Valhalla Beckons Read online

  “Best I can tell, it’s not dangerous. Well...at least it won’t blow up. Since I don’t know what it does do, it might be super dangerous,” Paulie said, wrapping up his feedback on the strange white orb we’d found on our target.

  Swift pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Any chance it’s a recording device? Or that it’s transmitting some kind of signal?”

  Paulie shrugged. “I mean, if it is, it’s something completely new. All I can confirm is that it was made with a combination of natural materials and magic, that it still contains magic, and that it will respond to some kind of magical stimulus. Here, watch this.” He snapped his fingers, summoning a small flame. He held his finger right over the orb, waving it back and forth. The orb rolled after the finger as though it were magnetized.

  “Huh,” I said, putting my hands in my pockets. “It just seems like a toy.”

  “Why would he have had a toy in his pocket?” Swift asked, slightly exasperated.

  “We don’t know anything about this guy yet. I’m not saying this isn’t something more nefarious, but it does behave like a simple toy,” I said, waving my hand at it. Turning to Paulie, I asked, “Can you run any more tests?”

  The tech shook his head. “Maybe one or two, but I have to process all of that,” he said, pointing at a stack of boxes that completely covered the far wall. “Last guy hadn’t done much of anything for months before he left. The only reason I could look at this today was because your case has priority.”

  Swift sighed irritably and snatched up the device, dropping it back in the evidence bag. “Alright, thanks for the safety check. We’ll work on it.”

  Paulie nodded and turned back to his other work. Swift glared at the evidence bag in her hand, as if personally offended she couldn’t figure out what it was.

  “Ready to interrogate Mr. Johnson? He should be out of medical by now,” I asked.

  “Yes, maybe he can tell us what this is,” she said, tucking the bag into her pocket. “Then you’re buying me lunch, as agreed.”

  I groaned. She wanted to go to some shady, hole-in-the-wall pub in London. I hated going to London. “Fine.”

  “I feel like we’re missing something,” Swift said as we left the tech’s office. “He was supposed to be a mid-level target, but he had advanced defensive magic on him. That spell had to be pricey.”

  “He could have gotten it himself if he was worried he was being followed,” I suggested. “Granted, I don’t like it either. He seemed as surprised as we did by how the spell reacted.”

  Swift shook her head and we stepped onto the elevator that would take us back up to our offices. “Bradley said this guy was seen handing off drugs to that shifter pack we've been investigating in Las Vegas. That's not a group you just fall in with. They vet their suppliers and they can smell magic. They would be suspicious of anything he was carrying. No way he'd risk bringing a toy or something equally dumb along with powerful defensive magic."

  "I wonder if they could smell it though. It barely emits any magic at all.”

  Swift held up the bag, examining it critically. “We should ask Lopez.” She changed directions to head toward the sergeant's office.

  "What you were saying about how the pack vets the people they deal has this whole thing making even less sense. This guy has no living family and no criminal history. He's almost suspiciously clean," I said, scratching at two-day-old stubble. I really needed to shave, but hadn't found the time yet.

  "Someone had to vouch for him," Swift agreed with a nod.

  We strolled into Lopez's office through the already open door. She was gathering her things and wasn't dressed in her usual understated suit. Instead, she was wearing a sparkly black dress. Her dark brown hair hung loose around her face in soft curls. She had on heels that made her at least five inches taller than normal. She probably came up all the way to my shoulder now.

  "Hey Lopez," Swift said in greeting. "Do you have a minute to see if you can smell any magic on me?"

  Lopez chuckled. "You always smell like magic. It comes out of your pores."

  "Do you have a date?" I asked, still shocked at her appearance.

  "No, Blackwell, I'm just headed straight home to eat a frozen pizza with my cat," Lopez said sarcastically. "Obviously I have a date, and no I'm not telling you who with." She turned back to Swift. "Why are you asking if I can smell magic on you?"

  Swift lifted the evidence bag and opened it. "We're trying to see if a werewolf would have been able to tell if a suspect had this on him during a meeting with them."

  Lopez closed her eyes and inhaled, her nose twitching as she processed all the scents in the room. She frowned and walked closer, sniffing the bag itself.

  She opened her eyes and shrugged. "Doesn't smell like anything to me. Like, literally nothing. Not magic, not plastic, not anything. If someone had that on them, I'd have no idea they had it until I saw it."

  I frowned and glared at the object. I hated mysteries. "I've never heard of anything like that."

  "Me neither," Lopez said, patting me on the shoulder. "Good luck. I can help more tomorrow, but I am not going to be late tonight."

  "Have fun, and tell him I said hi," Swift said with a grin.

  "Will do," Lopez said before hurrying out of her office with a wave goodbye.

  I turned to face Swift, suspicious. "Tell him you said hi? You know who it is?"

  "Of course I do. Lopez and I are friends," she said as she resealed the evidence bag and tucked it in her pocket.

  "Well, who is it?"

  "She said not to tell you." She brushed past me and left the office.

  I hurried after her. "I'm your partner, you can't keep secrets from me!"

  "Sure I can," Swift said, completely unconcerned.

  "Why did she tell you and not me?"

  "Because we're actually friends, you're just the idiot that keeps blowing things up," Swift said with a smug grin.

  I glared at her and thought, once again, about demanding a new partner. It would be a waste of time though. Bradley loved her, just like everyone else. No one cared that she was a total pain in my ass.

  "We should go talk to Mr. Johnson. I'm getting hungry," she said, completely unconcerned that I was trying to kill her with my eyes.

  "Fine."

  Four

  Adam Johnson was about my height, but thin and twitchy. He had a cheap haircut, a cheaper suit, and the wild-eyed look of someone who knew he was in deep shit. His hands rapped out a nervous beat on the metal table he was cuffed to. Every few seconds he shifted his feet and glanced at the door behind him or the two-way mirror. His eyes narrowed as he tried to catch a of glimpse of whoever was standing behind it.

  “He does not strike me as a criminal mastermind,” Swift said, taking a sip of black coffee. She’d removed her trench coat and rolled up the sleeves of her black button-up shirt.

  “He does look guilty though,” I said, gesturing toward Johnson as he sighed and twisted around in his chair again.

  Swift snorted. “That’s an understatement. He looks scared too.”

  “You did almost turn him into a prosaic pancake,” I said with a smirk.

  “He lived.” She chugged the remaining dregs of her coffee and tossed the cup in the trash. “Let’s go see if he’s scared enough to talk.”

  We left the observation room and walked around to the entrance to the interrogation room. I let Swift enter first, and his reaction was immediate. He cringed away from her, clearly terrified. She strolled toward the far side of the table, dropping a file between them. The loud smack of paper against metal made him flinch.

  I shut the door and he flinched again. This guy was very jumpy. Not exactly the reaction you’d get from a hardened criminal.

  He pushed back in his chair, trying to keep both of us in his line of vision.

  “Mr. Adam Johnson,” Swift said, planting her hands on the table and towering over him. “You want to save us all some time and confess?”

  His face paled even fu
rther. “Wh–what?”

  She sighed and shook her head, her lips pressed together in a thin line of disapproval. “Playing dumb isn’t going to save you.”

  “I don't...I don’t know anything,” he stuttered out while looking back at me frantically like I might save him from my partner. “I didn’t do anything!”

  Swift’s eyes were cold as she pinned him in place with her glare. “We both know that’s a lie.”

  I walked toward him slowly, staying behind him so he felt trapped. His whole body was shaking now. This guy was scared out of his mind. I hadn’t expected this strong of a reaction.

  “No, look, you don’t understand. I don’t know anything. I swear. I didn’t do anything...I didn’t...it was someone else,” he said, his voice cracking as big, fat tears slipped down his cheeks. His skin had gone so pale I was surprised he hadn’t passed out.

  Swift walked closer and sat on the edge of the table right in front of him. “If someone else is responsible, then I need a name.”

  He licked his lips, his movements still twitchy. “I’ll tell you if you give me back the orb.”

  Tilting her head to the side, she pulled the evidence bag containing the orb from her pocket. “You mean this?”

  His body stilled for a split second, then he exploded out of his seat. “I need it! GIVE IT BACK!” Chains snapped tight against the anchor for his cuffs, as he tried to reach for the object.

  “The name first,” Swift demanded, dangling it in front of his face.

  His mouth opened, but instead of speaking, he emitted a strange keening noise. The sound turned to a gurgle, then he began to spasm. His pale skin turned completely white.

  Swift jumped back, narrowly avoiding a spray of black goo. “What the hell –– MEDIC!”

  I ran and smacked the emergency button near the door. “Swift, get away from him!”

  Another spray of fluid arced through the air, punctuated by Johnson’s panicked scream. The chains rattled against the table as he flailed in his chair.

  She darted behind him and stopped next to me near the door. “His skin is falling off his body. He looks like a zombie.”

  His chest heaved but the spasms stopped. His head rolled back as he twisted his face toward us. Swift was right, skin and muscle was slipping from his bones.

  “Help me,” he gasped, trying to reach toward us, shackles hanging loose around a bony wrist.

  His eyes bulged in his head and his entire body stiffened. I grabbed Swift by the arm and shoved her outside, throwing myself after her.

  There was a wet splat as bits of his body hit the walls, ceiling, and the two-way mirror. The walls were painted in chunky gore.

  “Did he just...explode?” Swift asked, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. The smell wafting from the room was not pleasant.

  I took another step back from the door. “Yeah, I think he did.”

  She held the evidence bag a little away from herself, staring at it. “He wanted this really badly. He was acting like his life depended on it.”

  “Maybe it did,” I said, raising a brow. This was going to take a lot of paperwork.

  Five

  It had been a long day and our case had left us with more questions than answers. I trudged up the steps to the Manor, pausing on the top one. I'd moved here a few days after I got the deed back to keep an eye on Bootstrap, and get a little space from Yui.

  She'd practically stolen my bed back at the apartment, and everywhere I turned, she was right there. Now that we were in the Manor, I barely saw her. My Oreos still kept disappearing though. No matter where I hid them.

  It almost felt normal to walk through the front door again. Today, however, I was strongly considering heading back to Tokyo and sleeping in my empty apartment rather than dealing with all the memories that haunted this place.

  Shaking off the pointless melancholy, I opened the front door to the Manor. The wards sprang to life letting out an eardrum-shattering wail. A shimmering shield engulfed the outside of the house and the walls groaned as they were hit with a shockwave of magic.

  I dropped my bag and drew my katana as adrenaline rushed through me. There was no one behind me, and nothing had been damaged, but if the wards were going off, there had to be a reason.

  “Don’t kill me!” Bootstrap shouted as he ran down the staircase in his boxers and a dingy, black robe. “And don't touch anything!”

  I sheathed my sword and ground my teeth together. This was the other reason I hadn't wanted to come inside. Bootstrap had been fiddling with things. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I’ve been working on the wards just like you asked,” he said, sweeping past me to shut the front door. His hands flew over the wood, drawing runes almost faster than my eyes could process. I’d never seen anyone create runes that quickly. The clanging ceased and blessed silence fell over the house.

  “It sounds like you’ve been breaking them,” I muttered, rubbing my ear. There was still a faint ringing that would probably take a half hour to fade. That had been loud.

  Bootstrap rolled his eyes. “You have no appreciation for how hard this is. You’re lucky I can even access them. Most people would have given up, or died.”

  "A little warning that I'm going to set off the wards next time would be appreciated," I said testily. About every other day, I intensely regretted letting Bootstrap live here. Then, he would finally fix something and I'd change my mind. He was just useful enough to outweigh how talkative he was.

  "It's not my fault you keep finding surprising new ways to trigger things," he dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Also, that guy exploding in the interrogation room was disgusting. You're so lucky you got out of there in time."

  I sighed and headed toward the kitchen. "Stop hacking the IMIB video feed."

  "Why? I get to see all sorts of hilarious shit," he protested, trailing after me like a lost puppy.

  "You're going to get caught." I set my bag down on the kitchen counter and pulled open the refrigerator door. It was mostly empty, but the box of my take-out was still there.

  Bootstrap snorted. "Those idiots can't catch me. The IMIB has some of the most talentless security guys on their payroll I've ever seen. Honestly, a kid could hack it."

  “It’s still illegal. Stop it.” I tossed my leftovers in the microwave and opened the cabinet where I’d stashed some Oreos. I grabbed the package, only to discover it was suspiciously light. Ripping back the foil, I glared at the empty rows. Slowly, I raised my head toward Bootstrap. “Where is Yui?”

  He took a step back, lifting his hands. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen her all day.”

  I tossed the package on the counter and dragged my hands through my hair. I was going to have to start setting up protective runes on the cabinets.

  Knowing Yui, she was probably sleeping on my bed again or something equally annoying. The microwave beeped and I grabbed my food and a fork. I was used to getting to come home and be alone. Even living in a fifteen thousand square foot Manor, my two squatters always seemed to be in the way.

  “Try not to break anything while I eat dinner,” I warned before heading toward the stairs.

  “I’m fixing stuff! It’s just difficult!” Bootstrap shouted at my retreating back.

  I ate out of the carton on my way upstairs. The food at that pub Swift had dragged me to was lacking, to say the least. I’d picked at the dish I’d ordered, then spent the rest of the day slowly starving to death. After a few bites, my stomach no longer felt like it was trying to eat itself.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I peeked into the library to see if Yui happened to be hiding out there. It was a massive room that stretched up two stories with a balcony that wrapped around the upper level for access to the books that would otherwise be out of reach. It smelled like leather, with a hint of smokiness from the fireplace. Moonlight shone through the tall window on the far wall. During the day, it lit the place up, but tonight, the soft light simply cast the room in shadows.

  There wa
s no sign of Yui in here, so I continued toward the room I’d claimed. It had been one of the guest bedrooms, but it had a nice view of the back gardens, not that those were worth looking at right now. I’d have to hire a gardener to tear out all the weeds and replant the thing this spring.

  I paused next to the door that led to my father’s office. It had become a ritual. I’d stop here and hesitate, suddenly aware of the weight of the family ring I’d found in my father’s desk on my hand, then head to my room and try to ignore it for another night.

  Shaking my head, I took a step away, prepared to do just that, but at the last moment I whirled around and pushed the door open. It swung inward soundlessly and I stared into the dark room. It was still slightly musty, but I could remember how it used to be. My father would have had the curtains drawn back and the windows thrown open. My mother would have been in and out all day, though she spent most of her time in the basement working on secret projects.

  I took a step inside and walked straight toward the windows. Dust billowed from the curtain as I yanked it back. Coughing, I took a step back and set my food on a shelf, out of harm’s way before pulling open the other side. The sun was setting, so it barely brightened the room, but it did make it feel less claustrophobic.

  The place felt like a tomb of sorts. Some days I wanted to clean it out, but every time I started, I couldn’t bear the idea of it. It was probably all in my head, but I felt like something was waiting for me here. He’d left me the family ring –– something I’d never seen him take off my entire life.