Chapter 4

Connor opened the door and paused for a second, sweeping me over for signs of injury or distress. Finding none, he turned back to business. ‘What was the explosion?’

‘A house a couple of blocks over. No one was in it,’ Gunnar confirmed.

‘Well, that’s something at least.’ Connor stepped back and let us in.

‘You okay?’ I asked softly.

His jaw was tight with tension. ‘I’ve been better,’ he murmured, letting Gunnar take point ahead of us so we could talk privately. ‘The fire gem has been stolen on my watch. It’s not a good look.’

I reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘We’ll get it back.’

He flashed me a grim smile. ‘Damn right we will.’ He didn’t say that heads would roll, but that was definitely the vibe I was getting. The perpetrator better hope we found them before Connor did.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘The fire elemental witch lost the damned stone.’ Connor couldn’t keep the anger and frustration out of his voice. Maybe he wasn’t even trying to.

‘They lost it?’

‘It got taken,’ Connor conceded. ‘Supposedly. I’ll let you make up your own mind. Come and meet Kos.’ It was clear that he knew the witch well, and I tried to suppress a twinge of jealousy.

‘Is the witch unharmed?’ I asked as he showed me into a room where a man was sitting. Huh, the witch was a dude. For some reason the label ‘witch’ still made me think female, even though I knew men could be witches. Popular culture has a lot to answer for.

Kos looked downright miserable. He was dressed in a conservative light-blue, button-down shirt with a red bow tie; the shirt was tucked neatly into a pair of navy-blue corduroy trousers with red suspenders. His dark hair was slicked back and he was wearing trendy, red-framed glasses. He looked like he was everyone’s favourite schoolteacher.

Next to him was Connor’s new second, Lee Margrave, who’d taken the job after Juan Torres had been killed. Margrave looked like a tough guy: the scar down his face gave that impression even without his bulk, and with his huge muscles he looked like someone to avoid. Next to the neatly presented witch, he looked downright evil. If he were in a Disney film, his background colour would have been green.

Kos was staring into space. His eyes refocused, then he looked at Gunnar wide-eyed and panicked. ‘It’s gone.’ He started wringing his hands. He seemed surprised, as though he’d discovered it this instant and couldn’t quite believe it. I recognised his voice: this was the man who’d called the theft into the office.

Gunnar looked at me and jerked his head towards Kos; apparently this was my show. Fuck: I didn’t want this to be my show – I needed to start with some smaller shows like Punch and Judy. That was more my level.

I’d enjoyed leading the investigation when Gunnar was in hospital and relished the challenge, but this was the gemstone that could lead to the whole barrier falling. This shit wasn’t for amateurs, but evidently Gunnar had decided I wasn’t one. I appreciated the vote of confidence even though he was totally wrong.

‘Right.’ I cleared my throat. ‘I’m Officer Bunny Barrington.’

‘Bunny?’ The witch looked down his nose at me. ‘How did you get a name like that?’

‘At my birth, a seer gave a prophecy about my life,’ I lied. ‘My mum was so high on gas and air that she couldn’t remember anything other than the word “Bunny”.’ I gave a light shrug. ‘And what’s your name?’

The witch looked at Gunnar with irritation, but when my boss glared a little he turned back to me. ‘Kostas Spencer.’

‘Can you tell me what happened, Kostas?’

He looked at me and then at Gunnar again. Gunnar was standing slightly behind me with his arms crossed. He gave a firm head tilt towards me.

‘Well, I went to work, and when I came home I checked on the box that held the fire gem as I do twice a day,’ the witch said. ‘That is – was – my job and responsibility for the magic users group. But today it wasn’t there.’

‘The box, the gem or both?’ ‘Both.’

I nodded. ‘It was there this morning?’

‘Yes. I checked on it before work, same as always.’

‘What time did you go to work?’

‘Seven forty-five, same as always.’

I wondered if he would answer every question with ‘same as always’. Should I tell him that it was extremely annoying? ‘Where do you work?’

‘I do the books at Kamluck Logging.’

Same as always, I added mentally. I estimated he had a fifteen-minute commute. Not far. ‘Did you come home for lunch?’

‘I do sometimes, but not today.’ He looked miserable and his shoulders sagged; I wondered if he was about to break down and cry. I’d cry too if I had to tell Liv I’d lost something so important to the magic users.

I pushed on. ‘When did you get home?’

He cleared his throat. ‘Five-fifteen, same as always.’

The ‘same as always’ was back – I’d almost missed it. ‘Was anything else missing?’

‘I–I haven’t really looked. I freaked out a little and called Mr Mackenzie and then the Nomo’s office.’

‘That’s fine. We’ll go through the house with you and you can point out anything that is out of place or missing. Can you do that?’

He took a deep breath. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. First, show us where the stone was kept.’

Kostas appeared a little calmer now that he had a focus. He went to a walk-in closet in the corner and opened it. There was nothing inside it, save for a carved stone pedestal that looked like it weighed more than I did. The plinth was wholly incongruous in those surroundings. ‘This is where it was held,’ Kostas confirmed.

I made a move to lean in. ‘Stay back!’ he hissed, holding out a hand to stall me. ‘I haven’t dropped the wards.’

I frowned but let him push me back. If the wards were still active, how did someone steal the gem? I looked at Gunnar, who shrugged; he was frowning too. I reached up absently to scratch at my scalp, which felt itchy. If I had head lice, I’d die of embarrassment.

Kostas stood back so we could examine the area without touching the wards. I took several pictures then looked at the door lock. It wasn’t fancy; in fact, even without any training in lock-picking, I bet I could get in the closet in under five minutes with a credit card or a hairpin – as long as the wards didn’t fry me. Though given how jittery Kostas was, they would probably fry me sunny-side up.

Gunnar and I searched the whole place with Fluffy’s help as Kostas looked for anything out of place or missing. When we moved further away from the closet, the itching in my scalp stopped abruptly. Was I allergic to something in that area?

We found nothing; nothing was out of place or missing except for the box containing the fire gem. After we’d searched the modest home, we stood by Kostas as he carefully lowered the wards around the pedestal. He was sweating the whole time, and he swayed as they fell. The faint itching on my scalp stopped. Huh: could I somehow sense wards? Focus, Bunny! I told myself. This gemstone shit is a big deal. Worry about sensing wards later.

‘How close to the fire gem do the wards get?’ I asked.

‘They are only on the perimeter of the closet,’ Kostas said. ‘They’re gone now. You can enter safely.’

Before I could go in, Fluffy barrelled forwards. I shouted, but luckily he didn’t come to any harm. Silly pup, risking himself like that. Thank goodness the wards really were down.

He sniffed pointedly around the podium and the floor, gave two decisive barks and looked at me excitedly. He’d found a scent that wasn’t Kostas’s! ‘Where does it go?’ I asked urgently.

My boy put his nose to the floor, sniffed a few steps forward then stopped looking confused. He did that three times: got the scent, pointed and then … nothing. ‘Can supernats mask their scent?’ I asked. ‘He’s definitely finding something new and then it disappears.’

‘It’s possible,’ Gunnar confirmed.

‘But pricey,’ Kostas interjected. ‘Very pricey. No one up to anything good needs that potion. It’s difficult to make and even harder to buy – just finding the black market is tricky.’

‘Do you know where it is?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve never been, though I know it exists.’

I made a note to ask Gunnar about it later. Still, a potion being difficult to acquire didn’t rule it out; difficult wasn’t impossible. ‘Can anyone else drop or replace the wards?’ I asked.

‘No. I’d know. The wards I lowered were mine, and nothing or no one had touched them.’

Well, wasn’t that a head scratcher?

‘How often do you reset them?’ Gunnar probed.

‘Every few weeks.’

‘When did you last do it?’ I asked.

‘This morning,’ he admitted.

I gave him a flat look; that was clearly relevant yet he hadn’t volunteered the information. Somehow someone had slipped in between the time he’d lowered and reset the wards: a quick theft but not an impossible one. And that still didn’t tell us why Fluffy couldn’t scent the intruder. Still, it was a starting point.

‘Who knows your warding routine?’ I demanded.

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘No one, but I suppose someone could make an educated guess when I bought the various ingredients for a warding as powerful as this.’

‘Does anyone have a key to this place?’

He drew himself up prissily. ‘Obviously not. I take my role as the gem guardian very seriously.’

Not seriously enough. The uncharitable thought slipped out and I knew it was unfair. He’d warded the place to high heaven. What else could he have done besides live in a secret underground bunker?

‘The wards,’ I started. ‘Did you have to kill something to power them?’ Maybe someone was mad at him for killing their pet chicken called Clive. Maybe this was all some sort of petty retribution rather than a sinister plot to bring down the barrier and doom us all. Yeah, right.

He gave me a look of abject horror mixed with affront. ‘I’m a witch, not a necromancer!’

Having mortally offended him, I turned my attention back to the plinth but saw nothing that could be considered a clue. Gunnar dusted it and the closet doorknob for prints while I rolled the carpet around the podium with a tape roller to see if there were any stray hairs. I covered the roller with plastic wrap and tucked it in a bag to check when we got back to the office.

‘Can you describe the box and the gem?’ I asked Kostas.

‘It’s metal, about this big.’ He indicated a foot square with his hands. ‘The fire gem is a brilliant-cut ruby about the size of my fist.’

My eyes flew wide open; not only was the stone part of our barrier protection system, it was also extremely valuable. The motivation for the theft might have nothing to do with the barrier.

Gunnar took fingerprints on both front and rear doors, neither of which showed signs of forced entry. Either our suspect was a ghost or they’d unlocked doors with magic – which was entirely possible in this town. My boss was an expert at that particular trick, and I doubted he was the only one.

We left with a few prints, some forensics from the carpet and a lot of questions. How the heck had the thief got in? And what was their motivation for stealing the huge ruby? Was someone focused on a big payday or the wanton destruction of us all?

I prayed that it was the former.