It also required setting an example, I reminded myself, and shielded my own face.The others followed suit, and we pushed open the door of the ratty little building, where a corpse was supposed to be waiting inside.And ignored the insistence of the one enchantment we had found, a crap-tierOccultothat had been planted nearby, and that was frantically sending out vibes of ‘nothing to see here, nothing at all, God, how boring, hey, let’s go do something else!’
“That thing’s really annoying,” Kimmie said, looking impossibly young as she’d traded her usual set of Cleopatra braids for a couple of giant puffballs on either side of her head.Not having to sleep left her with plenty of time to try the latest looks, and this one went well with today’s ensemble: a cute purple jumpsuit, gold sandals, gold-tipped white nails, and gold hoop earrings.
The get-up looked a little incongruous in the setting, but I couldn’t fault the fashion.
“We’ll check around back, see what else might be hiding,” Jen offered.She and Sophie were in a badass contest with each other today, at least fashion-wise, with both in jeans, combat boots, and leather jackets, despite the heat.They gave off the vibe that looking at one measly corpse was beneath them.
“Don’t touch anything,” Caleb warned.
“You have evidence bags?”I asked, pulling some out of a pocket.
“Yes, mother,” Sophie said, and showed off the stash sticking out of her purse before they took off.
“Be careful!”I called after them and got an impatient hand wave in reply.I thought about calling them back, but they were more advanced than the others, and needed to know that I trusted them.And if anyone could handle a surprise, it would be those two.
“That’s how you know it’s shit,” Caleb was saying to Kimmie.“A good ward is subtle.That thing shrieks.”
“Can we turn it off or something?”she asked, looking pained.
“Don’t disturb anything at a scene until you’ve checked everything,” he intoned, quoting the handbook.
“Why?It’s giving me heart palpitations,” Aki piped up.
“Heart palpitations?What are you, like, forty?”Dimas scoffed.
“Forty?”Caleb repeated, having passed that milestone a while ago, although it was hard to tell.Magical lifespans were considerably longer than the norm, and black don’t crack.He still looked and was as buff as ever.
“Okay, fifty,” the boy corrected, which didn’t help.“And why do we have to leave it?”
“You don’t have to,” Caleb said, a little more viciously than necessary.“But annoyances like that are perfect spots for booby traps.Remember Johnson?”
I felt momentary pity for the poor, eyebrowless war mage who was becoming a cautionary tale and decided not to let my kids replace him.
“Masks on,” I repeated, because Aki had dropped his, becoming too distracted by the ward.“You don’t have to use full shields without cause, and shouldn’t, as it drains your magic, but spot shielding a face or hand can save you a trip to see Sedgewick,” I added, naming the Corps’ irascible doc, who included a free lecture with every boo-boo healed.
Aki masked up again, and we waited just inside the door for our eyes to adjust.
There was bright, searing Vegas sunlight outside, brilliant enough to give anyone a headache within minutes without shades, but someone had painted over all the windows in here.The defunct grocery hadn’t paid the electric bill in a decade, so the tired fluorescents swinging overhead, laced with spiders’ webs, no longer worked.And the wedge of sunlight spearing through a shattered window had to force its way past the mass of dust hanging in the air to provide any light.
What little illumination managed the journey lit up a chipped vinyl floor strewn with dirt, broken glass, tumbled metal shelving, and much of the ceiling.And a half-obscured body on the floor in the middle of the room, covered in more ceiling and a lot of flies.At least what was left of it.
I sighed.
“If you have to throw up, go outside so as not to contaminate the scene,” I warned everyone.“And remember to remove your mask first, or you’ll be aspirating the stuff.”
“Speaking from experience?”Dimas muttered.
“Yep.”He seemed surprised that I admitted it.“Everyone tosses their cookies sooner or later, just don’t do it in here,” I added, while my partner scowled around.
I didn’t have to ask why.
Normally, we had a number of forensic spells to use on crime scenes, but that ceiling was a problem.Even magic needs something to work with, and the enchantments we used pulled information from minute particles in the air or on surfaces, many of which had likely been disturbed or eradicated by the fall.I didn’t think we were going to get much from this mess.
Caleb agreed.“This is gonna be a shit show,” he said, but cast a reveal spell anyway, to cover the bases.
And caused the kids to gasp and stare around as the formerly darkened room exploded in brilliant scrawls, like neon graffiti.They covered the walls and edges of the floor, which had remained largely undisturbed, and sparkled like gold dust in the air.It almost looked like a firework frozen in time, and in spite of everything, I smiled; I’d had a similar reaction in my training days.
Unfortunately, the pretty firework effect meant that a lot of evidence had been scrambled to the point of uselessness.One of the exceptions was the cracked window, or should I say, what had come through it.Specifically, an army of blow flies, which had been the first to discover the corpse hours ago.
