, burly creatures, apparently male and humanoid, in expensive suits. They ambled in and spread out opposite the demons in semicircular fashion, each one carrying a mid-sized automatic in his hand. They had come for the rumble. Lastly entered Natasha, in white from head to toe, looking as voluptuous as ever. She stood beside the actuary, who had remarkably if only briefly had stolen the floor. “You made them with a loan from me, for my personal use. Paying me back for all the financial counseling I gave you all these years. I was hoping we could do some business here tonight. But I’ve always known faeries to be bad with money. Right, Jen?” 
	Esme remembered the check to Beatrix she had seen in Kellyfreeze’s office. 
Jenny was lost in thought, still staring at the jar. She’d barely noticed Bo’s grand entrance. She looked over at her former business partner and gave a him a half-smile. 
	“Don’t move!” yelled Esme as she spun over to the new crowd pointing her pistol. Bo methodically put his hands up and that’s when she got a look at him. His skin was cadaverously pale, his eyes bloodshot. The actuary was unaware that the end of the world was imminent. 	That evening after the release it was “Trumbo.” The voice was firm, with just a hint of Eastern Europe in the accent.
	Natasha. He sent his boys on ahead to see what was going on. Maybe they would find Jenny. Maybe not… But it was Natasha’s voice that rung in his ears even this very minute. Now his eyes were vacant, his body was limp and hung there. 
	“What do you want?” snarled Beatrix
	Natasha stepped forward. “We knew we would find her. We need her for the incantation,” she said looking over at Jenny. “Her and the artifact. They both will be mine.”
	If Kellyfreeze hadn’t been in full vampire thrall, he might have objected to that statement. After all, anything of value was naturally his. That was the way it worked. All that came of the thought was a meek nod.
	“Yes, Natasha my love.” 
Natasha smiled at him. Bo realized the moon had come out, and was staining her pure skin radiant silver. Doyle cast his eyes over in her direction as well. The curvaceous, statuesque vampiress looked ready to burst out of her white strapless dress. Beatrix looked temporarily stunned by the affront. Were they serious?
Bo stepped forward and in his new monotone announced, “I think you’ll find that we can work this all out with the right cash settlement. Money really will solve all our problems. I’ve got plenty for everybody, even for the detectives there to be discreet about what they’ve seen here tonight. We just want the jar and the mage.” 
“I said don’t move,” yelled Esme.
“I’m aiming at the jar,” announced Doyle. It was hard to steal the attention of all in the crypt, but he had done it again. Not so much as a word from the entire crowd.
Esme’s stomach plummeted. “Uh...Rick, I don’t think…”
“First one to make a move. I swear I won’t miss!” Doyle looked down the barrel of his gun at the levitating stone jar, surrounded in light. He would do it if he had to. 
“Detective, does your black-and-white-thinking mind have any idea what is in that jar?” Beatrix asked him. “It is only the deadliest plague known to man, in the form of a demon the likes of which none of you featherweights have ever seen. And I’m the only one who can bind it. If I don’t do something about it in the next few minutes, the binding levitation spell will wear off and not even I will be able to control it when it destroys much of this land in ways you can’t even imagine.”
Esme knew she was giving this more thought than Doyle was. But she was too tense to say a word. Her fingers were shaking on the trigger. She did not know how much longer she could keep this up. Every muscle in her body grew tenser by the moment. She had brief visions of mass bio-genocide and the end of life as she knew it, for her and everyone she spent her career protecting in this city. And it was all in the hands of the cop who was not so afraid to speak, the idiot standing next to her, who was as brave, ballsy and thick headed as a cop could be, and who didn’t know that an unimaginable fate rested in his forthcoming action. There was no better, nor worse candidate for saving the day, than the man standing next to her.
 “I’ve seen this movie before,” Doyle muttered, as tough as ever. As outside, night held taut reign over form and inside, evil stretched into the shadows of every last corner in the crypt, Doyle squeezed the trigger with his finger ever so slightly and made his decision. “But you see this isn’t a movie, Beatrix, which is why you have to be brought in. This is real life.” 
Natasha tensed up. Bo put his hands up in protest, making the time-out symbol. His goons raised their guns as they saw the former Cyrus, the demons, and the sharkweilers crouch in preparation for an attack. Kane moaned and tore at his cage door. Even Beatrix’s heart began racing as she opened her mouth to speak. “No it isn’t. Not anymore.” 
	The faery put her hands up to call an attack. Doyle aimed his gun at the jar and prepared to fire.
Jenny, moving faster than anyone could see, placed her hands on Beatrix from behind and shout something he didn’t understand. Beatrix let out the shrillest of screams, one that resonated throughout the entire mausoleum and her appendages froze. She toppled over flat on her face. Hard. 
	In the blink of an eye, the half dozen demons and formerly Cyrus lunged forward but were stopped short of the detectives by a tsunami of gunfire. Bo’s goons fired at anything with a spiked tail, partially taking shooting cover from the evil hell-beasts, partially running from them in sheer terror. 
	Jenny’s head swam, and she suddenly realized, with the clarity that only comes when you’ve done something monumentally stupid, that the jar should not be opened. How could she have been so foolish?
	Her father would be ashamed.
Having subdued Beatrix temporarily with a stun spell, Jenny turned with a new purpose in her eyes and ran across the crypt, dodging a maelstrom of guns and projectile fire until she found a large lead pipe. She smashed the lock on Kane’s cage and was bowled over as the miniature werewolf sprang for freedom, howling.
Rick and Esme stood there, mouths agape. There was nothing they could do. Esme watched as a one of Bo’s burly underlings emptied round after round into a demon who had just devoured one of his fellow goons. The nimble drake leapt up on one of the massive stone columns supporting the ceiling and crawled up it like a cat until the goon had gotten off the perfect shot, the final punctuating bullet going right through the beast’s head. In a waterfall of bloodshed, the demon tumbled down the column head over heels, dying in a pool of its own bile. The goon stepped out from his cover to celebrate, but having made himself vulnerable, he was almost instantly tackled by another demon. Pinning down the burly bulk with its overpoweringly strong frame, the beast lowered its head and sank its teeth into the poor goon’s jugular, tearing out its flesh in an orgiastic display of pleasure.
In the midst of all the gunfire and demonic chaos, Doyle watched as the newly free Kane, in full wolf form, hurtled toward the demon formerly known as Cyrus and in his magnum opus, leapt up to the creature’s thigh and sank his teeth in. Cyrus looked down his beastly frame and screaming in fury, shook as hard as he could to get the wolf off his leg. But Kane would not let go. He would remain there until Cyrus bled to death or until he had bitten his share of the leg clean off.
Bo cowered behind one of the columns against the wall, shaking, waiting until the commotion had died down and the negotiations could begin again. He had never felt more weak and frightened. He knew his frailty pleased the vampire and he liked that, but he couldn’t be in the thick of that misagos now. Not Bo Kellyfreeze. A woman’s deep voice commanded, “Are you bailing out on me, Bo?” 
The actuary turned and looked up to see Natasha towering above him. Her face tight in frustration, her arms akimbo, she had lost all patience with him. He violently shook his head and swore in mumbly, broken English that he didn’t. He put his head down in shame and looked at himself. He had never felt smaller. A disgrace to his profession and the woman who cared about him. 
	Natasha had never seemed more in charge and physically imposing. “I thought I could trust you, with all your money and power to help me out, do my bidding and get this silly thing.” Bo’s mouth dropped as he saw Natasha clench her teeth together and two fangs slither their way out of her mouth, the full moonlight putting a shine on her ruby red lips. 
She kicked her leg forward and eased the gap on the bottom of her high heel between her heel and the ball of her foot onto Bo’s neck, choking him mercilessly. “But now I can see that there’s only one way to make you complacent.” She released her chokehold from Bo’s neck. He let out an enormous gasp in a struggle for air, shocked that her shoe could even fit upon his neck. The vampire grabbed the actuary by his shirt, pulling him to his feet. Still gasping for air, he felt a cold hand on his cheek and hot breath on his neck, and all he saw was Natasha’s eyes, and how they glowed brighter than the moon.
	In the sky, a cloud slipped across the silver orb as Bo Kellyfreeze lost his life.
Esme knew she had to get to Beatrix, still lying there under the charm of a stunning spell. She and only she could call this off. Doyle pumped two rounds into a nearby sharkweiler, killing it. Esme motioned to him help get Beatrix to call off her minions.
Four more sharkweilers slowly lurched forward to cut the detectives off. They would not be able to shoot all the animals. The sharkweilers growled and prepared to pounce on their prey, inching their way towards their prize. Esme thought about all the people in her life she cared about. 
Juris Petrauskas raised his single-barrel shotgun and pumped the nearest sharkweiler full of lead. The other shark-headed dogs focused their attention to him, still not the slightest bit of anticipation showing in their cold shark’s eyes. They picked up their legs and charged the Lithuanian detective as discharged the shell and fired another round into one of the charging dogs. The remaining two sharkweilers caught up to the brawny detective and each sank their teeth into one of Juris’ legs. Juris howled in pain and fell to the ground, using the gun to keep the sharkweilers from getting any more of him. The pain shooting through his body was excruciating, like a shower of lightning bolts. The awful shark-dog creatures began tearing away.
“Where did he come from?” Esme cried.
“Told him we might need backup,” Rick grinned. 
It hurt so much that Juris did not even hear it when more gun shot rang out right above him and Doyle and Esme, having finished off the remaining beasts, were helping him to his feet. Juris refused, claiming that his legs would not take it. Doyle admitted to himself that they were looking pretty bad. Rick and Esme dragged their partner across the stone to a safer corner of the room. He held on to his shotgun for defense. 
“I brought extra,” he announced as he leaned forward and pulled another shotgun from a satchel he had been carrying on his back. Without missing a beat, Doyle handed his radio to Esme to call for backup, grabbed the shotgun from Juris’ hands, checked to see that is was fully loaded, and upon his approval, turned and rose to face the dark forces. 
As one goon remained stationed behind one of the pillars firing away at a demon, who jumped from wall to wall to avoid his fire, waiting till his guard was let down. The demon Cyrus pulled at the determined werewolf clutching his leg will all his might until he painfully but crisply pulled Kane off completely, and the chuck of flesh the werewolf took with it. The demon looked up at the moon through the ornate skylight and let out a horrid cry. Tightening his mouth into a curiously delightful growl, he tossed the Kane as hard as his muscles would let him into on of the tall stone pillars.
The small werewolf slammed into the stone like a heap of clay and fell to the ground, leaving a sizable indentation and the base of the pillar, a thin margin of support still holding it up. Consumed with evil, Cyrus turned to the detectives in realization that they could not stop him from doing as he pleased. His summoner out like a light, there was time for him to have a little fun. He leered down at Doyle, who in knowing reaction sidestepped at medium speed around the tremendous creature, firing and pumping away. With each shot he became more frantic, more inaccurate, more harried. Not even a shotgun was going to work against this thing. He could not think of a thing to do. 
As he heard the murmur of his partner calling for backup on the radio, the Cyrus demon stepped forward to deliver a crushing blow. Doyle would not be able to remember for weeks after this confrontation exactly what specifically happened next but just that moment, there was a thunderous explosion of crumbling sound as the Earth seemed to move in protest to the chaos. The stone pillar, smashed at the base by Kane’s wolf-like body, failing support at the indentation, gave way under the weight and tumbled over into the center of the crypt and landing right on the demon’s back, knocking him clear over and out. His pain had ended, permanently and painfully. 
Doyle felt pain shoot through his body. A chunk of stone had come down hard on his shoulder. He knew it was broken. This was a far cry from the comfort of the interrogation room. He hurried around the crypt, which looked much more vacant than it had been a few minutes ago. Unable to think of anything but the pain, he leaned over and rubbed his shoulder frantically, as if doing it faster would make the pain go away sooner. There was another thundering of sound. One of the stone pillars slowly inched it’s way toward the center of the crypt before snapping and tumbling all the way forward. Doyle could feel the wind knocked out of his body as Esme collided with him at full speed, pushing him out of the way as it fell. Both detectives fell over beside the humongous crashing stone, only feet away from its point of impact. 
Doyle caught his breath and rose to his feet, pulling the shotgun up with his broken shoulder side. Bad idea. The pain resonated again through his system. He looked over at Esme, brushing the dust off of her sleeve. Her hair was a mess, her face was would be bruised from the fall. A tidal wave crashed inside him.
“Thank you,” he said earnestly.
“It’s my job,” said Esme nonchalantly as she picked up her gun. 
Beatrix opened her eyes and began taking big panic breaths. She had no idea what had just happened to her. Jenny had cast a strong spell, and the mage was still glaring down at her with a watchful eye. The first thing she saw was two detectives looking down at her, pointing a handgun and a shotgun in the same direction. 
“You killed that kid for the jar,” said Esme in a hushed monotone. With no one else except Jenny and Doyle alive in the crypt, her voice came through crystal clear. “And then you went ahead with the frame-up. This is a bio-weapon of enormous destructive power and as a hazard, I order you unbind your spell and hand it over to us.”
“And you’re under arrest,” Doyle restated, “in case you didn’t hear me before.”
“If you think you’re going to get a confession out of me, you’ve got another thing coming,” said Beatrix with all the strength she could muster. 
“We don’t need one,” said Esme. The detective helped the faery to her feet. Beatrix needed to beat her wings a few times to check to make sure they still worked. They did, and she slammed one into Doyle, knocking him off balance and grabbing up Tzulscha.
“Fools,” she spat.
“Shit,” Jenny remarked. 
“Put down the jar,” said Esme, aiming at Beatrix. Her face was pale with pain, but she held her gun steady. “Put it down and no one gets hurt.”
	“I will not be reasoned with!” Beatrix shrilled.
“You know, I believe the doctor is right,” said Jenny. She crossed over to the other side of the pentacle where the jar hung in the air. Beatrix, unsure of which side Jenny was on and wary of another stun spell, backed away.
And tripped over the body of a sharkweiler.
And as all this happened, the detectives stood there like the hearts of all watching, as the stone jar surrendered to gravity, the most powerful magic in existence, and fell to the ground.
There was a flash of blinding light. No glyph of warning can protect against pure foolishness. Jenny and Beatrix realized what was happening and both leapt back. They found themselves facing each other over the ruins of the jar as a thick, poison-yellow vapor poured from the fragments. The vapor boiled up from the ground, darkening as it rose, and coalesced into a thick column that soon faded, revealing a figure as dreadful as Beatrix had hoped for. 
Vast, vulture-headed, man-like, but with claws and talons for hands and feet. It stood taller than the trees, and its black wings spread to blot out the moonlight. Even in the dark, its corruption was plain to see; feathers and large swathes of skin flaked off as it moved. Cracked flesh smoked with decay, and boils seeped and bled. It stood forth, threw back its head, and gave a cry like an eagle whose lungs slowly filled with blood. Everyone stood still, frozen with shock, until Beatrix whispered, “Behold Tzulscha, the Lord of Plague!”
Then Beatrix and Jenny moved hastily out of reach, while Kellyfreeze’s last remaining goon stood aghast, unable to move. The demon swept him with a massive hand into its gaping maw. Its very touch corrupted; even before he fell into its gullet, the thug disintegrated into a mass of boils, pustules and ooze. Tzulscha coughed and spat out a gun, now corroded and useless, before turning to the others.
Doyle stood numb. He wanted to run, to flee screaming, but legs were distant and forgotten. Esme had no time to waste on him. She stepped forward and held her hand up, palm outward, speaking rapidly under her breath. A bolt of searing blue-white fire burst forth, catching the demon in the chest. It roared, more in frustration than in pain, and turned towards her. Esme knew quite plainly that she was going to die. She was a low-grade psychic, no match for this thing. But she would die doing her best to stop it.
And then Jenny was by her side, eyes narrowed, unspeaking, and a column of black energy, crackling with malign power, shot from her hand to the demon, forcing it back. 
Beatrix finally caught the idea, and raised her hands as well. Both of them had designs on this entity, to bind it to their will—but uncontrolled, it was a threat to all of them. Beatrix muttered arcane syllables and hurled burst after burst of brilliant orange flame at it. Soon the three women, who should have been enemies, found themselves forcing the demon back towards the edge of the crypt, straining with all of their might to beat back the terrible power.
Doyle heard sirens and could see the flashing red and blue lights out at the entrance to the cemetery. 
Wave after wave of magefire broke upon the demon’s form as it roared and hissed, its claws tearing at the earth and gouging furrows into the gray stone floor, which crumbled underfoot, and yet the demon could not avail against the combined might of three such powerful women. Slowly, but relentlessly, they forced Tzulscha to retreat.
From within the crypt, a mournful howl erupted. “Doyle!” Esme shouted. “Doyle, do something! I can’t handle everything at once!” The cavalcade of police and city officials made its way over to the crypt, their sirens becoming ever louder. The angry demon advanced again, forcing Esme and other sorceresses to renew their assault. 
Doyle looked around. Natasha had split. Kane was running for his life. Bo lay barely conscious on the ground, covered in blood, a bloody kiss mark on his cheek. The invalidated Juris had passed out from blood loss. He raised his shotgun to fire, but then stopped to think about how silly that must have looked. Could he really hurt an unimaginably powerful plague demon with a regular man-made shotgun?
There was nothing else to do. It seemed like as good an idea as any. He raised the gun, once again feeling the pain in his shoulder, and fired away.  Tzulscha turned to the annoyance below him, as he continued to be weakened by continuing blast of fire from the three women.  Doyle turned and ran.  He hid behind one of the still-standing pillars.  The demon followed.  It was too big fit around the pillar.  Its claws dug into the pillar as it attempted to pull the stone slab down manually.  Doyle could feel the foundation of the crypt crumble.  If the ceiling collapsed, they would all be done for.  
And then Doyle had never seen anything so wonderful as the back up storming the crypt, surrounding the area on all sides.  The officers in blue were closely followed by the mage specialists.  The department kept a mage force for occasions like these.  Every single male and female mage on the force rushed in, formed a circle around the demon, still preoccupied with getting to Doyle and began conjuring up magefire spells along with Esme, Beatrix and Jenny.  
It was too much for the creature to take.  Sheer numbers helped to choke the Lord of the Plague on magefire.  It was not in the books as a solution, but soon it would be.  The demon diminished slightly, and spilled onto the stone, staining it with its half-dead knees, until it fell all the way over in complete collapse.  Doyle dropped his gun as he watched the police put the cuffs on Beatrix, who was out-cast.  
A few sparks emitted from the motionless body of the plague demon, until the whole creature was covered in fire.  It was fully immersed from head to toe in flames.  A large, charred black carcass would soon lay in its wake.  
Esme took a few moments to catch her breath before making helping the medical team lift Juris into a stretcher.  Another breeze drifted into the nearly demolished crypt.  Though bathed in blood and stone, the dreary mausoleum looked a bit more cheerful to Esme this way.
Doyle stepped over to the prostrate Bo Kellyfreeze, blood gushing out of his half chewed neck.  As the medics handcuffed him and lifted him into a stretcher, applying generous pressure to his wound, which would later require him get a permit and register as a vampire, Doyle reached into the actuary’s pants pocket pulled out his cigarettes.  
“Greetings from the falconer,” he said to the bleeding actuary.  
Failing a light, Doyle walked over to the still flaming demon corpse, his shoulder throbbing in pain, placed the cigarette into his mouth, eased his face over to a section of the fire to the demon’s side, and lit it off of the still flaming, husk of a hellbeast.  They don’t come much better for a light than that.
Esme turned to her partner and with a smile asked him, “Are you smoking again?”
Doyle puffed, blew out the smoke, carefully and lovingly placing the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and pulling it from his mouth in a smile.  “Yeah, I got stress.”

26. Parting Ways
	Esme looked up as a shadow fell over her table. She quickly tucked the application papers under her briefcase and looked up.
	Doyle smiled crookedly. “This seat taken?”
	“It is now,” said Esme. Rick plopped into the booth and took out a pack of gum, popping two pieces into his mouth. “Quitting again?” Esme asked.
	“Yeah.”
	“This is what, the eighteenth time?”
	“Nineteenth.” 
	Esme motioned to the waitress for more coffee. “So how did the meeting with the captain go?”
	Rick shrugged. “I’m suspended. After that little twerp Kellyfreeze got some anti-serum into him, he pressed charges. You know, I liked him better when he was a vampiric slave.”
	“I think that’s a common opinion.” She twirled her spoon. “I’m sorry.”
	“For what?”
	“Your suspension.”
	“Yeah. Juris made detective. First troll on the force to do it. Doesn’t that just fuckin’ figure?” Rick sighed. “’Least we made a good team, huh Es? Maybe when I come back we can get some kinda permanent liaison thing set up. Just like old times…”
	Esme bit her lip. “Rick?”
	“What?” He sat forward, looking genuinely concerned. “Listen, Es, this has nothing to do with you. I told the captain it was all my idea. Your career is intact.”
	“I know,” said Esme. There was no delicate way to put it. “I got an offer to join the BATF.”
	“The feds?” Doyle practically screeched.
	“Yes. Apparently they were rather impressed with the way we handled Tzulscha. Jenny got offered a position on their Black Magic Board of Inquiry.”
	“What’d she say?”
	“I believe it was something like ‘take your board and shove it in your arse.’” 
	Doyle chuckled. “Charming as ever.”
	“She did pretty much save all of our lives.”
	“You want me to give her a medal?”
	Esme folded her napkin and took out her application. “You know, Rick, I haven’t decided for sure yet…”
	“Hell,” he waved a hand. “Go. You’ll be brilliant. Maybe we’ll even work a case together again someday.”
	“You know, it’s okay to resent me for this…”
	“I told you to stop reading my fuckin’ mind, Crowley.”
	“Sorry, Rick.”
	Rick stood and threw down a few bills for his coffee. “At least that little prick Kellyfreeze got what he deserved. License revoked, sixteen months of community service.”
	“I shudder to think of Bo and community service together like that,” said Esme.
	“Heard he works at the tutoring center,” said Rick. “Helps the kiddies with their math homework.”
	Esme followed him out of the diner. “Natasha?”
	“She up and split, I’m guessing with a few mil from Kellyfreeze’s safe in her cold little hand.”
	“Detective Doyle!” Rick looked behind him, and then down. Kane Krueger, sans piercings and with a haircut that had shorn off most of the purple dye in his hair, waved at the pair.
	“Look at you,” said Esme. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone straight edge?”
	“Hell no,” said Kane. “I’m bouncing at The Kerzinger, downtown. The department was nice enough to overlook my priors, considering…”
	“Ain’t that sweet,” muttered Doyle.
	“What’s the matter, you quit smoking again?” Kane asked with a wolfish grin. Doyle lunged at him, and Esme hung onto his arm.
	“Rick!”
	“Seeya, Detectives.” Kane strolled across the street against the light and went into the precinct house.
	“Well,” said Esme. “It’s been fun, Rick. You were a great partner, but I never want another one like you.”
	“Likewise. No more women yapping in my ear.”
	“Love you too, Doyle.”
	“What happened to Gillespie?” he asked abruptly. “You know, me not being allowed to testify at the trial…”
	“Suspended sentence,” said Esme. “But she’s in the hospital. Jenny didn’t shield her from the plague demon. Doctors don’t know at this point whether she’ll make it or not.”
	“Sad,” said Doyle. “For a while there, I was thinking she had the right idea. Wiping the slate clean and all that.”
	“If only,” said Esme.
	“Yeah. See you around, Crowley.”
	“Goodbye, Rick.” Esme smiled at him and went to her parked car.
	Doyle walked back to the station.

END