“Like a book or a relic?”
“Exactly.”
Their gazes trailed to the open book resting on the blotter. They had encountered other magical books before. The ones in Dr. Yates’s office had been so imbued with magic that Oliver could identify them through glass, and the book that had been used to summon the desecrated cathedral back in January had been potent enough to leave traces of its magic behind on its display stand after it was stolen. Felipe wasn’t sure why, but books seemed to hold magic particularly well. Oliver had told him his theories about the close connection between magic, thought, and words or how writing books required a sustained, meditative effort not unlike necromancy or mediumship, but it still didn’t explain how paper and leather managed to hold magic like a sponge for centuries. Staring down at the ichor-stained book, Felipe silently sighed. If the book was the cause of the man’s death, it was possible that they had a case of a magical object gone wrong, or as Oliver liked to say,Death by foolish choices. It wasn’t as if the deceased could hide a relic or some other magical object on his person. Felipe hoped, anyway.
“Oliver, you don’t see any sort of talisman in his mouth or on his body, do you?”
“No, not that I see. That doesn’t mean he didn’t swallow it. Are you leaning toward this being some sort of magical accident rather than murder?”
“Maybe, but it still doesn’t explain why he broke in, how he got in, or why this is the book he picked to read. The family and staff claim they don’t recognize him, but—”
“That could be because he’s naked and has a mess on his face. You would be amazed how many people don’t recognize others out of context. After we clean him up in the lab, we shouldtake a photograph and come back to ask everyone again if they recognize him.”
“We might even have his name by then.”
From the way Oliver’s hands stilled and the sudden tense hum buzzing across the tether, Felipe knew that was the wrong thing to suggest. Necromancy was rarely Oliver’s first choice, even if it would expedite things. Drawing in a tight breath, Oliver gingerly wheeled the chair away from the desk without upsetting the dead man sitting in it.
“Don’t get me wrong, I know we might have to, but Ireallydon’t want to. The problem is that sometimes magic doesn’t end with death. My fear is that if weyou know, it will reawaken whatever magic killed him. I don’t want either of us to end up like him.”
Felipe winced at the thought. “Fair point. Has that happened before?”
“A few times. Years ago, I autopsied someone who had been drowned via magic. I didn’t know it at the time, and I wasn’t investigating the case myself, obviously. I assumed it was a normal drowning, but when I woke him up, he started drowning again. Water from nowhere started pouring out of him, and I panicked. I cut him loose as quickly as I could, but it’s— it’s not something you forget.”
Felipe caught the twist of Oliver’s features before he put his head down to dig through his gladstone. The clink of vials filled the silence as a wave of dread creeped across the tether. Felipe knew Oliver had probably seen as many gruesome deaths as he had, but he hadn’t thought of the ways his powers could make things worse. Felipe tried to picture people continuing the horrific moments leading to their deaths and quickly pushed the thought away. He didn’t want to imagine what Oliver had seen. Stepping closer, Felipe laid a steadying hand on Oliver’s shoulder. His partner sighed and leaned against his leg.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that could happen.”
“I don’t talk about it for a reason, so you couldn’t have known.” Drawing himself up, Oliver pulled a vial and scalpel from his bag. “Either way, with an unknown magical object or a relic potentially being involved, it’s better not to chance it unless we have to. We don’t know how the lingering magic will interact with my magic or the tether. The good thing is our John Doe doesn’t look like he was living on the streets, so I assume someone will know him and give us his name. My hope is that he was one of ours and not some random person. It’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack if that’s the case.”
“He has to be. This is too strange to not be.”
“Investigator’s intuition?” Oliver asked, a ghost of a smile on his lips as he carefully scraped some of the black purge into a vial.
“More like been an investigator for too damn long.”
Picking up the camera again, Felipe took a few more pictures of the desk and book now that the deceased was out of the way. Through the viewfinder, the book laying on the blotter looked innocent enough. He tried to get a picture of the words written or printed beneath the ichor splashed on top of it, but it was so thick that he couldn’t make it out no matter the angle or how close he got to it. The black gunk looked dry and that it hadn’t eaten through the paper like acid, but Felipe wasn’t going to take any chances. Unsheathing the letter opener from the desk’s fancy brass inkstand, Felipe twirled the blade between his fingers. He needed to know what the dead man had been reading, and that meant touching the book. Felipe braced himself as he slipped the knife under the place where the ichor met the blotter beneath the book. When the magic didn’t stir or start melting the knife, he carefully pried the stained book from the leather blotter. His stomach roiled at the tang of blood, but he didn’t stop until the book slid loose. Pulling his knife from itsholster, Felipe sandwiched the book’s cover between the blades and carefully eased it closed.
The book was obviously old. It had a ribbed spine and was larger than a modern book, obviously made for reading at desks rather than being held in the hand. He didn’t know much about books, but he would bet it was easily over a hundred years old. While the front cover didn’t have a title, it had been made with fine black leather and accented with gilt stars and twisty lines. Laying it back, Felipe gingerly broke the front pages apart with the tip of his knife. As he stared down at what should have been the cover page, the breath died in his throat. It couldn’t be. Felipe’s hands shook as he flipped ahead, careful to avoid the ichor, but it was the same on every page.
“Oliver. Oliver, look at this.”
“What is— Oh.”
Oliver’s grey eyes widened as Felipe turned back to the cover page and then silently flipped through the rest of the book up until he reached the place where the pages were irreparably stuck together. Skipping to the back, he let the pages flap past, but it was the same as the front half.
At his shoulder, Oliver drew in a sharp breath. “They’re blank. They’re all blank. This doesn’t make any sense. He looked as if he died reading it.”
“And if you opened a book and it was blank, you would flip through it to see if there were any words, not read it.”
Staring at the dead man, confusion followed by dread rushed across Oliver’s end of the tether. He turned to the book before reaching for the dead man’s hands. Oliver drew in a shaky breath and pulled out the vial of black purge scrapings from his pocket.
“I don’t think the book was blank to begin with. I’ll need to run some tests on the sample and look at it under a microscope to be certain, but I think the mess on his face and on thebook is blood mixed with ink.” At the look on Felipe’s face, Oliver swallowed hard and continued, “It’s not uncommon for blood to come out of people’s orifices, and ink getting into his bloodstream would explain why his blood vessels look purple and black. It’s like he’s been stained from the inside out. I know it sounds bizarre, but look at his hands.”
Oliver carefully angled the dead man’s stiffened arm until the palm of his right hand was visible. The man’s fingers were so thoroughly blackened that they looked as if they had been tattooed or dipped into an ink pot. The color ran partway across his palms before devolving into the black veining and grey skin on the rest of his body.
“At first, I thought the color in his fingers was due to blood pooling, but what if it’s because this is where the magic and ink entered his body? His toes and nose have darkened too, but not like his fingers. That has to be because his hands touched the book directly.”
Felipe examined the man’s hands against his own and imagined how he would hold a heavy book. Where the ink stains were darkest was right where he would rest his hands against a book or turn a page. As horrifying as it was, it made sense. Pulling the notebook from his pocket, Felipe wrote down Oliver’s theory.
