KDBookOnline
Share Us
Heaving a sigh, I retrieved my gloves from my backpack and approached the hand-sized black and white lemur.
I determined the poor thing starved, making it easy prey for me. Once I caught it, it cried and wiggled in my hand but didn’t try to bite. Petting soothed it, and I resumed my journey home to discover Cecilia coming down the steps.
“Ah, good timing. I had enough time to pick up the phone. I gave it a data plan so you can use it for your research.” Her gaze fell onto the lemur. “Ah. Another one of those. I swear, they went a little too far this time.”
While I agreed, I could defuse her curiosity readily enough. “I’ll take this one to the titanium dragons in the morning. They’re sending them back to their habitat or a conservatory for them.” I smiled at the little critter with its huge eyes in its tiny face. “I did find something relevant to your situation.”
The good humor left the woman’s expression. “What did you learn?”
“You aren’t the only one having problems, and the weapon seems to be the same. A serial attacker, although I’m not sure if it’s the same person. It could be a group. I have to do more research, but I don’t think this person or these people are targeting just your women. It seems to be a city-wide problem.” I wrinkled my nose. “And the person behind it is probably aware of the rocky relationship between the brothels and the police, so they are bolder than someone might otherwise be.”
“It disturbs me how logical and sensible that is.”
“Not all criminals are stupid, and not all of them are mentally ill. Some are just terrible people who enjoy making others suffer. And those are the most dangerous of all, because the police can’t rely on them to be stupid to close the case.” I joined her in making a disgruntled expression. “I don’t know if this one is smart or not. At first glance, I would think smart; he picked the perfect demographic to target. Brothel matrons don’t tend to have a cooperative spirit.”
“We compete. But we absolutely will cooperate if we feel we must for the sake of our women. Not all of us, of course. Some are only in it for the money.”
At the end of the day, people remained people, and greed motivated many. “I’ll look into it and see what I can find, but there have been attacks all over the city. The only thing that tipped me off was a brief mention of the blade in one of the news articles I read.”
“Craft blades are not stereotypical murder weapons,” Cecilia murmured.
“They’re really not. There’s likely something going on beneath the surface we don’t understand yet.”
Necromancers, for example, might be able to gain a decent harvest from victims with a prepared blade. While I hadn’t looked deep into the art of necromancy, I’d learned enough to get a better feel for why my abilities would be interpreted to be necromancy.
The line between a necromancer and a healer thinned every time I learned more, with one key distinction: the necromancers worked for themselves instead of for others.
I believed they could heal if they changed their ways or redirected their power. They challenged death, just like healers. They sought to control death, just like healers.
In reality, necromancers earned their reputation for what they did to the dying rather than to the dead. I’d never heard of any necromancer making a corpse get up to do their bidding. I had heard of necromancers peeling the truth out of a dying body, using a mix of torture and magic to gain power along with knowledge.
I could understand how people might mistake my ability to understand a wound’s history as necromancy.
“You look troubled,” Cecilia murmured.
“I am troubled.” I petted the lemur before shrugging. “Until I have a chance to look deeper into the situation, I’ll keep my speculations to myself. Right now, all I have is a long list of possibilities and nothing of substance to back those possibilities. But the news gave me more information than I’d expected. A good and a bad thing, really.”
“You don’t know if the news can be trusted.”
“I trust in the attacks happening, and I hold some faith that the weapon was described accurately enough, but the rest of it is uncertain. And since talking to the other women isn’t really feasible without potentially tipping off the culprit of our activities, it’s best to remain silent.”
“At least for now.”
I nodded my agreement.
“Do you think you can solve this case, truly?”
Had I been in Miami, had I still worn a badge and uniform, I may have expressed confidence in myself and those I worked with. Could one person, alone, find a killer without any resources or help?
I didn’t know.
Sometimes, telling the truth hurt. “I really don’t know. It depends on so many different things. But I can promise I will try. If I don’t, who will?”
“No one, likely,” Cecilia whispered.
“I’ll do my best to get to the bottom of this,” I promised. Perhaps I wouldn’t be able to secure justice, but I might be able to deter the culprit enough to win the brothel women of Dragon Heights some peace.
It would have to be enough.