“You got him?” the policewoman asked.
“This crazy fucker dropped me off the roof!” the sorcerer yelled.
The officers ignored him, too busy snapping a pair of handcuffs on him, which Patrick used to tie his binding ward to. The metal acted as a decent anchor to hold the spell. The binding ward was still active, even if the physical manifestations of magic had faded from the sorcerer’s body. His tattoos and illusion-based magic had settled back into his skin, forced to dormancy by the binding ward.
The suspect protested loudly as he was hauled to the squad car parked in the middle of the street. The officers ignored the sorcerer’s continuous yelling about how Patrick was the one who should be arrested for attempted murder, not him.
Two more police cars—one unmarked—pulled up behind the squad car. Allison and Dwayne got out of their vehicle, hands hovering near their weapons. When they saw the problem had been contained, they approached Patrick and Jono rather than their fellow officers.
“Did you really drop him off the roof?” Dwayne asked.
“No,” Patrick said with a straight face. “It was only a couple of stories.”
“That’s an excessive use of force charge right there that will bite us in the ass,” Allison said. “Why did you chase him?”
“The taint from the crime scene was tied to him.”
They looked over at where the officers were shoving the loudly swearing sorcerer into the back of their squad car. “That’s a new development.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make any sense.” Patrick stepped around them and approached the squad car holding the sorcerer. “He lawyered up already.”
“But you have the bloke. That’s good, right?” Jono asked.
“Only if the spell signatures match.”
“You said the taint was tied to him?”
Patrick ignored the question. He nodded at the uniformed policewoman speaking into her radio before hauling open the side door of the police car. He braced an arm against the roof of the car and leaned down to look at the scowling suspect still struggling against the binding ward.
“You still want your lawyer?” Patrick asked.
“Fuck you,” the man spit out.
“Original.”
Patrick reached for the man, not caring that he ducked away. Patrick didn’t need to touch him to read his aura. Tapping his magic, Patrick worked to isolate the taint in the sorcerer’s soul. He was surprised at how easy it was to peel it out of the man’s aura, as if the magic had no ties to the soul it was riding in, more a tangle of foreign power.
Which meant it wasn’t his magic.
Patrick snuffed out the residual and moved back so he could close the door. “He’s not the murderer. Accessory to it maybe, but he’s not the one controlling the soultakers.”
“Are you sure?” Allison asked.
“The taint from the crime scene was transposed onto his aura. It’s not his, he’s just carrying it.”
“So why change tactics like this?” Dwayne wanted to know. “Why have someone remain at the scene? The person behind the murders has never broken their MO in six months. Why start now?”
“It’s a question we can ask him, but interrogation will take hours,” Patrick said slowly, mind shifting into overdrive.
Allison nodded. “We’ll need to bring him back to the PCB immediately to get the process started. We won’t even be able to talk to him without his lawyer present, and then we’ll need to send him to Central Booking.”
All that meant was they’d be holed up dealing with this new wrinkle in the case. They had a real live person to possibly get some answers from, but Patrick didn’t believe anything viable would pan out. This was a glaringly obvious new lead, and in Patrick’s experience, the obvious was merely a ploy.
Patrick craned his head around, catching Jono’s eye. “Where’s Marek? He said something last night about Sage’s birthday party going on today.”
Jono frowned and dug out his phone. “I’ll give him a ring.”
“I’m going to need you guys to handle his processing,” Patrick said to Dwayne and Allison, pointing at the sorcerer in the back of the squad car. “See if you can expedite it.”
