Page 7 of Mystic Justice
‘Because Loki doesn’t need to be petty?’ I clarified.
‘No, because Radcliffe is suited and booted. A drive-by shit would have little effect. Save it for another occasion when it could have a far greater impact.’
Loki bobbed his head in agreement, while I shook mine in despair. ‘Males,’ I muttered.
Krieg pulled on gloves, and walked over to the body. Channing and I followed him. ‘Drowning,’ he pronounced. ‘A few hours ago at least. Not her own clothes. They tied her up thoroughly – bowline knots. They don’t come undone in water. They’re the king of knots.’
Channing blinked. ‘Knots have a hierarchy?’
‘Everythinghas a hierarchy,’ Krieg confirmed drily.
‘Oy.’ I nudged him. ‘He’smypartner to scrub the green from.’
‘I’m helping.’
‘So kind,’ I said drily.
He grinned. ‘The more capable Channing is, the more free time you’ll have.’
Hard to argue with that. ‘Scrub away,’ I joked.
‘I’m notthatgreen,’ Channing protested. ‘Just inexperienced when it comes to murder.’
And the Other, I thought, but I didn’t say it; it would have been unnecessarily mean. I’d only recently learned that Channing was relatively new to the Other realm. He’d been introduced way too late and he was still playing catch up.
Instead I said, ‘Everyone’s inexperienced when they join Major Incidents Team. Being a beat cop isn’t the same as being part of MIT.’
‘No, it’s not,’ Channing conceded with a nostalgic smile. ‘I once intervened in a scuffle in town on a Saturday night. Chester was filled with drunken revellers and I was tangling with this guy who was feeling scrappy when a civilian rolled up to help. He helped me secure the offender and when I thanked him he said, “I’m always ready to serve Gotham.” Then he gave a swirl of his cape and ran away. And that was when I realised he was dressed as Batman.’
I grinned. ‘Batman saved you?’
‘Batmanhelpedme,’ Channing corrected. ‘I saved myself.’
Krieg looked amused too.Look at us all, bonding over cosplay.
‘Where’s Batman?’ Kate Potter asked as she joined us.
‘Back in Gotham,’ Krieg said, straight faced.
‘Your Excellence.’ She bowed. ‘Is the victim one of yours?’
‘No, I was just in the area.’
Her lipsticked smile widened as she flicked her eyes to me. ‘Riiiight.’ She turned her gaze at the body. ‘Oh, you poor love. You didn’t stand a chance, did you? So young. Nineteen? Maybe twenty?’ She turned back and looked at me fiercely. ‘You’ll find this fucker, won’t you, Stacy?’
‘That’s the plan. Channing, have a look through SPEL and see if you can find a dryad that was reported missing that matches Jane Doe’s description. The pink hair should help.’
I watched as Kate started her on-the-scene observations. She lifted the body carefully a few inches and peeled back a little of the smock to examine the lividity. ‘Dead less than twelve hours,’ she confirmed. ‘I’d say our young Jane Doe died last night sometime between 11pm and 1am’. She frowned. ‘But there’s something off about the body. I’ll need to do some tests back at the office. The energy is all wrong.’
I’d always assumed that Kate was a wizard like me because wizards were by far the most populous of the Other realm denizens, but now I wondered if I was wrong. I couldn’t read energy or auras or anything like that: that tended to be a seer’s or a witch’s wheelhouse. I looked at her with renewed nosiness.
‘All right for me to remove the body from the scene?’ she asked Sam, who was still beavering away.
‘Sure.’
‘Great. Thank you.’ She went back along the gravel path then a couple of minutes later returned in her van, reversing it up the path so she could collect the deceased but not get so close thatshe’d disturb the scene. She parked up, hopped out and opened the back door.
‘I’ll lift her,’ Krieg offered, picking up the body in his gloved hands like she weighed nothing. As he had with Helga, he cradled her gently, respectfully, then laid her in the open body bag on the wheeled gurney. Kate zipped it up, secured it and checked that all the wheels on the gurney were locked; losing a body because it rolled out of the van would have been embarrassing.
