“That reminds me,” I said. “Is everyone okay? I couldn’t help but notice that a couple of people didn’t come through unscathed.” I then mentioned Reverb and Mariner.
“They’re fine,” Rune assured, “as is Static, who got jabbed in the leg with a spear.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Guess some people are just stoic about getting a knife in the eye.”
Rune laughed. “You have to understand — that wasn’t even a light skirmish for an Incarnate. For Mariner, that was probably akin to playing with a kitten and accidentally getting scratched.”
I pondered on that for a moment, and then asked my next question. “So what happened to them — the statues, I mean. One moment, they were all around; the next, they were in pieces.”
“That was Reverb,” Rune answered. “He spoke.”
I looked at him in surprise. “He destroyed them with his voice?”
“Yeah. Frankly speaking, you’re lucky to be alive. Fortunately, Reverb had the presence of mind to turn away from you so that his words weren’t uttered in your direction. Still, there aren’t many outside of Incarnates who can claim to have heard his voice and lived.”
“Well, it’s not like I got away without a scratch,” I reminded him. “Reverb’s voice almost rattled my teeth out of my skull. Tell him to use his inside voice next time instead of shouting.”
“Ha!” Rune laughed. “That wasn’t a shout. That was a whisper — and a barely audible one, at that.”
I blinked, taken aback by the implications of Rune’s statement. Needless to say, if that was a whisper, I didn’t want to be anywhere around if Reverb ever decided to speak in a normal tone.
“So,” I said, getting my mind back on track, “was it also Reverb who made the shattered statues start glowing?”
“No, that was the murderer,” Rune declared. “I brought us back to our suite just before the remains of our attackers exploded.”
“Okay,” I droned, mulling that over. “I understand what happened now, but why step up his game and try to kill everyone at the end by blowing us up?”
Rune shook his head and gave me a patronizing look. “Did you forget? The killer is an Incarnate. He was in there with us.”
I reflected for a moment on what that meant. “So you’re saying he wasn’t trying to kill everyone in that explosion?”
“Correct. The explosion was intended to destroy the room where Gamma was killed. Using your bomb squad analogy, it’s like destroying the crime scene, as well as any evidence like bomb fragments, debris, and shrapnel.”
“Wow,” I muttered. “You’re better at this detective stuff than you let on.”
“Not really,” he confessed. “This was just one of those times when it was easy to put two and two together.”
“Still, that explosion only happened minutes ago.”
“Enough time to figure out that we wouldn’t be able to recreate the scene of Gamma’s death again. Figuring out the rest was kind of elementary after that.”
“And extremely helpful,” I noted. “Since we know that the murderer basically set up the ambush and booby-trapped the room, maybe we can trim the list of suspects by figuring out who has an alibi with respect to those things.”
“I already know the answer to that,” Rune declared. “No one.”
“Huh?” I mumbled, confused.
“No one has an alibi,” he stated.
Chapter 21
I looked fixedly at Rune for a moment before speaking.
“Bearing in mind what just happened in the room where Gamma died,” I said, “are you honestly telling me there’s no one we can exclude from our list of suspects?”
He let out a sigh of exasperation. “It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is,” I countered. “Let’s just take it from the top, starting with who knew that you were planning to reverse engineer the crime scene.”
“Everybody,” Rune stated. “We planned on everyone participating, so they all knew.”
“And who knew when it would happen?”
“Again, everybody. You can’t have participation if the participants don’t know when to show.”
“So, between you telling them about it and the actual showtime, who had an opportunity to set something up?”
“This is where it gets complicated,” Rune explained. “Look behind you.”
Frowning, I turned around — and then stared in surprise. There, leaning against the back wall, was Rune. However, rather than his current garb, this version of my companion was dressed as a stereotypical cowboy. He wore jeans, a leather vest, cowboy boots, and a ten-gallon hat. (And just to complete the picture, he had a wheat straw sticking out of his mouth.) Smiling, he raised a hand and tipped his hat to me.
Somewhat dumbfounded, I spun back around to find the “original” Rune still in place. I opened my mouth to speak, but Rune held up a palm in my direction, cutting me off.
“Wait for it…” he droned.
A second later, Mariner appeared at a spot about ten feet to Rune’s right. Quite honestly, I was surprised that he appeared hale and whole — not like a guy who’d had a blade in his eye just a few minutes earlier. (In fact, I had mentally envisioned him sporting an eye patch the next time I saw him. Instead, the only thing different about his present appearance was that his coat was open, revealing sculpted pecs and abs, along with water-formed trousers.)
Mariner gave Rune a steely look. In all honesty, I don’t even think he realized I was in the room.
“Really?” Mariner said. “We were even, but you want to start things up again by hurling lightning bolts around my quarters? Use them to etch your name on the ceiling?”
“Sorry,” Rune said flatly, not sounding sorry at all. “That was an accident.”
“Oh, yeah?” Mariner grumbled. “So’s this!”
He gestured, and something like a pike — but made of water — flew at Rune, who batted it aside. Unfortunately, he swatted it in my direction.
Acting on instinct, I phased as the water-pike broke into pieces — all of which came hurtling at me. Reflecting on what had
