There were no hellhounds on the way to the first reported incident. Russ was grateful for it; he’d stiffened up in the time he spent watching the video of the hellhound summoning, and while he made certain to stretch before he got into the car, he just knew he’d pick up worse injuries if he had to fight again. Hr might be “healed” but he wasn’t fully recovered.

Also, he was just plain too old for this. He wasn’t ready to completely hand over field work to the younger generation, but he knew the time was approaching quickly. In better times, he’d have spent twenty years training his replacement and retired when he found his own trainee. Unfortunately, he’d never found anyone before Thomas became Serenity and then everything changed.

Perhaps he shouldn’t call those times better. For all the upheaval more magic had brought, it also brought opportunity. Yes, he was busier than ever, but he was no longer alone and he no longer had to hide what he did. Brown and Quincy weren’t really suited to his work, and Serenity had other things he needed to be available for, but maybe he should look for an apprentice among the delvers. Some of them would probably fit.

Or maybe his job wasn’t really even needed anymore? If magic was common enough, it would be considered as part of the normal police duty, wouldn’t it? Maybe he was a relic of a previous age and it was time to fade into the sunset. It would certainly lead to less injury.

Russ turned his attention to the scene outside the car. It was an ordinary day. Nothing caught his eye immediately.

Then he noticed that all of the trash bins were on their sides. “There hasn’t been high wind, has there?”

“No, there hasn’t.” Quincy sounded positively grim as she slowed down. “This is the area where the first hellhound was reported, or at least there was a report of something knocking things over. The report said a bear, but when officers responded…”

Russ winced. He could fill in the blanks. It probably wasn’t pretty. With luck, they’d just need more healing than he’d needed; without luck, they’d never need healing again. By now, it was clearly taken care of; they wouldn’t be out here if that one wasn’t handled. The trick was figuring out where it came from.

The car slowly followed the trail of destruction backwards. It was a block and a half before they noticed the damaged house. The house had a large pair of windows set next to each other that looked out onto the front porch, but most of the glass was missing and the bar that ran between the two windows was bent.

Once they were out of the car and approached the house, it was clear that the window was busted out from the inside; almost all of the glass was on the concrete in front of the window and the support was twisted out and to the side. It looked like something went through the window that was either large or moving at high speed, but it wasn’t possible to tell how many.

Russ called on his soulblade while he waited for Brown to beat on the door a few times, shout, then break it down. If he were alone, he’d have gone in through the broken window, but he knew from experience that his companions liked using doors. Even if he did use a door, Russ was more inclined to cut the bolt with his soulblade than to break it down, these days; of course, he had a soulblade. That made a huge difference.

When the doorframe splintered and the door opened, Brown hurried in first. Russ shook his head and followed. He’d never managed to teach Brown to let him go first; the man simply wouldn’t accept that there were some threats he was less able to face than other people. It was a good thing he’d picked up some combat Paths with some useful defensive Skills over the past few years; they might not keep him alive, but they’d help. They already had.

The world had changed so much recently; maybe it really was time to retire and let the young folk take over.

There was no sign of fighting other than the broken window in the front room, but bloody pawprints led the way into the living room. It held a large table with several boxes on it; several had also been pushed off the table, probably by angry hellhounds. One of them held something that looked a lot like shattered pottery. Russ would have to look at it later, but he’d already bet that it had been sectioned into careful pieces, then later broken when it fell off the table and had a hellhound land on it.

There was a long moment where Russ didn’t want to look at the final destination of the bloody pawprints, but he knew he had to. It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared; there was only one person and he’d clearly died without putting up a real fight. It was still bad enough that Russ hated the fact that he had to see it again. He’d likely see it in his dreams for a while.

An older man with gray, almost white, hair lay on the ground with his throat ripped out.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The only real good news was that all of the pawprints led towards the window. They’d still have to check the rest of the house, but Russ didn’t expect to find anything. He more than half hoped that the old man lived alone; no family member should have to see this.

It was a hope that was quickly dashed when they made their way upstairs; there were two bedrooms other than the old man’s that seemed occupied. Both appeared to belong to children. As Russ would later find out, they were the old man’s grandchildren: two boys, fourteen and eight years old. Fortunately, they were at school when the old man opened the box.

They checked the rest of the house before Brown started making the calls that would get the site secured and the children picked up by someone who could care for them. Russ took another look at the open box. It was such a small thing to completely destroy three lives.

They were walking back into the office hours later when Quincy brought up the worry that had been niggling at Russ ever since he saw the old man’s body. “I don’t think he had anything to do with the Solomon vase theft.”

“Neither do I,” Russ admitted. “I hope we’re wrong, but I don’t think we are. Do we have the photos of the vase from Rissa’s house yet?”

“I’ll check,” Brown offered. He turned left when Russ and Quincy turned right into the conference room they’d been using as Russ’s office for the past two years.

There was a set of papers sitting on Russ’s laptop. He knew they hadn’t been there when he left. On top of them was a stickynote, one of the ones that was almost a half sheet of paper with a sticky area at the top.

You aren’t working on the investigation of your own house while you’re on medical leave, are you?

You know that’s not allowed. Quincy and Brown will handle everything; you need to just rest and recover. Please don’t try to get electronic access to the case files. You aren’t the only person who can handle this stuff. If we have to, we’ll call in the other old hands.

The note didn’t directly explain the papers under it, but even a simple glance told Russ that their contents directly contradicted the note that was stuck to them. The very top page was a still image taken from the recording of the robot opening the box. It was a clear case of mixed messages; whoever sent this was simply telling him that he couldn’t officially work on figuring out who attacked his family. Unofficially, whoever it was clearly wanted his help.

It wasn’t the first time Russ had worked deniably. It was the first time he’d ever looked into someone who actually attacked him, however; he’d never been attacked at home before. It had always been when he went looking for the problem, not the other way around. In the past, what he’d had to conceal was the fact that magic was involved, not the fact that he was involved.

He’d just have to have Quincy and Brown be his hands. He could already see that the note was hinting him in that direction.

Russ looked through the papers. They were just printouts of photographs, all different views of broken pottery and an oddly scorched broken wood carving. Russ nodded to himself; this was exactly what Red needed. To him, the designs on the pottery could easily have been identical to the designs on some of the Solomon vases; Red would know for certain. She’d also have some ideas about the carving.

He picked up the papers and unplugged his laptop, then stuffed everything except the stickynote in his backpack. He offered the note to Quincy. “Looks like I’m getting sent home. I’ll need a lift.” He’d tell her what else was left for him when they were out of the building; Quincy would easily read the same message into it that he had.

They were less than halfway to Rissa’s house when Brown called Quincy. “Brown? Do you have something for me?”

“Yeah.” Brown sounded oddly gleeful to Russ’s ears. The day so far had not been one that made Russ happy. “We know who the other victim was, a man named Cole Roberts. His address sounded familiar, so I checked my recent files. Wouldn’t you know, he came up recently - his house is one of the ones Mr. Michaelson was supposed to buy. Better than that, one of the other houses on the list? It’s owned by Clarissa Latimer.”

“When did we get that?” Quincy sounded surprised. “I thought he hadn’t talked yet, he was still holding out for a better deal.”

“He is, but the addresses were in his email and that came through yesterday. I think you were at the hospital at the time.” Brown sounded a little less thrilled at the reminder.

Rissa’s house was one of the ones targeted by the man trying to scam people out of their homes? Had he just not gotten to it or had … “Red,” Russ muttered. “Of course she wouldn’t say anything, she wouldn’t want to bother anyone with something minor and people are always trying to buy houses cheap. She always wears protective charms, ones she made for herself; she might not even know he was trying to influence her.”

Russ tried to figure out what that would mean; first of all, he needed to get the new locations to Serenity, in case they changed the map he’d laid out. It probably wouldn’t change the search path.

Wait. Other houses. “Were there other houses on the list?”

“Yeah,” Brown’s voice had lost all of its gleeful energy. “I’ve already talked to the cops; they’re going to send someone to each house to look for a package and try to talk to the residents of each house about both the package and the home buyer; the more evidence we have against him, the better.”