Hexes and Vexes Read online

  “Oh.” Embarrassing. I shouldn’t have assumed he was trying to take me out.

  Why did I assume that?

  No, Amy. Don’t go there.

  I nod. “You’re, right, Herbert.”

  Ambrose frowns again. “Herbert? Are you… Are you telepathically talking to your stone cat?”

  “He’s giving me advice,” I reason. Even though Herbert can’t actually talk to me, I can imagine what he’d tell me. Since I enjoy Ambrose’s confusion about my animal companion, I tease him a bit more. “About you, actually.”

  “Oh? What does Herbert have to say about me?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I joke. I clap my hands, excited about the prospect of crime pictures. I always thought I’d be great at solving mysteries and now the PPD is finally recognising it. “Photos?”

  “Fine. But if you hurl, please aim for the wastebasket.”

  “I’m not a dainty little flower.”

  “I didn’t say you were, but these images are pretty…” He scratches the back of his head, the concern flickering through his eyes. “I’ve seen lots of them, but these were hard to swallow.”

  “Oh.” I nod, trying to lower some of my walls. I’m so used to people underestimating me or passing me over because I'm quirky and girly, I’ve forgotten how to interact with people without being snarky and defensive. “I’ll be fine, but thanks for your concern.”

  “All right.” He pulls a yellow file from the massive stack and hands it to me. “Of course, the content is confidential.”

  “That's what the NDA was for.”

  I flick the folder open, immediately assaulted with gruesome and somewhat horrific pictures. Blood splatters, mangled flesh, barely discernible features. It’s nothing like the movies or the series I binge-watch at home, those are all pretend and fake blood. These are… Real.

  Despite my confidence, my stomach churns. The next picture shows the male victim’s chest. Someone removed parts of his skin and the exposed flesh forms a strange symbol.

  “W—What’s that?” I ask, gesturing to the lines. “It looks… familiar.”

  “Ah, I’ve figured that out already.” He pulls a page from his printer and holds it out to me. “There. It’s the emblem of an old coven, the fire one. It’s supposed to have no surviving members, we checked. I don’t know the significance of it though.”

  “Strange…” I study the drawing, trying to recall what I know about them. “So it’s a witch-on-witch crime?”

  “Potentially.” Ambrose flips to the next page in the file. “The victim is a witch. Lived an almost solitary life, which is unusual, isn’t it? Don’t you all have covens?”

  “Not all of us, but most…” I flick back through the pictures, sparked by something he said. “Where did this happen? Was it the big mansion near the haunted park with the weird, creepy tree?”

  “It’s a regular park, but yes, it was in a big mansion. How did you know?”

  Dread settles in my stomach. I knew I recognised the house in the pictures. Oh, I hope it’s not true… It can’t be true.

  I ruffle through the pictures until I find the one I was looking for. A big open cabinet with all kinds of gems and other trinkets. Treasures from various covens. There’s only one person who has a collection like this.

  My voice sounds weird to my own ears. “That’s Grandpa Dobromir.”

  “You know him?”

  I tap my finger on the big, purple Amethyst in the picture. “This was a gift from our coven.”

  “So he’s part of your coven?”

  “No.”

  “But he’s your grandpa?” His confusion shows on his face.

  “Technically, he’s not. That’s just what we call him. He’s… He was a nice man.” My jaw clenches as I stare at the mess they made of him. “Strange, but nice. He didn’t deserve this.”

  Ambrose lets out a long breath. “I’m sorry, if I’d known you knew the victim I wouldn’t have consulted you.”

  “You wouldn’t have been able to find a witch that didn’t know, or hasn’t heard of, Grandpa Dobromir. He’s an old hermit but he has connections worldwide to… I think to pretty much every coven there is. He’s an icon.”

  “Are you okay to continue?”

  I gather a breath. It’s thoughtful that he’s checking but I can’t just bail. I believe in justice and the PPD, even if most witches think coven-on-coven crimes should be handled by the Hexagon and not outsiders.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Tell me more about what you know.”

  “All right, if you’re sure. Just tell me when it gets too much,” Ambrose says. “This happened three nights ago. Our necromancer put the time of death at around midnight, about half an hour on either side.”

  “Necromancer?” I echo.

  “Yes, she consults on our biggest cases. There are a few that work with us.”

  “That’s neat. Do they bring the corpses back to life to interrogate them? Or is that an insensitive question?”

  Ambrose chuckles darkly. “That’s not how it works. Believe me, I’ve suggested it. They have a strict code, or so they claim. If you ask me, they’re highly unreliable. Brilliant around death, but unreliable.”

  “Shame. It would make finding killers so much easier.”

  “You’d think.” He licks his thumb and flicks through his notes. “The victim— Dobromir was found by the mailman who snuck a peek through the window. He said the curtains were usually drawn and when they weren’t that morning, he got curious. If it hadn’t been for him, who knows how long he’d been there.”

  “The Post, doing more than just delivering your mail since… I don’t know since when, it’s still a decent slogan.”

  He chuckles but quickly catches himself. “Anyway. The symbolic carving and the extreme violence make it clear that he was targeted. I don’t know if he knew his attacker, but the attacker certainly knew him. This wasn’t random. We found his wand and the sliver next to the body. Both were sent to the lab and they came back as different woods, but each with magic traces on it. So the fragment has to be from the attacker’s wand.”

  I nod, trying to filter the thoughts and put my brain to good use. “Makes sense.”

  “We thought identifying the wand would lead us to the killer.”

  “So why did you end up consulting me?”

  Ambrose shrugs. “Our usual consultant is sick so I did a quick online search.”

  “And I came up ahead of Elmer’s shop?”

  “Yes, you were the first listing.”

  I pump my fist. “Yessss. That online marketing course wasn’t a waste of time.”

  “O...kay.” The detective shakes his head but he looks bemused. “Anything else you have to comment?”

  "It looks… painful.” All of my excitement fades away as I remember why we're here.

  “It was. From the bruising, the lab determined that the flaying was done while the victim was still alive.”

  “Oh, yikes.” Even thinking about it makes my fingers tingle in imaginary pain. Or sympathetic pins and needles. I'm not too sure. Never having been flayed myself, I don't know exactly what it feels like.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty gnarly,” he admits. He quickly closes the file to hide the gruesome pictures and throws it back on the folder pile. “The worst part is that we have no idea who did it.”

  “You didn’t find any DNA or fingerprints?”

  Ambrose shoots me a lopsided smile. “It’s actually very rare to find viable DNA or a set of prints. People nowadays wear gloves and get up to all kinds of tricks, making it extremely hard to get any conclusive results. And that's before magic gets involved.”

  “Oh,” I say, not able to shake the disappointment. Magic should make identification easier though. Everyone's magic has a different, and unique, feel to it. If we find the right person, then we'll know it's them.

  Huh. Looks like Detective Ambrose is going to be stuck with me. I should probably let him know.

  “I know, it’s always
so easy on TV, but the reality is a bit different. Fingerprints smudge and it takes weeks to get results back from the lab, no matter how much you flirt with the staff,” he jokes, but it isn’t enough to change the tone of the conversation. There’s a murderer on the loose.

  I look up at Ambrose, hoping to change the dejected look on his face. “Can I see the sliver of wood again?”

  “I’ve returned it to evidence already. It’ll take a whole lot of paperwork to get it again. You have no ideas how many hoops I had to jump through just so I was able to show you. It’s a bit against protocol and procedure, but it’s our only lead,” he explains. “If we can tie the sliver of wood to the murderer, that’ll greatly help our case.”

  I stare at him. “That’s enough to convict someone? Place them at the scene of the crime?”

  “No, we have to be able to prove that he was there at the right time and without means or motive, a case rarely goes anywhere. However, that’s all stuff we can worry about when we have a viable suspect.”

  “So what do you need from me?”

  “I already got what I needed from you. Your expertise about the wood sliver.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “You insisted on coming.”

  “And I’ve already been useful,” I quip, ignoring his questioning look. “I identified Grandpa Dobromir, didn’t I? Who knows how long it would’ve taken you to figure that out.”

  He pulls a piece of paper from the stack and hands it to me. “Property records of the mansion registered to a Seamus Dobromir. We are competent here at the PPD.”

  I huff. “Okay then. Fine. How about this? Did you know that wands don’t work exclusively for their handler? Sure, most of us lock our wands but there are certain spells that are always usable, even with a locked wand. And it’s easy to hack into it too. So even if you find the wand that this sliver came from, it doesn’t prove who used it or for what. Unless you know an expert that can access a wand’s memory.”

  Ambrose lets out the longest sigh. “Let me guess, an expert like you?”

  “Good guess,” I grin. “If you have the wand, you can check which spells it used recently and if your expert is really good, it’ll show you magic residue as well. That magic residue is unique like DNA.”

  “And that can be used to tie it to the murderer? That’s actually pretty clever.”

  “See, don’t we make a clever pair? So, how do we proceed?” I raise an eyebrow, almost daring him to keep me on board. There's plenty he can do himself as a mage, but this is something only I can. Well, me and a dozen other wandmakers. But the pool is still rather limited.

  “Well, we’ve sent a request to the Centre of Wand Control to request a list of wands and owners that fit the piece of wood left behind, but that was denied.”

  “Shocking,” I reply sarcastically. “The CWC and I have a rocky relationship.”

  “Unsurprising,” Ambrose replies, matching my tone. “We’ll need a warrant to get our information and pray the list isn’t too long.”

  “Or, we can use my connections to find our killer.”

  “And how would that go?”

  “Well… His wand is damaged. With that grade wood, he’d seek out a specialist. Probably where he bought it. We should stake out Elmer’s shop.”

  “And look for… what? We don’t know what he looks like.”

  “I… That’s true. What if we break into Elmer’s and steal his records?” I suggest, earning a glare. I hold my hands up in surrender and wink at him. “Kidding. Just trying to lighten the mood.”

  “Well, I’m not laughing. What he did to Dobromir was heinous and I want to catch this bastard.”

  “Of course. Why can’t you get a warrant?” Don't the judges just sign off on them willy-nilly? I thought all the rejection was TV show drama to up the stakes.

  “We can, we’re just waiting on the lab to certify the sliver of wood as part of a wand but they’re backlogged.”

  “Can I certify it?” I cross my fingers where he can't see them, hoping he'll still let me help. This is personal now I know who the victim is. Grammie would want me to take on this case.

  Ambrose looks at me. “I don’t know, can you?”

  “I might." I shrug. In theory, I know how and have the right qualifications from the CWC. In practice, I don't know if the PPD will let me. "I can look it up?”

  He groans and runs his hand over his tired face. “That’s actually… useful. Well, I’ve got lots of paperwork to do. Here’s my…” He rummages through his stack of files and pulls out a small business card. “My number. Call me if you think of anything and we’ll go from there.”

  I accept the card. “Detective Ambrose, Paranormal Police Department. So Ambrose is your last name?”

  He grunts. “Correct. Don’t ask me about my first name.”

  “Aww… Come on, how bad can it be?” And who am I to judge? My parents named me after a gemstone. The least original kind of name in our coven. For obvious reasons.

  He glares at me. “If you want to keep consulting, you’ll drop it.”

  “Fine, fine.” With a little wave, I take my leave and return to my shop. I'll find out his name another day.

  5

  I stumble over a stool I probably left out at some point. No. Not probably. I must have. Grammie is much more of a neat freak than I am.

  “Amy? Is that you?” a creaky voice asks from the hallway. With a shriek, the door swings open and Grammie steps into the dusty room. “What in Gemstone’s name are you doing here?”

  “Is it that weird that I’m looking for a book?” I'm a little insulted that she thinks the possibility of me reading is odd.

  “You haven’t read any of the manuals I’ve been giving you since you were sixteen," she retorts, but I can hear the affection in her voice.

  This is why I live with Grammie. Kind of. We have our own separate floors for sleeping, but we share a lot of the rooms we actually live in.

  I shrug. “That’s because they’re random, I’m looking for something specific.”

  “What are you looking for?” She steps closer, almost as if she's ready to start looking alongside me.

  A rush of affection floods through me. Grammie always has my back. She's my rock, and I hope I'm hers when I'm not annoying her too much.

  “How to certify a piece of wood as coming from a wand,” I admit. Technically I can do it. But more accurately, I have the paperwork that says I'm allowed to. But that doesn't mean I'm aware of all the steps. If I'm honest about myself, and I always am, I'm the kind of person who likes to work things out as I need them. If I continue working with the PPD, I'm going to be an even more accomplished wandmaker than I already am.

  “Why would you need that?” She doesn't hide the surprise from her voice. I guess I've never seemed very interested in this part of wandmaking before, so it's fair.

  “I’m consulting with the PPD, that’s all I can say.” I trust Grammie with my life, but somehow, I can't see Detective Ambrose being okay with me telling her all the gory details of his murder.

  And I don't want to admit to Grammie that a man she considers to be her friend is dead.

  Grammie makes her signature disapproving noise. “Oh, Amy, Amy, Amethyst.”

  “What?”

  “Just be careful,” she warns, no doubt thinking of how hurt I was the last time the PPD rejected me.

  “I’m always careful. Now, do you know if I can certify a wand?” I ask, hoping she can save me the trouble of searching through all the books.

  “Yes, that was part of your last course at the CWC. You’d know that if you were paying attention,” she tuts. “But the shop isn’t equipped for that kind of work.”

  “Ah, damn it.”

  “Language,” she scolds, wagging her finger in my direction.

  “Grammie, I’m not a child anymore.”

  “Then stop cursing like one. There are more eloquent and colourful ways to voice your displeasure.”

  I make sure not
to roll my eyes. “What kind of equipment would I need?”

  “To certify a wand, you need both the age of the wood and what traces the magic magnifiers left behind. The age is simple, you can tell that with a magnifying glass. The magic is harder. You’ll need laboratory-grade equipment," she explains.

  Thank the precious gems for Grammie. She always has the answer, even when I don't completely know what I'm looking for.

  “Ah, but that’s no help, the labs are all backed up. But we need to get the certification for the warrant. Without it, the case is stuck.”

  How does Ambrose put up with such a slow system? It's already getting on my nerves, and I've been helping him for less than half a day. No wonder he's so grumpy. He just wants to get his work done and all these people are doing their best to stop that.

  She shoots me a mysterious smile. “All in good time, Amy. Let things run its course.”

  “It’s Grandpa Dobromir,” I blurt out, unable to stop myself. “He was killed three nights ago.” Oops. I hadn't meant to tell her that. I want to save her as much pain as possible. She'd have found out in the end anyway, but that isn't the point.

  Grammie’s face goes white as a sheet before she bursts into action and bolts out of the room. “I’ll drive.”

  I run after her, following her down the stairs. “What?”

  “Hurry up,” she calls, waving her wand to lift our coats from the coat holder. She grabs her scarf and makes my jacket float my way.

  I pick it out of the air and pull it on. “Where are we going?”

  “The PPD.”

  The drive takes Grammie five minutes less than me to get us to the parking lot of the PPD. She digs her phone from her colourful purse and chases me out of the car. “Go get the person you’re working with while I call in a favour. Make sure to bring the wood you’re certifying.”

  “But—” What's even going on here?

  “Go on.”

  “Fine.” I slam the door a little harder than necessary and sigh. And people call me bossy. It’s not a mystery where I got it from.

  I march straight through the building towards where the Detective's office is. No one gives me a second glance, so either they know who I am, or people walking in off the street isn't unusual. I hope it's the former.