A room leading off the parlor was cordoned off and guarded by two officers. James led the way to them, and they stepped aside so we could pass. I pulled in a deep breath when I saw what they’d been guarding—a young blonde woman dressed to the nines lay sprawled on a gold brocade settee. The first thing I noticed was that she really was a putrid shade of green. James hadn’t been exaggerating.
I sent out magical feelers hoping to find the artifact and was both sad and relieved when I picked up a small magical signature coming from her. It felt foreign and was, without a doubt, dark, confirming that she was a victim of my mistake. When I started to move toward her, Luther put his arm out to stop me.
“Wait a minute, please,” he said, then went still, his gaze roaming over her.
I felt a strange wave of magic that I’d come to recognize as his. While he did that, I scammed the rest of the room. Crystal champagne glasses and porcelain plates holding partially eaten hors d’oeuvres and slivers of cake sat on every surface, but I didn’t see anything out of place with either my eyes or my magic.
After a few seconds, the strange magic dissipated and Luther nodded. “It’s clear. The artifact isn’t on her, though. All I sense is traces of magic, not the source.”
“Same,” I said, disappointed. I’d hoped it would be easy, but I should have known better. I moved closer to the body. Her tongue protruded from her mouth, and her blue eyes were vacant, not that I’d expect anything different. This was the first real dead body I’d ever seen, and I was glad I didn’t do something stupid like tossing my shrimp up on the Oriental rug.
I wondered idly if it was normal for me to be so clinical. I knew she’d been a person, but I was more intent on her coloring and the traces of magic.
“Do you recognize it?” I asked Luther, but he shook his head.
“No. It’s not any magic I’ve ever felt before, but I can say that it’s not the good kind.”
I poked at the magic to see what it would do, but it was like poking at smoke. It was just residue, not actual magic. Like Luther, though, it felt ugly and dark to me.
“Well?” James asked. “Is it here?”
I shook my head. “No, but it was, and it’s what killed her.”
He huffed out a breath. “And you’re sure it’s not still here? Isn’t there some kind of hoodoo that you can do to track it?”
“She’s a witch, not an all-knowing being,” Luther said. Though he frowned, his words didn’t have much animosity in them. It was there, but he was trying. “If we could do that, we wouldn’t just be sitting around waiting for the next one to kill somebody.”
“That’s all you’re doing?” James asked, his face incredulous. “You know these things are out there, and that’s the best you can do?”
“Yes, James,” I said, examining her closer as I tamped down my own irritation. “It’s the best we can do. We’ve been trying to track them down by human means—putting the word out locally, placing notices in the paper, and offering rewards on the website. So far, we’ve got nada. One person came forward with a couple items, but that’s it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, drawing in a deep breath and releasing it. “I’m still wrapping my head around all this, but I thought you’d be able to ... I don’t know, summon it or something.”
I let that go in favor of doing something productive rather than giving him a remedial lesson in magic. Though I didn’t agree with Luther that we should work around him rather than with him, I did agree that it was best to offer information about magic on a strict, need-to-know basis for his protection as well as our own. If we just spilled all the beans, the council would be much less understanding. Risk mitigation.
I looked for any indication of what the item might have been. Sometimes cursed objects left physical marks such as black spots, but aside from the discoloring, nothing stood out except that it wasn’t just her face that was green. It was her whole body. Her red nail polish against it created a macabre Christmas-esque image.
“I’m not experienced with dead bodies, but is that a typical expression?” I asked. I hadn’t really noticed until now, but she looked madder than a wet hen.
“No,” James said. “Every body I’ve ever seen had no expression. Or at least not one like that.”
“It’s not abnormal in the magical world,” Luther replied, “especially not with curses. I think we’ve seen all we need to. Let’s go talk to the women who were with her when she died.”
“Is it safe for my team to take the body out now?” James asked. “I held off because I figured you’d want to see her, and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t, like, toxic or anything.”
Luther nodded. “That was a good call, but yes. In this circumstance, there’s no cause for alarm.”
“What do you mean, in this circumstance?” James asked, studying Luther’s face.
“Because the artifact isn’t here. If it were, it could have hurt somebody else. We don’t know what it is or how the curse was triggered, so there’s no way to tell yet if it’s deadly to everyone or just a subset of people. And you were also right that she could have been toxic, to use your term. Please make that standard procedure going forward.”
The part that he didn’t offer was that since we didn’t know much about the curses yet, it was entirely possible that the residual magic could harm somebody who even touched the body.
James started to say something else but snapped his mouth shut. After a moment, he pulled the CB radio that was hooked on the shoulder of his uniform
