Odd Cases

Lux’s betrothed, Victoria Loch, looked uncomfortably similar to her “grandmother”. Her hair, though held back, had more volume, and her nose was just a bit more prominent, while her skin was slightly lighter, but the angle of the jaw and the focus in the eyes proved her ancestry.

The Lochs were not an unimportant family, probably the most prestigious Earth-based family to the population of Magek. As the last scion of her line (except for her father, depending on your definition of scion), one would expect a more regal air from her. Instead, we witnessed a woman in a hoodie and loose jeans making last-minute adjustments to a gallery show she had no intention of delaying despite the kidnapping of her fiancé.

“I thought I already spoke to the police.”

I immediately scoffed at her faux-English accent. It’s not that it wasn’t convincing, but knowing where she would have grown up, I didn’t buy it.

“Is this amusing to you?” she asked.

“It’s a little weird to fake the accent when you’re willing to go the gallery dressed like that, isn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes.

“And who are you to care?” she asked in a proper brogue this time.

“I’m a consultant,” I revealed, “We recently unveiled some new evidence that brings up new questions.”

“What did you find?”

“We can’t reveal that at this time.”

“Who’s the tall fellow?” she nodded at Chase.

“Chase Hilger,” he offered a hand, “Nuisance at large.”

Victoria shook his hand.

“I know the kind,” she admitted, turning back to me, “What do you need to know, unnamed consultant?”

“When did you discover the victim was missing?”

“I tried to check in with a mirror, saw nothing, so I checked the hotel, and the room was ransacked.”

“How did you check?” I asked.

“Why does it matter?”

“Because I want to know if the staff knew before you entered the room.”

She looked away, uncomfortably.

“Teleporting with that specificity,” I gathered, “You either had to be very familiar with the hotel room, or incredibly skilled.”

“It was my fiancé’s room after all.”

“If you were sleeping with him, then how are you so put together for a gallery show? Also, if you were sleeping with him, you two would already be married seeing as it’s an arranged marriage.”

“Can you say your accusation plainly, so I stop having to say dodgy things?”

“You aren’t close to your betrothed, so why teleport?”

“Because it would be a problem for everyone if he was in danger, and I was right to move quickly, because that means you can get to your work without bothering me anymore.”

“And if you’re so skilled, why not do a tracking spell and resolve this?”

“It didn’t take,” she admitted, “I have his full name, so there’s no reason it shouldn’t work, but it doesn’t.”

Unsurprisingly, that meant whoever had him was keeping him in an anti-magek circle, if they hadn’t just killed him already.

“What are you going to do if it turns out he’s dead?”

Her eyes seemed to glint with determination, though her posture seemed disinterested.

“Have a bad day, and break the news to his father, which will make it an even worse day.”

“We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

Chase followed me out the door as a man with hair on the edge of blond and brown walked in.

“Rex,” Victoria called excitedly, back in English mode, “Do you have the flowers?”

Chase kept the door cracked as we peeked in.

“No,” Rex admitted, “I just wanted to check on you.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, “I’ll need your help on this one though.”

Victoria put a hand on Rex’s forearm, and he grabbed her other hand with both of his in response.

“Anything you need.”

Chase and I looked away.

“Affair partner?” Chase asked.

“Could be one-sided.”

Chase looked back in.

“He isn’t showing off any powers, but that doesn’t actually mean anything.”

“He could just be playing it close to the chest,” I agreed.

“Do you think he did it?”

I put a hand on Chase’s arm to balance myself as I opened my eyes to see their souls. Nothing much, except that Victoria’s soul in this moment wore armor, and Rex’s had a mask on.

“I think they have their own plans.”

I turned my vision back to normal, letting go of Chase. He watched intently.

“How’s your budget right now?” I asked.

“My landlady keeps the rent low.”

“Then you can afford to get a hotel room.”

We got a lower-tier room than the one Lux had been staying in, though without the bloodstains.

I tossed my bags on the chair.

“Hey,” Chase pushed them off, “That’s where I’m sleeping tonight.”

I gestured to the bed in the middle of the room. The room was a single, but he’d paid for it.

“I can’t make a lady sleep in a chair when there’s a serviceable—”

“Not a problem, I don’t sleep.”

“That’s not healthy.”

“Ha! What in our time together makes you think I’m healthy?”

“You shouldn’t be doing all this shit on no sleep.”

“Oh,” I started chuckling, “You have no idea.”

He reached to grab me, but I remained intangible, stepping back at a casual pace.

“You’re going land in a coma at the slightest breeze,” he insisted.

I paused, letting him run through me, then turned around.

“Do I actually look sleep-deprived to you?”

He looked deep into my eyes.

“You don’t have eyebags, but it’s not like I can rub any makeup off.”

I decided to throw him a bone.

“You knew Zach’s father, right?”

Zach Hadley: possibly my best friend, definitely the son of a spirit mage, and allegedly Chase’s cousin.

“Not well,” Chase admitted.

“Did you ever see him sleep?”

“Of course he slept, he left half our meetings early because he was tired.”

“Tired in body, or tired of you?”

“He didn’t say. What is this about?”

“Spirit Mages don’t sleep,” I said, “Especially not ones who’ve had their abilities for over a decade. Sometimes we keep the habit, stay in bed so we don’t disturb others, see if resting our bodies does anything, but we don’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged.

“Now, why don’t we go to bed? You look like you could use some sleep.”

“What, why?”

I sat on the edge of the bed, tracing Greek letters on the comforter: “Watching us.”

Chase nodded. Honestly I had no idea if we were being watched. If so, discussions of spirit mages may have already damaged our chances, but that could be played off as something other than investigation.

“Yeah, I’m pretty tired.”

He turned around, falling on the bed so I had to get out of the way. He still hit my knee.

“Ow,” he looked me in the eye, “Since when are you solid?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve spent most of the time since we’ve met intangible. This is the most solid you’ve ever been.”

Chase’s observational skills always caught me off-guard.

“Only when I’m standing,” I admitted, lifting the remaining half of my left leg, which he’d hit earlier, “All I’ve got is the phantom limb.”

“Isn’t that exhausting?”

“Not enough to need sleep.”

He laughed a little.

“What are you going to do while I sleep anyways?”

“Lie down next to you. What else am I supposed to do?”

He suddenly grabbed me, gently tossing me further down the bed before pouncing on top of me. There was enough space that our bodies weren’t touching yet, but not a lot of space.

“We could put on a little more of a performance,” he proposed.

I was too focused on feeling small compared to his enveloping frame.

“You’re right,” he suddenly said, tossing himself to the side, “We don’t need to use all of our energy on our first night here.”

Before I could get together any questions on his behavior, he seemed to be asleep.

“I should’ve kept Romeo,” I muttered. At least Romeo agreed with me on where the lines were.

After a moment, I summoned Vi out of my jacket. The pixie stretched arms, legs, and wings, then bounced onto Chase’s heaving chest, watching me intently.

“Look for any signs of other mages,” I ordered. She saluted and flew through the door.

My false rest was interrupted by Chase flailing about. Luckily I wind up intangible by default, so he didn’t actually hit me.

I made my way off the bed, unsure how to help with whatever his deal was. I checked the couch for any structural issues.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You’re—” my forgiveness fell flat as he seemed to still be asleep.

“I can’t take it back,” he muttered.

“Can’t take what back?”

“You asked for this!”

I sat on the edge of the bed. What was Chase doing in his dreams?

Crying apparently, as his cheeks felt wet when I brought my hand to his face. Then his eyes snapped open, and he threw me onto the bed again, his arm digging into my neck.

After a few long seconds of gritted breathing, he removed all points of contact and returned to his place on the side of the bed.

“What can’t you take back?” I asked.

“What made you take this job when you disconnected your phone to avoid it?” he asked back.

“Trauma for a trauma?” I offered, “You first since you tried to choke me.”

“If I actually tried to choke you, you’d be dead.”

“Not if you couldn’t touch me.”

We stayed quiet for a bit after that, only our breathing to fill the room.

“What do you know about Zach and I’s family?” Chase asked.

“I know you use the names of Greek gods, and his spirit mage father once bore the title of Hades. I know most of you have some kind of healing ability that fire can seemingly override.”

“It doesn’t override it,” he explained, “It just keeps going until we’re gone.”

I didn’t argue.

“We don’t know why or how,” he explained, “But my friend was prone to dangerous levels of violence. He killed multiple wives and children in fits of rage. He’d assume he was fine, fall in love, have a family, then suddenly out of nowhere, lose it all.”

“That defense worked?” I asked.

“He felt the same way,” Chase explained, “He asked the rest of us for permission to kill himself, but the guy in charge said no. I chose to help him anyways.”

“How does an immortal kill himself?” I asked.

“We bound him with metal, chained him several times over on a rock, and started the fire.”

“Did it work?” I asked.

“Eventually. I was the only one who stayed the whole time, and somewhere in there, the rage came back. I shot him several times to keep him pinned down, and every time he looked at me like I was his greatest enemy in that moment. I know I did what he wanted, but I’m sure he died hating me.”

“Shit.”

“To make matters worse, I wasn’t punished for anything, so I have all the privilege I had before then, but everyone knows I killed him.”

“That’s why Zach doesn’t like you.”

“No one likes me, that’s why I’m the errand boy.”

He pulled his golden pendant off, handing it to me. I turned the light on beside me to observe a caduceus.

“Hermes,” I identified, “The trickster.”

“Jack of all trades,” he corrected, taking the pendant back, “So what’s your trauma.”

“My younger brother was scared of me,” I began.

“Oh, this better get a lot worse, or I’m going to feel cheated.”

“We didn’t really know each other well, and you’ve seen what I do with blood sometimes, so I freaked him out.”

“Why didn’t you know each other well?”

“Back in Magek, I lived through Arthur’s war. I grew up in Draconis, so that was my home, but my parents and my older brother moved back to Avalon after the war was over as part of peace negotiations. They didn’t really come back to visit unless I announced something big in my letters. Well, my parents didn’t at least.”

“Your older brother came back.”

“He’d visit once a season, bring gifts, threaten my husband, and I’d send him off with gifts of my own.”

“Husband?” Chase asked, “Where’d he run off to?”

“He got sick, and my father put him out of his misery. We don’t really talk anymore.”

“Didn’t you just say your father killed him?”

“Yes, but his soul lingers. That’s not important.”

“It isn’t?”

I sighed, trying to return to my tale of woe.

“I didn’t visit Avalon until my brother’s funeral.”

“Which—”

“Older,” I answered, “He died defending the royal family of Avalon, including the woman he would have married. She asked me to help with this, and when the only person who actually mourned your brother with you asks for a favor…”

“So she’s connected to the Craddocks?”

“No, she’s Victoria Loch’s ‘grandmother’.”

“What’s with the quotation marks?”

“There should be some greats in there, but who wants to do the math on that?”

“Is Victoria—”

“No,” I said, “Diligence’s children were all Galahad’s. She probably wouldn’t have let Victoria get engaged to her cousin if Nox was the real patriarch.”

“Cousin,” Chase caught, “So the Craddocks are—”

“My younger brother’s descendants, which is why I didn’t want to get involved.”

“How bad was the argument?” Chase asked.

“He said I was a worse monster than the one that killed Nox.”

“Shit.”

“In my limited sources about Magekal affairs. Morgana Spectra’s legacy is a bogeyman who’ll steal bad children’s blood, with no acknowledgment for any research I did, or solutions I found. I’m never going back.”

“Cheers,” Chase offered.