Chapter 20

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Corpsman Olvirsson as he surveyed the scene of the murder. He’d rushed over as soon as Heida called him. “What could have done this?”

I was the only one about; the others were searching the field for more clues.

“Are there bears in the area?” I offered. “Maybe wolves?”

Olvirsson tugged at his beard thoughtfully. “Of course not! This is a tiny island, all things considered! We haven’t got anything bigger than foxes.” He shuddered as he looked over the back half of the ram. “I suddenly wish we did, though. That would be much easier to explain.”

“Perhaps some wild dogs? They’re a problem everywhere.” Devils weren’t fond of man’s best friend; even we couldn’t be rid of the half-feral brutes back home.

“Do you think wild dogs could cleave a sheep in half and carry half of it that far?”

“No, I suppose not. And even if they could, why would they leave half untouched?” I circled the poor beast for what felt like the thousandth time, trying in vain to find a new angle that would reveal its secrets. “Do we know how long it’s been here?”

He scratched at his beard. “My best guess? Less than a day.”

“We have to guess? Surely we can do better than that!”

Henrik shrugged. “If we got local authorities involved, they might be able to do some forensic work. However, I prefer not to bring them in on this.”

“What? Why not? Even if it’s something mundane, it’s definitely dangerous!”

“We don’t want to start a panic.”

I shook my head. “It’s a tad late for that; the locals already see sword-whales in the oceans and trolls under the rocks.”

Henrik considered me a moment. “Let’s take a walk, and I’ll tell you how this game is played.” Before I could respond, he slung an arm over my shoulder, taking us away from the tall grass, back towards the road. “We actually like people being on the lookout and seeing things that aren’t there.”

“Who’s we?”

“The Wizard Corps’ Icelandic Command,” he replied. “Our nation is not on the front lines, and we have never been the front lines. We never had many wizards on hand, and now we have even fewer of them. We’re secure, in theory, but you of all people know how quickly that can change. You’ve seen it firsthand.”

“Absolutely,” I said. Not for the reasons he thought, of course, but it was true enough.

“We don’t want the people getting too complacent. When we’re so isolated, it’s far too easy to think ‘it can’t happen here’. If they think there are old monsters and new threats about, they’ll cooperate better if the Horde does come knocking. Plus, if we check out every report, they think highly of the League and the Corps.”

“That’s all well and good, but there’s definitely something strange afoot here; this seems like the perfect time to warn the populace.”

He shook his head wistfully. “That’s where we have to handle this delicately. Most people aren’t chasing their own shadows. They think the reports of pterodactyls and UFOs are hogwash and being able to think of them that way is a comfort.”

“I think I see your point; the paranoids are an early warning system, and rest can point and laugh at them, as it were?”

“People love to think they’re smarter than their neighbors, and the way the Outreach Office operates lets everybody feel smug.” He gestured back towards the field. “That ram is a wrench in the works. Something cut it in half, dragged it, and skeletonized the rear. The paranoids will demand an explanation, and the rest are suddenly going to have to wonder if the paranoids were right all along.”

“So what’s the plan, then? Sweep it under the rug?” I tapped my chin thoughtfully. “Yamada will be a problem to convince,” I said. “Kowalski will go with the program, I think.”

Henrik’s brow rose at that. “You said that so casually.”

“Did I misunderstand your meaning? My apologies if I did.”

Henrik shook his head. “No, you were right. I just find that a lot of Nagoya students tend to come out a bit more… idealistic than that. I thought you’d take more convincing.”

“I’m here to learn from you, sir.”

He chuckled to himself. “You’re earning top marks, then. We’ll keep this from the landowner; he doesn’t need to know anything happened to his ram at all. Let him think it wandered off.”

“Coverup or no, I think we need to make some effort to figure out what’s going on,” I said.

“Of course,” he said. “Asahi says you have solid magic reserves; we can put those to use. Follow me and I’ll show you a useful toy.”

We returned to the ram’s front half, and Henrik pulled out a fabricata that resembled a cricket bat from his pack. “Run some magic through this, and wave it over the body.”

“What’s it for?”

“It’ll tell us if we’re dealing with anything demonic,” he replied. “It can detect the residue from demonic spells.”

I gulped. “I-interesting, I didn’t know there were fabricata that could do that. What are they detecting, exactly?” I had to keep him talking; otherwise, he might notice my perspiration.

“You’ll get the full details in an advanced magical theory class at some point, but I’ll give you a quick overview. I’m sure you’ve noticed that when a magical structure is dispelled, there’s a discharge of sparks? We call that the residuum of the spell. It vanishes just about instantly, but the residuum lingers.”

“O-oh, does it? How fascinating. I hadn’t realized; it’s not like you can see the stuff.” I once again cursed Girdan and my other demonic teachers for teaching me so damned little about magical theory. I thought that one of my human doctors had mentioned demonic residuum accumulating in scars once, but I had been more worried about keeping my secret than learning from them.

“You’re a wizard, Marlowe. You should know there’s more to this world than the visible. Think of residuum almost like magical radiation. It decays over time.”

“And I imagine you can tell the residuum of a human from a demonic spell?”

Henrik nodded once, beaming at me with his yellowed teeth. “Exactly! What’s interesting is that human residuum is more ephemeral, but demonic magic can last for months or years in the environment.”

“Is it dangerous?”

He laughed once. “You usually have to worry more about the spell itself. Still, the residuum itself only seems to be a problem if the original spell hits you.”

I shuddered, remembering Mariko’s arm. It also explained why Haru Obe had been in a coma for a month after I’d hit him with a Bloody Lance. I’d known that human bodies took time to get over demonic spells, but now I had a mechanism to assign to it.

I gasped as I recalled the times I’d used Electrify to knock out Rose, or when I’d cured Kiyo with All Heal. What had I done to them? There didn’t seem to be any lingering effects… but how long would those take to emerge? Something else awful I did to those poor girls.

“Are you alright, Marlowe? You look ill.”

“Perfectly fine, sir,” I said, almost managing to sound like I meant it. “I suppose we’d best carry on.” I bloody knew what he was going to find, and I didn’t see a way to dissuade him from trying. It was best to bite the bullet and act surprised.

“Care to do the honors?” He handed me the paddle handle first, which I accepted. “If you’ve been to the airport, it’s a bit like the magnetic detectors they use there. Wave it over something, and it’ll light up if it detects demonic residuum.”

I let out a resigned sigh and willed magic into it. I’d had the foresight to look away from the wand, and I could still see the brilliant, golden flash through my closed eyes.

“Helvítis hóra!” Henrik stumbled about, cradling his head in his hands. “Shut it off! Shut it off!”

“Sir?”

“Give me a moment,” he said, blinking away the dots from his eyes. “What in God’s name was that? It’s like somebody’s using demonic magic as we speak!”

“Which is completely absurd,” I said in a hurried tone.

“Of course it’s absurd!” he spat. “Don’t state the darned obvious! Hand that over and look away.”

He activated the fabricata again, and another blinding flash dazzled my closed eyes. “Useless piece of junk! It must be faulty.”

“Clearly,” I said, taking it from his quivering hands.

“What’s going on over here?” Heida led the way, with Kowalski and Buddy bringing up the rear. “You’re screaming like we’re under attack.”

I waved the paddle in the air, being careful not to so much as think about magic. “Faulty detection fabricata.”

Heida’s gave me a curious look, and she put her hand on her hip. “What are you detecting?”

“Demonic residuum,” said Henrik. He had finally recovered enough that he could keep his eyes open. “It’s clearly broken; you’d only get these sorts of results if a demon had just cast a large-scale spell within the last hour.”

Heida’s eyebrow arched. “You don’t say.”

“That would be impossible,” said Mariko, looking pointedly at the blonde wizard. “Nothing like that happened. We would have seen it.”

Heida gave me a meaningful look. “I guess it didn’t. We didn’t find anything else strange in the field.”

Kowalski held up his hand. “We found another bike frame; it’s kinda weird that Brandur’s going through so many bikes.” Buddy chewed on it like a dog with a bone.

“Nothing supernaturally strange,” she amended. She locked eyes with her superior. “What’s the plan, Corpsman Olvirsson?”

“We don’t need the whole critter to test it,” said Henrik. “Any of the bones near the cut should have residuum, if it’s there.” He glared hotly at the paddle in my hands. “We’re bound to have at least one functioning detector back at the office.”

“Cadet Kowalski, go get a souvenir from the back end. One of the cut bones, if you can.” He saluted and jogged off. Heida jerked a thumb at Mariko. “Cadet Yamada can destroy the rest of the evidence.”

“I think we ought to tell Brandur that something is amiss,” said Mariko. “If only so he can be wary about it. He may be in danger.”

“Well, aren’t you thoughtful?” said Henrik. “I’m going to have to insist we don’t. We’re trying to avoid a panic. I’m declaring the dead sheep classified.”

“What?” The Japanese girl looked horrified. “You can’t do that!”

“She has a point,” I said, cutting off the others before they could turn it into a tiresome argument. “He’s about to sell his herd.” I held my breath against the stink and bent over, flicking a plastic tag in the animal’s right ear. “He’ll notice if A37 here has gone missing, and he might call the mundane authorities. I think that if we show him this tag and a bone, he can keep a better eye out for the rest.” I nodded meaningfully at Henrik. “If he’s on alert, he might even spot the real culprit. Like you said, the paranoid make a good early warning system.”

“What do we say we saw?’ Henrik pulled at his salt and pepper beard. “Wild dogs?”

“Wild dogs would work,” I replied. “We can even give Kowalski’s Buddy the credit for scaring them off.”

“That shouldn’t raise too much of a worry,” said Henrik. “Sorry, Heida. You won’t be able to say you chased off Fenrir or the like.”

Heida rolled her eyes. “I’ll survive somehow.”

I held out a hand for Mariko. “Come along, my dear. We have a job to do.” I gestured towards the distant haunches of the poor animal and started walking away before Heida or Henrik had a chance to ask why we didn’t take care of the half right before us.

Mariko bit her lip, but took the offered hand. We passed Kowalski on our way back carrying a few disarticulated vertebrae.

It wasn’t much of a walk, though the oppressive silence between us made it feel like a small eternity. As I’d predicted, a bone translator found its way into my grip when we arrived at the back end.

“Hunker down,” I said, squatting onto my heels. “The words won’t travel as far.”

She followed suit, running her fingers across one of the leg bones. “This poor thing. We’re going to vaporize it, like it never existed. I’m sorry, little sheep.”

What, no tears? No cursing an unfair system? Not even revulsion? “You’re taking this better than I expected.”

“I’ve been cooking my own broth since I was seven; I know what bones look like.”

“Then it’s the deception that has you bothered.”

“Actually, no. I expected that. I see that Heida learned it from Henrik. I’m simply…” She trailed off, her words becoming a depressed sigh. “I should get to work, or else they’ll wonder what’s keeping us.” The bones began to flake away one by one as Mariko’s affinity went to work.

“Then I must admit I’m a tad confused,” I said. “Then why am I along?”

“You invited yourself,” she pointed out. “I thought you had something important to tell me.”

“I thought you’d be horribly upset about the skullduggery or need to talk through something that was troubling you.”

She puffed out her cheeks in a pout. “Is that what you think of me? That I always have something to complain about? You make me sound like a basket case!”

It’s called pattern recognition. “Now see here—”

She patted my knee. “Kidding, kidding.” She smiled sweetly up at me. “You’d usually be right. Thank you for stepping in there; Brandur deserves to know about this.”

“I’m simply paying you back, after you saved my bacon with Heida.”

“I’m still in debt to you,” she said.

“How can you still keep on saying that? I left you to die in the Tower!”

Mariko’s eyes widened at the words. “Is that how you see what happened back there?”

“Yes, because it’s accurate! I completely forgot you were there! I don’t see why you can’t seem to figure that out; if I hadn’t remembered at the last moment, I’d have made my escape and…” I couldn’t keep going. I’d been about to escape back to Pandemonium, and I couldn’t very well let that tidbit slide. My body helped keep my secret; my throat felt tight, and I must have been allergic to something in that field. Damn farmer, letting this stupid grass bloom. Never mind we were well outside the growing season, but I needed something else to blame.

Mariko was quiet for a long moment, moving from the larger leg bones down to the smaller pieces. “Do you know what Kiyo always said about you?”

I winced at the mention, but I forced a smile to my face. “That I’m a generous lover?”

Mariko’s face went red. “Y-yes, actually. She insisted on oversharing. Th-that wasn’t…” She found a way to go yet redder. “Magpie, you’re so darned distracting!”

“I imagine she said that, too.”

She shook her head wistfully. “Yes, she said you loved to derail her when she tried to be serious. Yet, despite that, you’re so thoughtful and caring. You keep proving her right.”

My shriveled sense of devilhood sustained the blows with resignation. I’d long since admitted to myself that human weakness had established a beachhead in my heart.

“I still don’t get it, though,” she said. “How somebody like you could jump from being a demonkin to a Holy Brother. It isn’t like you at all.”

My poor devilhood. “Oh, isn’t it? You have an overinflated opinion of me; I can be shockingly selfish.”

“Says the man who came with me in case I happened to be upset.” She giggled musically. “Maybe that’s the problem? You’re so thoughtful that you can get swept up with the wrong people.” Her work done, she reached out and took my hand between hers. “It’s why you’re so easy to—”

“Yamada! Marlowe!” Henrik’s voice deflated the moment like an arrow through a balloon. “That ought to be enough! We still have half a sheep to dispose of!”

I helped her to her feet. “So easy to what?”

Her only response was to turn crimson again and take the translator out of my ear. “N-not important,” she said in her slightly accented English.

So easy to what? Manipulate? Tease? Mess with? Befriend?

Thanks a lot, Henrik. That’s going to bother me for days. I was kilometers from the truth, of course, but I was too foolish to see the obvious answer in front of me.