7. Why can’t my household get through a single day without bloodshed?

SEVEN

Why can’t my household get through a single day without bloodshed?

Wednesday, May 2, 2057

North Lake Education District, Precinct 153

Cauldron City, Nebraska.

Mrs. Dr. Erik showed up as a black unicorn, and unlike her husband, she’d begun the transition from regal and slender to a draft horse, warning me I dealt with someone old and tired of any and all bullshit. When the woman shifted to human, she appeared to be in the prime of life. No gray touched her black hair, and her dark eyes looked me over from head to toe. Like her husband, she wore a doctor’s coat. Unlike him, hers had blood on it here and there, fresh enough I suspected it was still wet.

“Everything okay?”

“One of the colts felt it would be a good idea to cut himself while playing, and he didn’t want to stop playing, resulting in a mess, a trip to the corner, and all of his balls being confiscated for a week. If his siblings are wise, he will stay in the corner until I get home. If they aren’t, they’ll be having their balls confiscated and a turn with the corner.”

I wondered how the corner would work in my parents’ chaotic household. “The odds of that actually working?”

“They’re pretty high. They know I am monitoring the situation, so if the brat leaves the corner, I’ll know immediately.” Mrs. Dr. Erik held up Dr. Erik’s briefcase. “Where is that husband of mine? I have his things, and I grabbed his research journals for this case as well.”

“He’s in the kitchen. Can I interest you in a cup of coffee?”

“Please. I’m going to need it when I head home to the herd. Every last one of them decided to go on a sugar bender when I turned my back. I should have known better than to leave an entire batch of cookies out where they could get it.”

According to her tone, she’d left that batch of cookies out knowing full well she would have bouncing babies within an hour. More important, should I believe my eyes and ears, which I did, she loved every moment of the chaos. “I’ll get you a travel mug so you can get back to the excitement. I really appreciate you coming over.”

“My rest and relaxation is to play with the foals. His is to help wherever he can, anything that isn’t in the operating room. He’ll come home feeling accomplished, and he’ll spend the rest of his evening playing with the foals, too. I saved him a few cookies.”

I smiled at that. “Do you want to check on the hummingbirds while I get your coffee?”

“Please. My husband’s an excellent doctor, but he lacks a woman’s touch. For some reason, he never developed a mother’s intuition. He does great on the fatherly things, I’ll give him that. Give me the brief version.”

“Three of the hummingbird mothers had seventeen eggs between them, and they’re only supposed to have two. Some of the eggs are weaker than Dr. Erik prefers.” I pointed at Marrinni, who slept in a hanging nest that Yuri had set up. “That’s the father, and he’s partnered with me now.”

“Lucky baby. You’ll take good care of your charges, I’m sure. I’ll make sure the moms and their babies are all fine. You take this stuff in and bring me coffee.”

I smiled at the woman, thanked her, and went inside to do her bidding. The instant Dr. Erik got his hands on his briefcase, he went to work, tossing his research journal to Miranda for review. Once I made and delivered his wife’s coffee, I moved the papers off the available seat, sat, and began reviewing the notes we had on the case.

I admired Miranda’s skills, as she managed to capture the important information in such a way I could make sense of it.

Most cadets needed months of training to learn how to take concise, legible notes.

After waving the papers at her, I said, “This is an excellent way of taking notes.”

The woman beamed at the praise. “Really?”

“You got all the important information written down, it’s legible, and I’m following your intention for taking the note. I couldn’t ask for any better. This is the sort of thing that will make our lives a lot easier in two or three weeks when we’ve forgotten the details of the conversation. Dr. Erik, your wife is checking on the hummingbirds, one of the colts decided to injure himself, so ignore the blood, and the colt is in the corner, his balls have been confiscated, and if he’s out of the corner by the time she’s home, all the foals will pay with the loss of their balls.”

Dr. Erik sighed. “Why can’t my household get through a single day without bloodshed?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a unicorn thing,” the Black Dragon of New York replied with a grin, heading towards the porch. “I’ll keep Mrs. Dr. Erik entertained while you make coffee. Don’t let your beans burn. I don’t want to hear any crying over burned beans.”

I checked the timer, concluded I could get started making her coffee but would have to interrupt the sacred process to tend to my beans. “I’ll make hers after this batch is cooling and I get the roaster set up for the next batch.”

“Good boy.”

To my relief, Lance and Rubella followed the black dragon out, likely to gossip on my porch. Tomorrow, my neighbors would have questions. I’d have an answer for them in the form of my new hummingbirds.

Dragons and unicorns liked poking their nose in everyone else’s business, and it would be trivial to convince my neighbors that once I’d told one dragon about my hummingbirds, a bunch of dragons had shown up. As a responsible member of the community, everyone would believe Dr. Erik had come solely to take my money and tend to my new wards.

I wouldn’t even have to lie to convince them to pay us no mind.

“Dr. Erik, is there any way to find out who Dr. Lerrans lost due to a lack of donor? Let’s start with the assumption he’d been after a heart. ”

“Hearts are hard. We’re not able to do living donors for hearts yet. It’s coming, but it’s going to be a few years. For a heart to become available, someone has to die, usually from trauma. We’ve improved our ability to save people from trauma situations. This toxin destroys the organs, making them unsuitable for donation, which tells me that this idiot is shortsighted and after revenge. Had he been wanting to kill people who might be useful for donations, he would have had the toxin affect only the brain.”

“That way the rest of the organs could be donated.”

“Correct.” The black unicorn snorted, tapped away at his laptop, and said, “Dr. Lerrans has always been slightly above average in performance.”

That told me one thing: he was a lot older than he appeared, or he had undergone prior education and practice under a different identity. “New doctors should have a lower performance and improve over time, correct?”

“Correct. My first year was below average. My second year, I’d been so dismayed over my first year I’d more than doubled my performance, putting me at slightly above average. I clawed my way up the ranks as I became more experienced.” Dr. Erik scowled, shook his head, muttered curses, and went back to typing at his laptop. “I’ll see what I can find about doctors with his skill level who stopped practicing before the Dr. Lerrans we know began practicing. I’ll also trace what we know of his activities to find out which region.”

“New Hampshire and the surrounding area seems likely due to his sister.”

“While you’re probably right, I have questions about that ‘sister,’ why a serial killer thinks his unexpected daughter has suffered enough, and why Dr. Lerrans shouldn’t be trusted with children.” Dr. Erik snorted, the only warning I needed that the black unicorn was close to losing his temper. “I fear the sister wasn’t just one of Roger’s victims.”

“So, who needed the heart?” I asked, allowing some of my frustration to leak into my voice.

“That’s the question of the hour. What started this whole mess? I think once we figure out who Dr. Lerrans truly is, we’ll have a much easier time with this. I don’t think it’s the sister, though. If she’s even his sister.”

Miranda regarded the black unicorn with a suspicious expression. “If she isn’t his sister, who might she be?”

“I would guess a trafficking victim,” I replied, scowling at the thought of someone claiming to be a doctor delving into those dark waters. “However, Roger’s statements indicate that Dr. Lerrans took… special care… with him due to this little girl.”

“I suggested that the FBI exhume the little girl for a DNA sample,” Dr. Erik admitted. “We have DNA samples from Dr. Lerrans, as he helpfully left intact hair follicles in his home. They’re biting, but it’ll be a while before we have the results in. I’m on the notification list for the results. I will be doing the DNA research for hereditary disorders and anything else that might prove useful for the case. I agreed to do the work at book prices.”

As the black unicorn could charge well over book prices, I read between the lines: Dr. Erik was invested in making certain Dr. Lerrans fell for his crimes. If I could afford to do the work for free, I would have.

My next trip to the grocery store would be interesting, as would my visit to see my family. Taking Miranda would cause waves, and I suspected my parents would call Paul in a panic, wondering why we’d been separated. From there, chaos would take hold, as Paul would come over to reassure everyone, become overwhelmed with emotion, and inevitably create some form of disturbance.

Maybe if I warned Paul first, the disaster might be prevented. Rather than text, I kept a close eye on my roaster, rescuing the beans when they’d roasted to perfection, dumping them into the cooler and working my magic. Only when I was confident my beans were safe did I grab my phone, shoot Paul a text, and warn him of the encroaching insanity.

His reply, which promised good behavior in exchange for a hug, made me smile. I confirmed my acceptance of his price before pocketing my phone and getting to work making Mrs. Dr. Erik her coffee. “That’ll really help the force out a lot. Thank you.”

“Bastards like this will leave countless bodies in their wake, and this is the least I can do. I volunteered to do the work for free, but charitable donations of work during cases causes the accountants to suffer from nightmares, so I was asked to accept book pricing. As I didn’t want to break the spirits of a bunch of accountants, I agreed.”

“So, we have a mystery involving the murder of Dr. Lerrans’s sister, who may not actually be his sister.”

“While revenge for the loss of a sibling is reasonable, everything I’ve heard more indicates a daughter. The other option infuriates me, and I would wreck things in your home if I were to shift and buck right now. As such, we’re not discussing those possibilities until the DNA test comes back. ”

Not even Roger had violated little girls. He preferred his victims willing right up until he murdered them. The killer behind the little girl’s death had chosen a swift and merciful bullet to the head.

Roger hadn’t killed the little girl, but he had killed Dr. Lerrans’s girlfriend—and hidden away his known daughter.

My eyes widened, and I dug through my contacts for one of the FBI agents in charge of Roger. I dialed and held the phone to my ear.

“Good evening, Detective Lovell. How can I help you?” Special Agent Tibbers answered.

“Do you happen to be with Roger?”

“I’m close enough. What do you need to know?”

“Can you ask if he knows who killed Dr. Lerrans’s sister? I don’t mean as in knowledge of who did it, but if he actually knew the killer.”

The FBI agent chuckled. “That’s a very good question. Can I ask why you’re asking?”

“Dr. Lerrans is a falsified identity. I’m not sure who he is or where he came from, but I’ve found proof that his birth certificate is false and that his education was forged.”

Silence.

As I understood well enough how missing something like that would cause problems, rather than point out the FBI’s shortcomings on that portion of the investigation, I said, “It took a lot of digging to uncover the truth; I only found out by accident, as I wanted some more information from one of the schools regarding his transcript. That’s how I found the transcript had been falsified. Once I knew that was falsified, I began checking over the rest of his documentation. I had opted to start the investigation over. Anyway, in light of Dr. Lerrans being a falsified identity, I wanted to find out more about his sister—and if she’s actually his sister. Has the little girl Roger mentioned been found yet?”

“We’ve found her. She is in a safe place, and those responsible for Roger’s statement were in prison for approximately three hours before word spread of what they did to a little girl. The problem is no longer a problem. Justice has been served, swiftly and without remorse. We are opting to ignore the actions of the inmates at this point in time.”

“And Roger’s role?”

“Roger is why the little girl is still alive. Worse, he’s why nobody has touched her in recent years.”

“How little is she?”

“She’s eight.”

Under no circumstances could I allow Dr. Erik to learn the truth of that matter. “Please send the complete file to me. Detective Smithson is on hospital duty for the next while, and I’ll be cleaning up our case files in light of the new information so he has something solid to work with when he is back from his tour of duty.”

“Excellent. I’ll send you over everything. Do you have a digital board?”

“I will be receiving one shortly, apparently, although I have access to Detective Smithson’s board at the moment.”

“Give me your badge number.”

I did as requested, and I gave him my full name and other relevant identifiers so he could assign the case files to me. “If you have any reason to believe there is a connection, hit me up with everything. I’m used to working with too much information, so I can sort what should be discarded from the investigation. ”

“Oh, good. Smithson is smart, I’ll give him that, but he lacks experience. Honestly, putting him on this case freshly promoted is cruel.”

I chuckled at that. “That’s part of why he’s headed for hospital duty for a while. Between his species and his general abilities, he’ll get some good experience plus a chance to absorb everything he’s learned thus far before I throw this file at him again. And it’ll be properly organized with potential inconsistencies highlighted for him to learn from.”

“Good. Hold on, I’m almost to Roger’s suite. He’s been well behaved, so we’ve put him up at a nice hotel. The doctors wanted him in a good environment for his healing, and he’s been frighteningly helpful and honest.”

“That makes sense. We’re all on the same page for what he wants. What happens to him after this?”

“He has requested doctor assisted suicide after Dr. Lerrans has been brought to justice, preferably in a permanent fashion.”

My eyes widened at that. “He requested that?”

“He has earned the death penalty, and he is happy to suffer with his broken body until that justice is served. He views bringing Dr. Lerrans to his knees as the last legacy he needs.” Special Agent Tibbers sighed. “We’ve already discussed the matter with the judge, and his request will be approved. He can’t go free again, he will just be killed, likely brutally, in the prison system, and it gives the families of his victims closure. According to Roger, he’s accomplished all of his goals, so he will go out with a bang. And rather than leave even more of a mess to clean up, he will go out quietly.”

“Jace is not going to like that,” I predicted, shaking my head over the insanity of it all—and that our judicial system could be rigged in such a fashion.

There’d be no lengthy trial, no spectacle for television, no major headlines, just a quiet death and equally quiet relief for the families who had suffered.

“He won’t, but we’ll take care of explaining it to him. We don’t usually get cases like that where we can get so much closure. We’ve already begun discussing the process with the families of the victims. They’re all right with it. They’re also all right with keeping everything quiet while we hunt for Dr. Lerrans.”

“They’re aware?”

“We felt it was wise to indicate that we were using the killer of their family members to bring down another serial killer, one with a body count far higher. We tossed in that the serial killer we’re hunting is also a terrorist, and that won us everyone’s cooperation. A few of the families have asked to meet Roger.”

I could think of a hundred different ways that might go wrong. “How did that go?”

“Surprisingly well. Roger showed no remorse, but he told them he had no remorse to show, and that he didn’t deserve their forgiveness—not that he understands the concept of forgiveness. We had a psychologist on hand who did an excellent job of explaining that Roger is broken. He knows he is broken, and that he can only hope that his efforts to stop Dr. Lerrans make up for what he has done that hurt others. Oddly, the thing that helped most of the families? Roger remembered.”

Ah. Some serial killers cared so little for their victims they couldn’t remember any of the details, a sword that cut the victims’ families rather deep. “Everyone is getting closure.”

“That’s right.”

I could live with that, and I’d take the time to pull Jace aside until he understood and could live with Roger’s end as well. “Please thank Roger for me.”

“You’ll be able to thank him yourself. I’ll put you on speaker.”

After a few minutes, Special Agent Tibbers knocked on Roger’s door, waited for permission to enter, and said, “I’m on the phone with a detective from Cauldron City. He has some questions for you about Dr. Lerrans, if you don’t mind. I’m putting this on speaker.”

“I don’t mind at all. Hello, Detective.”

“Call me Lovell,” I replied. “It is nice to meet you, Roger.”

In a strange twist in my life, I actually meant it despite knowing the evils the man had done.

“How curious. You actually mean that.”

“I do.” I allowed myself a smile at that. “I’m doing research into Dr. Lerrans, and I have reason to believe that his identity is false. Were you aware that he had a sister?”

“Yes, I’m aware of the child.”

“Do you know who killed her? And by that, I mean personally.”

Roger was silent for a long moment. “I know of the killer, but I would view my relationship with him as strained at best until he got what he deserved. We have talked a time or two, as we had… similar interests.”

That I could believe. “Thank you for your honesty, Roger. Do you happen to know why he killed that little girl? Unlike many of his other kills, he was rather merciful with her. ”

Roger sighed, and the sadness of the sound caught me by surprise. “You’re a smart one, Lovell. Yes, I know why he killed that little girl. It is for the same reason that I helped make certain his daughter never found out about the cruelties of her father. She did not have a good home, but when I found out the truth about his daughter, I took steps to make certain she wouldn’t suffer as much.”

“Her tormentors are dead now,” I informed him.

“Excellent.” I could hear the smile in the man’s voice. “Now that is what I like to hear. Who got them?”

In a chillingly neutral tone, Special Agent Tibbers stated, “They were sent to prison, and I am afraid some members of the FBI made it known to a few of the inmates what they had done to her. They did not last long.”

“This is justice I understand, and it was served with a swiftness I admire. I hope they were cruel when they went about it.”

“I’ve been told it wasn’t pretty,” the FBI agent replied.

“Even better. There are a few things about that little girl, the one that my associate killed, you might want to know about. I wasn’t given many details, but the motive behind the killing was merciful in multiple ways. First, she was sick and dying. Second, Dr. Lerrans was prolonging her life with zero care for her comfort. There was a third reason, but I didn’t care after hearing the first two. He did it out of mercy. Sure, the rest of his victims were done for other reasons, but her? He was her angel of mercy, and he made certain she could never suffer again in the only way he knew how. I can’t confirm this, but judging from his thoughts? Dr. Lerrans experimented on her, and the goal was to make her immortal. ”

“Do you know what she was sick with?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

“And his girlfriend? The one you killed. Did she suffer at his hands, too?”

There was another long moment of silence, and I wondered at the man’s thoughts. Roger released a gusty sigh, the kind that made me wonder if he was nearly as unredeemable as we all wanted to believe. “In some ways, I think she used me even more than I used her, securing a permanent escape from that madman. And that she told me of her little girl, hidden away with filth, finding me in all my brutality to possibly be enough to break the cycle? Hers was the only killing I have questioned to this day. I left no ghosts that day, and I feel she moved on with relief. And that she found relief at my hands? She played my game better than I did.”

It amazed me how a story could change so much using nothing but the truth. In a way, I was grateful that Jace hadn’t asked all the right questions.

He wouldn’t have handled Roger’s words well, and it would be a while until he matured as a detective and could deal with the answers to the most difficult questions. The answers would bother me, but I’d deal with them in silence until I needed to use what I learned to paint the full picture of Dr. Lerrans and his streak of terror.

I wouldn’t call it a reign. If I had my way, he would never rule over anyone or anything ever again.

“You’ve been very helpful, Roger. I appreciate it.”

“The agents here have helped explain to me how they do their work and how I can better help them. They’ve been helpful teaching me how I can help you crush that bastard beneath your heel. You work with that unicorn, right?”

“Yes, I work with Jace.”

“His is a gentle spirit. Yours feels harder. More experienced. You have seen things. But yours is as light as his. You walk the other side of the line, and you do so with unwavering dedication.”

Roger had to have some form of magical ability, and I narrowed my eyes at that thought. “What do you see or feel, Roger?”

“I feel the quality of souls. I can tell you this much. Outside of her, that girlfriend of his, not a single soul I sent to the beyond had a gentle spirit. They did not walk on your side of the line. Some of them were worse than even me. Dig deeper. Always dig deeper. Those graves hide more than bodies. You have done what I could not, and for that, I will help you burn this man’s world to the ground. I will never cross to your side of the line. You know that. I know that. But outside of her, I have always targeted those who were on my side of the line. I killed only one innocent. And that will absolve me of nothing.” Roger’s laughter reminded me of ice, cold and unrelenting. “Her daughter’s tormenters were the darkest of them all, and I rejoice that they can no longer hunt again. Even I can do some good in this world.”

Wednesday, May 2, 2057

North Lake Education District, Precinct 15 3

Cauldron City, Nebraska.

Packing away my emotions tested me, but I wrote notes on my conversation with Roger, wondering how I would discuss the situation with the black unicorns, the dragons, and my cadet without someone losing hold of their temper. I made it through four batches of coffee before I scrounged up the courage to ask, “Dr. Erik, what do you know about magic types that allow someone to see someone’s nature?”

“Their nature? Like of their souls?” After I nodded, he leaned back in his chair to balance on two legs, the black unicorn considered me with a neutral expression. “That is what we call a cursed ability in the medical field. People can—and do—go crazy when they can sense such things. They will see the state of the soul, and they can usually detect things like the truth.”

“Is it feasible that someone with this ability might become a serial killer?”

“It’s more than just feasible. I feel it’s likely. They would go mad from the darkness they’d see, and they’d learn that darkness means that person has committed irredeemable sins. There are a few beings who can blind that sort of vision, and the first thing we do in the medical community is offer that service to someone afflicted with such sight. Not all magic should be wielded—and not all natural magic is safe. Why?”

“Roger claims to have such a sight.”

Most in the room winced. Miranda’s expression remained one of confusion.

“I don’t understand,” she said, breaking the lingering silence .

The Black Dragon of New York went to the woman and patted her shoulder. “I’ll take a shot at explaining it if you’d like, Erik.”

“Please do. This represents the great deal of failure for us black unicorns. It’s one of the few things we simply can’t treat or help.”

Mrs. Dr. Erik massaged her husband’s shoulders. “Erik was still a colt the first time he encountered someone thus cursed. She was a child, and she went mad from it. She could see the darkness as a shroud, and every time someone lied or performed some act that drove away the light, the darkness reached for her. She developed paranoia first. Over the course of a year, she spiraled into madness. He couldn’t slow nor could he stop the process. She passed from a complication of extreme stress and anxiety.”

“She picked up the key traits of fatal familial insomnia without actually having it. Her body couldn’t handle the stress from her refusal to sleep, and it ultimately led to her brain shutting down. In the final stage, with the consent of her parents, we helped her to her death. At their request, her organs were donated for science. Her brain was studied. She was the first organ donation I ever handled. We’d managed to keep everything but her brain healthy. I was praised for my diligence with her, as I bought many other children long lives, but to this day, I question if I could have done a little more to save her.”

Mrs. Dr. Erik thwacked her husband upside his head. “Don’t make me put you in a corner with your colt. I’ll also take your balls away, sir. You went on to find out how to blind that sort of vision. In our field, sometimes it just takes losing lives to save more lives. Until her, we didn’t even know how such sight could cause brain death. We also didn’t know we could preserve the other organs in fatal familial insomnia cases. You learned a lot, and you took what you learned to help other patients. Please don’t mind him. She was his first true loss, and that leaves a mark on us all. Mine was a diabetes case. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get his blood sugar to balance, I could never crack how to best administer insulin, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t win any of the battles. We all have to learn that sometimes it just isn’t our fault.”

In law enforcement, we endured the same bitter defeats. “Mine was a domestic violence case. I was five minutes too late to save the mother and her three children. The bastard killed himself when I arrived.”

To this day, I felt he’d waited until someone had known he’d done it before taking the easy way out.

“I remember that case,” Dr. Erik said, and he sighed. “Dispatch had sent you to the hospital just to be certain you were all right, as you’d tried to see if any of them could be saved. You wore a great deal of blood as a result.”

I nodded. “I went to therapy for six months over that, and Captain Farthan didn’t have the heart to send me back to preschool.”

“He didn’t have to send you back to preschool. Preschool wasn’t going to help mend your broken heart. But none of them could have been saved. But you still cope with those deaths with your paramedic courses.”

So much for masking that part of my motivation. “I really have no skill at being a paramedic.”

“You’re a god at CPR,” Gloria informed me. “While you were roasting your beans, I went over your medical records. When you do CPR on a patient, that patient is getting to the hospital alive as long as you can do your job uninterrupted. You need some magicker tricks to help give them a better chance, but you have the one key skill learned. And not only do you have it learned, you have the determination to keep it up for even an hour if needed. That’s a big deal. Sure, you’re never going to be a paramedic, but you’ve saved lives. You won’t be able to save every life, but neither can we.”

“But we try,” Mrs. Dr. Erik said, and she offered me a smile. “If this Roger has that sight, then it comes to no surprise he became a serial killer. It’s not uncommon.”

“Do you think Dr. Lerrans might have this sight?” I asked.

The black unicorns regarded each other through narrowed eyes, and after a few moments, Dr. Erik shook his head. “No. I doubt it. He performed too well overall for him to be influenced by his sight if he has it. While we have an oath, the unfortunate reality is that most doctors just won’t give their all for patients falling on the wrong side of the line. Even I have to check myself at the door with some patients. If I know they have hurt a lot of people, the last thing I want to do is give them quality care. I do it anyway. But it was a bitter lesson for me to learn. I don’t feel that Dr. Lerrans is so talented of a surgeon that he could willfully give poor care to those he saw were dark of spirit.”

Miranda considered the black unicorn with interest. “But is it possible?”

“He would have to be a literal god of medicine, Miranda. My numbers aren’t much better than his, and I’ve been at this for decades. However, his performance record does lead me to believe that Lovell’s hunch over his time in the medical community is right, and that Dr. Lerrans has been practicing medicine for far longer than we thought. His record is like mine was twenty or thirty years ago. However, everything we have on him indicates he’s human.”

“Wouldn’t his average be lower if he was just a human?” I asked.

All three unicorns snorted at me. To keep them from transforming and stabbing me with their horns, I raised my hands in surrender. “I thought it was a good question.”

The Black Dragon of New York came over to me and gave my shoulder a pat. “It is a good question. And you’re correct. Humans almost never reach better than average; magic can make a big difference in the operating room. Magic can counter the little mistakes that might cost a patient their life.”

Dr. Erik sighed. “He’s right. He has to have some sort of magical talent or be a healing species. But which one? No unicorn would condone his behavior. Sure, some of us are mean, but we come out of the box wanting to be helpful. Hell, every last one of my foals has to be taught how to contain their helpful tendencies so they don’t end up abused as adults.”

Lance made a thoughtful sound. “A dragon might, though. Perhaps he’s a rogue? If he’s a rogue dragon, he wouldn’t know a lot about how we behave socially. A rogue unicorn wouldn’t either, although I feel you’re correct about the natural tendencies of unicorns. Nobody would have taught him we can catch bodies out of the air. Nobody would have taught him how to be a dragon. Hell, he might not even be able to take his draconic form without help. The babies always need help the first few times, and he could be stuck in human form. There are a lot of possibilities.”

“So, we need to figure out who and what Dr. Lerrans really is as our starting point. The evidence states he’s probably not a human. Could he be a magicker who doesn’t understand he’s a magicker? He has it out for those who aren’t strongly magical, especially magickers.”

“And shapeshifters,” Dr. Erik reminded me.

“But only ones who weren’t born shapeshifters,” I countered. “It’s like he’s somehow managed to flit through society without understanding how any of the common magic works.”

“That could limit us to a few mundane cities, though.” The Black Dragon of New York paced my kitchen before checking his watch. “I’m going to have to go get Alicia from the airport soon, but I’ll get you a list of cities that might suffer from such a level of ignorance. Miami is only one of them. Perhaps if we can figure out where he came from, we can figure out why he has such a vendetta. But I don’t think we’ll be making any more progress tonight.”

While the past could often help solve cases, I worried about being blinded to the future. We raced against time, but as we had no idea where Dr. Lerrans would strike next, there was little else to do.

Sometimes, cases worked out like that, where we waited for the culprit to make a move so we could learn enough to truly begin our investigation. That he had reduced us to sitting in my kitchen speculating irritated the hell out of me.

The Black Dragon of New York made a good point, though. Tonight, we would continue to spin our wheels when we were better off sleeping and preparing for the days to come. I got up from my seat, bagged up everyone’s coffee, and distributed it. “Miranda stays. The rest of you? Get out.”

They laughed and did as told.