VoodooMoon (11 page)

“I’ve never seen an unsolvable crime, just those that took more effort and time to solve than others.” Ian said, his tone and manner much more haughty and self-assured than he felt. He was just as unenthusiastic about being on this case as Fiona. Despite the fact that he was looking forward to the time heading up a case together would force them to spend together, there was something strange about this case that gave him a bad feeling. Of course, though he had a contract with the Blades as a consultant, he was under no obligation to take this or any case. He could walk away and not look back. But Fiona couldn’t. She was a Blade and took what was assigned to her. Ian’s gut feeling was that something very dangerous was lurking in the shadows of this mystery. Something more dangerous than even tough as nails Fiona could handle alone. So, really, he had no choice but work the case.

“Never seen an unsolvable crime?” Fiona’s tone was mocking. “Since when are you a Blade or Guard? You are a glorified teacher who consults on the odd case every once in a while. Suddenly you think you are an expert on crime solving?”

Ian drew himself up straighter in his chair and turned towards her. This time as he spoke he didn’t have to pretend confidence. How dare she mock him? Her attitude was just beyond bearing sometimes. “I will have you know, I have been consulting with the Blades and the Guards since I was sixteen and started in the Academy. Which would have made you, what, about eight years old?”

“Oh were you a late bloomer? I started the Academy at fourteen.” She said sweetly.

Ian was about to respond when the sound of something heavy hitting the desk interrupted them.

“Children!” Sam thundered, his voice booming through the office. Ian pulled his gaze away from Fiona to see Sam standing, bent over his desk with his hands bracing him as if he was ready to vault over it. “That is enough. While I normally find your constant bickering amusing and the entire agency has bets on how long it will take you two to climb into the sack, today my patience are wearing too thin to deal with your pent up sexual tension. I have lost track of how many hours it has been since I last slept and I have spent the morning getting scrys from every Senator in the City-State getting raked over the coals about not solving Farah Purcell’s disappearance fast enough and allowing a serial kidnapper to run loose in the streets. It doesn’t seem to matter that the Purcell case just fell on my desk a few hours ago and it is the City Guards’ job, not the Blades’, to protect the citizens from dangers in the streets. In addition, hours that could have been better spent trying to find all of the missing people, I have instead spent trying to convince the Senators not to go public with this and create a panic in the streets and alert the kidnappers we are on to them. So, as you can see, I’m in a really bad mood and I need you two to be able to work together with some sort of professionalism. I don’t care if that means you have to beat each other bloody in a back alley or find a room and fuck like bunnies. Whatever it is, work it out on your own time. I need you both focused!”

Ian snapped his mouth shut and listened to Sam’s tirade in complete silence. Even if he’d wanted to respond, he couldn’t have. As much as he hated being chastised like an errant kid he had to admit that Sam was right, on all accounts. He had acted childishly. He could excuse himself by noting that Fiona had provoked him, but that would be both pointless and childish. Fiona always provoked him. It was what she did. It was as if it were a second career for her, provoking him to the ends of his sanity.

Just because she provoked him did not mean he had to respond. He was an adult, educated man with better sense and decorum than that. Though, admittedly, his sense and decorum seemed to disappear every time he was in the same room as Fiona Moon. On one hand he was sure that Sam’s assessment of the situation was right on. He’d also been right on about how to solve the problem. Ian and Fiona would never be able to get their professional relationship on an even keel until they sorted out the attraction between them. The would sort it out, Ian was determined on that front, but it would have to wait. In the mean time he needed to try to keep his common sense about him.

“You are right, Sam,” he said to Sam, then turned to look at Fiona. “I apologize for acting like a juvenile.”

Fiona didn’t respond to him, just sat glaring at him so hard that he was sure that if she had telekinetic powers, his heart would have exploded.

“Fiona!” There was a low growl in Sam’s voice.

Sam was so calm and rational so much of the time that it was easy for Ian to forget that he was a shifter, that beneath that beneath the easy-going exterior lay the instincts and soul of an animal. The growl in his voice when he said Fiona’s name brought that reality home to Ian. Even though he trusted Sam completely, his human reaction to an animal’s growl was to go on alert, and even a little initial fear. That was normal and the type of reaction Ian would expect to have. What he didn’t expect was the overwhelming protectiveness for Fiona that erupted in him. The rumble in Sam’s throat had been nothing more than a gentle warning, yet it had been directed and Fiona and some deep, primal instinct flared inside Ian and it was all he could do to fight the urge to jump up and stand between Sam and Fiona.

Fiona, however, did not seem the least bit phased by Sam’s display of alpha power, nor did she seem to notice Ian’s reaction, though the tiny twitch in the corner of Sam’s mouth told Ian the were-jaguar had noticed.

Fiona slowly turned her icy, dagger-shooting gaze from Ian to Sam. “Don’t growl at me. I’ll mind my manners. Now, missing people, dead bodies, where do you want us to start?”

Sam shook his head as if defeated, and sat back down. “There is a list of addresses in the files I gave you. Go check out the homes and work places of each of the victims.”

“We should probably check out the places each of them were last seen, and walk the streets and allies nearby. Spirits often linger in an area if they experienced a traumatic death, or return to the last place they were before the trauma,” Ian interjected.

“Okay, but go to the Purcell’s first. The family is there now and they are expecting the two of you. The lead Guard Detective on this case is also there now. He is to be kept in the loop. While we have full jurisdiction, we are affording the Guards every professional courtesy, so play nice.” Sam said the last with a pointed stare at Fiona.

“I always play nice.” She said, her icy tone from a few minutes earlier gone and replaced by her usual casual insolence. “But it doesn’t seem like going around looking for spirits is going to get us far. We should be doing something a little more pro-active. And don’t get your undies in a knot, Barroes. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do that, I’m just saying that unless they are already dead, we won’t get much. We should be trying to do something to catch the guy before they get dead.”

“Okay, Miss Moon. What do you suggest we do?” He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at the death stare she aimed at him for calling her “Miss Moon”. Perhaps it was a tad childish, and he had just promised to act with a little more decorum, but he couldn’t resist baiting her just a bit.

To her credit, she didn’t take the bait. “The second male victim should be high on our priority list.” She glanced down at the file in her hand then back up. “If Abel Evans was the offender, and the disappearance of Farah Purcell is related, then he had to have a partner. While it is possible it is a woman, it isn’t likely. The other missing man, York Reeder, would be the most likely place to start looking.”

“That’s a lot of ifs,” Sam said. “But you are right. I’ll have a full profile on Reeder worked up. Go by his house and workplace, but I’ll send agents out to do interviews of all his friends and family.”

“If neither of the two missing men are involved, then this case is going to be a lot harder to crack.” Ian said. “With both men and women missing, my first instinct is to look in the direction of a blood slavery ring. But the victims are all mages, some with very high levels of power. Vamp slave runners don’t usually target mages that have any significant level of power. Norms and low level mages are easier to control.”

“Agreed,” Sam said as he jotted something down on a notepad. “I’ll have an agent on the Anti-Slaver Task Force to ask around and see if there are any new blood-slavers in town, but I agree with you, Ian, the likelihood of that is pretty low.”

“What about anti-mage or anti-paranorm groups? I know the Guard keeps a pretty tight handle on that sort of thing in the city, but they run rampant in the Outer Zones. Could be a new cell moved in and set up shop?” Fiona suggested.

“Already on top of it. The Guard has the full Anti-Hate Task Force out rousting every known hate monger in the city. They are looking at anti-norm groups as well, as this could be an attempt to breed discord.” Sam told them.

Ian nodded. “Could be. Doesn’t quite feel right, though. It has been done so quietly, seems like if hate groups were involved it would have been a little more public. But, it’s foolish to try to give logic to people who think in terms of hate. Looks like until we have more evidence everything that can be done. Now we just have to get out there and find some evidence.”

“Not quite everything. I was actually thinking of something we can do that is a bit more pro-active,” Fiona said.

Ian shifted in his chair. “Such as?” he asked, not sure he really wanted to know.

“Well, we know there have been at least four people go missing in eight weeks, six if the two missing men aren’t the offenders. There could be any number of unreported victims. This means whoever is responsible is hunting at least every two weeks, but most likely more often. Farah Purcell went missing three days ago, which was just one day after Millie was attacked. If it is slavers, they may have some sort of quota to fill. I say put a little bait out.”

Ian had been right. He hadn’t wanted to know. Fiona was right, putting some undercover Blades out in the streets in area the victims had been last seen was the fastest way to find the offender, but if he knew her, she wanted to be the bait.

“I’ll put together a couple of teams to patrol the streets and bars. We’ll have one mage on each team as bait, and vampire or shifter backup for each since all of the missing are mages. I’ll also have a few extra vamps and shifters milling around. It will likely be a mix of Guard and Blades to get enough manpower. I assume you will pitch a fit if I don’t put you on one of the teams?” He said the last with a pointed look in Fiona’s direction.

Fiona grinned. “Ahh, you know me so well. And I want Jarrett as my backup, if you can authorize pulling him off leave for this case, Sam.”

“I can authorize it, and I don’t think he will mind putting his leave on hold.”

Ian stiffened. He didn’t like the pang of irrational jealousy the man’s name invoked, but it was there, nonetheless. “I will be there too. We are partners, after all,” he said, before he could think twice about it.

Fiona rolled her eyes, but Sam was the one to voice the obvious objection. “You would be a potential target. You can’t watch her back if you are a target. I agree you should be close by though.”

“We can use Pinky’s as a staging area,” Fiona offered. “Barroes can help us coordinate from there.”

“Fine,” Sam said. “I’ll get it all set up. I’ll scry with the details. You two get out to the Purcell house and see what you can find out. Then grab a couple of hours sleep, it’s going to be a long night.”

Ian and Fiona rose to leave the office, but Sam stopped them.

“Oh, Fiona, you were right about those three boys you brought in.”

“I usually am right, but I never tire of hearing you say it, Sam,” she said, saucily. “So not a gang?”

Sam laughed. “No, not a gang. They were taking care of four other orphans. We found a girl about the same age as the boys along with a boy a few years younger and two toddlers at an abandoned cabin a couple of miles from where you encountered the boys. They have been brought in and are being housed in the one of the empty Blade apartments until a better situation can be figured out. The agent that picked them up said they were pretty rag-tag and skinny, but the first thing the older girl did was ask for a job.”

Fiona thought a minute. “Let me know if she can’t find one, or if they don’t have somewhere to go when they can’t stay here anymore.”

Sam smiled. “Don’t worry. They will be fine. I think they are considering her for a maid position in the Barracks and Apartments, which would qualify her for a worker’s apartment.”

“And you got the tribunal waved for the boys?”

“Yes, with the stipulation that they spend two years at the Academy of Science and Magic. The boys agreed as long as we agreed to make sure the other four were taken care of. At the end of the two years the boys will take the same test as other paranorm students, and if they pass, have the option of entering the Guard, or the Blades, if they are extremely exceptional.” Sam winked at Fiona as he said the last sentence.

Ian was completely lost in this conversation, as he had no idea who they were talking about. But he did know what Sam was referring to about exceptional students. The Academy had a two year regular program. All students took the same basic courses the first two years. At the end of two years all students took a test that had both intellectual and physical components. Students who passed the test with marks above a certain level could enter City Guard training.

Those students then moved to the City Guard barracks for another year of training, which was mostly physical. After two to four years of service City Guard soldiers who showed exemplary intelligence and skill could take a test to apply for either City Guard detective training, or Blade training. Most took the test every two years, but few qualified. If they qualified for Blade training they would move to the Blade Training Facilities, housed in the Blade Headquarters building, and go through two years of intense training that also included more classes at the Academy.

Very rarely a student showed an exceptional level intellect, power and physical skill after their first two years at the Academy and was offered the chance to skip City Guard training and service and go right into Blade training. Though there had been a few to qualify after only two years of Guard service, Fiona had been the only student in the last twenty years to score so high on her Academy finals that she went directly into Blade Training.

“Yeah, well, not everyone can be spectacular. It can be quite exhausting,” she said, twirling the end of her braid around her finger.

Sam laughed. “Yeah, well, get your spectacular ass out of here and solve this case for me so I can get some rest!”

Fiona turned and walked out of the office. Just on the other side of the threshold she stopped and turned, “Well, come on Barroes. We don’t have time for your dilly-dallying.” Then she turned and strode down the hall.

Without looking at Sam, who was undoubtedly doing his best not to laugh, Ian followed. Though he knew the other man had not truly been assessing Fiona’s body parts, as he followed her Ian couldn’t help but agree with Sam. Fiona Moon had one spectacular ass.