****
Sam looked up from a thick stack of papers as Ian walked into his office in the Blade Headquarters less than twenty minutes later. “Ian, thanks for getting here so quickly. Have a seat.” He gestured to a well-used wooden chair across from his desk.
Ian took in Sam’s tired and haggard appearance, his rumpled clothes, and the papers strewn across his desk. His friend’s abrupt and urgent request for him to get here had made him wonder what had happened. Everything he observed since he stepped on to the thirtieth floor was evidence that it was something major. “What’s going on Sam? It’s a madhouse out there,” he said, jerking his head at the general chaos of agents and office personnel rushing around in the outer offices.
“It’s been that way since about three this morning, and I’m afraid it isn’t going to get much better anytime soon.” He leaned back tiredly in his chair.
“Okay, I was supposed to be off the rest of the week but I get an urgent message to get my ass in your office ASAP, so I’m here. Looks like all hell has broken loose. What’s up…?” Fiona stopped short in the doorway. “Oh, sorry, I can come back.”
Sam waved her in. “I was waiting on you to get started. We’ll discuss later why, when you live a block away and Ian is more than a mile away and I called you twenty minutes before him, it took you longer to get here.”
Fiona let out a loud sigh, rolled her eyes, and plopped into the chair next to Ian. “I had a late night; I was on leave you know. Plus, it takes a while to look this fabulous.”
Ian’s eyes scanned her body, taking in her appearance. She wore a multi-pocketed leather vest over a loose, blue tunic. Her leather pants were tucked into black combat boots that were worn, but cleaner than they had been three days before. Her thick, black hair was pulled back into a haphazard braid. The only thing about her outfit that could have taken more than three minutes to throw on was the myriad of blades he knew she had stuck in her boots and the thick, leather utility belt that was slung low over her hips.
Nonetheless, she did look fabulous. The leather pants clung to her firm, rounded thighs beneath the hem of her tunic and the snug vest did nothing to take away from the lush curve of her breasts. Her clothes were like any other Blades’, utilitarian, tough, and ready for action, yet on her, they added to, rather than detracted from, her raw, sexual beauty. Ian felt himself hardening involuntarily, a craving for her that never really went away starting to grow into an intense hunger. He fought for control, sliding his gaze back to Sam in order to dampen his lust and get his brain back on track.
“So, Sam, what has happened?” He hoped his voice didn’t sound as strangled as he felt.
Sam raised one eyebrow at Ian. He’d obviously seen Ian’s reaction to Fiona but after a moment, he must have decided to dismiss it in light of other, more important, issues. He picked up two files from his desk and tossed one to each of them. “For starters, we have identified your dead body in the morgue.”
Ian and Fiona spoke at the same time.
“What do you mean “our” dead body?”
“Who is he? How did you ID him?”
Sam shot them a hard glare. “Give me a minute to go over the details, would you? There are quite a lot of them. First, Fiona,” he said her name pointedly. “Your dead body because this just became an official Blades’ case, and you two have landed the lead positions. I’ll go into the whys on that in a minute.” He held up a hand as Fiona opened her mouth. “Don’t interrupt me.”
He continued, quickly, before either could respond. “Let me start at the beginning. Yesterday afternoon a transcriber in the typing pool at the City Guard headquarters noticed a disturbing trend. He found three women and two men, all mages, that were reported missing in an eight-week period. Their profiles are in the files I gave you. They all lived in different districts around Nash City and New Nashville. That is why no one caught it before now.”
Ian leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “If they lived in different districts, how are they connected and what does it have to do with the body?”
Sam sighed. “Well, as the transcriber pointed out to his supervisor, each and every one of them were last seen in or around businesses on Broadway. This morning around three, the med-mages finally identified the body in the morgue. His name is Abel Evans, and he was twenty-four years old when he went missing a little over five weeks ago. He was the third name on the transcriber’s list.”
Fiona sat up and slid to the edge of her chair. “So our attempted kidnapper went into hiding and kidnapped four people before he was stopped by a sixteen-year-old girl?”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if it were that cut and dry? But then you wouldn’t be sitting in my office annoying me, I would have gotten a good night’s sleep, and all those agents out there wouldn’t be pulling double shifts.” Sam shot Fiona a tired, exasperated look.
“It’s a plausible theory,” Ian said, not sure why he felt the need to defend Fiona, especially after she shot him a look that clearly told him she could take care of herself and he should shut the fuck up.
“Agents covered that first thing this morning. When questioned about the dates of the two previous kidnappings, his mother gave him solid alibis. She hadn’t yet been informed of his body and had been told by the agents they were investigating the possibility that someone tried to harm him on those dates. Unless other evidence is found, we are going with the theory that there is someone else behind the kidnappings, though we aren’t ruling out that he was involved. He could have had a partner.”
Fiona looked thoughtful. After a moment, she asked, “What have the med-mages said about his body? Could he have had a disease of some sort? Perhaps he wasn’t trying to hurt Millie, but was sick and trying to get help and scared her?”
“Nothing so far. There were no bodily fluids at all, so it is making analysis slow going, but so far, they’ve found no toxins and no contagions.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Frankly, we still have no clue on that front. As strange as it is, it is actually our secondary concern right now. The disappearances officially became a Blades’ case when his body was identified, and I currently have agents scouring the last six months’ worth of Guards’ cases to see if there are any other cases that fit the trend.”
Ian flipped the file in his hand closed. “I can visit the residences and places of work of the victims. Even if they haven’t died and returned, there may be spirits that know something that can help.”
“That is exactly what I want you to do. Together. We aren’t sure what we are messing with so I can’t be sure you wouldn’t be in danger alone. But, we have a more pressing matter. Another young girl was reported missing yesterday,” Sam said.
“You think it is related? Does it fit the pattern?” Fiona said.
“She was last seen three nights ago just outside of Pinky’s Pub,” Sam said, his tone measured.
“I was down in the pub three nights ago,” Fiona said. Her face was an unreadable mask, but Ian detected a slight tension in her voice.
“We both were,” Ian added. “I didn’t notice anything unusual.” Other than Fiona’s reaction to their kiss, but he didn’t feel Sam needed to know anything about that.
“That doesn’t surprise me. According to the investigation reports by the Guards, other than the attempted abduction of Millie Linton four nights ago, there were no public disturbances involving the victims. Considering the dark alley Miss Linton was in, if she hadn’t succeeded in getting into the open, there might not have been any trace of her either,” Sam said, getting out of his chair to walk around and sit on the corner of his desk closest to Fiona.
“Now, Fiona, you should know at least two of the missing women were in Pinky’s Pub at some point the nights they disappeared,” he continued, his voice low and calm, as if breaking unsettling news to a child. Ian understood, immediately, why. Fiona wasn’t known for her levelheaded thinking, and though he didn’t know her nearly as well as he wanted, he knew her well enough to know tha
t she would be very protective of her family.
Fiona’s hands gripped the edge of the chair so tight her knuckles turned white, but when she spoke, her voice was low and carefully moderated. “Pinky had nothing to do with these disappearances.”
“I know,” Sam said quickly. “No one thinks otherwise. If I did, you wouldn’t be in my office getting the rundown on the case. But both he and Anya will have to be questioned. River also, since she lives in the building. It’s standard procedure. I’ve already sent two agents.”
“I want to be there.” She started to stand, but a light touch from Sam on her shoulder made her sit back down. Ian marveled at their relationship. He imagined that if he had touched her, he would have ended up with a couple of broken fingers.
Sam’s voice was low, but stern. “No. I need you here. There is something more important for you to do than babysit your family through routine questioning. But, I did have Jarrett tag along with the agents. He isn’t officially on the job, but he was in the office this morning, at loose ends, and I knew you’d feel better knowing he was there with them.”
Ian could see some of the tension that had held her stiff and straight in the chair ease out. Her posture softened visibly, and she sunk back into the chair. But she didn’t relax completely. Her stony gaze was fixed on Sam. “Okay, but don’t think this is over. You ambushed me with this. I know you were just trying to make things easier for the other agents by making sure I was out of the way first, but I don’t like it and we will discuss it later.”
“Fair enough,” Sam replied, seemingly unconcerned.
With that little exchange over, Ian decided it was time to inject himself back into the conversation. “I know enough about procedure to know that since Fiona lives in the building, she shouldn’t be on this case. As a matter of fact, since we were both in the pub the night the most-recent victim went missing, neither of us should be on this case. Even assuming you have checked our alibis for the nights the others disappeared—am I right in assuming you checked case files on Fiona, and that the moment I set foot in this building, you sent agents to my building to question the guards about my whereabouts the nights in question?”
“Yes, on both. Just to avoid any appearance of impropriety,” Sam replied, obviously not surprised or offended by the question.
“Okay,” Ian continued. “So, assuming we are cleared of any possible suspicion, we are still potential witnesses. That makes it highly irregular to have either of us anywhere near the case, much less in charge. Not to belittle the importance of several missing people, but that doesn’t seem big enough to flout procedure when there are many well-qualified Blade agents and Guild-certified necromancers that can take charge. What makes this case special?”
Sam returned to his desk chair, sat down, and handed each of them another file folder. “Farah Purcell, the young woman reported missing most recently, is the daughter of Granger Purcell. Not only is he a Norm senator, but he is slated to be the next Norm Chancellor at the end of the year.”
In the chair next to him, Fiona let out an audible groan and slammed her palm into her forehead. Ian was too professional to indulge in such a display of emotion, but inside, he mentally copied her. This was, indeed, a complicated case.
“As soon as the pattern of disappearances was discovered by the Guards, there was an audit of most recent cases. Of course the senator’s daughter was already a high priority for them, but when they saw her disappearance fit the pattern, the commander informed the Chief Magistrate of the City Guard, who sent the info over to us to become a part of our case. As is her duty, Magistrate Collins then took it to the chancellors, waking them up. From what the magistrate told me, it took them all of three minutes to scry me to make the Purcell case top priority.”
“I’m surprised a missing senator’s daughter hadn’t already been made a Blades’ case,” Ian said, matter-of-factly.
Sam let out a short snort. “Nan Collins has ambitions beyond Chief Magistrate of the City Guard. She aspires to run for one of the Mage senate seats in the next term election. The Purcell case would have been one hell of a feather in her cap. I’m sure that is why she kept the case under her jurisdiction.”
Fiona laughed derisively. “And I’m betting the second she saw it was likely related to the strange dead body case, she handed it over gladly. The thing about career-making cases is that they can break them too. No one wants to be stuck with a case so bizarre that they have no hopes of solving it. So goody for us, we get to take charge of the weird, unsolvable case.”
“I’ve never seen an unsolvable crime, just those that took more effort and time to solve than others,” Ian said, his tone and manner much more haughty and self-assured than he felt. He was just as unenthusiastic about being on this case as Fiona. Despite the fact that he was looking forward to the time heading up a case together would force them to spend together, there was something strange about this case that gave him a bad feeling. Of course, though he had a contract with the Blades as a consultant, he was under no obligation to take this or any case. He could walk away and not look back. But Fiona couldn’t. She was a Blade and took what was assigned to her. Ian’s gut feeling was that something very dangerous was lurking in the shadows of this mystery. Something more dangerous than even tough-as-nails Fiona could handle alone. So, really, he had no choice but to work the case.
“Never seen an unsolvable crime?” Fiona’s tone was mocking. “Since when are you a Blade or Guard? You are a glorified teacher who consults on the odd case every once in a while. Suddenly, you think you are an expert on crime solving?”
Ian drew himself up straighter in his chair and turned towards her. This time as he spoke, he didn’t have to pretend confidence. How dare she mock him? Her attitude was beyond bearing sometimes. “I will have you know, I have been consulting with the Blades and the Guards since I was sixteen and started in the Academy. Which would have made you, what, about nine years old?”
“Oh, were you a late bloomer? I started the Academy at fourteen,” she said sweetly.
Ian was about to respond when the sound of something heavy hitting the desk interrupted them.
“Children!” Sam thundered, his voice booming through the office. Ian pulled his gaze away from Fiona to see Sam standing, bent over his desk with his hands bracing him as if he was ready to vault over it. “That is enough. While I normally find your constant bickering amusing and the entire agency has bets on how long it will take you two to climb into the sack, today my patience is wearing too thin to deal with your pent-up sexual tension. I have lost track of how many hours it has been since I last slept, and I have spent the morning getting scrys from every senator in the city-state, getting raked over the coals about not solving Farah Purcell’s disappearance fast enough and allowing a serial kidnapper to run loose in the streets. It doesn’t seem to matter that the Purcell case just fell on my desk a few hours ago and it is the City Guards’ job, not the Blades’, to protect the citizens from dangers in the streets. In addition, hours that could have been better spent trying to find all the missing people, I have instead spent trying to convince the senators not to go public with this, create a panic in the streets, and alert the kidnappers we are on to them. So, as you can see, I’m in a bad mood, and I need you to work together with some sort of professionalism. I don’t care if that means you have to beat each other bloody in a back alley or find a room and fuck like bunnies. Whatever it is, work it out on your own time. I need you focused!”