Naming Day (Jake Underwood Book 1) (9 page)

There seemed to be some argument going on between the armored men and the figure who must have been standing about where we were. We couldn’t see what he did, but he must have finally satisfied the men in the circle. The one who had been stabbed limped out of our field of vision. From the position of the knife and the size I doubted that it was fatal.

One of the figures in the circle, who I took to be an Elf, nodded and pulled out a small killing sword and grabbed Kevin’s black hair. He raised his arm and in a practiced swing brought the sword down in an arc that neatly severed his head from his neck. Kevin’s headless body toppled over and spasmodically twitched as a large amount of brownish-green blood spurted from the severed neck. The Elf calmly carried Kevin’s head and deposited it into a box. The box itself was probably rosewood and was inlaid with filigree and symbols which looked to me like some kind of preservation magic. The figures walked out of the circle without so much as a second glance at the still bleeding body of Kevin Unglunblasch, laying forlornly in the circle limned by the eerie red light of the ritual.

Sergeant Bermuda turned to the still chanting mages and nodded and they stopped chanting. With that, the image quickly faded back to a red mist and slowly grew paler until the air in the circle was completely clear. The male elf seemed more fatigued by the ordeal and his companion helped him regain his feet. She whispered something to him and he nodded and he walked away as she began to erase the ritual circle that had held the image of that horrific beheading.

I turned and looked at the Sergeant and he looked grim. I knew what he had to be thinking and it was nothing good. There would surely be a shit storm over this if what we had seen was true.

“I don’t suppose this clears me as a suspect in this murder? You can see I didn’t do it.” I asked, knowing it probably wouldn’t.

“No, I’m afraid not. You could be the unseen figure who was giving the orders. At the very least you could be an accessory. If you were that shadowy figure then you would be a member of a conspiracy to commit murder.” Sergeant Bermuda grew quiet and continued to stare at the site of the murder, letting the introspection take the place of conversation.

“It’s a shame that we couldn’t hear what they were saying.” I ventured into the silence.

“Yes. It’s an unfortunate bug that hasn’t been worked out yet. I suppose one day they well indeed be able to recreate the entire crime scene exactly. Perhaps even be able to rotate the point of view so we could get a look at our mysterious voyeur.” He seemed to be considering exactly how to discuss the 600 pound gorilla that was standing in front of us. The armored figures who had murdered Kevin could only have been members of the Black Watch.

“It would have been nice if we could have seen exactly who those armored folk were. Was the blurring of the face a flaw in the ritual or something else related to their occupation?”

“Picked up on that, did you?” He smiled a grim little grin that told me that this mess had just gotten even more complicated. “No, it’s not a flaw in the ritual, just part of a general prohibition on scrying magic involving those who serve in the Black Watch. It helps to keep exactly who they are secret.”

“It’s pretty damn convenient when you want to commit murder.” I said.

“You have to be careful what you say here. You can’t just go around tossing words like ‘Black Watch’ and ‘Murder’ in the same sentence.” Sergeant Bermuda looked at me. “Those could have been members of the Black Watch carrying out legitimate orders or carrying out what they believe to be legal orders.”

I snorted. “Is that what you think we saw?  A legal execution being carried out in an abandoned building, this far away from the Court?” I didn’t want to piss Bermuda off, but this was bull shit.

“No.” He looked at me with those sharp, half troll eyes. “If it had been legal or even if it had been done at need by members of the Black Watch, I would know about it and I wouldn’t be here.” He paused for a moment and glanced at the Black Watch guards who had secured the door to the building. “No, this is something much worse.”

              Despite the fact that the ritual hadn’t cleared me, I felt somewhat better. If Bermuda was as smart as I thought he was, he had to know that it was unlikely verging on the impossible for me to have a squad of the Black Watch at my disposal. When I asked him if this would get him to lift the surveillance that Crosswich had placed on me, he replied that Crosswich was pursuing his own leads and that his work, meaning Crosswich, had little to do with this case.

              “How about just getting him to reduce it a little? I hate to see the court waste so much money on an innocent man. Wouldn’t one team be enough to insure that I’m playing on the side of the angels?” I asked.

              “Innocent? You may not be guilty, but you aren’t innocent.” He grinned. “Besides, Crosswich only has one team on you.”

              “Are you sure about that? I spotted another team at ground level and another operative that I trust also noticed the same thing. I even recognized one of the guys as a local man, not part of the Court to my knowledge, giving my office the once over.”

              Sergeant Bermuda looked at me as if considering what I would have to gain by lying to him about this and then his brow furrowed and he considered the implication pf what I was saying.

              “Mr. Underwood, let me be clear. There is only one sanctioned team observing you, to my knowledge. If there is a second team watching you, then it is either a private matter or beyond my jurisdiction. In regards to the matter that I am currently investigating, very little is beyond my knowledge or jurisdiction. I don’t know who could or would have placed this team on you, but I will look into this.” He turned and walked toward the elfin woman who was completing her removal of the ritual circle and began to converse with her in low tones.

              I thought about what he said as I made my way back to my truck. If Bermuda was telling me the truth, then I had several problems or varying degrees of difficulty and complexity. He was either lying about the second team or still seriously considered me a suspect or worse, there was a third player who was having me shadowed. A third party could relate to any of several issues. I couldn’t discount that it could be a purely mortal matter. I did plenty of mundane work and it was very possible that I had stepped on some federal toes or even somebody local tough with money to throw at turning up the heat on me. It could be coming from The Court of Twilight. If what Jeryn Callisandra believed about me was a widely accepted rumor, I might have fallen under the gaze of the Twilight Order. The Twilight Order was a special group who would roughly be the equivalent of the KGB, except the KGB has better reputation for ethical behavior. Despite the closeness and the heat and humidity of the morning air, I suppressed a shudder.

              Failing those two possibilities, it could be something from the Court of Dawn. Maybe it was standard procedure for the Court to conduct investigations about the character of those who were to officially be named before the court, maybe to make sure that they were reputable. I had never heard of such a thing, but that meant little. I had spent, by far, the largest part of my life here in the world of men. My knowledge of the Court of Dawn’s rites and ceremonies was pretty slim. In some ways, I hoped that Bermuda was lying to me as that would be the most simple and least complicated solution. The problem was, I didn’t think he was lying.

              As I passed the Black Watch who stood guard at the door I wondered if either of these two could have been involved in the murder. They were watching me passively as I passed between them and again I was reminded about how anonymous they were in those masked outfits. Sometimes, you couldn’t tell race or sex. It could have been anyone or anything for that matter, in that armor of theirs.

****

The drive across the city to the condo where Kevin lived was uneventful. Kevin lived in a modest complex directly on the opposite side of the city from where his body had been found. I pulled up to the compound and remembered that it was surrounded by a security fence and had a gated entrance. The bad thing about the gate was that it was the automated kind that required a card to get in, that was also the good thing about it. Most of these complexes set up a simple code that allows the cops and the fire department entrance whenever they want. The codes have to be fairly simple and easy to remember. There’s only a couple of dozen that get used and when I tried them it turned out that they had chosen number 11. Heck, it was posted on the fence.

Kevin lived toward the back of the complex, near the rear entrance and as I drove through the labyrinth of the buildings and the few vehicles that you found at this time of day, it struck me that this complex was wholly unremarkable. The vehicles were modest and perfectly in line with the design and condition of the condos themselves. Kevin could have afforded better if he had wanted it.

As I parked my truck in a space close to Kevin’s building I wondered about Kevin’s vehicle. It wasn’t in his space and I hadn’t seen it at the murder scene. How had he got out to where he was killed? Was he meeting someone or had he been brought there in another vehicle? Again, I wished that I had more resources. Knowing where his car was probably wasn’t vital, but it was another annoying question I didn’t have the answer to.

Kevin lived or had lived in an upstairs floor in building 1400, number 1433 to be exact. I jogged up the three flights of the stairs and noted that there were no obvious cameras. Perhaps they were well hidden. There was an elevator in this building, but in general I like stairs in this kind of situation. I always like to know there is an immediate way out of wherever I am without waiting for a slow elevator to show up. Besides, you never know what is going to be waiting when the doors open.

If this had been a case being worked by mortal cops, the door would have been guarded or sealed with police tape. Since the Houston cops didn’t even know Kevin had ever existed or that he was now dead, no such obstacle awaited me. I let my vision unfocus and looked for the tell tale traces of wards or seals and found nothing but the standard stuff. Interesting. I would have thought that Bermuda or Crosswich would have tossed this place already and sealed it. He had a keyed ward, but I knew the passphrase since I sometimes took care of his fish during one of his absences. I took out my lockpick set and began to work the lock. I wish that it was as easy to work a lock in real life as it was on TV. I’m pretty good, but it takes longer than people think it does, even with practice. Added to the fact that it’s illegal to even carry around a set of picks unless you are a licensed locksmith, which I wasn’t, comes the recognition that if passerby’s see you using a set of picks on a door, they’re pretty sure that you’re up to something illegal and can and do sometimes call the cops.

Today, proved to be one of my better picking days. I used the picks and the rasps and teased the lock open. There was a faint click as the well oiled mechanism slid back and the dead bolt popped out of the socket. I muttered the pass phrase and turned the knob and slowly opened the door, just in case there was another surprise waiting behind the door.

              I eased the door open and quickly stepped into the darkened room, quietly closing the door behind me. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. It didn’t take long thanks to my Fey heritage. I have superior night vision and can see in almost total darkness.

              The room quickly came into view and I saw that someone had been here before me. It wasn’t a scene of mass destruction like you might expect if you watch too much TV.  Careful searchers try to make as little mess as possible unless destruction is the goal instead of actually finding something. All that mess just gets in the way. That said, it was obvious to me that the room had been searched. It was too neat.

It wasn’t that Kevin was a slob, far from it. His home was well ordered, but he never left things perfectly neat. In fact, he purposefully left things slightly askew. It’s much more difficult to search someone’s home and remember where every little thing goes it they are slightly off. Neat’s easy. Pile all the magazines back in a stack? No problem. Remember which ones stuck out or were upside down? Not so easy. Extend that concept to an entire apartment and you get some idea of how hard it is to return a purposeful untidy apartment to the exact disarray you found it in.

Kevin’s apartment had always struck me as a little too artfully arranged. Everything was just so. What I mean is that you never got the impression that Kevin came in here, plopped down on the sofa, opened a beer and watched the Astros play the Mets. It didn’t look lived in, it looked like what people think lived in looks like. I started my room by room search in the kitchen and made my way through the rest of the apartment.

              There are several methods for searching somebody’s home. The approach taken depends on several factors. The most important is how likely you are to be interrupted in your search. Also you have to consider whether you care that the owner will find out his place has been tossed. That didn’t apply in this case, although I suppose the Sergeant Bermuda might care about what I was doing. How familiar are you with the place you are searching also comes into play.

              In this case, I couldn’t afford to spend a huge amount of time here and I didn’t need to. I was pretty familiar with Kevin’s home from previous visits so I knew what things were out of place and which not. Despite the previous search, I hoped that I might find something, anything that might give me a handle on this case.

              I spent about two hours going through Kevin’s possessions and papers, wishing that I had Dave Kraft here. As I did, a gradual picture of Kevin’s life outside the Silver Tree began to emerge. It was damn strange. There were hints of something going on that didn’t fit Kevin as I knew him. For example, he had a file of rental car agency maps. The kind of thing the oh-so helpful lady behind the counter at Hertz gives you when you arrive in a new city. Kevin had maps from Mexico City, Rio, London and other destinations that I never knew he had visited. Odd. I found credit card bills, but no detail pages. Even odder, I found credit cards with no matching bills.

              The most curious thing was in the bookcase. Clichéd, I know, but you would be surprised at how many people actually do hide things in books. Kevin didn’t have a huge collection, but one wall of his living room was covered with wood bookcases with wood panel backing.

              I was taking the books and shaking them to discover what might be sandwiched in the pages when I noticed an odd thing. I almost missed it. One of the books I pulled out caught on something and I heard the rip of paper as the dust jacket tore. I took the book out and looked for what it had caught on. At the back of the bookcase was a small, burnished metal hook, much like a fishhook, but with no barbs. There was a small piece of monofilament line that was sandwiched within a seam in the back panel attached to the hook. When I gave the hook a tug, a small piece of the back panel pulled free. I tried to stay calm as removed enough of the books to accommodate the removal of the false back, as that was what it turned out to be.

              The niche in wall behind the bookcase was small, but large enough to accommodate a personal safe box. I pulled the box out carried it over to the table. It was pretty good one, made by Brown Safe Mfg, at least that was what the label said. The lock was probably not a big deal. I could work on it in leisure since I could take the box with me if I needed to. I got a faint tingle as I ran my fingers around the outside of the box so I unfocused my vison and let my distracted gaze fall over the box.

              Whoa. There was a strong, red nimbus surrounding the box. I could see small streaks of red current racing along the seams of the box. This thing was heavily protected. Anybody who opened this thing without taking down the wards was asking to get fried. The more I looked at the box, the worse it got.

              “Damn” The box was linked to the apartment. If I tried to leave with the box it  would go off. I extended my gaze and I begin to see a few other things I had missed when I had got past the warding that that protected the outer door. I had been a little too quick in my judgment about this apartment being unsecure. From the outside it looked like nothing was going on. Once you got in, you could see a lot more.

              Now that I was actively looking, I could see that the walls were practically crawling with active wards and passive defenses. There were runes of warding and reprisal and I begin to feel a little sorry for whoever had searched this apartment before me. It probably also meant that Sergeant Bermuda and his crew of forensic mages hadn’t been here yet. If they had, most of this stuff would have been brought down.

              If you didn’t know the pass phrase you were screwed. It was a clever trap. Once you got in, the forces began to build and entwine. If you weren’t supposed to be here, you wouldn’t be leaving unscathed. By the time that an intruder had been here for the small part of an hour a powerful web of restraining magic would be covering all the exits. Once ensnared, you couldn’t leave until Kevin let you go. That was just what I could winkle out of the place. There were layers and layers of some of the densest security magic I had ever seen, including some things I hadn’t and no idea what they might be. There were concealing and warding spells on certain places in the walls that I am sure contained extra-dimensional spaces that could hold almost anything

              I wiped the sweat from my brow and thought about my next step. I was more anxious than ever to get into that box and also terrified of what would happen if I set this web of magic off. I tried probing the strands of power that attached the box to the niche and quickly discovered that just shutting it down was far beyond my ability. All my picking at it seemed to do was make it draw power from the surrounding magic, reinforcing the bonds that held it. Once again I cursed that I had never taken the time to learn anything more than the most rudimentary uses of magic. I tried a variety of passphrases and had little luck. In a way, the fact that things weren’t getting worse was a good sign. It probably meant that the box was meant to be opened by an authorized person. The fact that I had the passphrase to his apartment probably put me into that class.