Stolen Trinkets, page 3
part #1 of The Chaos Mages Series
“Ms. Swift,” he said, slightly breathless from his fast walk over here. “I attempted to call the number we had on file, but it seems to have been disconnected. I am so glad to see you here. I wanted to assure you, in person, that your accounts and personal lockbox were completely unaffected by the incident night before last.” His cheeks were flushed with either embarrassment or nerves, possibly both.
“That’s good to hear, sir. However, I’m actually here on business. I work for the IMIB now, and my partner, Detective Blackwell, and I are investigating the robbery,” Swift said, gesturing at me and pasting a professional smile on her face.
“Oh, my apologies then,” the manager said, turning even more red. He glanced at me and clasped his hands together. “Do you have any idea when we will be able to begin cleanup and repairs?”
Swift stiffened slightly; she didn’t approve of his question for some reason. “Unfortunately, due to the involvement of a supernatural in the crime, we have to keep the crime scene available for a longer period. We can clear it for repairs in a couple of days, most likely.”
“Ah, of course. I will leave you to your investigations. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask. I will be in my office.”
Swift nodded, and the squat man turned and puffed his way back across the floor.
“You must have a lot of money in here if the manager is running across the place to apologize to you,” I teased.
Swift snorted. “My parents have money in this bank, I don’t...well, anyhow, that’s not important,” she said, catching herself. It made me wonder if she was trying to hide something. “It’s this way, they’ve photographed it but haven’t started cleanup.”
I came to an abrupt stop in front of the vault. The vampire had ripped huge chunks of concrete out of the wall, then ripped the safe door off its hinges. Now, vampires were strong, but most didn’t have that kind of strength. She would have injured herself busting through that much concrete. The injuries would have healed quickly, especially if she fed, but it would still have hurt.
The other thing bothering me was that vampires just didn’t rob banks. They were strong enough to, but they had to be both young and stupid to try. The Vampire Guild would have their head on a stake faster than they could blink when they caught them. It really was looking like a suicide.
Everybody, including vampires and shifters, were still afraid of the Mage’s Guild coming down on them. They were heavy-handed with their punishments, in an end the line and salt the earth kind of way. They didn’t like supernaturals doing things that drew negative attention; peace with prosaics had been hard won, but surprisingly, their power had only grown since working with prosaics instead of hiding in the shadows. Humanity was a profitable market.
“The bank was robbed after closing, no fatalities other than the vampire the following morning,” Swift said, ducking under the yellow police tape. She stepped through the rubble, her eyes scanning the damage. I followed her and crouched down to examine a large chunk of concrete.
“All this damage makes it seem like she was angry about something,” I commented, standing back up.
“You’d think,” Swift said, shaking her head. “She walked through the front door at two a.m. The cameras didn’t catch much because she was moving too fast. She got into the safe one minute later and left with an estimated two million in cash. She didn’t take everything that was there, just cash, and what was easily accessible. The whole robbery lasted less than four minutes. Perhaps it was efficiency, not anger, that drove her.”
“Did she try to disguise herself at all?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the closest camera.
“Nope. The camera across the street got a clear look at her face as she left, too,” Swift said, pursing her lips. “She’s efficient, getting out well before the police would have time to respond to the alarm, but then she walks out and basically looks into the camera across the street. Nothing about this case makes sense; it’s like she wanted to get caught. I looked up her history earlier, and she was not new at this. Martina Bianchi is almost two-hundred years old, she’s been involved with the mob her entire life, and she has a reputation as a cutthroat loan shark.”
“Bianchi, hmm...” I repeated, rolling the name around in my mind. It was vaguely familiar, but I didn’t think I had ever dealt with her directly. I had grown up bouncing between London, Tokyo, and New York City due to my parents' work. Since joining the IMIB a little over twenty years ago, I had spent more time dealing with the yakuza in Japan than I had anything in the States. “Is she affiliated with a vampire clan, or any of the mafia families?”
“Looks like her clan is one of the mafia families. She took over as the head of the family after her father died, in mysterious circumstances, shortly after she was changed. She has turned a few of her associates, but, for the most part, it's just another Italian mafia family,” Swift explained.
“Any sign of the cash?” I asked.
“No, and according to the preliminary interviews, she came home for about an hour that night, but she didn’t have the money. She wasn’t carrying anything at all. Security at her loft confirms that.”
“It could have been some kind of last act of revenge before she killed herself,” I mused. Swift was convinced this was a murder, but I wasn’t going to let go of the suicide angle until I had proof it was something else, especially since the fate of my hair rested on it.
My phone rang, and at the same time a police car flew by the bank, sirens wailing.
“Blackwell,” I said, answering the call.
“We’ve got a robbery in progress at a jewelry store awfully close to the first crime scene. It’s a werewolf, completely out of control,” Bradley’s voice boomed through the tinny speakers of the phone. “Get your asses over there and arrest this thing before it gets away. The local PD isn’t equipped to handle something like this.”
“Got it, boss,” I said, gesturing for Swift to follow me as I jogged toward the exit.
“And don’t blow anything up,” he warned.
“Whatever you say, boss.” A grin spread across my face. It was so tempting to do it when he ordered me not to like that.
“Blackwell, I mean it--”
“Gotta go,” I said, hanging up the phone before he could get started on a rant. I didn't have the patience, or time, for that nonsense, especially after he stuck me with an unwanted partner.
“What’s going on?” Swift demanded as we ran out to the car.
“Just a little fun to break up the monotony.” I jumped and slid over the hood of the car, landing nimbly on the other side.
Swift rolled her eyes and yanked the passenger door open. “Show off.”
“Don’t act like you’re not impressed.”
Five
I peeled out of the parking spot in front of the bank, leaving black streaks on the pavement. A patrol car skidded around a turn in front of me. I sped up until I was practically bumper to bumper with them and followed them toward the crime scene.
“Do you think this is related?” Swift asked.
“Why would it be?” I turned the wheel sharply; the car hugged the turn as if I were going twenty instead of fifty.
“Supernaturals robbing places are almost unheard of; now there’s a second in the same city a day later? That’s not a coincidence,” Swift argued.
I gritted my teeth, but she was right. I didn’t believe in coincidences, but I wasn’t about to admit that to her. I should never have made that bet. It’s something I would never have done if I’d stopped to think, but Bradley had dumped her on me and it had pissed me off. I didn’t make my best decisions when I was mad. That was another reason I liked working alone; I was more focused.
The patrol car stopped abruptly. I swerved around it and parked past it, one wheel up on the curb. Swift leapt out of the car as a roar filled the air. The windows rattled with the force of it.
“They weren’t kidding about out of control,” I muttered as I locked the car and ran to catch up with Swift. A patrol officer holding a radio up to his ear was pointing at the building, his eyes wide.
“How bad is it?” I asked as I joined them.
“The place is trashed,” the patrol officer said. “A SWAT team is on the way, but he’s already killed at least two people and –”
“Look out!” Swift yelled, shoving me to the side. My ribs almost gave way from the force of her push. That was going to leave a bruise. She was way stronger than she looked.
A loud crash and the sound of broken glass drew my attention behind us. I looked back in horror. A huge, one hundred and thirty kilo man lay on the crushed remains of my precious, perfect car. Dead.
Swift sprinted into the building.
“Don’t let SWAT in when they get here; they’ll just get in our way,” I warned the patrol officer before running in after her. I struggled to catch up to Swift; she was fast. Maybe it was a family trait. The screams grew louder and more panicked as I got closer.
SWAT was usually happy to let us handle supernatural issues. prosaic police took care of the humans, and we took care of anything related to magic. When cases crossed both lines...well...that did get messy sometimes.
Today was definitely going to get messy. For the body to crush the car like that, he had to have been thrown with the same amount of force as a fall from a ten-story building, even though it was only a two-story building. I was going to rip this werewolf apart for crushing my car like that.
Red emergency lights flashed throughout the store, glinting off the glass that littered the carpet. A man in a suit, an employee most likely, lay dead in a pool of blood. He was missing some important bits – like his right arm and throat. The arm was lying on the other side of the room.
The thick glass cases that protected the jewelry were all broken. Jewelry was strewn all over the floor in a trail leading toward the stairway to the second floor. Shiny breadcrumbs for us to follow, if the screaming and roaring weren’t enough.
Swift held her hand out to the side and the sharp smell of magic, reminiscent of ozone, filled the air. With a bright pink pulse of light, a mace as big as she was materialized in her hand. The glinting metal hammer was covered in runes. I recognized a few: indestructibility, defense against magic, and one that made it weigh heavier, which was...unexpected. She dropped the end to the ground, and I felt the thump from a meter away.
“Of course, you’re a berserker,” I said, shaking my head. Swift might seem prim and proper right now, but berserker mages were crazy. And the crazy always showed eventually, normally at the worst possible moment.
A body flew into the hallway, denting the sheetrock. The man fell to the ground in an unconscious lump.
“I hate shifters,” I said, taking off at a run toward the sounds of mayhem coming from the second story.
A werewolf, fully shifted in the middle of the day, roared its displeasure. The lanky, furry beast had one clawed hand wrapped around a screaming woman’s leg, and the other around a chunk broken off a chair.
“IMIB! Drop the woman and the weapon!” I shouted, lifting one hand in preparation to cast, while the other rested on the hilt of my sword. There was no way this guy was going to listen, but I liked to give people a sporting chance to surrender peacefully.
A blur of pink and metal surged past me as Swift charged in, swinging the mace with one hand. The werewolf leapt out of the way and the mace hit the floor. The momentum of her swing caused the mace to slide across the floor, smashing through the tile as it went. I guess Swift was more attack first, demand surrender…never.
The werewolf flung the woman at me. I caught her just in time to avoid an elbow to the face but stumbled backward with the force of the throw.
“Get out of here,” I shouted at her as I turned and dropped her on her feet, emphasizing my instruction with a hard shove toward the door. She ran off like her hair was on fire.
“I’ll skin you and wear you as a fur coat!” Swift shouted as she swung the giant hammer straight at the werewolf. It caught her mace with one hand. The building shook with the shock of the impact. The werewolf smacked Swift with his other hand, sending her flying across the room.
I drew my katana as I ran toward him.
“Catch this, asshole!” I shouted, swinging the black blade at his hairy arm.
The werewolf roared and did, in fact, try to catch it. The blade sliced through his hand like butter, lopping off all four fingers and his thumb. The clawed digits fells to the floor, twitching. He stumbled backward with a high-pitched yelp as blood sprayed from his hand.
Swift’s mace connected with his head and he went down. His skull was crushed between the tile and the heavy chunk of metal with a loud crunch. I cringed at the noise and took a step back.
Swift grinned at me, a wild look in her eyes. She jerked the mace free and gripped it with two hands. Blood dripped from the hem of her trench coat.
“Are you going to admit it wasn’t a suicide now?” Swift taunted.
“Fine, there’s something weird going on, but—” Magic tingled over my scalp and my retort died on my lips. I rushed over to a mirror dangling from the wall and ripped it free. My hair was pink.
I turned my glare on Swift. Tears of laughter streamed down her face.
Six
The coroner’s office smelled like Pop-Tarts and disinfectant. The combination had ruined Pop-Tarts for me years ago. Every time I looked at one, all I could think about were corpses.
Viktor strolled out from his tiny office, pulling on his white lab coat as he walked. He had an imposing presence, something about the combination of chiseled jaw and a hundred ninety-five centimeter frame put a guy on edge. I was pretty sure Viktor had wrestled a bear in his time, and won.
“Blackwell,” Viktor said, his Russian accent drawing out my name. He pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and glanced at Swift, who stood at my shoulder. “Why is your hair pink?”
I crossed my arms and ignored the snicker from Swift. “I lost a bet,” I ground out. “Do you have the remains of the vampire that took a daywalk?”
Viktor nodded. “I expected to see you much sooner on an odd case like this one.”
“We got held up due to an unfortunate incident with a werewolf when we went to the crime scene. Surprisingly, it wasn’t my fault this time,” I explained with a grin.
Viktor snorted. “Yes, I heard. I have that corpse as well. I’m sure whatever happened would have been resolved with less property damage if you had not been there.” He walked over to a metal table and pulled the white sheet back, revealing a pile of burnt chunks that used to be a vampire. She hadn’t been reduced completely to ash, but the pieces that were left were…crumbly...and gooey. Lucky for us, her head had blown off instead of into pieces.
“Not much left to examine,” Swift said, grimacing and turning her head away slightly, like that could lessen the awful scent of burnt flesh.
I’d seen that pained look on new agents' faces before; she hadn’t been around many dead bodies, especially not any this gruesome.
“Who is this?” Viktor asked, narrowing his eyes at Swift. From his tone, I could tell she had already managed to insult him. She had no idea how little Viktor required to get information from a corpse.
“Detective Lexi Swift,” I said, leaning over to look at the body. “Chief Bradley gave me a new partner.”
“I transferred from Magical Artifacts,” Swift said, extending her hand toward Viktor. “I’m supposed to keep Blackwell out of trouble.”
Viktor stared at her impassively. “If you could move back, I will begin the examination.”
I took a step back immediately, and, after another awkward moment, Swift gave up on the handshake and joined me. At least one of my friends hadn’t decided they liked Swift better than me. Billy was a traitor.
“First dead body, Swift?” I whispered.
She shot a glare at me and pressed her hand to her nose and mouth. “I didn’t exactly hang out at the morgue before. I’ve seen plenty of mummies though.”
I raised my brow. “The recently dead are little different.”
“Definitely smellier,” she muttered before turning her attention back to Viktor.
Viktor arranged what was left of the blackened arms as though he were folding them across the vampire’s chest, which was just a pile of red and black Jello at this point. Holding his hands out over the remains, he began to chant. His eyes went black, and darkness creeped through the veins on his face. He looked scary as hell when he did this.
The vampire’s eyelids twitched. It was a subtle movement, small enough that you could almost write it off as your imagination. The arms convulsed, flopping on the table like a fish. Once. Twice. Then they were still.
Swift tensed beside me, her fingers twitching as if she wanted to summon her mace. I grabbed her arm and shook my head firmly. If she pulled something like that while Viktor was working his magic, there’d be hell to pay. The piney scent of frankincense filled the room, and the vampire’s eyes snapped open.
The head wobbled as the grey-tinged eyes rolled around in the blackened skull. I suppressed a shudder; that was disgusting.
Swift made a weird noise in the back of her throat.
“Don’t you dare throw up,” I hissed at her. If she barfed, I might lose my cool.
“Ask your questions,” Viktor said, his voice deeper than normal. A wisp of black smoke leaked from his lips.
“Martina,” I said, drawing the vampire’s attention. The creepy eyes snapped toward me, causing the head to tip over onto its side.
Swift swallowed audibly beside me. Chatting with the dead was always unnerving, but I pretended it didn’t bother me.
“Why did you rob the bank?” I asked.
The vampire’s jaw opened, leaving a wet streak on the steel table. The voice that replied wasn’t hers – she had no lungs or vocal cords anymore. Instead, it was Viktor who spoke, his voice raspy and weirdly feminine.
“I don’t…remember,” the vampire replied through Viktor. Little bits of ash fell from her chin as it opened and shut in a sick imitation of speech. The sun had really done a number on her; she only had part of one lip left.
