Banshee Hunt (13 page)

Naturally the fuel didn't take. But that just gave James a chance to ramp up the tension. After all his brother was still covered in petrol and now he knew that James would throw the match.

“Oh? … Didn't take. This one will.” He struck the next match and let it burn bright.

Francis shrieked again and started desperately begging for his life. He had no doubt he was going to burn. After all, he'd already seen James flick one match at him and thought the only reason he wasn't burning was blind luck. But the important thing as far as James was concerned was that no one was running their way and he wasn't confessing anything. If Francis had had any of his gift people would have been running to save him by now. Hundreds of them. And if he didn't but he had ordered the hit, then he would have been confessing as fast as he knew how. Francis was no hero. He would do anything he could to keep from burning to death. He wouldn't risk his life in some sort of bluff.

James threw the second match anyway. He liked the sound of his brother screaming in terror. Naturally it didn't catch.

“Oh thank you, thank you!” Francis was practically crying with relief as he blurted it out.

Who Francis was thanking James didn't know. God maybe? But that seemed unlikely. Francis had mostly seemed to think he was God. Meanwhile there was a very bad smell in the air, and a dark stain running down Francis' pants.

“This is getting annoying. Let's do this properly shall we.” James pulled out an entire bunch of matches from the box and struck them against the side, producing a nice big flame. Francis meanwhile shrieked. He shrieked some more when James flicked them at him. Then when he didn't catch fire Francis started hyperventilating with shock as he tried to understand what was happening and failed.

It was a long time before Francis could finally say something, and then it was only a hysterical question as to why he wasn't catching fire. His voice by then was a raspy squeak, his face was bone white and his eyes were bulging. He looked crazed and one step short of complete insanity. James didn't care about that though. He only cared that no one had come to save him. And there was no way that his little brother would risk being burnt to death as a bluff. His powers were still bound.

“Because it's water you idiot! Spelled to look and smell like petrol.”

Francis' response to that was an impenetrable silence as he stared at him. He had the look of someone who had been hit in the head too often and too hard. Not the look of a master criminal. Or of a man in control of anything. James was satisfied. Francis knew nothing. He wasn’t behind the attack on James.

“Well that was it Francis. Congratulations, you passed. You don't know anything. You haven't got your power back. So you get to live for a little longer. But if you ever get out of here rest assured that I will hunt you down and kill you. No second chances.”

His brother didn't answer him. He just stood there or rather hung there as he seemed to have lost all strength in his legs and continued to hyperventilate. Eventually the beginnings of hysterical laughter started bubbling up from his throat.

James left him at that point, satisfied that at least his little brother was innocent of this one crime. He knew nothing. He might be a little broken though, judging from the crazed laughter slowly bubbling out of him. He might be a lot broken – James didn't know or care. It seemed that he had moved beyond caring where his brother was concerned. At least for today. Tomorrow maybe he'd return to hating him. Today the only thing he cared about was what Francis knew. And Francis didn't know anything.

But was it a good thing that he knew nothing? James didn't have an answer for that. He had come for answers. But the answers he'd got hadn't been the ones he'd expected. And his prime suspect had now been struck off his list.

Which meant he realised as he walked back to the car, he had a whole new enemy to worry about. And maybe a brother whose mind had completely broken.

Francis' hysterical laughter had grown in volume by the time he reached the car, echoing around the camp like that of some crazed hyena. It was having an effect. The prisoners were all turning away from him. Some were all but cowering. They might not know what he'd done, but they knew it was bad. And the warden was staring at him with a look of unmitigated horror in her eyes. Her guards had obviously told her what they'd found. She'd known that what he had planned was bad. But he had deliberately not told her that he would actually pour the fake petrol over Francis and then throw matches at him. She no doubt had thought he would just threaten him a little.

There was going to be a complaint launched. Maybe several. And then he would have to explain what he'd done to the elders.

James sighed. Will was going to be upset. The whole office was probably going to be upset. The German was going to have words to say to him about it as well. Probably the elders were going to call him to account. But still they had their main suspect crossed off their list in only a matter of hours. That had to count for something. And no doubt the tales of his cold cruelty would once more be spread far and wide.

The Iceman had struck again.

Chapter Seven

James sat at his desk reading and rereading reports and growing ever more frustrated. They had nothing. Every report they'd illegally pirated from the police and the other agencies dealing with the explosion told him that. But that was because those agencies had nothing either. They were baffled. Nor did the Illuminati seem to have any special skills or powers that could change it. The computer on his desk like the laptop in his car was the latest in IT, but no matter how good the equipment was, it couldn't show him any better reports than what they already had. The ergonomic white plastic desk and office chair could provide comfort to his back and hold his papers off the floor, but they couldn't give him a single useful answer. The brilliant ceiling lights showed up everything except the truth. And the latest generation phones brought him nothing he wanted to hear.

As for his colleagues, they were just as frustrated. It wasn't their fault. They were all good at what they did, and they all worked hard. But this just wasn't what they normally did. In the end they weren't really cops.

West looked after keeping the unruly in line and keeping everything covered up. He had the magic of prognostication – at least a little. He could see the potential futures that arose from his actions which gave him an edge. He always knew what to do to smooth a situation over. What to say was another matter as the man perpetually seemed to have one if not both feet in his mouth. Still, give him a wizard having a tantrum and he could straighten him out. A mad bomber was something else.

Peters worked with him, backing him up when he needed it. But his gift lay in wards and runes. He'd laid some of the protective enchantments on James. He was also a walking encyclopaedia on magic. While James would have simply called his attacker a mega, Peters would have been able to pin point every aspect of his gift and given them a detailed report on what he could and couldn't do. But only if he'd had the person or at least a body to work with. A few images of a giant weren't enough.

And then there was Daniels who fairly much ran what they called intelligence. He looked after the IT stuff and dealt with the technical side of things. If you needed a computer to do something or required some sort of scientific test done he was your man. Unfortunately he was also one of those who believed in being over-dressed for every occasion and most days he wore a three piece suit and brightly polished shoes. His wardrobe had to cost a fortune. Maybe even as much as Yasmin's. But his magic was a strange one. He had the gift of secrets. With Daniels around there was no such thing as a secure password. Maybe that was how he afforded his clothes.

Unfortunately the best computer in the world couldn't help if it didn't have something to analyse.

And Yasmin tapping away at her keyboard couldn't help either. Her meta magic was useless at this, and despite being perhaps the best qualified of them all academically she couldn't magically find something where there simply wasn't anything to find. In fact she'd all but given up on the advanced search engines and databases, and was now going through the paper files looking for the man. No algorithms. No search engines. She was just literally looking through every photo they had on file of every single witch or wizard in America in the hope that eventually she'd find the one that matched the giant who'd attacked him.

James had to give her credit for her dedication.

He hated this place. He disliked it normally which was why he spent as much time as he could out in the field, but for the last two days he'd been stuck in this office and his hatred of it had grown exponentially. In his mind the office was a victory of style over substance. There was plenty of style here. It was ergonomic, designed beautifully and even showed elements of artistry. But there was absolutely nothing of substance.

If he'd been back in his old job, sitting at his tin legged desk covered in files, putting up with the noise and the bad air conditioning (not to mention the appallingly uncomfortable chairs) he would have at least been
doing
something. He would have been chasing down leads, running down suspects, hitting the streets looking for information. He would have been doing something useful instead of simply sitting around waiting for stolen reports to arrive in his inbox.

Of course if he'd been in his old job the chances were that he would have known nothing about magic, so solving the case would have been next to impossible anyway. And he wouldn't have had the resources to send Matti away to a specialist boarding school where she could be properly looked after. As for his little trick with the fake petrol and his brother – that would have got him fired or at least suspended. Thus far he'd heard nothing from Will save that there had been complaints.

If he was honest though, it was the case that was angering him.

Progress was slow. James would have said glacial but that would have been unfair so early in the investigation. Still, they hadn’t learnt a lot. Or rather they had learnt quite a lot, but none of it led anywhere.

The man's face had been caught on several phones. James had spent hours staring at it. He’d enlarged it and used filters and software to enhance it, but it had been a wasted effort. They still had no idea who he was. Facial recognition had come up blank. Fingerprints had been found on the gun and the spent clip. But they weren't in the system – the man wasn't a known criminal. And DNA was out because they didn't have a body. The man had been vaporised along with two paramedics. An explosion that hot and powerful didn't leave much behind. Naturally they hadn't found any ID. And while the police were launching an appeal for information, somehow James knew that that too would come up short.

James had already gone through every case he'd been involved in since joining the Illuminati, and in not one of them could he find the man's face. Nor a giant of any sort.

And though the police were still looking, none of the videos could even tell them where the man had come from. They couldn't seem to back track his movements. It was almost as though he'd just arrived on the street, ready to meet him.

Perhaps he had? There was magic in the world after all. There were some who could bend light and so appear and disappear out in the open. There were others who could twist dimensions. But really, he wouldn't have thought the man was either of those. His size and his strength suggested that his gift was something else. Something of the physical. And most of the gifted only had one or two gifts, and they were normally closely related. James would have placed him as a mega of some sort. Not a dimension twister like Corinth.

Any other leads were just as sparse. Despite two days of swabbing and analysis they still had no explosive signature for the bomb. Just normal organic residues. Nor did they have so much as a piece of the device. Not a wire. Not even an explosive wrapper. In short they had no idea what sort of bomb it was or how it had been triggered.

As for the gun its serial number told him that it was a perfectly legal fifty calibre hand gun bought at a gun show out of state. Exactly the same as a million other weapons. Bought by a Mr John Smith. Clearly no one had been too interested in checking ID's. But in any case the gun was six months old and had been involved in no gun crimes as far as they knew. It told them nothing, he thought glumly.

Some of that disappointment must have shown on his face.

“Chin up caveman. You may be an antediluvian throw back, but the rest of us are well and truly up to date with computers and magic. We'll find the bad guy and get this sorted. After that you can go back to your caveman ways. Perhaps then you’ll be able to beat up some wizards.” Yasmin abruptly walked past him with a mug of coffee in one hand, a huge cream filled doughnut on top of it, and a sheaf of reports in her other hand.

James wasn't quite sure why she was there. Her role was more involved in prisoner handling and transport. And dealing with Warden Jones who he gathered she had seen a lot of in the last few days. Her meta magic gave her a useful advantage in that side of things. But he guessed it was a case of all hands to the pumps. On the other hand she was obviously upset with him about something. He wondered what he'd done this time.

“You mean you're good at reading reports illegally downloaded from the NYPD's computers. I'm the detective here.” James was tired, and in no mood for her. Especially when he'd read all those reports himself and knew they said nothing. But he was thinking that the coffee looked good.

“And that's enough of the caveman shit too.”

“Oh I'm sorry. Did that hurt your feelings? After what you did to your brother?”

She turned around to stare at him with venom in her eyes and he knew what was bothering her. The warden was rubbing off on her. All this talk about prisoner rights. It was too much. These people were dangerous. They couldn't be treated like normal prisoners.

“I did what I had to do,” he told her tiredly.

“You left your own brother a basket case!”

James decided not to say anything. It would be best. This was an argument he wasn't going to win. And besides, she herself was a witch. She had magic and this was her world. Naturally she had sympathy for others like her. Unfortunately even silence wasn't going to help him as she had more to say.

“And what did you call me barely three weeks ago? The office house plant – decorative but with not a lot going on upstairs!?”

“I, er – what?” Had he said that?

“Senility galloping in?”

“I don't think I said that –” But then James had to think about it. “… exactly.”

He dimly recalled a conversation like that. It was a while ago and he remembered making some kind of scathing comment. He might have said it. In passing. To someone in the office. He didn't exactly remember. But he did remember that at the time she'd been making some foolish speech about respecting prisoner's rights. It was noble, he might have agreed with her once. But ultimately it was misguided. Certainly not when it came to the magical. “But if I did I apologise.”

Yasmin's response was an untranslatable noise followed by her walking off angrily to her desk in the far corner. He guessed she wasn't too happy with his apology.

“Chin up Yasmin. Take it as a compliment. The man likes his pot plants!” West butted in, laughter in his voice.

“Yeah! That's why he's so mellow all the time!” Peters, his ever present partner in crime, threw in his own little bit of wit before starting to bray like a donkey.

James groaned. He was tempted to call after Yasmin that at least he'd said she was decorative – but he resisted the urge. Somehow he suspected that would not go down well. Even he knew that much when it came to women. He didn't seem to know a lot else though. Something that was immediately obvious when he could see other people around the office laughing at him. He wondered which one of them had told her what he'd said.

“Heads up guys. Walters has just called in.”

Daniels walked into the office, looking every bit the sharply dressed detective he wasn't. James knew an instant of complete disdain for him. He could never be a policeman. What was this fixation everyone here had with dressing up like models? But he held it in. If Walters had finally been able to see the crime scene they had something new.

Walters was a meta like Yasmin, but his gift differed a little in its focus. Most metas could identify and take control of only a certain range of magics. But Walters had a slightly different ability. Though his gift for controlling them was more limited, he was a bloodhound when it came to spotting magic. Any type of magic. And not just the smell of the magic in people and what they cast, but also the smell of a spell long after it had been cast. There was a reason he was so highly valued within the intelligence group. The man was a walking crime scene examination lab for the gifted.

Unfortunately he wasn't actually a crime scene examiner and he didn't work for the police which meant it took a concerted effort to get him near a crime scene or a body. Often they ended up giving him a fake identity and credentials, but it was tricky. There were so many different crimes scenes, so many bodies to examine, and if the same guy kept appearing at all of them with different names someone would eventually notice. This time they'd tried to dress him up as an ATF agent with a speciality in bombs.

“He finally got to walk the crime scene and he says that the reports are correct. There is no explosive. We're looking for a detonator.”