Page 62 of Mystic Justice
My radio blared to life from its charging station. ‘Dispatch to Wise.’ I recognised Louise’s voice.
I grabbed it. ‘Wise. Go ahead Louise.’
‘We’ve got a sudden death reported outside Chester Grove.’
Shit! A dull weight settled in my belly. ‘On my way. Send an alert to Channing and request his presence.’
‘You got it.’
‘Louise, are there any known details?’
‘Just that he’s real crispy.’
Fire. God damn it! We hadn’t deterred the killers at all.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Once again, the body had been dropped near Jingo’s grove so he was in the mix, too. Someone was working hard to point the finger at him, but he wasn’t stupid enough – or lazy enough – to leave bodies lying around where they could incriminate him like this. Besides, he’d called in the centaur’s body drop himself, and evenhewouldn’t have been arrogant enough to do that if he’d been the killer.
When I messaged Laura and asked for an ETA on the report on Jingo, I got a prompt response that she was still digging into him. There were a lot of files on him and she was trying to identify the previous bodies he’d inhabited. I greenlighted more hours on it and asked her to start building a list of his known enemies that I could work with.
I’d asked at the grove for Jingo to come and speak to me so I could start a list of people who’d want to frame him, but I’d been told he was out and they didn’t know where he was.
‘What have we got?’ Ed asked as he ambled onto the scene.
The body was little more than a blackened husk, curled in on itself like scorched paper. Flesh had fused to bone in placesand what remained was brittle, fragile – more charcoal than corpse. The heat had been intense, leaving no hair, no clothing, just fragments of a shattered life. Every inch of the skin was scorched, yet I bet if a witch ran their magic through it the runes would arise.
‘Unknown deceased,’ I said briskly. ‘Likely male, given the size of the remains. It isn’t known whether the deceased was killed prior to the burning or during. I tested a small fraction of the ash when I arrived on site and I can confirm the flame used wasn’t a witch’s potion bomb.’
Witches’ potion bombs burned hot and their flames were purple. They were deadly, one of the witches’ first line of defence. Their far-slower runic magic meant that in an attack situation they were vulnerable, which is why they each carried a volatile potion bomb. They also hired wizard bodyguards who served them for years, often becoming fiercely loyal to the coven they lived in.
‘If it wasn’t a potion bomb,’ Ed mused, ‘then this looks like the work of a fire elemental. A fire like this sure as shit isn’t natural.’
‘I know,’ I said grimly. Which was why I currently had an alert out on Jane Calder, the only fire elemental who worked at Botany. I had also fired off a message to Ji-ho, telling him to prioritise digging into Jane ASAFP.
Elvira and Bland were already en route to the fire elemental’s residence to undertake covert surveillance. If Jane was the sole fire elemental who worked at Botany – assuming one of the killerswasJane, and that was an assumption for now – we needed to identify her accomplice, not rush in blindly.
Channing had put up crime-scene tape around the body and it lay forlornly on the green of Grosvenor Park. The fire had been contained in a neat circle, a sure sign it was magical: the grass was scorched and blackened in a small circle around the bodyand then, like a finger snap, no other signs of fire existed. Not a single ember had fallen where it wasn't meant to.
Ed got out his camera and started taking photos.
‘This isn’t on you,’ Krieg murmured to me.
‘No, it’s on the killers,’ I agreed. ‘But I didn’t stop them, so it’s on me too.’ I had no time for guilt now.
I turned to Channing. ‘Get McCaffrey and Frost to call through all of the Botany staff. If anyone doesn’t answer, we need to know about it yesterday. Ask all the staff if anyone is especially afraid of earth, of caves, of being buried alive, anything like that. We might be able to identify the next victim and put a guard on them.’
I should have thought of doing that sooner, though surely most people feared being buried alive. ‘Don’t call Jane,’ I continued. ‘I don’t want her spooked.’
Channing nodded briskly, fingers already flying as he sent through instructions to SPEL. ‘I’ll help too,’ he said. ‘We’ll divide the list alphabetically.’ He walked a few feet away and started to dial.
I watched Kate’s van arrive. She swung down from the driver’s seat, still looking tired. ‘Hey, Kate,’ I said as she approached.
‘Hey. You’re getting me bodies faster than I can process them. I started on Joe Bogan last night but I haven’t finished him yet.’
‘I don’t know how much you’ll get from this one,’ I admitted.
She knelt next to the corpse. ‘The fire was hot but fast,’ she said to herself as she touched the corpse with gloved fingers. ‘I think I can pull something from the lungs so we should be able to determine if they were alive or dead when they were burned.’
