Page 66 of The Dark Hiss of Magic
I shook my head. ‘No sign of him yet.’
He rubbed his eyes again and gazed at the building. ‘There must have been an army of people involved to do this.’
Not necessarily: with the right tools and the element of surprise, a single person could be responsible. ‘A pinch of enchanted trevishate to blow off the doors, followed immediately with a black-market stun grenade.’ I sniffed. ‘Laced with valerian, if I’m not mistaken. A child could do it – not to mention someone from the witches’ council.’
I cursed silently. It had never occurred to me that anyone would be so bold as to mount a brazen attack like this, even with a potential king’s ransom of silphium at stake. The lengths to which greed drove people never failed to amaze me.
‘You think someone from the witches’ council is responsible?’ Thane asked.
‘Or a power-hungry druid.’ I glanced to the right where a baker’s dozen of pale-faced, black-hatted witches were standing. Three metres away was a cluster of tattooed druids. Both groups were glaring at each other. I examined each face in turn.
‘They look as shocked as we are, Kit,’ Thane murmured.
He had a point: their reactions appeared genuine. I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t expected this sort of brutal, decisive action. I watched them for another moment then made a decision and ducked beneath the cordon.
I marched towards the building but I didn’t get very far. A stony-faced MET officer appeared seemingly out of nowhere and blocked my path. ‘Where the fuck do you think you’re going?’ he growled.
‘Has he escaped?’ I demanded. ‘Has Fetch Jackson gone?’
Something odd flickered in his eyes, but before he could speak there was a sharp cry from the crowd and a figure burst forward. Harriet. Oh no.
‘Somebody called me and said there was a commotion here. Where is he? What has that bastard done?’ She squared up tothe MET officer. ‘Tell me! Where is the fuck who killed my brother?’
There was a flicker of movement beyond the shattered door. I caught a glimpse of a shaken Captain Montgomery, then four paramedics appeared carrying a stretcher. On it lay Fetch Daniel Jackson. My jaw dropped. Suddenly I realised this hadn’t been an escape attempt at all: it had been an assassination.
‘Out of the way!’ Montgomery yelled at the crowd. ‘This man needs to get to a hospital!’
Bloody hell. I stepped back and grabbed hold of Harriet to encourage her to do the same. The paramedics moved past us. Jackson’s face looked pale and waxy; though his eyes were open, there was a glazed edge to his irises. As I stared at him, I realised the grim truth: Daniel Jackson was dying. It was too late for any hospital or magicked medical intervention. Nothing could help him now.
Jackson raised a hand and let out a guttering wheeze, then his body seemed to collapse in on itself. The paramedics muttered to each other with the hurried calm of experienced emergency workers and lowered the stretcher to the ground. ‘Daniel,’ one of them said. ‘Daniel, stay with us.’
The Fetch croaked. When he turned his head, his dying gaze landed on Harriet and his lips began to move. ‘I didn’t do it,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t kill Knox. I’m sorry. It was…’ His voice faltered and caught in his throat as the last of the light faded from his eyes.
The paramedics started CPR immediately but I stepped back, dull with the knowledge that it was already too late. ‘Harriet, come with me,’ I murmured. ‘We need to give them space.’ I reached for her again but she staggered away from my grasp, spun back and pushed through the crowds. Unable to do anything for Fetch Jackson, I followed her.
She made it to the other side of the street before shestopped and braced one arm against the wall of a small witchery store, gulping in ragged breaths. This time I didn’t try to touch her, I simply waited until she raised her tear-filled eyes to mine.
‘He wasn’t lying,’ she whispered. ‘He was telling the truth. That man did not kill my brother.’
‘It was a deathbed confession,’I told Thane as we walked away from Harriet’s house. She was safely inside with her next-door neighbour making sure she was alright. I couldn’t help by staying with her. I couldn’t do anything to salve her complex emotions – but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help in other ways.
‘Deathbed confession or not, it doesn’t mean what he said is true,’ Thane retorted.
I still couldn’t tell him that Harriet was a Truth Seeker so I prevaricated wildly. ‘I’ve heard a lot of last words, Thane. Few people lie when they face death.’ That wasn’t even remotely true. Lots of people lied when they are about to die. Sometimes they even lied to themselves. I doubled down regardless. ‘I know what I’m talking about. Daniel Jackson isn’t the killer we’re looking for.’
He sent me a sidelong look. His scepticism wasn’t a surprise. He knew me too well – and I wasn’t deft at twisting the truth. ‘It was his glove you found soaked in Knox’s blood.’
‘I’m not saying I understandhowhe’s not the killer,’ I fumbled, ‘I’m saying I believe he’s not.’
‘Or maybe you want to believe there’s someone else behind this. You’re so caught up in this investigation that you don’t want it to be over.’
‘But it’s not over,’ I pointed out. ‘Somebody killed DanielJackson. Somebody blasted off the front doors of the MET, invaded the building and killed him.’
‘That was probably the witches’ council tidying up their own mess. It’s obvious they believe he’s a killer, no matter what they’ve said to the contrary, and they don’t need the bad publicity Jackson would have brought to their door.’
‘If that was the case, they'd have waited untiltheyhad him in custody, not attacked the damned MET.’ I sighed and tried again. ‘Look, if we assume that the underlying motive is to get hold of this silphium stuff, Fetch Jackson wouldn’t have needed to tie up Knox and torture him to find out where it is. He used a truth spell on me at the mortuary. Twice. He could have used the same magic on Knox.’
Thane wasn’t giving in. Bloody hell. ‘Knox Thunderstick was a druid, and a pretty good one if his green-fingered skills were anything to go by. He might have been strong enough to resist such a spell. Besides, a truth spell only forces you to speak the truth – it doesn’t force you to speak.’
