FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Vick rode the elevator back up, past the main floor where criminals were processed and detained, past where shifts were assembled and turned out or task forces prepared, to the fifth floor; forensics. The floor was mostly dedicated to material forensics, the processing of evidence recovered from a crime scene, whereas digital forensics was on the fourth floor and manology forensics was handled in an entirely different quadrant of the building for both the third and second precincts as well as others.

After passing through security and donning a ubiquitous white jumpsuit, booties, and head covering he made his way down one of the labyrinthine hallways toward a distant lab nestled in a back corner. Any lab would have been able to do the job, this was merely the one assigned to it for this case. He pushed through the door and five techs in their white looked up.

“Vikky!" A bright feminine voice, as diametrically opposed to Tripp's frog-like growl as Vick could imagine, chimed up from across the room. A slender human woman, un-cursed, waved to him so he made his way over to her workstation.

“What've you got, Sam?" Vick asked as she bumped his shoulder with a fist which was as close as they could possibly get to a hug while wearing whites.

“Assuming the identity provided by the bank, it looks like one of our victims used a proprietary trade item for some reason during the event." Sam said cheerily as she turned and pointed to three separate wafers of white ceramic under the screen that made up the surface of her workspace. “We reached out to her employer, a mana-tech research company, and requested any information, but we're still waiting to hear back. As far as I've been able to determine the markings on the wafers relates to integrating energy storage with mana transition, I would imagine to provide mana for some sort of spell effect."

“Any idea what the central structure was supposed to do? It looks like the etching around the edges is typical circuitry." Vick leaned down to peer through the clear surface. Several small tools were laid to either side, probably to work on the evidence without the tech's direct touch potentially compromising it.

“Not as of yet, but all three are identical. The central structure was printed on using a mana based paint or ink while the circuits appear to be a copper alloy. Each of those wafers has a small battery inside, easily removed." She used a slender too to point out a trio of slim round wafer batteries next to each of the squares. “They connect together along any of their sides, like puzzle pieces."

“Okay, so supposing the central structure is intended to increase potency, for example, in its previous configuration, what are we looking at?" He asked on a hunch.

Vikki rubbed her chin as she stood next to him, her shoulder brushing against his upper arm. “Assuming that to be the case, if they were arrayed to create a continuing increase in strength, the output would be raised by some degree, though I could not tell you how much without knowing exactly what we're dealing with."

“Sufficient, perhaps, to cause acute respiratory arrest using a chemical or organic compound increased to extremes?"

“What kind of chemicals?"

“Pepper spray, for example, that was already a rather strong formulation?"

“Oh, most certainly, given sufficient potency. But the victims would also express chemical burns, probably even blisters, if it was strong enough to suffocate them."

Vick could not remember if any of the victims he saw in the morgue had indications of chemical exposure, but then they were all Street level residents so lesions and sores would be expected from their daily life. “That's good work, Vikki. Anything with the canister of pepper spray?"

“Alex was working on it last night, it's over here." She turned and walked a couple of tables down to show him the chemical agent dispenser recovered from the scene under a preservative plastic dome. “They ran the serial number as soon as they received it and the vendor reported which store it was sold to. The store then told us that it was purchased by a female, early twenties, less than two meters and perhaps sixty or so kilos. Fair skinned, mid dark, black hair below the shoulders. Good match to the image on file for the vic."

“Any video? Purchase information?"

“I think three sent someone to get a copy of their security video, but I don't know if they've gotten it yet or not. The purchase was made months ago, so the chances of them still having video are pretty slim. Store said she used cash."

“If she bought it months ago, how is it they can remember enough to offer a physical description?

Vikky perused the report for a few seconds, “Hmm. Says the clerk remembered because it's a relatively new product, had only been in their inventory a few days so she was one of the first few purchasers. Oh, and that she was blind. That would certainly stand out."

“I bet it would. A blind person buying a spray that you kind of have to see your attacker to use."

“The blind aren't crippled, Vick." Vikky chided softly with a smile. “They can determine something in their area by sound almost as good as the sighted can, and can feel them through surface vibrations, or so I've been told."

“If you say so. How about fingerprints?"

Vikky turned to a nearby computer terminal, logged in, and brought up the evidence file. “Yup, one set, five exemplar matches from immigration records for our vic. One Ashleigh Penning, entering from eastern Pyralia seven years ago with her father, Grantford Penning, under medical exemption. Spent time in Silvassa before migrating north. Looks like she received an anti-curse implant in Midtown Central Clinic about a week after Silvassa. Father received a wearable, same clinic and time."

“Criminal record?"

“None. Disability record for blindness, no vehicle operator permits for her or her father. Father passed away three years ago, cancer." Vikky scrolled through the Empire records on the girl Ashleigh Penning as she read aloud what he could read more swiftly over her shoulder. “Attended university, graduated middle of her class in mana-technology engineering."

“Have they sent unis to her residence yet?"

“Looks like yes. Sergeant Baker and Officer Marcon of the third, seven hours after the event." She navigated through several screens before coming to what looked like a mostly handwritten contact report. “She was not at home. Her neighbors stated that she had not been seen since the prior morning, before leaving for work. They also state that she had made no contact with them since some texts later in the day, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing after seven in the evening. And this is the initial report." She had switched to another page, a much more lengthy report that was available both in the officer's original handwriting and typed.

“Looks like a dispatch log."

“The dispatcher received a call at approximately eight-fifty that evening from a teller at First Imperial who laid out a call from a customer about a skimmed charge on her card." She flicked between written and typed report. “For a ride-share. Teller states that some sort of assault happened while they were on the call and it was cut off by a loud noise, possibly an explosion."

“Anything on the cab?"

“Not that I see, looks like it got shifted to precinct eight. Probably where the cab dispatches from, or where the driver resides."

“I'll follow up on that, and take another run at the neighbors to see if they've made contact before checking on the status of the fingerprints and video from the seller."

Vikky beamed up at him, “You do what you want, honey bear, I'll still be here when you get back." Vick laughed warmly and gave her a chuck on the shoulder.

“As you wish, princess." He winked before turning and ambling leisurely out. He knew that Vikky would be ogling him, as she always did. One of these days she'd catch him, he knew, but playing coy with the bait always made the fisherman all the more eager to set the hook.

He intended that she set the hook good.

But that was not this day. First would be following up with the bank teller which he could do on the move.

The most viable person of interest that anyone had yet identified who was still alive would be the cab driver. Time to pull up his details before going to pay him a visit. He called the dispatch company while he walked toward the motorpool.

“Balis Cab." A bored growl answered the phone, other voices nattering in the background accompanied by the click of keyboards and notification tones.

“Yeah, morning. Looking for Yasiff Tasar, one of your drivers."

“And you are?" The bored dispatcher demanded curtly.

“Detective Vickkers, MCPD second precinct."

“You don't say." Came the snide reply. “Had a couple of uniforms here already. Yas was out on call when they came by, hasn't come on shift yet."

“When does he come on shift?"

The dispatcher gave a set upon sigh and there was a pause, louder clicking from their keyboard rather than those in the background. “Two this afternoon. He'll be on until midnight."

“You have a record of his dispatched calls?"

“Of course, buddy. But you'll want a warrant for those."

Vick sighed softly trying not to let it carry over the crystal as the elevator dinged softly and the door whispered open. “I just need one. Can we just dispense with all the paperwork and judges for one record?"

“Hey, buddy, we gotta cover our backsides here." The line clicked, went dead for a few seconds, and clicked again.

“Reginald Tarvey, here, whoever you are. Got a badge number?"

“MCPD precinct two, Seven one three three, Vickkers."

“That'll do. Anyway, the unis who came by were just looking for Yas, they didn't ask for anything specific. What did you need?"

“A dispatch probably somewhere around seven, seven thirty, two days ago. Bank bounced the charge back on a fraud alert. We're looking into that."

Vick heard more keyboard clicking, a muffled voice in the background berating the more helpful supervisor. “Ah, yeah. Looks like Yas logged out at seven forty three for a break. No dispatches logged in that time. Came back up at eight seventeen, dispatched from first skyway Townsend and Thirty-third, across town to Dorney and Grammercy Place, two pax."

“So you're saying he had nothing from seven thirty until eight fifteen?"

“Nope."

“Could I get his residence?"

“Yeahsure, as long as you don't kick this back on us, officer. We run above board here, beyond the normal 'security' from the Reds before the Whites took over." Reds could have been any of a number of local street gangs absorbed into the larger criminal overculture the past couple of decades. Everyone knew who's fist was pulling their reins but no one had been able to bring evidence that would actually stick. The Whites were new, their takeover violently bloody against any former Reds who did not turn colors. Both ran the same criminal playbook of extortion, and worse, against businesses that were often neglected by thinly spread police patrols. “If you think there's a crime involved, look to the damn Whites."

As if that would go any further than it had against the Reds hierarchy. “I don't suspect anything more than some poor decision making, sir. We'll hash that out with Yas, but it might mean he can't come to work for a while."

“If you verify he committed a crime, officer, tell him not to bother. Just lock the keys in his skimmer and fuck right off." The dispatcher paused a moment to take a breath. “Even if it's nothing worth arresting him over. Dicking with customer's money is an immediate termination issue, you get me?"

“Most certainly. Where does he live?"

“Dusk level, number fifty three Harcourt Circle, Peyton sub."

“My thanks. Did we have this conversation or not?" Meaning, should he identify them in his investigation report or simply put it down as having come from a confidential informant.

“Keep it in the open, officer. We're trying to run a legit, clean biz here aside from the normal unsavory shit. I didn't offer anything that isn't publicly available."

“I thank you again, sir. Have a pleasant day." He clicked off and rang up another number as he walked across the motorpool. It picked up on the second ring. “Delmos, Vick. Got a couple hours?"

“Yeah, no probs. Just finishing up some paperwork. Whatcha got?" The voice on the other end was reedy and light, easily lost in more noisy areas.

“Going to go knock up the cabbie from the Street slaughter. Have you found anything?"

“Nothing useful. I was going to swing by the dispensary linked to the chemical agent can, on my end. Meet you where?"

“I'm in the motorpool. I'll swing by and pick you up on the southwest pad?" He came to a stop beside his assigned department skimmer, an unremarkable soot gray sedan looking all of its twelve years old. One touch of his index finger to a small spot at the bottom of the vehicle's windscreen beside the A-pillar unlocked the doors.

“Meet you there." His partner disconnected without another word and Vick slid into the well worn driver's seat. Picking up the interface visor, since the vehicle completely lacked touchless controls, he slipped it on and depressed the start button in the center console. The visor and instrument cluster lit up and with a ratcheting whine the turbine disks began to spin. They rose in pitch while the vehicle went through its startup sequence, checking and crosschecking the mana-technology parts that made the thing fly. After a moment it lifted, with that ever so slight lean to the left it always had, and retracted the landing struts.

At least it drove fine, moving smoothly out of its berth and coasting through the garage, past dozens of other unmarked skimmers and swoops, then the patrol vehicles which were identical save for the paint schemes and lights. Finally, closest to the exit, were the rapid response gunships capable of ferrying six man squads anywhere in the district within ten minutes. Only four were in the motorpool at the moment, the nose of one opened up like a patient undergoing surgery. Its pair of rotary cannon and four mana disruptors were neatly set to one side on tables, technicians poring over them.

No one remarked on his beater slowly easing past, its turbine noise magically damped from its otherwise deafening shriek. Beyond the gunship bay the garage opened up to the Second Precinct's second skyway adit, thirty meters wide and fifteen high to accommodate the gunships and other vehicles, often moving swiftly.

Once through the vast bay doors Vick was still not beyond the vast structure of Townsend tower, itself. The precinct was not exactly in the absolute bowels of the megastructure, but it was well beyond the touch of daylight save for the atrium at the very front, on the opposite side of the precinct from the motor pool. He turned into the accent lane of the wide boulevard which served the back side of the precinct where traffic was relatively sparse. Drawing back on the steering yoke he began a smooth ascent, the car not tilting as the whine of its turbines rose to a growl. Primary traffic fell away below, sticking to the established roadway and multi-tiered traffic lanes. Only a couple of other cars were following the ascent corridor toward the nearest access point to the third skyway.

After half a minute of steady ascent Vick came to a crossing traffic corridor and turned onto it after waiting for other vehicles to clear the crossing. Following the narrower corridor around to the front of the building, where sunlight finally made its presence known as a square of light that was blinding after driving through the inner structure. Luckily the building designers had expected such adjustment and left enough room for drivers to adjust their vision, or the dampening of their windshields, without clogging up regular traffic. Vick eased up along another ascent corridor until he was well above the entry plaza where a broad platform extended from the building like a shelf mushroom growing from a tree. He settled the skimmer down on its skids in a parking slot between civilian vehicles.

A child crossed the narrow parking area and slid into the passenger seat. Tall, for a child, the young man looked to be about nine or ten, his physique toned just shy of muscular. “Hey, Vick. Where to first?"

“Where's the dispensary? My stop is over on the west side of Drauling tower, dusk level."

“The dispensary's probably closer, then. Central Square Mall?"

“I know where it is, and yeah." Vick slipped the sweep into drive and waited while it settled up on its levitation magic. Rising out of the parking slot he rotated until he was in line with the nearest traffic corridor and slid in among the vehicles. “They're not asking for a warrant?"

“When I told them the product had been used to save an assault victim they were more than happy to offer up what they had." Delmos' voice was quiet, slightly too low to be a tenor but not deep enough for a baritone which would have been a feat for a pedomorph, even one his size. He had been partnered with Vick when he decided to leave undercover since Vick was among the only people who would listen to a 'kid' for a partner.

Disregarding the fact that Delmos had more than a decade more years behind the badge than Vick did. With his years, had he not been a child in body if not mind, he could've made captain easily. But what hard bitten patrol officers would want to take orders from a child? Delmos had not even been able to make lieutenant so he lateraled over to homicide where, at least, his apparent age would be less of an issue.

Until it came to a fight which was where Delmos would leave most others very, very far behind and almost any perp laid out flat before they knew that the 'child' could kick some hard core ass. Vick was no slouch at defensive tactics but he held no illusions he would last more than ten seconds on the mat against the hundred twenty centimeter tall, forty kilo pedomorph.

Vick chuckled a low, dark laugh. “So you didn't tell them that the same product may have killed twenty?"

“Hell no." Delmos laughed as well, a merry rolling sound, very child-like if not childish. “I've already tried that company the wafer things came from, they bottled up right tight. I figure we'll have to subpoena them before they'll give more than my fuzzy ball hairs worth of 'proprietary research information'." He sketched air quotes and scoffed. Being a child-like pedomorph Delmos probably had no hair on his balls at all. “Typical corp slime, more tight assed than private defense attorneys."

With police clearance they were able to rise above the controlled elevation of civilian traffic so made decent time passing a couple of meters above the slower vehicles.

“Other than the spray can and cab driver we don't have shit on our vic. I doubt those whatever-they-are won't help us any, either. More of the same; just a verified link with one of our vics, that's it."

Delmos glanced over at him. “One of?"

“Yeah. No history that she's a mage of any sort. She's, apparently, worse even than a mundie." He slowed and forced his way back down into the flow of traffic as a low tunnel came up ahead which even cargo skimmers were having to slow and enter cautiously, bottling traffic up even further. “Reports said that her friends and a couple of teachers say that she's mana empty, does not even produce it naturally. Even mundies produce some mana, if not enough to use."

“So, and?"

“That chemical agent, despite being plenty powerful and containing more than just pepper spray, was not powerful enough to cause the asphyxiation of one target, much less twenty. So there was magic used, and likely not by our vic."

“Enchantments?"

“Not on the dispenser, not on those wafers though they seemed designed to work with, or on, mana using some sort of electrical mana harvesting circuitry." Emerging from the tunnel Vick slipped over into an ascent corridor and rose up toward the third skyway level where traffic thinned out considerably, enough so that he did not have to ride above it.

“On her person, then?"

“Doubt it, or her friends would've probably mentioned it. All the report said she might have were the standards; contraceptive charm, anti-curse implant, anti-domination charm."

“Anti-domination? And a dispenser of fuck-a-vamp-off spray? It wouldn't surprise me if she was a closet vamp hunter. Hells, considering the war between the Whites and Reds going on between the gangs and their vamp overlords, it would not surprise me in the least if random civs were going vigilante."

“Well, the fact that she's blind means she couldn't be eye fucked by a vamp, so that's out. The charm is for some other purpose." He slowed as they approached the shopping mall where the dispensary did business.

“Yeah, there is that." Delmos nodded and pointed to their right, toward a line of shops. The lot was almost full so Vick drew up to the curb directly in front of the shop and set the skimmer down. He tossed a 'police' placard on the dash and stepped out into a chill breeze that whistled down through the lot. Being at the third Skyway meant that much of the sky above was visible, the sun beginning to climb above the towering structures to the east. The lot, and mall, was still in the shade keeping an autumnal chill in the air. “You talk while I observe?"

“As always." As a pedomorph Delmos often had problems getting people to talk straight to him. Sometimes that made interrogations either exercises in frustration or stupidly simple depending on how much they overlooked that the child they were talking to was a cop. Delmos fell in beside and slightly behind Vick as they strode to the shop and pushed open the doors.

Within was the typical assortment of goods for self defense, from hideaway weapons to stun wands to more magical, and much more expensive, tools. It also catered to the excessively paranoid, which made the apparent willingness of the staff to talk seem odd. Vick made a line directly to the back counter where more martial defense tools were displayed. Pre-charged magical devices, non-lethal grenades, stunners, and deterrent sprays were lined up under hardened glass countertops. On shelves beyond the counter were magical reagents for the more magically capable.

A tall, skeletal looking man ambled over from where he had been setting up a display to stand in front of Vick, the display counter separating them. “What can I do you for, officer?"

Vick raised an eyebrow because he had not introduced himself nor flashed his badge. With an apparent child at his side he would have assumed to be taken for father and son shopping. “Uh, yeah." He said, caught on his back foot. “I'm detective Vickkers, second precinct."

The tall man turned dolorous eyes to his side and down. “And he is?"

“Detective Delmos, second." Delmos offered, equally off put at being so easily pegged. The dolorous proprietor merely laughed in an oddly sort of detached way. He waved one hand toward the door.

“We do have cameras, officer, and they're plenty good enough to read 'police' from fifty feet." With a turn he pointed to one side at a bank of six display terminals showing various shots of the store's interior and two from outside. In those the front and rear of Vick's parked sedan were visible, the one on the front showing an inset window focused on the placard he'd placed in the windshield. “Perhaps we might interest your precinct in decent mana enhanced body imagers?"

“You think the bean counters listen to beat cops?" Delmos said as he stepped up to the counter and peered down into it. “Especially when it comes to getting quality equipment for the beat or new desk chairs for their personal offices?"

“We're here about a purchase." Vick pointed at a display of three canisters in the display case. They varied in size from a small can, for a pocketbook, one somewhat larger, and then one that was a match for their evidence. “Our department called on the subject?"

“Yes, they did." The man returned with that same bland, dolorous voice, the twinkle of a prospective and lucrative sale fading from his eyes. “Young woman, early twenties. Blind. About three or four months ago."

Vick nodded toward the display panels, “Any camera recordings?"

Moving over to the computer terminal beneath the monitors the man clicked the keyboard a few times, read the results on the screen, and began typing again. “Yes. Our video data is stored off site so they've got decent capacity, about six months worth. Let me cross check the timestamp for the purchase with our video. Since she used cash there is no transaction record other than the sale, as there might be with other payment methods. No name, for example."

“We've already got a name and a few snapshots, but no concrete video to see if the purchaser matches what we've gotten so far." Vick supplied as he watched as one of the displays became a computer terminal upon which were dense rows of files that all looked similar from his vantage. After a few keyboard clicks a file was highlighted and the man clicked on it, swiping to one side. The nearest monitor in that direction froze its image for a moment and then began playing a completely different view.

The new image was from above and to one side showing just the counter. The shopkeeper fast forwarded it to the end of the file as a shape just came into frame before switching to the next file. The camera's resolution was quite good, showing sandy blond shoulder length hair with enough focus to pick out individual flyaway strands. He froze the image, went back to the terminal screen, and went through a few more files before selecting another and swiping upward, transferring it to the monitor above the terminal.

This showed a face, round and a soft brown color with the broad nose typical of an Irombian over the shoulder of the same shop keeper they were speaking with. Her eyes, a pale blue that stood out starkly against her mocha complexion, seemed to look at him but not focus upon him. “Striking hair and eye color for Irombi descent." Delmos observed, chin in his hands, elbows propped on the countertop.

“I believe the father was partially Tournish, if I recall." Vick added as he leaned over to look at the screen. “Couldn't find out much about the mother. She's been out of the picture a while, deceased or separated. No information readily available, not even a marriage certificate. Birth cert on file says she was born in Irombi." He nodded toward the frozen frame on the video. “Play it through?"

With a nod the shop keeper clicked and both files synced up and began playing. There was little to see that seemed anything other than the simple transaction it was. The young woman asked about deterrent agents, specifically those that might be effective against vampires, and the shop keeper had steered her toward the Vamp-Away which was in a different location at the time.

“Well, that pretty much confirms it." Vick observed as the second set of video files played through. “That's going to be our person of interest. Think we can get a copy?"

“Without issue, officer. Were any laws violated in the use of the product?"

“Not that we can say at this time, it's still early in the investigation. I would have to say it's unlikely, however. It was, apparently, used as intended; in self defense."

“Then why is homicide investigating her? That generally means that someone died."

“She is missing, that's all we can say on the matter at this time. If she comes by to purchase more please do let us know." Vick handed a thumb drive across the countertop.

The man nodded soberly, his dour mein not faltering. “Certainly, officer, if you have a card?" He leaned down below the counter to insert the thumb drive into somewhere and returned to the keyboard to copy the files. When he straightened from removing the thumb drive both detectives traded it for a couple of cards. They were blank of any indications that they were from police, just their names and their contact information.

“We thank you for your cooperation, sir." Vick offered with a thankful nod. “I think we'll refer this establishment to anyone looking for personal security items."

The man's smile was warm, incongruous in his long, dolorous face. “Much obliged, sir, anything to help."

Exiting the store they got back into the skimmer and Vick slipped the police placard back into the glove box. “Any observations?" He asked of his pint sized partner.

“Nothing worth mentioning, he seemed pretty upstanding, considering that a good two thirds of his merch is more like to be used against us than for us."

“That's true everywhere." Vick shrugged and pulled away from the curb with only a minor wobble of the levitation magic. “It's all in who's using it and how, not for what it is."

“Obviously." Delmos quipped with a laugh. “I sure as hell would not want any of the deterrents he had used against me. Three percent! That's insane strong."

“We should be carrying that rather than stunners. Would be a hell of a lot more effective, and less liability."

“Less accurate. Blowback would get us, too."

“True, which makes me question how they simply walked away rather than staggered. From what I saw of the scene mockup, the distribution of footprints was only slightly askew, as if one were supporting the other. Injury, perhaps, though no blood trail. Nothing at all after the gore wore off, not even enough for a theriomorph officer to track." Vick's thumbs tapped on the yoke as they moved back into traffic.

“Masking magic, without a doubt."

“That's the consensus." Vick agreed with a nod, steering toward a vehicle elevator that would take them back down to dusk level. The residential block for the cab driver was another thirty minutes away through congested lower skyway traffic where the passageways were too low to let them bypass above it.

Harcourt circle was, by far, not the highest quality residential block that could be found on the first skyway level, but it was certainly not a dump. Strictly at the median between upper class poor and lower middle income. They found an open parking spot a block away and set out on foot, their plain clothes making them look like nothing more than father and son out on a stroll.

Convenient for their line of work, without actually being under cover. The fact that both of them were packing sidearms and stunners was easily concealed under their coats. Someone might question why an apparent ten year old was hauling a cannon around if they were not clearly sporting gang colors.

Someone was coming out of the front doors of the building when they reached the door, an oversized bag in each hand. Vick held the door and she nodded thanks but said nothing, continuing on her way as the two slipped in through the door. Its lock squealed a bit, thunking loudly as it latched shut.

The walls, while showing their age, were free of the ever-present graffiti that decorated the walls, and even vehicles, outside. The air was stale with subtle smells of concrete, mildew, and occupation but by the whole was not rank. Whomever the building supervisor was, and their service staff, put some small effort into keeping it presentable if not spotless.

They ascended a staircase to the fifth floor, unit number fifty three at the distant end of the corridor not far from another stairwell. Delmos stepped off to one side, where the opening door would offer him the earliest view into the room beyond. He drew his jacket back to rest his hand on his sidearm, face completely serious, releasing the retention clip and giving Vick a nod.

Taking a steadying breath Vick rapped firmly but not heavily on the door, and then waited. After a minute had passed he knocked again, slightly more firmly.

“Yuh?" A voice muttered from beyond the door, muzzy with disturbed sleep. “Whozit?"

“Police, Mr. Tasar, open the door, please." Vick called back levelly.

“Th'fuck?" A querulous grunt from beyond. “What d'you want?"

“To talk, Mr. Tasim, concerning a fare you took. Please open the door, we would rather not have to." Not that they had any right to, but such fine details could be clarified when it came to writing the report. After a moment they could hear the click and thunk of locks being released and then the rattle of a chain before the door opened enough for the person inside to peer out, his eyes going directly to the badge Vick held up.

With his initial gaze directed at the badge the man did not see Delmos standing to one side looking through the open gap presented by the door. Out of the corner of his eye Vick saw that he did not tense, his hand not shifting upon the butt of his sidearm as it might if danger had been immediately visible. The man, Yasir Tasim, leaned close to the narrow gap, one arm above his head to rest against the door frame, the other out of sight, likely to hold the doorknob.

“MCPD, Mr. Tasim. Do we talk at a gap in the door, out here in the hallway for everyone to listen to, or do you invite us in to chat more privately?"

Yasir's eyes shifted from the badge to Vick's face, some centimeters above his own, then down to the side at Delmos. “Who sent you? DeClark, Abram? Tell'em to fuck off." He moved to close the door only to have it stall against Vick's foot.

“Neither of them, whoever they are, Mr. Tasim. We are MCPD, detectives Vickkers and Delmos, second precinct." He rested his hand against the door but did not push. “We're only here to talk, ask a few questions."

“That kid's a cop?"

“Detective." Vick clarified. Delmos merely nodded but did not relax his ready pose, or the hand resting visibly on his weapon. “May we come in?"

Yasir's gaze shifted from one of them to the other before he let out a sigh and stepped back, letting the weight of Vick's arm push it open. Delmos shifted smoothly as the door offered more of the room to his sharp gaze and Vick took a slight step to one side so that he would see areas that Delmos could not without moving across the door.

Satisfied that no one was lurking in the main room Vick entered, his mere presence forcing the shorter man back several paces. Yasir retreated to the kitchenette and glowered at him as Delmos slipped in behind, taking in the room. Vick motioned toward the sofa to one side. “Have a seat, Mr. Tasim."

Nearly twenty centimeters shorter than Vick's two meter height, Yasir was overweight by a few kilos and had clearly been awakened by their arrival, his eyes bleary and his shabby robe covering nothing more than boxer shorts. He had the swarthy, olive complexion of Sondeshara, likely from one of the coastal cities since the interior was rather inhospitable. With a glower the man moved from the kitchenette to drop himself heavily on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest.

Delmos left him to Vick's stern attention and moved through the room, checking doors and other rooms before returning, his coat once more draped over his secured sidearm. “It's clear, he's alone. Some very interesting items in the second bedroom, though." He hooked a thumb toward the indicated door.

“Interesting how?" Vick asked without taking his eyes from Tasim.

“Card writer, stamping machine, a nice little stack of blank cards, some crystals and a few wallets."

Yasir's jaw muscles twitched and jumped as he chewed his own teeth and glared at the smaller detective. “That's shit people've left in m'cab." He snarled, shifting his petulant gaze back up at Vick. “And besides, none of your business. You got no warrant."

Vick grunted and crossed his arms over his chest. “Plain sight observation of criminal evidence does not require a warrant, Mr. Tasim. But that is for others to deal with." His eyes shifted briefly to Delmos before he gave a hint of a nod. The younger looking detective nodded in return and stepped back into the hallway to make a call. “Now, before the locals arrive, we have a few questions about a fare you picked up two nights ago, somewhere between seven thirty and eight, while you were off the clock."

“If I was off the clock I didn't pick up any fares."

Vick plowed on, “Young woman, early to mid twenties, mid dark complected, brown hair." He leaned forward, more like loomed, toward the seated man. “Blind." He straightened so abruptly that the man twitched as if expecting a blow. “You dropped her off on Street level and then skimmed her bank credentials." He waved an arm toward the room Delmos had pointed out. “Which it seems is common practice with you. So, what, did you expect her to just conveniently disappear? A blind girl wandering around the Street until some gang snapped her up? Perhaps a feral vamp so we'd just find a silent corpse, or maybe some other predator that would merely leave us with another unsolved missing person? Hmm?" As he spoke Vick's voice drifted from his usually level baritone toward menacing, ending in what his partners often called his 'perp growl'.

Yasir leaned back into the couch as he listened to the descending growl that never increased in volume but deepened in timbre, his face going pale at the hard look of fury on Vick's face. “I -" He stammered, swallowing a few times as his hands dropped to grasp his knees. “She was fuckin' blind! Told me to take her there! I don ask questions, I jus drive! Got hell quick out of there, no be like th' deep dark!" His voice began to break apart into a heavily accented common that Vick had to prize out in his head.

“A blind girl tells you to take her to some dank ass corner of Street Level and you do?" Vick leaned close again, letting the heavy little man feel the weight of his presence as he invaded his space. “Bullshit, Mr. Tasim. Now, you're going to tell me straight, or things will get ugly, yes? Why did you dump her there, and what happened?"

“Nothing appen! Drives her there I did, she get out, I go fast! Nothing else! I no touch her, I swear!"

“But you nicked her bank creds, overcharged the fare, and tried to rack up nearly a thousand marks before the bank shut the card off." Vick growled as Delmos came back in and stood off to one side, arms crossed over his own chest, and glared daggers at Yasir. “She was attacked, Mr. Tasim. And now she is missing." Leaning closer he slowly extended one hand to tap a finger squarely in the center of his chest. “And she is missing because you put her there, Mr. Tasim, making her fate your responsibility."

“Not to mention a whole host of other criminal acts, not the least of which would be homicide, in addition to the fraud." Delmos pointed out, his voice quiet but level, almost sounding ever so slightly gleeful.

“I no kill her!" Yasir quailed, eyes going even wider as he tried to retreat from Vick's prodding finger. “Drop off, not kill!"

“Abandoned!" Vick roared in fury and then stood. “The local precinct is coming to collect you, Mr. Tasim. What they do is their business, considering your crime is laid out on a table just over in the next room. As for charges pertaining to the missing blind girl, that will be ours." His teeth gleamed in a feral expression that Vick well knew that southlanders found unsettling. “And you're just the kind of unsavory piece of shit the Empire loves to scrape off of its boot."

Yasir rallied under the detective's fury and he made an attempt to weasel out. “Planted, you did! You put evidence in mine room!"

Delmos actually barked a tenor laugh so violent it made him snort and Yasir's eyes to dart over toward him. “Oh, that's rich. Your building security saw us come in carrying nothing, and will be leaving the same way. We'll just get their video logs. Oh, and if the locals have to bring in a mage to back trace what's gone on in that room and discovers we didn't plant it they'll be more than happy to add charges of false reporting on top of the fraud. They might even find out more that way than they would just manually processing what's in there. You want them to do that, Yasir? Really? Because they'll do it to this whole damn apartment, looking back on everything that's gone on here for months. Especially your bedroom." Delmos rubbed his small hands together gleefully. “I saw the fur in there, moron. I've got a nose. I'm willing to bet he wasn't a licensed Sensate so there's a charge for pandering, right there. And what if others of your faith find out that you were diddling a beast person, eh? A male beast person?"

“N- no." Yasir wilted, all resistance flown. “All I do is cop chits, honest! Whites make me do it, Reds before them. I hurt no one, I swear!"

“You're to much a sad, pathetic piece of shit for that, aren't you?" Delmos challenged. “Just pick their pockets." He stopped short when the crystal in his pocket trilled the merry theme of a popular children's holo program. He tapped the small, almost invisible, earpeace he wore. “Delmos." He listened, nodding slowly for a few seconds. “Yeah, fifty three." His eyes shifted up to Yasir. “Where's the door release?"

Yasir pointed to the crystal lying on the kitchenette counter and Vick retrieved it, handing it across to him. After unlocking it with an impressively long code he flipped an app open and then nodded. Delmos listened and then nodded as well. “They're on their way up."

“You're going to be nice and cooperative, aren't you, Mr. Tasim?" Yasir could only nod, slumping into the couch, blinking rapidly to keep tears from spilling from his eyes. “How about resetting the passcode on that crystal as well, since you're being so cooperative." The growl was still in his voice but softened, if only slightly. Yasir sighed, snuffled loudly a few times, and went about changing the passcode on his device. Delmos retrieved it as soon as he had, lest the man wipe more than just the passcode.

Soon after a pair of officers arrived at the door with a rattle of duty gear. One was human, seemingly as broad as he was tall, most of that muscle as his island heritage showed through. The second was a shorter, slimmer canine theriomorph spotted black and white with tall ears which drooped forward the last third of their height. His fluffy drape of a tail was still as he preceded his hulking partner into the apartment.

“Vickkers? Delmos?" At their names each of them held up a hand in acknowledgement, not going for the badges inside their coats until the two new arrivals settled. Once the introductions were finished Vickkers laid out why they had come onto the eighth precinct's turf to question a suspect and what they had found after they arrived.

For their part the two new arrivals accepted the intrusion with aplomb, the canine following Delmos into the spare room where the counterfeit cards and fabricators were. When they emerged the canine gave his partner a nod and a furry thumbs up.

“That's it, then. Good find, detectives. The warrant will be here shortly and we'll take over the rest. If he spills anything more about your missing vic we'll give your precinct a call."

“Thanks, officers. We've got other leads to chase down and scarce time to do it within our shift." Vick gave each of them a firm handshake without hesitating when presented with a short-fingered, paw like hand from the dog. Despite existing for over a thousand years the cursed were sometimes frowned upon by those who had to go out of their way to avoid something that was natural to many of the residents.

Back in the Skimmer Delmos glanced aside at him as they slipped into late afternoon dusk level gridlock. “Other leads? That was it, and only panned out on the fraud charges."

Vick shrugged, jerking the car to a rocking halt when a van backed aggressively out into their lane from a narrow alley. He blared the horn and activated the concealed emergency strobes but the van paid them no heed. “Well, we got confirmation on the physicals of our vic, so we can get surveillance trace on it, see if they can find a face though I don't hold out much hope, there. We've got scarce little else to work on with whatever masking magic is in play, that's about all we can hope for with her accounts in lockdown. No telling how much cash she might've been carrying so if she needs money she'll have to call the bank and unlock her accounts. After that it'll be a simple thing to start tracing transactions."

“If she calls the bank." The smaller detective pointed out. “Just because she limped from the scene with the unknown second vic doesn't mean she's in any shape to call anyone, especially since we found her crystal at the scene."

“Want to hit up her residential block, again? See if she has made any contact?"

Delmos shrugged. “Sure, can't hurt. It's on the way." He gave Vick a sidelong look. “Just don't take long chatting. I've got plans with the wife." Another pedomorph, like Delmos, though one who had come up along a much more difficult life path. 'Peace' and 'security' were foreign concepts to her, even more than a decade later.

“I've got a date, too." Vick admitted with a cocky half smile. “So damn sure bet I'll be there."

The residential apartment block their victim lived at was quite a step up from Yasir's well maintained low rent place. Diffuse sunlight shone down on an open atrium in the center of a fifteen floor housing district with shopping on the first two floors. Children frolicked in the broad green of a park overseen by attentive adults. People stood on broad arcades that overlooked the sunny, if chill, plaza and park, leaning against balustrades or cooking barbeque talking to neighbors and friends. No traffic crossed the open space above the apartments though the muted throb of the second skyway was distantly audible.

Their vic's apartment was on the seventh tier, its view of the plaza slightly obscured by well tended planters along the balustrade. Vines hung in a green curtain from the balustrade above, the leaves beginning to discolor and turn brittle as the autumn nights became unpleasantly cold. As they approached they noticed several residents sitting outside their apartments, others loitering about in chatty groups, and still others tending the gardens they grew in the planters. All of them were dressed for the cold, though in a very relaxed manner. A burly, bearded man gave them a curious look as they approached the door of the vic's apartment.

“She's not there." The man said brusquely, levering himself up from his chair. “Hasn't been for three days now, or thereabouts. You are?" He did not bow in greetings but his attitude was not belligerent. He held a beer loosely in his other hand, half consumed.

“Detectices Vickkers and Delmos, second precinct." Vick offered, also not bowing. “You haven't seen her in three days?"

“Me? No. I saw her the evening before, when she came back from class." Vick tried to keep his eyebrow from twitching, there had been no record of her actively attending any school, in person or remotely. “Others saw her the next morning, leaving for work."

“Who you talking to, Bo?" Another man, who had just stepped out of another apartment just down the arcade, asked as he approached. Where the one named Bo was large, hirsute, hands labor stained, and showing the softening about the middle of age the other was slightly taller, well toned but not overly muscular, with a thick artfully coifed head of hair. His features were pure midland provinces, common to Metamor where it wasn't hidden by jacket and knit scarf draped loosely around his neck.

“Couple of detectives, coming to ask about Ash. Again."

“Ah, yes, that is unfortunate." The man nodded gravely. “I'm Adrian, Adrian Darless." He did bow in respectful greeting. Delmos stood quietly in his shadow and merely observed, abstaining from the greeting with a neutral face. “Has the department learned anything?"

“Unfortunately no, Mr. Darless. We just dropped by for another round of 'has anyone seen' questions. As Bo said; again." Vick shrugged helplessly.

“Perhaps you'd come with me? Ash's class might be able to help, they would probably be the ones she would be the most likely to reach out to if she needed help." He turned and swept an arm slightly toward his apartment and, ostensibly, beyond. Without waiting he nodded farewell to the man Bo and began walking. Vick and Delmos fell in behind and to either side. “If she's able to reach out, that is."

“That is a concern, yes. When was the last time you had contact with her, Mr. Darless?"

“Hmm, I'd have to say seven in the morning, or thereabouts, three days ago? She was heading for work and we rode the elevator down to the transit platform." He pointed across and down. Moving closer to the balustrade Vick peered through the foliage to spot the transit sign among the shops on the ground floor, where the largest crowds were moving. “Chatted a bit, nothing consequential. Switching to winter gardens, the weather. You know, inane stuff." He turned at a connecting corridor and led them further into the building, the sunlight dimming and being replaced by the steady sunny glow of magic lighting.

“What class?" Vick prompted.

Darless sighed and looked around furtively for a moment, immediately putting Vick's hackles up. Even Delmos reacted, shifting closer to the wall and scanning the area, body tensing. “It's not… well, not really a class, officer. It's a group of… ahh… like minded friends, I guess you could say? A circle, not a class exactly." Darless spoke in a much more quiet voice, hushed and cautious if not exactly fearful.

“Circle?"

“You know… a circle? Hedonists? Bo is a really nice guy, but terribly parochial. I'm afraid he just would not understand, and wouldn't take it well if he thought his neighbors were worshipers of Suspira. Bo's a Rebuilder, but not completely conservative." The man shrugged with a sigh. “But that's because he's kinda stuck here in the city where all of that blind, ignorant conservatism smashes its face into, well, this." His arm waved to take in the building and the city beyond in a general motion. “Outsiders living alongside talking, clothes wearing animals, androgynes. You know."

“We do." Vick replied neutrally, wincing inwardly at one word; Hedonists. Oh, well, if that didn't just open a whole nother kettle of fish, Vick groused inwardly. The motivations for kidnapping, or worse, and the list of possible suspects just jumped through the proverbial roof. After turning down a couple more corridors the man stopped in front of a door painted artfully in hues of red and rapped lightly.

A few moments later it was opened by a rat theriomorph of a height with Delmos, his cheerful, lift-whiskered smile faltering after a moment when he found the new arrival was not alone. “Hey, Francis. These are Detectives with the MCPD, asking about Ash. Is it okay to come in?"

“Uh, yeah, sure." The rat said after a moment, peering doubtfully up at Vick and then lowering his eyes to Delmos before stepping back. Darless led them in and the rat, Francis, stepped aside to hold the door. “I'm Vickkers." Vick offered the unsettled looking rat as he stepped in and stopped to turn and face the resident. “My partner, Delmos."

“Francis. Dewery. Uh, I mean, Francis Dewery." The rat said in reply, his voice raspy and almost as quiet as Delmos often was, though much more diffident. “But I guess Gregory already said that." After they had stepped through he eased the door closed.

The interior of the apartment, larger than Yasir's had been by a considerable margin, was bright with color and scrupulously clean. There were not even the ubiquitous dust bunnies of fur that tended to collect in the corners of furred theriomorph homes. The smell was primarily sandalwood which overlaid a subtler but more cloying musk of rat and other scents. It was not offensive to Vick's nose; he had certainly smelled worse, even just in Yasir's apartment.

“We did not come to disturb you or your activities, Francis. Mister Darless said that your group might be the likeliest source of information about one Ashleigh Penning, whom we are looking for as a missing person." Vick explained. Delmos preceded him past the open kitchen on one side and what looked like a small home office on the left. A quiet murmur of voices came from the direction he had gone.

“You've not learned anything new? She hasn't contacted me, I can say that much. I think the others would have mentioned it if she had contacted them. She is important to us; family, after a fashion."

“So I understand." Vick observed laconically, without judgment. Hedonist circles were not uncommon, though not exactly paraded openly in most places. Suspira was not one of the most well regarded of the earthbound gods and goddesses cast down a millennia past. “Everything here is consensual, I figure, since that other fellow was willing to introduce us."

“All proper circles, no matter their practices, are consensual, detective Vickkers." The rat morph said with a little more confidence, his tail sweeping lazily back and forth behind him, just shy of Vick's knees, as he led back into the living room of the apartment.

Several concerned faces shifted their attention from Delmos, who had followed Darless and stood to one side of the entryway in a calm pose. Most of the people in the room were human and, thankfully, mostly dressed. Enough to entertain unfamiliar company, at any rate. A raccoon, clad only in a pair of garish blue boxers, hands and feet bound, was draped over the end of the sofa, his bushy ringed tail flagged by the position. A round, matroly human woman was standing just beyond him, a wooden paddle in one hand and the other lightly stroking the root of the raccoon's upraised tail. As Vick took in the developing scene she set aside the paddle and leaned over to unfasten the buckle of a ball gag that had been keeping the hapless raccoon's muzzle prized open.

Taking it in, Vick had to push down a laugh at the tableau of unexpected awkwardness that suffused the room. The rat moved further into the crowd, “Everyone, these are detectives Vickkers and Delmos from the MCPD. They're looking into Ash's disappearance. If anyone has had recent contact from her, please let them know."

All around the room heads shook negatively, expressions pensive and sorrowful. “Not since six thirty in the evening, three days ago." One of the men, clad only in his slacks that were unfastened and unzipped, awkwardly held closed with one hand. “She sent Tina," He nodded to a young looking, fair skinned red haired woman who was looking, at the moment, panicked, “a text saying that she was going to get some food after leaving her work, then catch a cab home."

“Not transit?" Delmos asked quietly, his voice gentle. Vick gave him the reins, knowing his voice would sooth them much better than his own baritone rumble.

“There's no line near where she works. If the weather's cold, like it has been this week, she catches a cab. They can stop on the thirty-seventh level service pad so it's quicker to get in, rather than walking across the plaza in the weather." The man explained diffidently. “We have no idea if she got a cab or what, no one has heard from her since Tina."

“We're following all leads, so if anything comes to mind please let us know, no matter how out of place it might seem. Has there been any friction, from within or outside your circle? Jealousies, disagreements?"

“Not among us, no. We all adored - adore - her." one of the men said, his composure a little more relaxed than the others. “She did have a strangely inordinate fear about vampires, though. It was dark by then, this time of year. I seriously doubt she'd go hunting for them, but she had a pretty big can of pepper spray she carried with her just in case."

“Pepper spray won't do anything to vamps." the matronly woman pointed out, “Even with their heightened senses."

“The stuff she had was made for them, had silver and stuff in it, too. The pepper part I guess was for anyone a bit less dead."

“And it would be worse for us." The rat interjected as he sat down and stroked the raccoon's head where it rested awkwardly, due to his position over the arm of the sofa, near his leg.

“Could always ask the inky." The raccoon muttered darkly, working the strain out of his jaw after the removal of the vibrantly red ball gag. “He's tasted her life force so might be able to, I don't know, feel her out?"

“Him?" Scoffed the rat with a scowl. “Ugh, I guess." He sighed and pushed himself off the couch. “I'd better go with them or that fucker will probably try to get their clothes off the moment they walk in."

“I'll go with you." A big man rumbled from one side of the room. Unlike the others he was not caught in a state of partial undress, his trim suit still donned. He pushed out of the deep chair that barely contained his impressive bulk. “If that fuck tries to put the whammy on them I'll put a whammy right back on him." His meaty fist slapped into the open palm of his other hand. “I'm Fernice, Alexander Fernice; Sensate." He introduced himself as he crossed the room and stopped before them to bow in formal greetings which were returned in kind. “Attorney, as well."

Delmos chuckled and Vick glanced across at him. “And brawler." The smaller detective opined with a smile. Even Vick's generally impressive mass was dwarfed by the bearded mountain. “How far away is this incubus?"

“Not far." Fernice said as he led them back toward the front of the apartment. “A couple floors up on this side of the atrium." The rat fell in beside them once they reached the hallway. “I've not really met the guy yet, he conveniently showed up at gatherings when no Sensates were attending."

“Sensates attend hedonist gatherings?" Vick asked, not familiar with how hedonists worked. He only knew that they clove to Suspira and were generally regarded as much more chaotic in their activities than the regulated, safe meetings with members of the Sensates' Guild.

“Indeed." Fernice rumbled, though warmly, like a oversized and loving plush toy bear than anything else Vick could imagine. “As much as we are able, at any rate. We don't gainsay Suspira her own, and there are many in the Guild who are members of Her church, even clergy. Our teachings align in many regards."

“And this incubus?"

“An asshole." Francis muttered. “A user who seduced his way into the circle and… went overboard with his essence, coaxing many of them to do things that they would rather not have." His shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, long gray tail slashing behind him though he kept it from smacking anyone. “It was purely consensual, at the time, so no laws were outright broken, but the next day… was unpleasant. We lost several members as a result. So we all got charms to protect ourselves from the influence of his essence which went over really well." He said sarcastically. “And he's been uninvited from our circle."

“Which means, since he's still here, he's found others to prey upon. Since we've had no official complaints we can do nothing about him." Fernice added in a flat rumble. “For now."

The rat led them up a couple of neatly kept stairwells and into another corridor to an apartment not far from the arcade encircling the atrium. Planters lined the passageway decoratively, small lights shining down upon them. The door they were led to was unadorned but for the number and ubiquitous viewing lens above that. The rat had them step to the sides, out of view, and rapped on the door.

They waited another minute and the rat rapped again, more firmly. “Yes, who is it?" came a pleasant, masculine voice from beyond. “I am currently a bit occupied."

“Seban, it's Francis."

“I can see that. I am a bit busy at the moment."

“It can't wait, I need to talk to you now." The rat reiterated with more vehemence, tail lashing and ears backing in irritation. “It's a matter of immediate need."

A few more seconds went by before they could hear the bolts of the door being released and it drew inward. “For whom?"

“Us." Vick said as he stepped from the side of the doorway to stand behind the rat, holding out his badge. “MCPD."

The appearance of the man standing in the doorway departed markedly from human. His skin was a pale, umber red and his eyes were a brilliant hue of polished amber. Prominent horns curled back from just above his hairline, which was a tousled black that fell about his shoulders in waves. Overall his physique was something that most humans would aspire to, chiseled and hard in all the right places, soft in all of the other right places. At the moment he was wearing a deep burgundy bathrobe held closed with one hand. Behind the robe a long tail ending in a spade like tip that flicked anxiously, glistening with moisture.

“What's this about?" The incubus asked sharply, amber eyes narrowing at Vick and the other men standing to either side. “I've left your tea parties alone, rat."

“This is not about his 'tea parties', sir." Vick went straight for the perp growl as he stepped forward, around the shorter rat morph. “Yet. This concerns a missing person with whom you have had infernal contact via mana sharing."

Seban fell back a step, mouth agape, as the harsh words coming from the plainclothed policeman sank in. Cross the law as an extra planar being in the Empire was, very often, only going to lead one straight back to their origin plane, or worse, by extremely unpleasant means. “I- I've had nothing to do with anyone going missing, I swear." His cocky attitude toward Francis evaporated as readily as water on summer heated concrete.

“Ash is missing." Francis said flatly. “You incubi can do things." He rolled a hand to take in the flustered incubus' form. “Once you've gotten a piece of someone's life energy."

“Like what? Reel them in like fish on a line? We can't do that, rat, nor can we convince people to do things they don't wish to, deep down." The rat flinched at the dig and the big, bearded man growled impressively for a human. “And we're not fucking dousing rods, rat." Seban glared down at the rat until Vick and, slightly behind and to one side, Fernice shifted and flexed subtly. “How should I know where she is?"

“You've shared, which means you know the nature of her life force. Can't you, I don't know, detect it?" The rat exclaimed, rolling one hand in the air as if to clarify his confusion.

“Yeah, of course I can." He raised an arm and jabbed fiercely toward them and slightly to one side. “I put a tracking collar on everyone I share with." he rolled his eyes in exasperation and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he closed his eyes for a moment. “That way. East, mostly, a ways off but not out of the city. That's the sum total of my ability to sense what I've touched. We're not mind readers or dreamwalkers or anything else, we can't get in your heads even with your itty bitty rodent cock in our mouth."

“But you influence them with your essence." Fernice growled irritably, “And push them into things they would not prefer to do, even if they're willing at the time."

“No, we cannot." Seban reiterated with a snarl. “You have to want it, even if it's buried deep. So, yeah, that's just what we incubi do." Seban shifted his attention to the far larger man. “And so do you, Valenite, so don't mince around the semantics. I said she was off that way somewhere." He waved his hand angrily to the east again. “And, since I can sense that much, she's alive. That's all I can or will say on the matter. So piss off." With that he slammed the door and hammered the locks secure with equal vehemence.

The meal the skunk cooked with the ingredients supplied by the magic shop was rather good. To be truthful, it was excellent. Kai truly was a masterful cook, whether or not he was indeed one of the immortals or something else altogether.

He wasn't infernal, or daedric, terms which were effectively the same, that much was readily apparent. Those shone with a completely different type of life mana but it was still, in the end, just life mana. It was a little brighter, a little more rich in its vibrant hues depending on the nature of the daedra but little more. Nothing like the blinding brightness the skunk possessed below the level of his spirit where few could ever see it.

The numen also bent around the extra-planar differently than it did mortals or psis, the effect extending further from them, twisting at the threads of creation as they came near others or, in the case of Seban the incubus, exerted their daedric influence upon them. But around Kai, however, it bowed immensely, like the magnetic poles around a planet, piercing him at head and groin as if there was a great core of iron in his center.

Or, in his case, intense Life. She had never been so close to another immortal, save for her ever so brief and heartbreaking audience with the goddess Akkala, mistress of mercy and healing. That had been before she had learned to see as deeply as she now did, so there was no way to compare his influence on the weave and weft of creation to that of the earthbound gods or their consorts.

She sat back on the cot, once again clad in naught but her lace panties and bra since the view did not seem to affect the skunk whatsoever. Her office clothes chafed after their impromptu laundering in the shower and subsequent disordered drying on the hook where they once again hung. Kai had told her to leave off when she tried to help with drying the dishes, his voice gentle and humorous when he forbade her doing anything but resting and, at the moment, eating a chocolate bar with some sort of crunchy puffed grain in it.

After all, he explained, he would be disgustedly sick by the time it came for the same meal in a day. She would be working to tend to his crippled infirmity, probably harder than he was with the spare few dishes he had used to cook.

Picking up the braille reader she traced her fingers across the tiny bumps, reading the titles of the books it held. She would have little else to do while Kai went through his purging regimen so having something to read, dry and scholarly or the trilogy of erotic history fiction, would be a welcome way to spend the time.

Or, she mused, she could dive into the remaining testers that still in her shoulder bag which still slumped over by the door where she'd dropped it the first evening they had arrived, so long ago. She doubted she could accomplish anything more with them than she already had without the amplifiers she had used to save her own skin. Her employer would be wroth about losing those alone, simply for the risk to their proprietary research they would cause if they fell into the wrong hands. She doubted, however, that the goons lying inert on that street were any threat. In two days the vamps who had fled could have recovered the testers, but it was highly unlikely they could've made heads nor tails of them.

Only two days, three? She had lost count, the time had seemed to stretch out interminably. With no references, such as the warmth of the sun or the sound of skyway traffic, she could not gauge time reliably at all.

Selecting the first title of the trilogy and leaned back to read with her fingertips. She listened as Kai finished the dishes and began shoving the detritus into one of the shopping sacks before tying it snugly and setting it near the door. “Of all the things they installed, you'd think they would provide a trash can." He groused as he moved to the center of the room, his magic flickering in a slow, steady pulse with only an occasional shudder that harmonized with the pain which seemed to be an integral part of him. His arm no longer seemed to compete with that pain, its brilliant hues of pain having faded to little more than, she guessed, mild discomfort. “Or chairs."

Considering the scars she had felt along that arm she was amazed it was so subdued.

“They?" She asked, her fingers pausing their reading.

“My… my supporters, you could say. They've watched over my holdings during my sleeps for the better part of seven centuries now. They've invested smartly and wisely so I've never felt the need to step in and correct them very often."

“With you asleep decades or even centuries you'd think they would have ample opportunity to just take the pot and run." She observed matter of factly.

“It happened, in the early years of my chaotic somnolence. I had to regain my lands and holdings twice over the centuries when the nobility neglected to shepherd it well. Now, however, they can't. There's a geas on my holdings. Any who wish to access it in the least way are bound by that geas, most of them quite unknowing. It's something the first observer of the Way put into place. He was an amazingly wise man, in many ways. A good friend when I was awake. A sharp pain when I awakened again and he had passed, leaving my holdings to his chosen heir."

“You've never gotten used to it, have you, the grief of waking?"

Kai moved to the center of the floor and, folding his legs, sat down to rest the back of his wrists upon his knees, hands open before him as if holding a bowl. “No, never. Nor do I wish to." He took a long breath and let it out slowly. “I fear that, if I become inured to the sacrifice made by those who have gotten close to me, despite my best attempts to prevent it, I will truly become lost. I'm already a ravening monster, even my closest friends among my fellow immortals say as much. Most mortals who know me realize that very swiftly. If I become calloused against the loss of mortal friends with each waking I will lose focus on the reason I do awaken in the first place."

“You don't seem like a monster to me." She pointed out. Truth in fact was that she had come to like the affable little skunk, his musk merely one aspect of his being.

He chuffed a rueful laugh through his nose. “You've known me a couple of days, Ash, and in this confined little box where I don't have to worry about my enemies finding me. These safe houses allow me a reasonable sense of peace, where I can rest without fear of waking decades later after getting my throat cut."

“That's happened?" She asked, aghast.

“A few times, yes. I've been hung, stabbed, throat cut, even staked like a damned vampire. But I healed. A couple of those attacks put me down for years." He stretched his back and she saw the ghostly mana shape of his tail sweep side to side on the floor behind him. “I… I went a little extreme when I recovered and did truly live up to the assertions of my peers. I destroyed an entire enclave once. It was not pretty. When my peers discovered what I had done they were quite displeased. That's pretty much when they began seeing me more as a monster than the friend they had once known. They pity me, think me thoroughly insane."

“Vengeful, driven, disoriented and grieving when you awaken, and you're fighting something as old as you are, and its pawns, that threatens all of creation. I would expect someone to be a little crazy with that weight on their shoulders." She shook her head, “Sure, pity may be expected, but sympathy as well." She sighed and shrugged. “But a ravening, mindless killing machine?" She squared her shoulders and looked over at him. “No, you are what you are, and still plenty sane in my experience."

A dull glimmer of pleasure glowed briefly in the center of his breast as she saw his head shape bow in a slow nod. “Thank you, Ash."

“So, you can't actually die, truly?" She asked with a smile at his self conscious shimmer of eased tension. Even the pain seemed to lessen, if only slightly.

“As far as I've experienced, no. Doesn't make it any easier, wanting so badly to die but being unable to."

“But you said people could kill the old gods, take their place. I assume their consorts can be killed as well?"

“They can, and have, and their consorts as well though I don't know of any who were, not directly. All I can assume is that, because the essence Artela gifted me is torn and part of it bound into that being of darkness it won't release me until it is made whole again." He sighed, upturned hands fisting briefly before relaxing open again, a shimmer of grief, sorrow, and anger rippling through his mana form under the omnipresent pain.

“If you heal, how come your eye has not?" Ash asked quietly.

Reflexively the skunk raised a hand to touch the spot where his left eye had been covered by a patch, briefly occluding the small magic gleams there. “This happened before I received Artela's gift. Long before, during an attack on the castle that once stood where the citadel is today. It was caused by a cursed weapon, one intended to steal the souls of those it slew. I was merely injured before I could strike back, but its taint has prevented any healing, natural, magical, or divine."

“Like my eyes." Ash sighed with a shake of her head.

“Oh? You were not born as you are?"

“No. It happened when I was three, or thereabouts. My parents were researching at the southern fringes of the Telvar Rift, studying the flora and fungi there to see how they coped with the overwhelming flow of life mana spilling from the rift. That's how I knew what the creature that attacked you was, they were somewhat common in the area. You never forget the sound of their challenge roar once you've heard it."

“Agreed. I daresay I certainly won't." Kai chuffed a sardonic laugh. “It seems I may have to carry a simple gun, after all. That thing went through my shields like they weren't even there, absorbed every spell I could sling at it, and snapped my wand, my arthana, like a twig despite its protective enchantments. It was in a sleeve sheath on my arm and I was trying to draw it when that thing caught me." He held up his injured arm and seemed to look at it for a few moments before lowering it to his knee again. “My spray, your spray, and that amplification barely even slowed it. Probably because it soaked up the magic you unleashed against it and only got a normal dose."

“I pushed those away, the essences of your spray and mine, so you would not be overwhelmed like the others. Since the thing was still on you it was spared as well. And you still killed it." Ash pointed out, remembering the reek of the thing's spilled guts.

Kai made a soft 'ah' of realization and nodded. “Yes, but only by simple melee, claw against claw like an animal."

Ash scoffed. “You're no animal."

His hands flicked toward himself, “Am I not?" He asked ruefully.

“In form and flesh, but not mind nor soul. You don't like being what you are?"

“A skunk?" He chuffed and the shape of his head shook negatively. “Not particularly, though I accepted it long ago, before the gods were brought down, before I had even married. The curse remade me, physically, but as you said I've still got my mind, and that's what's important, no?" He chuckled softly. “Though I would've much preferred being made a wolf, a fox, a cat. Pretty much anything but a skunk."

“Elephant?"

His chuckle became a short chirp of laughter, “Okay, perhaps not." Ash laughed with him. Monster though he said he was Kai did not seem such to her, at least in this situation. She guessed that, if she had stood opposed to his millennia long quest, she might.

They fell into a companionable silence after that, the skunk slipping into his meditations and Ash returning to her book. Several hours passed and Ash moved about between chapters to keep her legs from falling asleep, using the snug bathroom nook when needed but trying not to disturb Kai in his meditations. He did not seem aware of her presence or movements, at least not enough to react to them. She could barely discern the rounded shapes of his ears in his gauzy mana form, the pain not lending them definition, so could not tell if they tracked her or not.

After several hours spent in passably companionable silence Kai shifted and stretched, yawning hugely. Ash, several chapters into her book, past two early scenes between the Sensate main character and her clients, looked up in some surprise. She had, admittedly, got somewhat immersed in the book featuring a main character much like herself; blind. The well written eroticism had left her slightly frustrated that she could not seek the company of those from her circle. “Kai? Everything good?"

“Passable." The skunk replied through another yawn. “No better success than before, which is rather frustrating, so I'll have to go through with this." He waved an arm back toward the countertop where the potions Ash had secured still waited. “In the morning, though, I'm for sleep. You?"

Ash felt a yawn creeping up on her and nodded, letting it have its way. “Yep." Kai crossed to the bathroom confidently, proving that the light was still on, and emerged a few minutes later. He moved to the countertop for a moment and then moved back toward the cot, once more moving with the uncertain footing of the recently blind; the light was out. Ash laid the reader down and slid it beneath the cot beside the small chest that was already there as she shuffled to one side. When Kai neared she reached out a hand and held it steady until his stomach touched her fingertips.

Ash winced when she realized that, with him standing and she sitting, her aim was far from perfect.

Or, in other circumstances, would've been perfect. Luckily he was still wearing his ragged pants.

She swept her hand quickly to one side as his posture tensed, confusion blossoming briefly in his form, until she could capture his questing hand with her own. “Before you bark your shin again." she explained as she guided him closer to the cot until his free hand could reach down and touch it.

“That did hurt." He admitted as he turned carefully and settled down on the edge of the cot. “Thank you." He leaned back slightly and stretched again with another yawn that sent waves of dim lassitude wash through his mana shape. “In front or behind?" He asked after his jaw re-hinged itself.

“What?"

“Would you like me in front of you or behind you? This cot was not exactly designed for two."

“Oh, yeah. I'm taller than you, so probably in front. I prefer the wall at my back so I'm not afraid of rolling out. With your back to me you should be less likely to, at any rate."

“True." He yawned and waited as Ash drew her legs up onto the cot and stretched out, shuffling to put her back against the padded wall. Once she had settled Kai stretched out as well, turning on his side to press his thickly furred back against the front of her robe. Ash rested her head on one folded arm and the makeshift towel pillow and, as the skunk stilled, let the other drape over his upper arm and against his chest.

“Tomorrow is not going to be a pleasant day." He murmured as he let the higher arm, his injured one, rest against her own upon his chest, the other folded under his head and his own tail for a pillow. Ash could only grunt a soft affirmative as she slowly relaxed into sleep, though not as quickly as the short statured male resting back against her.

Vick stared at the door for several seconds, his hands curling into fists at his side. His gaze then shifted over and down to Delmos, who was gazing up at him with the same hard look on his face. “Did you hear sounds of distress when the door was open, Del?" Vick asked levelly.

It was Francis who answered though. “No." His tall, rounded ears flicked and his whiskers twitched. “No, I didn't and my hearing is better than yours." His statement cut Vick's thoughts off at the knees and he raised a brow as he shifted his attention to the rat who had just saved the incubus from a very nasty police interaction. “There were two females and one male in there, besides Seban, and the smell of their rutting is making my nose run." The rat's voice was an irritated, petite growl as he shook his head. “No doubt he's having them 'push their limits' just as he did us, but right now there's nothing illegal going on. Eventually that misuse of Suspira's essence is going to come back and bite him in the ass. Hard." Taking a long steadying breath and wiping his nose on the sleeve of his shirt Francis shook his head. “And Ash hasn't been in there. Ever. I don't smell her."

“What it'll do is cost him his head." Fernice grumbled irritably. “But Francis is right. Busting in there will not gain you guys anything except trouble. I'd wager the incubus was lying out his well used ass telling us which way to look, just to get rid of us. I'll ask one of the Suspira clergy in the guild tomorrow, see if they can actually do that."

“Could be a useful investigative tool if so." Vick said as he let out a frustrated breath and turned from the door. Another dead end that just pointed 'east'.

“Sure thing, just get an inky or succy to tap a bit of someone's life mana and then track them like radio-collared animals." Delmos quipped sarcastically.

“Well, if he can and just did, that bypasses all of the masking magic we've been dealing with." Francis looked up as Vick ruminated aloud.

“Masking magic?"

“Yes. There must be some in place, somehow. None of our mages have been able to scry her location, nor anything else pertaining to her disappearance. Just… poof, undetectable."

“That's not Ash, then. She has no magic. I mean, absolutely none." Francis said quickly, confidently. “No mana reserves at all. She's got life mana, of course, but everyone, even purely mortal mundanes with no magic talent have mana. We produce it naturally within ourselves." He went on as they walked back toward the rat's apartment. “For most it simply dribbles away, our reserves too small to hold much, but we all hold a little. Mages have larger reserves, and can train themselves to expand upon them, and they can take in mana from the world around them to replenish themselves. Ash has great reserve capacity, but she's utterly empty. Whatever she produces naturally is, I guess, being used before it can collect her reserve. She can see it, but she can't manipulate it or hold it."

“See it?" Delmos, who was walking almost shoulder to shoulder with the rat, asked. “I thought she was blind. She is blind, what little evidence we have of her confirms that."

Vincent nodded rapidly. “She is, at least in the way you and I see. But she has the sight of mages, able to see mana. A dizzying degree of it, from what little she's told me. She can read our emotional states in how our inner life mana changes, and even our health in some ways though not with the acuity of a medical professional."

“That's a lot of useful information." Delmos observed in his quiet voice, nodding as he filed it away in his memory. “How is it you know so much?"

“Basic Manology in college, but that's just general knowledge. About her all I know is tidbits I've gleaned during our conversations."

“And how long have you known her?"

“About two years, give or take a few months. I met her after she moved into the tenant block."

“Is that when she became a part of your circle?"

“A few months later, yes. One of the other tenants, a man named Duke who had a little dream walking ability sensed that, while as knowledgeable as anyone might be about sex her ability to find it was limited, given her apparent disability. He invited her to join a much smaller intimate group and it went well. She became a part of our larger circle soon after. Duke has since moved, though, to Quenardya. He was an elf attending uni for his art and, after graduating, he moved back home. No acrimony there."

“Other than her blindness and mana sight, are there any other impressions you can give me? What was her role in your group?"

“She's a delight." Fernice, who had been listening to the conversation, offered in that low, gentle growl he preferred. “Everyone adored her. She's smart, strong, quick witted and skilled enough to have attended the Sutt Institute if her desires had gone that direction."

“Any of your members take particular interest in her?"

“None." Francis assured them with a shake of his head. “I mean, everyone took interest in her, as we take interest in each other, but no one singled her out for out of gathering intimacy, if that's what you mean. No current romantic interests that we know of."

“And we know of such things almost immediately." The big man added with a smile. “We're a family, detectives, in our own unconventional way. We look out for one another well beyond our private gatherings." He paused, then let out a warm, rolling laugh. “Which, if you are curious, we would happily invite you to observe."

“Not participate?" Vick chimed in with a wry twitch at one corner of his mouth.

“No, not at first. We have to feel you out before we feel you up, detective. See how we mesh as individuals as well as a group." He smiled over at the detective, the expression brightening his bearded face. “You would be surprised at what attending such gatherings can do with one's intimate life and relationships."

“Destroy it?" Delmos observed blandly.

The big man nodded soberly. “Yes, that it can. But also enrich it if both parties are, and most certainly would need to be, willing participants in the idea if not the act. Just as much, if in different ways, as the teachings and practices of the Sensates." They had reached the door of Francis' apartment by that point. “This is where we will leave you, gentlemen. Enjoy your evening." Judging from the muffled sounds coming through the closed door Vick understood that the enjoyment had begun without the two males. They exchanged bows and withdrew before the rat opened his door.

“Well, that was a bust." Delmos said with a sigh. “Other than 'go east, intrepid explorer'. Shit." He shook his head as they made their way back to the parking garage. “That Ash girl was into some hinky stuff, there."

Vick barked a laugh, “In Metamor? That's hardly hinky, Del. Outre, perhaps, but hardly the freakiest thing that happens between the bed sheets in this city. Hell, Yasir and the unknown male beast morph in his bed? That's not hinky?"

“No, that's just gross."

“Pedomorph prostitutes." Vick added with a bright grin down at his youthful partner.

“You're disgusting, Vick." Delmos drove a fist into the meat of his upper arm but smiled back. “Going to drop me off? I'll work on my report later tonight, have it ready in the morning."

“Of course. I'll be doing the same after my date."

“Well," Kai said resignedly as he looked down at the trio of bottles on the counter before him, “here goes." Two of the bottles were relatively large, their instructions laid out beside each, and the smallest with the most intricate instructions was the first dose of mana-purge he would take to start the process.

Which the instructions said must not be stopped once begun, listing a rather unpleasant number of potential results.

“When should I set the timer on my book?" Ash asked quietly as she stood a couple of feet away. She had read the instructions as well, since they were printed in mana-ink, and knew the process he must follow.

Picking up the first vial the skunk unscrewed the cap and drank it down in three hasty gulps. She heard him scrape his tongue against the roof of his muzzle as he set it down and picked up the full cup of water placed nearby, drinking that down in a few large swallows. “As soon as I take the purge." He said, taking a few moments to breathe after swallowing so much so swiftly. The first two vials were merely to counteract the immediate effects of the purge which would, as its name implied, want to be immediately purged by the easiest exit.

Kai picked up the second vial, shook it a few times, and drank it down followed by another cup of water. He belched and made a nauseated sound. “Treacle and mud, what a combination." He groused as he took a deep breath, waiting as the two concoctions settled in his stomach. “Landfill mud, at that." He collected the two vials, shoved them into an empty shopping sack, and set it aside.

He waited for a few moments, silent, to let the effects of the vials fade into quiescence, his mana hue shifting toward a pallor of nausea and sickness, the pain dulling to a sullen hue as if waiting. Taking up the vial of mana-purge he shook it vigorously before twisting off the cap. “Now."

Ash tapped the timer icon on her reader, the pips of braille in the top right corner beginning to poke her fingertip with the steady progression of seconds. “Six hours." She promised as she set the reader back on the counter. “I've set it to audio, as well, in case I fall asleep." She watched as a bright wash of sickness hued mana blossom from the region of his stomach and race up his throat as she heard him let out the strangled sound of someone on the verge of vomiting. He grunted, growled in that strange bird-like way of his, and swallowed loudly several times.

He clutched the edge of the countertop, head bowed, shoulders hunched up and his tail dropped low to brush the floor. Several more times that virulent hue surged upward through his breast and throat only to be fought back down. Impetuously she reached out a hand and rubbed his nearer shoulder. Slowly the color began to seep outward more than surging upward, spreading through his body though still mostly trying to force its way up his throat but his gagging slowed until he was able to breathe steadily again.

“Now I know why people don't do this." He hissed in a strained, breathless wheeze after several minutes. “My guts feel like they want to crawl right out of my throat."

“Three more doses to go." Ash placed the empty vial into the sack and selected three more from the array along the back of the counter, setting each atop the instructions for its use. Each set was identical; two counteragents and the purge in the same dosages.

“Don't remind me." He grunted, spinning away from the counter and stalking over to the cot to drop down onto it, curling into a miserable, fetal ball, tail wrapping about himself. “Tell me something."

“What?"

“You lost your sight, how? You mentioned something about when you were three?" He seemed to simply want to distract himself from the clutching of his innards so she obliged, sitting at the head of the cot and reaching out to stroke the fur of his upper arm consolingly.

“Something happened at the research compound, some manner of attack. As I remember it was late, dark. The evening animals had gone quiet, at least. I heard gunfire, people shouting. Someone came into the housing unit I lived in, took me out and to another building with other people. I saw a fire, a big one, I think it was the research building." She had to close her eyes and rack her brain for the fuzzy details of that night, so long ago. “We could see through the windows though they told us to stay down. Rappingar, they said to each other. I later learned that was a group run by a local warlord in that area for some years. They were responsible for a lot of attacks, a lot of death and destruction, against anyone from the north. Researchers, aid workers, anyone who was not native or of the 'true blood'.

“At some point there was a huge wall of light from the direction of the Rift. It snuffed the fires and the gunfire stopped. There was a lot of screaming, a lot of animal noises; the roars of native hunting cats, baboons, wild dogs, other things. The last thing I saw, that I remember seeing, was the wave of light washing toward the building we were in. After it passed I was blind." Setting the braille reader across her thighs she let her fingers rake lightly through the fur of his upper arm, shoulder, and the side of his neck as he shuddered, hissing quietly to quell the nausea that continued to pummel at him.

“By the next day the Irombian military and an aid convoy arrived and the compound was abandoned. My father told me that my mother died when the compound was bombed, trying to save their research." She felt her throat tighten at those painful memories, recalling the shaky timbre of her father's grief stricken voice. “I can't even remember her face, or his really, it was so long ago. I can remember her voice, warm and loving, and her smell which was always spices and plants and earth." She turned her head to look down at the miserable ball of shifting mana colors beside her. “You remember your wife, after so long?"

He grunted, head nodding jerkily as he rasped an uncomfortable breath. “Yes, clearly. Everything about her. Face, body, sound, smell, taste." His breath lurched and he choked back his rising gullet once again. “I see her in my dreams during those long sleeps. Nocturna and her consort have set aside a place for me, lest my soul wander and its sanity snap in the lonely years between waking and killing. My wife is there."

“Nocturna aids you?" Ash asked, impressed. Sure, this strange little skunk was one of the immortals like her consort, the Sutt, but to actually be on speaking terms with a goddess seemed so far beyond Ash that she could not even fathom it.

“She does. Her consort is among my truest friends, even after all of this time and my apparent madness. Nocturna sees the potentials, she sees what I must do but cannot affect it, herself; not directly. She merely aids me, such as she can."

“Dreams and omens."

“For me, and, perchance, for others. Perhaps it was that she saw your path crossing mine. She prepared you as she might, by sending you for that Vamp-Away."

“It worked." Ash breathed in surprise. Nocturna, the goddess, deigning aid someone so inconsequential as a simple blind girl who offered her not the first whit of acknowledgment or obeisance?

“Yes." Kai nodded into his chest jerkily, his tail twitching. “So, your blindness?" He prompted her to continue.

“Oh, yes, well. We all returned to the nearest city. My father got us on an aircraft out within a week, abandoning everything he had spent the last several years working on. For a time we stayed somewhere in Songefilde but I never can remember where. After that my father got another research job in Ainador, on the edge of the Desert of Dreaming, studying the hardy funguses of the region. It was there that he sought to have my vision restored, but it proved fruitless. He hired tutors to teach me how to live as a blind person.

“One of those was a crotchety old Lutin shaman named Khuvetz. I guess, in a way, he was much like you. Short, irritable, but with a heart of pure gold and the patience of a saint." Kai chuffed at that but she was not sure if it was because of his nausea or incredulity of her juxtaposition between him and the Lutin. “He's the one who taught me to see as mages do, though that was no small task as I had so few references. Khuvetz was blind too, but that was simply due to age rather than calamity. So he could talk me through learning Sight from the approach of being blind which, he showed me, did not rely simply on seeing as the sighted do. My father kept him around for several years, until his age simply made it too difficult for him and he returned to Inu Lutinaka. I heard a couple of years later that is where he died, naturally, seated on the tundra facing the dawn."

Kai stirred slightly, body tensing and relaxing in short waves, the hue of nausea permeating him almost entirely. Ash could see the chaotic throb of his destabilized magic flickering and flaring, seeking an escape from the affects of the purgative. It began leaking from him in thin, wispy tendrils. “I knew a Lutin like that, once. Younger than I, at the time. I was not yet eighteen and he was perhaps half my age, though in the span of a Lutin's life that made us peers. He taught me the ways of his folk, though his people and mine were in ceaseless conflict in those years. We had met, each of us alone, in the wild during the early days of winter. Rather than kill each other as our two peoples had done for centuries we chose peace. He taught me the spirit ways of the Lutin, I taught him the elemental ways of the southern mages. That strengthened both of us considerably." Kai twitched, clenched tightly about himself with another fierce growl against the effects of the purgative. Slowly, haltingly, he shifted and levered himself upright to sit hunched at the edge of the cot. Ash shifted her hand from his arm to his upper back, feeling his tail sweep around to rest behind her.

“He would, in time, forge the tribes of the north into an empire. Once he had firm control he extended a peace to Metamor, to the most hated enemies of the Lutin people. A peace that saw the establishment of Inu Lutinaka and has lasted, mostly intact, to this day."

“Khuvetz spoke of his people's history. He claimed he could trace his lineage all the way back to the first King of Kings, Death of the North."

“That was one of his titles, as I recall." The skunk grunted, swallowed, and chuffed a strained breath between his teeth. “By the tribes that didn't like him much. His enchanted spear and moon dog put many chieftains on the pyre before the fear of his tribe of powerful mages brought them in line, or shattered their tribes utterly."

“The Ghost Dog tribe?"

Kai chuffed a strained laugh, “Ahh, the ignorance of history." He shook his head, tensed, and leaned forward abruptly as another surge of sickness discolored his mana, more powerful than before, surging upward and then rapidly descending through his torso. “No." His voice was strained as he panted for breath, tail twitching and shuddering at Ash's back. “Ghost Clan. Then the Moon Dog clan of shaman, where the spiritual leaders for all the tribes trained. He absorbed them into his growing Ghost Clan first, cutting the Lutin people off from their spiritual leaders. After that…" He choked off, lurching forward onto his paws, and ran for the bathroom with a skirl of claws on stone.

From the muffled sounds coming through the closed door Ash figured the purge was, at least, coming through the correct path. She picked up her reader, checked the moving pips of the timer, and resumed reading her book.

Two hours until the next dose.

It was going to be a long, long day.

Ash was two full chapters further into the book, to the point where the Pyralian Sensate, Faith, had come into the company of a runaway girl who had, apparently, been trafficked into the influence of Metamor's curse and, through methods not yet revealed, had been dual cursed as both androgyne and theriomorph fox when Kai re-emerged from the bathroom. The fox androgyne's 'husband' had brought her to the Guild Hall to be taught how to observe the proper place of a female despite having grown up male. Their first, decidedly awkward, intimate scene was about to happen while the 'husband' looked on to observe that the training was 'appropriate'.

Kai ambled, a little unsteadily, over to the sink and poured a cup of water which he gulped down noisily. He rustled about in one of the sacks before weaving his way back to the cot to drop down onto it with a huff. “Chocolate?" He rasped softly and tapped Ash's arm lightly with a wrapped candy bar. He held another full cup of water and a candy bar in his other hand.

“Thanks." Ash replied quietly as she took it and peeled it open. “You okay?"

“Wrung out." He muttered, his voice raspy as he shuffled back to lean against the wall. “Weak. Guts all a twist, as expected." He paused and chuffed. “From top to bottom." He gulped from the cup like one parched by the desert sun.

Or suffering dysentery.

Ash's sightless gaze shifted toward the bathroom nook in the corner. “You make it all right?"

“I did, yeah." He wrenched open his candy bar and took half of it in a single bite. “Clothes didn't" He reached over and tapped her near leg with the tips of his blunt claws. “Rushing and claws don't favor clothing."

Ash laughed and impetuously dropped her hand to the middle of his upper thigh. Sure enough, the fur was not shielded by the tattered fabric of his ragged pants. “Why do you wear those, anyway?" She asked, brushing the fur briefly before recovering her hand.

“What? Pants? Same reason anyone else does." His chuckle was raspy but at least the need to void his guts seem to have passed, literally as well as figuratively. He was able to keep the water and chocolate down, at least.

“Castoffs. I would've imagined that a mage would have the withall to dress in better clothes than donation bin rejects."

Kai ahhed softly, pausing as his stomach gave a prominent rumble and he nipped off a bit more chocolate from his bar. “Because clothes tend to suffer badly on me. Not only the stink that ends up permeating them, but my violence tends to get them shredded. Easier to rummage in donation bins than buy new after I've had a tussle. And, besides, I'm an adept ranked illusionist. If I want high class clothes it's only a matter of a thought and it'll look like I'm in a ten thousand mark tailored suit."

“A thought? No casting circle, incantations, all that? I've never seen a mage just - poof - do magic. They need an arthana and some time to prepare the spells for casting later with a couple words or gestures, or they have to go through the whole spell from scratch."

“I crutch, one I'm rather irritated with, truth be told, but one I can't effectively change in my situation. I have neither the time nor the patience. I never liked the guilds, and what they did with the practice of magic over the past half millennia makes me want to do nothing more than destroy them."

Ash cocked her head curiously at the vehement outburst, watching as he tipped back the cup and drained the last of the water. His tongue rasped the roof of his muzzle and he stuffed the used chocolate wrapper into it. She collected it from his hand, noticing how it trembled, and rose from the cot. “Guilds do tend to let their power overcome their responsibility. That's a trope that even the guilds acknowledge. They don't change it, mind you, but they're aware of it."

She crossed to the sink and discarded the wrappers in a sack, rinsing Kai's mug briefly before refilling it and her own. “So what did they do so long ago that lingers even today?"

Kai gratefully accepted the mug when she returned, draining half of it in a desperate gulp. “Several centuries ago the guilds got it into their head to weed out sorcerous training, the ability to cast the spells within one's own mind and release them, wholly formed, with little more than a thought. Direct sorcerous casting was never common, even in my day few had the ability to cast without reagents, arthanae, objects, and rituals. The guilds could also not control sorcerers as they can those who relied on materials that, in general, only the guilds could procure and sell; expensively."

“Sorcery is more powerful then?"

Kai twitched and grit his teeth for a few moments before shaking his head, panting softly. “Not particularly. Sorcery relies on the strength and mental flexibility of the caster. Think of it like," He paused to consider and fight down another noisy growl of his gut. “Like pouring water from one vessel into another. Sorcery is just pouring the water directly, hoping that a little goes into the other vessel. Material magic is like using a funnel; it directs the flow much more efficiently so a smaller amount of magic goes much further than just splashing water, willy nilly, at the receiving vessel and hoping some goes in.

“So sorcerers, like myself, Lord Rikkter, and essentially all of the earthbound gods, have huge reserves of power to just fling about, but even we rely on the structures of material magic to focus that power to greater effect. So the guilds buried the teaching of direct casting in lieu of material casting. That allowed them to control who had access to materials by making them prohibitively expensive and, thus, control the caster. That is, until globalization in the late sixteen hundreds brought more trade, more access to materials that allowed the common man access to casting. Since then the guilds have had to rely on restricting knowledge."

“Which the worldnet has made very unrestricted, now."

“Exactly. Now magic use has become accessible to most anyone with the ability or desire, within the mandates set by the Magistrix and Lord Rikkter."

“You knew the Magistrix? And the god of war? You speak of them with some familiarity."

“Both of them, yes, though not closely. Akin to you knowing the headmaster of your college; a name, a face, perhaps occasional interactions, but little more." His head cocked slightly as he coughed something between a chuff of humor and grunt of discomfort. “And someone you'd end up answering to if you fucked up." He shrugged and sighed, “Lord Rikkter and I have fallen out of sorts in the past couple of hundred years. He no longer trusts me, I doubt he even particularly likes me, and sees me as nothing more than an agent of chaos." He raised a hand to his head and made a gesture that, Ash assumed, was sign for 'crazy'.

“Why?"

Kai laughed, then coughed and finally hissed in a pained breath to let it out in an equally nauseated growl, his tail flicking across the cot behind them. “Because I am. A bringer of chaos, I mean. I'm caught up with my own issues, which have always been smaller than wars that would fall under his auspice. When I appear he sees me as a herald of strife, death, and destruction as my foe is also once again active." Kai paused for a moment to clutch at his rumbling stomach with one hand, a hue of discomfort and illness washing through him like slow waves on the surface of a still pond. “But then, Rikkter doesn't much 'like' anyone to any great regard, except his wife of course." He sighed softly. “Seeing the pity in her eyes whenever I make contact after awakening is always a dagger stroke to the heart. We were once close."

“Romantically?"

Kai shook his head, “Never. We were just very close friends, I guess still are, but for that look in her eyes, that sorrow for my plight. As much as I love her like family I can't take that." He pushed up from the cot, wobbling unsteadily for a moment, tail twitching and extending straight out behind him, lifting and dropping as his balance tottered forward or rocked back. Ash reached up and rested a hand at the small of his back, ready to catch him if he fell entirely. After several moments he steadied himself and shuffled across to the sink to refill his mug and set it aside.

He rustled about in the bags for a few moments, pausing as the hue of his mana surged with sickness again. After marshaling his churning innards he opened what sounded like the lid of a plastic container with a seal he peeled away. Taking something out he put the top back on the container and discarded the seal. A heavy herbal smell quickly suffused the room to mingle with the potent musk of the skunk. The smell and heavy, almost oily, texture of it was unmistakable.

“They're your family." Ash wrinkled her nose a bit at the weighty smell of fresh cannabis. “Those ancients, the ones forged during the fall of the gods, those chosen to become consorts from that age who remain. Every family has members who dislike each other. Sometimes the love is still buried, deep down."

“One could hope." Kai shrugged as he picked up his mug and shuffled cautiously back toward the cot. Ash was less clumsy in reaching for his hand so he did not stumble into it.

“What do they call you, those ancients you still talk to?"

Kai turned carefully and eased himself down onto the edge of the cot, the smell of cannabis momentarily more pungent than his musk. He chuckled darkly. “Oh, that's simple. They call me 'the Sleeper'." Grunting softly he bent forward over his legs and hissed a long, indrawn breath. Holding that against clenched teeth he shoved himself to his paws and thrust out a hand to brace against the wall behind the cot.

“That's it? Not even an actual name, just some doomful title about your condition rather than you?"

“As it must be. What name did I give you for me, again?" He turned and paused, his tail tucking low against the back of his legs as the hues of nausea and illness chased the crazy, almost stroboscopic flickering of his increasingly unstable magic.

“Kai, which is not your name."

“It's a name, which suffices." His breathy words were a raspy, strained hiss as he pushed away, crossing back over to the bathroom. “As I said, those who know me are in danger ever after." He stepped through the door and closed it. Disquieted, Ash returned to her book.

It did not take 'Kai' but a few minutes to return from relieving himself. He turned to sit cross legged on the end of the cot opposite Ash, breathing heavily, the huge ghostly mana shape of his tail draping across his lap. Raising something to his mouth Ash heard the rasping flick of a mundane firestarter and, a few seconds later, she smelled a pungent smoke. He took a long, slow pull on the cannabis cigarette and held his breath for several long seconds before speaking. “What are you reading, by the way?" He asked in a hollow, strained wheeze, turning his head and letting out a pall of heavy herbal smoke. His unstable magic still continued to churn and flicker as if trying to find some path of escape, wisping about his form in a thin fog.

She chose not to comment on his habit. It was not illegal, after all. And it did seem to overwhelm the pervasive mephitic musk in the air so she chose not to push at its essence to keep it at bay. “A romance. Blind Faith. It's about a Sensate in Pyralia, around the early eighteen hundreds, just after the Tourne Revolution that cast down the nobility there for democratic rule."

“Care to read it to me?" He asked quietly after another drag on the cigarette, speaking around the smoke.

“Read it? Aloud?" She asked, incredulous, considering where the next chapter was going to lead. “Why?"

“Because I would rather not sit around with nothing but my own thoughts until I get through this disgusting process." He flicked a hand at himself, the length of his tail twitching but remaining in his lap.

“Uh, okay. It's a bit, uhm, racy."

Kai chuffed through his nose and took another drag, hitching his breath to hold it in. “All the better, then. Let me think of something other than how sick I feel right now." He took another hit and Ash noticed that the shifting, dull hue of his pain seemed to settle into a slower pattern, dimming slightly. It also considerably dampened the sickly hue imparted by the purge which was probably its primary purpose.

Nodding acquiescence Ash did as he asked, “From the beginning?"

“If you don't mind re-reading it." She could hear in the slower, strained but easier rasp of his voice that the cannabis was already hitting him.

“I'm only about a quarter of the way in, so it won't be a problem." She tapped the braille sidebar to bring up the index and went back to chapter one and began reading.

“So," Delmos said as he drew his office chair from behind his desk and rolled it over to sit at Vick's shoulder at the larger detective's desk. “What've they come up with on the identities of the decedents?" With no further leads to go on concerning the missing girl, Ash, directly they had decided to focus on the people she, apparently, killed.

“A good bit, but nothing spectacular, or so the citizen's bureau liaison said in her e-mail." Vick called up the files that had been appended to that message and opened the first that was simply labeled 'pos ident'. That brought up a list of seventeen of the dead people found on the Street, their names, Empire ID numbers of all but two, and other pertinent information. Four of them had 'missing person' appended to their name.

Both detectives stared at the abbreviated list for a few minutes, sipping coffee that Vick had procured before coming to the precinct. No sense putting themselves at dysentery risk with the bullpen or break room coffee. “Anything jump out?" Vick asked after a few slow sips of the somewhat expensive, but safe, beverage.

“Yeah, straight off." Delmos pointed at a column on the screen. “Region of verified identity. A good many of these guys were out of towners, though they all seemed to have been from the Empire." His small, slender index finger tapped a few of the entries. “Charen, Baldeir, Hangton. Cities in The Flatlands, Tagendi, Mycene right there." Hopping out of his chair he went to his desk to retrieve his tablet before returning and climbing back up into his chair. Due to his shorter height he had been forced to lift the chair to its highest setting, which often necessitated climbing up rather than sitting down. “Read the cities off?"

Vick read each off while Delmos tapped rapidly at the keyboard on his tablet. When he glanced over he saw that the youthful appearing detective had called up a navigation map, zoomed as far out as he could, and was entering the names as they were read. “Yes, check this." He turned the tablet to Vick after the last city, Metamor, was read aloud. Four of the deceased were from Metamor though most from just outside the shadows of the great towers where neighborhoods rather than Skyways defined one's social status. “One of them was from the Flatlands, then another from Tagendi right next door, the mage from Mycene, and so on, right up through the center of the Empire straight to the City."

“Owing that they were all taken in that sequence."

“Look at those missing persons reports. September, then two in October, one this month just two weeks ago. Cross reference with the cities where the reports were filed they were in a geographic line. Brightmoor, the Highlands, Kenning, Alamar, over about six weeks. Someone, some vampire, was coming to Metamor and gathering a goon squad along the way."

With a concurring nod Vick switched over to a more detailed dossier on the dead. All but two had come back with criminal records, generally petty low income crimes, most flagged with gang affiliations. “Goons is right. They were picky, this 'recruiter'. Autopsies did confirm vampire marks on their necks and inner wrists. None of them were outright turned, though. Just thralls." He rubbed his jaw as he saved his search into the increasing chunk of data space the murders were taking up. “Think whomever snapped up these pawns also shipped the beast?"

“I would imagine so, but getting it past the Empire border, and all of the checkpoints, would've required a lot of influence. Rift specimens are freaking insanely regulated."

“And they sell them right out of curio shops." Vick pointed out, raising his head and looking across the busy but noise dampened office space to point out a curious plant with drooping purple flowers sitting in the center of the bullpen among many other varied plants. “Those flowers, for one, I've been told can't even be germinated outside the Rift zone."

“No clue, and we're not in customs so, even less clue." Delmos shrugged helplessly. “Something to look into, though. Andy still in customs investigation?"

“Last I knew."

“Shoot him a line. At any rate I'm willing to bet he's heard about that critter by now. Having something like that turn up on our doorstep has to look bad for customs enforcement. I think it's still awaiting necropsy at Brightleaf college."

“We can go over there later and check, see if they've made any progress on it."

“So, our goon squad, what do you think? Origin of the master vamp was somewhere in or around the Flatlands?"

“With that pattern and speed? Without a doubt. And didn't come by train to leave that trail, probably a transport truck, ground vehicle. None of those locations is directly connected to the Empire highway system, so it could not have been a full sized transport. A van or panel truck that would not look out of place off the highway. Coming to the city for something with a definite purpose, bringing along a pet for backup, so probably expecting to deal with a mage if they're right about that thing."

“Right about what?" Delmos asked, mystified. He had not really looked into the Rift animal angle, yet.

“It's a natural mana disruptor. Magic just melts away as soon as it gets anywhere near the thing, even with it dead. Had to ship it using the third precinct's crawler when it just about wiped out the levitation magic of animal control's recovery skimmer. Wiped out the crawler's magic too, which thankfully were only sensors, levi-cams, and the like. I was told that just being near it messed up the Lightbringer mage's magic."

“So, if it was brought expressly to deal with a mage, and it was in that condition after the fight, if the mage survived they'll be right seriously fucked up."

“I would imagine, if they survived." Vick agreed with a nod as he chewed the end of his stylus and flicked through the records of the decedents.

“How many mages in the city that are skunks?"

“Three hundred and seventy three registered magic capable, two eighty that are practicing, the rest either collared or are operating rogue. I checked yesterday. Many of them are members of a guild called 'Monochrome', based just north of the Glen Avery district."

Delmos scoffed as he continued to study the map. “Monochrome? The tech company? That's not original, for skunks, now is it?" He clucked his tongue in sarcasm at the irony. “Think we should go chat up the leadership of their guild, and the company if they're affiliated., find out if one of their members has gone missing?"

“I said many, not all. Still a lot of unaffiliated skunk casters, too many to hunt down and verify. I also think that would be a dead trace. What would a guild mage strong enough to make twenty people asphyxiate on a normally non-lethal chemical deterrent and skunk spray, also non-lethal, be doing down on Street level that was remotely legal? If they are a member of the guild I'm willing to bet they'd flat out stonewall us. And if what little I can find about the guild is accurate, they've got money to burn so their lawyers would keep us in a holding pattern until we retired. If it is the tech Monochrome they'd be even worse."

Delmos nodded sagely, “And that's not all too far off, for me."

Vick, who knew just how long his partner had been on the force, could only nod and laugh lightly. “You, kid? Not even out of primary school and already talking retirement."

Delmos' eyes glanced up at him and he smiled a bright, cheery, very childish grin at him. “It's great to be young with enough money to retire, old man." It was an old joke between them, born of years of familiarity.

Vick sobered and tapped his screen with the stylus. “I'll get these files over to Imperial Surveillance, see if they can troll their archives for footage of any of these goons arriving, and where they circulated when they were here." He paused, leaning forward, and began scrolling through one of the files. “Oh, this I hadn't noticed earlier." He turned his monitor so Delmos could read it. “This one, from Tagendi. Looks like his girlfriend on record is a registered Dreamwalker." He scanned the name, opened another window, and ran a search. When it came up the stylus dropped from his mouth to clatter on his keyboard.

“Reported missing in July. And now her boyfriend turns up in our morgue. Coincidence?"

“Oh, fuck no." Vick grunted, snatching up the stylus and tossing it into a cup of pens. “And she's a spook, gotta be. Her entire file looks like it's been scrubbed clean. No employer, no employment history, no credit history, no debts. No listed next of kin. The name of the person who filed the report is just blank, they didn't even list the informant as anonymous, just… a blank entry." He scanned the very brief file and slowly shook his head. “Graduated Central Provinces College of Manology, no major given."

“So, since we've got her boyfriend in a cooler downstairs, it's likely she was taken at the same time. He's got priors for possession and use, maybe the unis down there might have an idea when he was last spotted scoring a hit, tie the two disappearances together. But she's not in a cooler, so?"

“I'm willing to bet she was fully turned." Vick said slowly, “With a rare and rather useful innate ability like Dreamwalking she'd be a lot more valuable than a mere thrall, especially if she's studied manology. So she's either a full vamp, or she's our mystery mage, you think?"

“Hmm, that doesn't measure. Her boyfriend just choked to death on his own vomit, why would she stumble off with our vic? And, if she is our mystery mage, why would she have taken the curse, and to become a skunk, of all things? Our vic was accompanied by paw prints, after all, and a skunk nailed those popsicles downstairs. No, I think she's full vamp and they all lit out of there when someone used that fuck-up-a-vamp spray."

“Okay, let's go with that. So she's a nightcrawler, now, probably looks the same. Add her to the list for surveillance to look for, though I doubt these photos are even her, if she is a spook, or was. And if we can somehow find evidence of her, maybe on the boyfriend, we can get our scryers to locate her. I doubt whatever masking magic is in play extends to the vamps that survived."

“Damn, good thinking." Delmos said with a grin, hopping down from his chair. “I'll head to surveillance, you know my stomach isn't up to morgue prowling."

Vick stood with a nod. “Meet you where?"

Delmos paused to think a few moments. “Motorpool. Honestly I'd like to go over to the guild registration office and look into this 'Monochrome'. After that whole frat club cum secret death cult dust up a few month's back I'm rather curious to learn about a mages' guild that's packed full of one particular species of theriomorph."

“Good point, yeah. I think we should go to see if the beast has been cut up, yet, though. First, at least." Delmos nodded after a moment of thought before turning and making for one of the many exits from the bullpen. “Toss me a message when you're done with surveillance. It might take a bit to see if the boyfriend has any latent evidence we can use."

When Vick arrived in the morgue a few elevator rides later he found only two coroners in, both of them seated in their office. That was a large square with windows on all sides, surrounded on all sides by examination equipment, sterile steel tables, and walls of body lockers. The overhead lights, above the dark, looming shapes of examination floods, were the only source of illumination for the morgue itself. The scent of disinfectant predominated, overlaying the sharp smell of stainless steel, electricity, and decay that lingered no matter how thoroughly the room was scrubbed. As he crossed through the gloom, somewhat surprised to see not a single table occupied or floodlight lit over some stooped humanoid shadow, he wondered why no one invested in a basic scent masking spell for the place.

The office cube was well lit, standing in the center of the gloom like a squat lighthouse. He crossed over and rapped the door, bringing two heads up from behind monitors. One beckoned him in while the other simply returned to her work. “Hey, detective Vickkers, what brings you?" asked the one who had beckoned to him when he opened the door.

“Hey, Lianna. Just wanted to take a look at one of the DBs from the Street slaughter the other day. Fifteen Eleven Twenty two Five, number six." The sixth body logged in to the morgue on the fifteenth of November at five after ten in the evening, or twenty-two hundred hours. “Braleta, Jeramy." Lianna stood from behind her desk and came out into the examination bay, leading him toward a wall of lockers.

“Anything in particular?" She asked as she referred to a clipboard hanging from a hook in the center of the wall, then paced away looking at temporary tags in slots on the face of each locker.

“Personal effects, any non-compliant residuals." He stopped when she chose a locker, pulled the tag from its slot to log the time it was being opened, by whom, and for whom. Non-compliant simply meant items that were found on the decedent that could not be matched to them. “Who did the autopsy?" Lianna examined the back of the card before slipping it back into its slot.

“Verkail, same night they dumped these meatbags on us. I sure hope someone claims them soon before they really freeze up." She lifted a lever to one side, drew open the door and latched it, and pulled out the tray upon which the body of one Jeramy Braleta lay naked but for the bag that contained his remains. Mist poured out of the locker to spread across the floor along with an arctic chill. A second, much slimmer, bag was draped over him, festooned with evidence tags and a thin veneer of frost. “Empire's wasting good money on cold storage of waste."

“They seemed to have come from all over, some as far away as the Flatlands. It'll take some time locating and notifying next of kin." Vick said with a shrug as he took a pen from his pocket, signed the evidence log taped to the front of the slimmer bag, and then unzipped it. The first thing he took out was a thin plastic sleeve with several sheets of paper within, scanning coroner Verkail's notes on the autopsy for anything that did not match the decedent. There was a wallet, several bills, an unused condom still in its wrapper, receipts, some with hastily scribbled numbers or cryptic little reminders on them. His clothing, of course, which was fouled with all manner of non-compliant evidence samples that would be of no use to Vick.

There was nothing of any particular note that stood out and Vick began picking up the clear cellophane evidence bags to peer inside each one, as if expecting to see something within that had overlooked Verkail's eyes. The man was not sloppy, but neither was he particularly thorough, especially when it came to Street level criminal detritus that rolled in. He paid the homeless and discarded more care than criminals who might have been carrying evidence.

Picking up the crusty pants, that still smelled strongly of skunk musk and pepper spray, and looked them over, particularly inside the crotch for hairs that did not match the victim's. He went over to a rolling cart near the exam tables and carefully rooted around until he found a slim rake. It was about twenty five centimeters long and stainless steel, four tines at the business end with tiny barbs along both front and back. Returning to the body he picked up the pants and began carefully probing the pockets.

He let out a soft sigh and smiled as his third probe into the right front pocket, where someone would regularly shove their hand, snagged a couple of extremely long strands of hair. The decedent's hair was ungroomed, unwashed, and only three centimeters in length. “Lianna, would you like to do the honors?" He asked as he carefully drew the hairs out. The coroner quickly produced a stainless steel evidence tray and he gingerly laid out his find. She pinned them down with a flat curette and delicately untangled them from the rake's barbs with a pair of tweezers. “See if there's salvageable DNA." Once the rake was clean he probed the pocket a few more times, producing another couple of similar hairs.

Slowly carrying the tray over to an examination table she brought out a magnifying lens and hovered it over the hairs on the tray. “There are three root tags." The tip of the forceps seemed huge as they poked and pushed at the hairs to bring the teardrop shaped white tags of fatty root cells into view. “Might be enough to run a screen." Pulling out a drawer she took out a tiny vial, hardly bigger than Delmos' child sized pinky finger, and used a scalpel to cut the tags from the attendant strands of hair. She capped it securely and set it aside to make out an identification label and log the evidence.

Vick went back to the body to add another line to the evidence log and prepared a small cellophane bag for the hairs. He appended in the log: destructive testing, scry trace. Returning to Lianna he held the bag open for her to tuck the hairs into. “They all match, definitely an unsub and non-compliant with the source. Just hope they're who you're looking for." Returning to the locker she made sure the evidence sachet was secure and shoved the body back into its chilly tomb. Once the locker door was closed and secure she added the sealed time to their access log.

“We suspect it may have been his girlfriend, who went missing at about the same time he did. With this maybe we can find someone who can shed some light on our missing person, and what these people were doing in the City, on that street. Who they were after."

“Good luck. This is a mystery that just keeps on giving. Don't let it get too cold, Detective Vickkers." She nodded and gave him a smile before returning to the office cube.

Turning the other direction Vick tucked the small evidence bag into his pocket and left the morgue, composing a quick text to Delmos that he was on his way to the motorpool.

Delmos met him there soon after he reached his department assigned skimmer, while it was still spooling up its levitation magic and still on its landing skids. The short pedomorph slipped in and fastened the safety restraint.

“Anything?"

“Well, I got the details to surveillance, but they're dubious. With nothing more than mug shot and ID photos they don't think they'll pop a hit unless the person actually stands straight in front of a camera. With what we could give them on our vic, though, they give a better than average chance of popping a hit if she walks in front of any public access or law enforcement camera."

“Excellent. Maybe we can wrap this missing person case by the holidays." Vick was pleased. He had put plans in place for the Meta'kema holidays, had even put in for the entire holiday weekend, Friday until the following Monday, off. Having an outstanding case butting into that would put a serious damper on things. Hopefully, if they found the missing woman, some light would be shed on her involvement in the deaths of twenty street thugs.

“I also called Brightleaf College, to see if they've done anything with the critter yet." Delmos added as he made a few notes in his tablet while Vick lifted the car from its parking pad and slipped into the aisle leading out of the garage. “They didn't plan to do anything with it until after the holidays, considering most of those who do post mortem exams are out the entire week."

“Just our luck, dangling threads."

“Oh, it gets better. I called the citizens registration bureau and much of their staff are also off, including the entire guild registration department, so no luck there, either." Not that many guilds were created in the modern environment, Vick understood why such a small department would take long periods off. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of old guilds, some dating back a thousand years and more, which did need oversight. Just not constant oversight, unlike law enforcement that never got a rest.

“It looks like our only course is magic division, then." Vick said with a shrug of his shoulders as he waited for a clear break in traffic by the garage adit. With the week foreshortened by two days due to the upcoming holiday everyone and their brother seemed to be out and about, none of them, from where he sat idling for a spot in traffic, using public transit.

“That's what I figured, too. Then it's back to paperwork, oh joy." Delmos agreed sarcastically. The skimmer lurched as Vick launched it into a likely gap, quickly ascending to a higher traffic level just in case the skimmer he cut off could not slow in time. He heard the muffed wail of its horn and gave the rear emergency strobes a few seconds to communicate 'I'm police, chill out' at the irate driver.

Due to the traffic the twenty minute drive to the bureau of manology was more like half an hour and Vick was decidedly wroth with holiday drivers by that point. He parked the car on a high platform despite the blustery wind and misting of rain at that level. Making for the garage would have been another chore he did not want to bother with.

They were ushered past the public waiting area and through a sally port into the division's law enforcement area after flashing their badges. There they surrendered their stunners and sidearms before being scanned for magic that might be disruptive to the area. Since neither were wearing more than the usual; a contraceptive amulet and curse blocking implant for Vick and no such charms for Delmos who was both married and already cursed.

The armorer, protected behind a thick window and magic shielding, then directed them to another sally port into the division bullpen. Where the precinct two bullpen was often noisy, which required noise dampening magic to allow people to listen to their phones or carry on conversations, the magic division bullpen was positively quiet. Plants adorned the short walls between cubicles, where several more of the purple flowers of imported Rift lilies identical to the one in their own precinct bullpen were prominently displayed.

A few people glanced up from their work, around the forest dense seeming greenery, to see who the visitors were but quickly went back to their work. Not knowing exactly where they were going Vick and Delmos made their way to the operations desk.

“Need an evidence scry." He said to the slim elven woman wearing a faultless MCPD uniform who greeted them. “Anyone available?"

“Several. Master Renau is in his lab, today. He would probably be best, and most capable. I'll let him know you're on your way." She picked up the receiver on her phone and pointed to a door toward the rear of the bullpen. “Down the hall, first right, and on until you reach his office. It'll be on the right, green door. Make sure you do not enter until he opens the door to receive you." She cautioned and they turned in the direction indicated. Knowing the often tricky nature of magic, if not how to do the stuff himself, Vick understood her caution. No sense barging in on some casting only to have it blow up in the caster's face, or their own.

They came to the forest green painted door, adorned with a mural of forest trees around a small rivulet, and Vick knocked smartly. Moments later it was pulled open by a human of medium stature and dark skin with round lens glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. No arms extended from them to his ears, however; they merely perched there as securely as a bird on a branch.

“Detectives Vickers and Delmos?" He asked with a distinct southern accent. They nodded. “Greetings and all that, gentlemen, please come in. There are no active works at this time." He took a step back and to one side, holding the door, and ushered them into his office.

As with most casters that Vick had ever gone to work with Renau's office was much larger than a typical police captain's office, most of that space open and unadorned. There was a desk to one side, near the door, surrounded by a makeshift wall of filing cabinets and one large whiteboard upon which were several small, intricately detailed spell structures. All of them had a distinct break somewhere in their lines, rendering them inert until those spaces were filled.

“You have some material you wish me to investigate?" Renau moved over to the desk but did not sit. “Divination of some sort?"

Vick nodded, taking the tiny evidence sachet from his pocket and handing it to the slender man. “We're on a missing person case but they're being hidden by a pretty powerful bit of masking magic. That came from a secondary suspect and we're hoping to track them down, see if they know anything."

“How long ago were this suspect and your missing person in proximity?"

“Three days, now." No sense detailing how the odds of finding a survivor dropped considerably with each passing hour; as a law enforcement investigator Renau would be very well aware of the time constraints.

“Do you have any material evidence from your missing person? I could do a direct trace on them. Masking magic is generally short term, or immediate use to wipe evidence from a crime scene." Despite being highly illegal it was not uncommon for crooks to carry scrolls for that very purpose.

“All we've got is her name and appearance, here. There are a couple of items at our forensics lab with her fingerprints on them but I doubt they would be too keen on what little trace they've got being eaten by spells."

“I can work with that." Renau nodded, picking up the sachet and peering at the hairs coiled up within. “But, first, let's work with what we have on hand. Do you know the source of these hairs, detective?" He glanced up from his examination of the hairs to look at Vick.

“Possible secondary missing person who had close proximal contact with the suspect those were retrieved from, probably an intimate relationship."

Renau nodded and walked to one of the filing cabinets with full width drawers only three or four centimeters high, as one might find in a survey office for maps. When he pulled it open, however, there were no maps to be seen inside. Instead were large pre-printed spell workings on incredibly thin, light weight paper. Holding his hand over the open drawer Renau whispered a few words and one of the tissue thin sheets lifted out to float in the air as the door drew itself shut. The sheet was a meter and a half on a side and floated smoothly away from the cabinet toward the open space at the back of the office.

“This should only take a few minutes, detectives." He waved his free hand toward the office chairs in front of the desk, his other hand still held up to guide the paper until it settled in the middle of the open floor. “We can talk while I finalize the spell but once I begin the casting I would request no interruptions unless my personal safety is at stake."

“Fine by us, inspector."

They had no questions to ask so simply sat in the chairs and watched as Renau circled the paper that had settled perfectly flat on the floor, printed side down. “Bright light." He warned and flicked one hand at the paper. Forewarned, neither Vick nor Delmos flinched when the paper burst into a brief, intense flare of light as fire consumed it. The printed spell was left behind on the floor flawlessly. “And poof," Renau commented for their benefit, “instant spellwork. Let me finalize the connections and we shall begin."

Taking some sort of writing implement from his pocket Renau settled onto his knees and meticulously began making small edits to the work printed on the floor. Delmos shot Vick a glance, eyebrows lifted, impressed. Neither one of them had the slightest ability toward magic and, in Delmos' case, were more than a little intimidated by what people could do with energies he could not even fathom.

“Could one of you bring me the evidence?" Renau asked as he stood and stepped back to inspect the meter wide circle he had created with pre-printed structure and finalized touches. Vick rose from his chair, retrieved the evidence sachet, and crossed to hand it to the inspector. He looked down at the construct and could not make heads nor tails of the thing. It was just a circle of intricate symbols, like an artwork mandala of black lines. “Thank you, detective. Now, I will begin shortly. Do not be alarmed by anything you see, hear, or smell, it will merely be effects of the work as I look into whomever these hairs belong to. It will do nothing to any of us." He paused, casting a glance at Vick. “Ah, if you would like I could anchor the spell to something, allow you to use that as a tracking spell should the subject of the scrying move?"

“That would be helpful, yes. Anything in particular?"

“No." Renau shook his head and knelt to reach toward the center of the circle and began adding more lines to the strange, dense geometry of ink. “Anything will work. The spell will not consume the item it is anchored to, nor damage it."

Reaching into a pocket Vick drew out a large, well worn, disk shaped silver object and held it out to Renau when the man had completed whatever alterations he had made to the spell. Renau took it from his fingers and examined it for a few seconds. “Quenardya five mark coin. Interesting, and smart. You won't confuse it with an Empire mark."

Vick considered it his 'lucky penny', of sorts. He had found it during a patrol, back when he was working as a beat officer. Looking down he had stopped two paces short of where he would have been, otherwise, when a skimmer passing through an intersection was clipped by another. Both had careened out of control, one slamming into the building ahead of Vick, where he would have been standing had he not stopped to look down at the coin. The other car struck the same building several meters behind him. By sheer luck, even standing between the two vehicles, he had not been struck by any large debris.

Because of a coin.

Renau held the coin in one hand as if it were a precious object of great value and passed his free hand over it, intoning a few words in what sounded to Vick like Elven. “This will do nicely, detective, thank you." Leaning carefully over the inked construct he placed it in the junction where the lines he had just added intersected. “A few minutes of silence and we shall see what we learn."

Vick returned to his seat and eased into it, watching as the man knelt on his knees at one side of the circle. Taking something from a pocket of his shirt he rubbed it into each palm with the opposite thumb, then rubbed his fingers into whatever it was. All the while he murmured quiet, alien words too low for Vick to make out.

After a few moments he flung both hands out over the circle which had taken on a strange, luminous glow through its inked lines. A blue shimmer raced around the periphery and then seeped inward along the lines to the center where it built up into a tower of dim blue light. Turning his hands, palms upward, he swept them out to either side and the pillar widened into an even more dim pane, like glass, into which he stared intently. Vick could see his eyes darting about, as if watching a video image as opposed to the side to side motions of reading.

At length he brought his hands back together, pressing them palm to palm, the fingers of his left hand down while the fingers of his right pointed toward the ceiling. Slowly he rotated his hands with a dry, rasping sound until his fingers were aligned, pointing down at the center of the circle. Leaning forward with a glacially slow tilt of his body he lowered his hands, palms still together, until the tips of his middle fingers just about touched the coin.

With a convulsive gesture he yanked his hands apart and slapped his left palm down on the coin as if trying to capture a bug. The sharp slap of flesh and the click of the disturbed coin was loud in the office. Renau leaned back and swept his right hand across himself, from left to right, and gave a flick of his fingers as if shedding water from them. The glow winked out abruptly, returning the circle to its former dark, inert black ink. Before anyone could move even that began to fade, seeping into the floor and disappearing altogether leaving the surface clean and unblemished save for the coin still trapped under Renau's palm.

The inspector raised his eyes and fixed Vick with a solemn stare. “You are seeking dangerous foes, Detectives." His eyes shifted to Delmos and then back to Vick as he shifted back onto his heels, drawing the coin up between middle finger and thumb. “Those traces belonged to a vampire. A very, very young vampire, but a powerful one. One also desperately sought by the Ministry of Intelligence. A former operative." Shifting further back he pushed himself back to his feet and approached. “It may be wise to reach out to them, see if they are willing to offer you any assistance if you should go seeking this woman. And the Lightbringers, as well, since neither of you are equipped to deal with a vampire."

“Noted." Vick said with a nod, sighing. He never liked dealing with vamps, even the few confidential informants he'd handled over the years. Those had mostly been thralls, reliable only when it came to giving information that did not pertain to their parasites. Not that dealing with some pretentious, holier than thou Lightbringer was much better. They didn't try to suck the life out when they bit into you, at least.

And MI was absolutely out except as a 'oh, by the way' quite well after the fact. They'd plow in with all of the resources of the Empire military and either destroy their one credible lead or send them scurrying for the shadows.

“Now, what have you pertaining to the missing girl? I can attempt another trace, though I cannot guarantee the same level of accuracy without actual material to work with such as cast off hair, skin, or the like, or personal items."

“All we've got is info, inspector. Name, history, still and video images. A decent composite for a patrol uniform to use, but nothing beyond that without raiding forensics."

“Which would amuse them no end." Renau quipped with a warm, if thin, smile. “Let me see what you've got. We can hope that whomever cast the first masking has ceased supporting it."

After they had shown him the still images, video, and the details on the missing girl the man retrieved another sheet from his cabinet, flash-imprinted it on the floor, and conducted his casting.

The end result was underwhelming, which they had expected. What they had not expected was Renau's groan of pain and near collapse after banishing the circle to melt into the floor again. “By the gods and Eli, that was nasty." He muttered as Vick moved to help him to his feet, carefully bypassing where the circle had been moments before. “They're maintaining it, that's for sure. And whatever is doing it is surprisingly powerful." With Vick's guidance he moved behind his desk and collapsed into his chair. “And they've woven in quite a nasty little 'go away' surprise for the foolish who come snooping." Opening a drawer he fumbled about inside for several seconds before withdrawing a bottle of magic enhanced analgesics. “Right nasty." Tossing back a couple of pills he chased them with what remained in the mug on his desk.

“Whatever, not whomever?" Delmos asked curiously as the inspector dropped the bottle back into his drawer. “You'll be okay?"

Renau waved a hand in dismissive reassurance, “I'll be fine. I guess the best analogue would be somebody turning on a searchlight in your face when you've been in the dark for an hour. Pulseback as soon as my spell got close. And yes, 'what'ever. It felt like an established enchantment, either on an extremely powerful worn item or a fixed location with shielding."

“You get a sense of direction before it blew up on you?"

Renau nodded, “Mmhm. East by north, slightly. Underground; stone, not concrete. More than ten kilometers. That was it before I actually felt the warding trying to misdirect me and when I focused on that, well…" He trailed off, rubbing his eyes.

“Go away."

“Yeah, pretty much. Sorry I couldn't do more, detectives. Your missing girl either has some powerful allies aiding her, or some powerful enemies holding her. And since we can confirm that one is a vamp, if a young one, and a former government operative, I would lean more toward the latter than the former. You need to tread lightly on this one, and take plenty of backup."

“Agreed, inspector." Vick gave a deep bow of respect toward the seated man whose face still showed the strain of magic backlash. They left the man to the peace of his office and made their way back out of the building.

A bitingly cold wind had sprung up while they were in the offices and it bit through their coats with icy claws as they hustled toward their sedan. Once inside Vick tapped on the heat before bothering to spool up the drive turbines, rubbing the sting of cold from the edges of his ears. Delmos merely sat back into his seat while the warmers heated the upholstery, his arms clutched over his chest.

“Vick, what's about ten kilometers to the east of here and just a little north? That's mostly stone rather than concrete?" With one hand he gestured at the smooth concrete and glass face of the police levels of the building.

“Lots of stuff. Mountains, and everything they've built into them if they couldn't build on them. The mithril and copper Mines, vaults for the treasury authority, long term hermetically sealed thermally stable storage."

“Yes, but of all of those places, if someone wanted to hide, where might they go?"

“As far into the residences as they could get, maybe industrial areas with less foot traffic."

“Underground, out of sight, away from the sunlight. Just where things like vampires would gravitate toward."

“You think the ex-operative has our girl?" He dug the coin out of his pocket and looked at it lying upon his palm. When he thought about the missing government operative turned vampire the coin twitched, making him jump, startled. It twitched again, shifted, then turned abruptly before standing on its edge in the center of Vick's palm. Delmos leaned away and even Vick would have, neither particularly comfortable when it came to dealing with magic, except that he was holding the coin.

On one side was an intricately detailed carving of Artela's face, the queen of Quenardya, so lifelike if it had spoken they would not have been surprised. On the opposite side was an equally detailed branch of some tree that probably held significance for Quenardya but meant nothing to Vick. Over the tree was superimposed a carving of Artela's mighty hunting bow, an arrow knocked and drawn. At the moment the arrow was pointed slightly downward.

Cautiously Vick reached up with his free hand and rolled the coin across his palm until the arrow was pointed skyward. The moment he let go the coin gave a short jerk and rolled in place, its lower rim brushing against Vick's flesh rather than moving across it, until the arrow was pointed in the same direction. “I think it's indicating south, and lower than we are now."

“Arc." Vick grunted as he moved his hand to see how the coin behaved. No matter how he moved or rotated his hand the coin stayed atop it perfectly, slipping smoothly across his skin like a measuring probe tracing a three dimensional object. “We've got a few hours to kill, want to see if we can get closer?"

“As long as you don't plan on taking this vamp on with just the two of us." Delmos said, watching the coin raptly as Vick put his hands upon the yoke, the coin balancing perfectly upon the highest point of his hand. “I'll look up the libs who worked the initial scene, see if they want to continue that investigation. With vamps involved they'll want their spotless boots in it."

“Yeah, do that." Vick spooled up the drive turbines and crept into traffic, watching the prompts of the magical silver elven lucky coin.