Not Quite Human

Chapter 17

Damien was in the middle of dressing down a set of guards who had apparently decided that mid-afternoon was an appropriate time to sleep on duty when the news arrived. Another murder. Another fey dead, in circumstances that were becoming increasingly theatrical. Whoever was behind this was growing bolder, and the investigation had nothing to show for it.
They had tried everything, including signature detection. Every fey left traces when they used magic — a unique imprint, as individual as a fingerprint. Even feys with singular gifts left something behind. The equipment required to read these traces cost a small fortune, and they had it, and it was doing absolutely nothing useful. Every time it found a trace, something disrupted the reading process before it could be completed. The traces existed. They simply couldn't be interpreted.
As far as Damien could determine, there was no conventional spell capable of this. The only explanation that made sense was that one of the feys involved had the specific gift of obscuring magical traces — rare, but not impossible. The other possibility was darker: certain ancient spells existed that could achieve something similar, spells so obscure that the knowledge of them had been considered lost. They were dark enough that using one consumed a fragment of the caster's soul — and strictly speaking, they weren't spells at all. Most of them functioned by summoning demons from Ement, the sealed quarter of the Abyss, for a single act. Demons bound there were forbidden from attaching themselves to pet stones or interfering with fey life — but the contracts were a loophole that neither the king of the Abyss nor Queen Lumanda had ever managed to close entirely. The demons of Ement were too patient and too clever for that.
Damien was personally familiar with one such arrangement. There existed a spell that replicated his own gift — travelling through shadows — by summoning his grandfather, Miorag. Miorag would comply. The price was the caster's sanity, taken after the fact, without warning or disclosure. People forgot, when they summoned demons, that the transaction ran both ways. There was no contract without consideration. The demon did what it was asked — and then it took what it was owed, and the person only understood what they'd lost once it was already gone.
Queen Lumanda had destroyed most of the texts containing such spells after the first surge, before Lady Legasus took the throne — convinced, not unreasonably, that such knowledge in circulation meant catastrophe. But things had a way of surviving destruction. The wicked ones of the Abyss had likely found ways to preserve certain pieces of it, passing knowledge through influence or indirect means. Even so, a demon couldn't be directly responsible for the murders. The contracts required the full and conscious acceptance of a fey. A fey had to be calling the shots, right up until it was time to pay. The demon was a tool. Someone was using it.
Abbadon arrived looking as though he'd been having a similar morning. "Another publicity stunt," he said, dropping into a chair. "Henrietta this time. Still no traces, no prints, nothing. I can practically feel whoever's behind this sitting somewhere laughing." He got that out of his system and went quiet.
Damien let him. They'd also tried mapping connections between the victims — looking for any thread that linked them. There wasn't one, beyond the obvious: they were all powerful. Which told them almost nothing useful, given that the world contained approximately a million powerful fey. The only real conclusion was that whoever was doing this was powerful enough to target them and walk away clean.
The door opened with considerably more noise than necessary.
"Lighten up, everyone — brownies!" Neil announced, then immediately looked at the floor. "Sorry. That was — I don't know why I said that."
It produced a chuckle from Damien, a small and slightly surprised smile from Abbadon, and a look from Nerezza that suggested she was reconsidering her life choices. Loki materialised from nowhere with his hand already extended. He didn't need to eat, technically — he could probably sustain himself indefinitely on a well-executed prank and whatever he happened to be in the mood for — but he took a brownie anyway.
"We saw a blood fey today," Nerezza said, accepting a second brownie with the composure of someone who had been eating them all afternoon. "Standing in the crowd at the murder scene. Thought you should know."
"She was genuinely strange too," Neil added, nodding for emphasis. "When we bumped into each other she gave me this smile — the kind that makes you want to check you've still got all your fingers. Gave me the chills."
Abbadon turned this over. A blood fey, at the scene of the crime, the following day. It could be coincidence — what killer lingered at the place they'd struck, waiting to be identified? An extraordinarily confident one. Or an extraordinarily unhinged one. Either way it was worth pursuing, if only because a blood fey in proximity to a string of murders warranted attention regardless of involvement.
"Any new leads on your end?" Nerezza asked Abbadon.
"Not yet. I've given the team until midnight — brought in a few specialists from outside as well. Something small would be an improvement at this point. Anything."
He reached for a brownie.