Urban Fantasy

The murder of an elf was always a bit of a tragedy given how long they could live. It also came with a bunch of extra paperwork I could do without.

The poor guy in front of me had recently expired from what looked like multiple puncture wounds in his chest from a short bladed knife. Judging by the drag marks on the alley floor was positioned against the dumpster where his friend had found him before calling us.

Said friend was further away giving their official statement to a uniform who was doing their best to make sure they stayed just out of sight of the corpse.

The click of shoes on the floor behind me preceded my partner, a freshly minted detective constable I was supposed to be taking under my wing. "Another elf corpse Dave? You'd think with all the experience they have they wouldn't be stupid enough to head down a dark alley at night."

"Well Annabelle, that's where you'd be wrong. Live as long as these folk do and you'll begin to think you're a bit untouchable. They can be mighty arrogant at times."

"Fair enough. What's the story on this unfortunate soul?"

I crouched down to get a better look at the body. "His friend says that he stepped out of the pub just down there for a quick smoke break from their drinking and poetry session and when he didn't return after a while they went looking only to find him here."

"I'm assuming given where we are there's nothing helpful like a camera or witness?"

I pulled a pen from my jacket and used it to lift open the tattered flap of clothing on the body's chest. "Wrong place and wrong time for anything so helpful. Even so, there's something odd about this. It doesn't feel random and yet these wounds look too mechanical and clean for it to be personal."

Anna crouched down next to me to look at the wounds. "Could be a professional hit. Maybe pretty boy pissed off the wrong person?"

I looked around us, seeing nothing out of the ordinary for where we were but something nagged at me. "Maybe. Does this alley feel a bit heavy to you? Like the air is a little thicker?"

Anna stood up and surveyed the location with me. "Now that you mention it, it does feel a little more oppressive than it should."

After putting the pen away I pulled my phone out. "We're going to need a tech here I think. Something stinks about this and it isn't the bin."

"Hold on that call for a moment Dave. Let me try something first," Anna said as she shrugged off her coat and passed it to a nearby uniform before rolling up one of her sleeves.

The phone went back into my pocket and I watched as Anna used a marker pen to draw some symbols on her exposed forearm. The final symbol drawn ran down onto the back of her hand and looked like a stylised arrow head.

She looked up at me and said, "stand back a touch. I roomed with some fae in uni and they taught me a little bit of magic when they heard what job I was aiming for."

Once Anna could see I was clear of her area she said a few strange words and made a few arm movements finishing with her pointing at the floor in front of the body. It only took a few seconds and at the end the symbols moved down and then off of her arm, collecting in a ball before expanding out and fading away.

As the spell completed the alley near the body lit up like a christmas tree. Seven lines of sigils picked out in the air like neon signs tracked away from where the body was placed.

Anna looked extremely please with herself. "Look at that! Might not have used it much but the skill never went away."

On the other hand, I was less than pleased about this revelation. "As fine a job as you just did piercing the veil for us, you did also just reveal a whole extra problem. That glowing stuff is raw aether and it takes something or someone powerful to shape it like that."

Slightly crestfallen, Anna grabbed her coat back from the uniform and put it on. "Shit. That means we need the warlocks doesn't it."

My phone was in my hand and I was dialling as quick as I could. "It does indeed. I really hope the Superintendant's awake right now."