-14th of June 2022

I had been working on a report for another case, when Claire dropped a huge folder which quickly collapsed and covered my own paperwork on my desk. It was the third time that the same company car had been broken into and Tools were stolen, so my case wasn't exactly high priority, but I was still annoyed at the interruption.

"What are you doing?" I asked her, glancing at the huge amount of paperwork she dropped on my desk with a self-satisfied smirk.

She sat down on the edge of my desk and started to fiddle with the desk toy Daniel made me last year, a little dinosaur out of plaster. "My Job," she answered, her self-satisfied smirk not faltering.

Whenever she said that, it meant that she got me a case she thought I might've been interested in, or that she went above and beyond with what she actually had to do. Much like me, she was prone to over-committing when she deemed it needed.

I snatched my toy from her hand and placed it on the opposite side of the desk from her, not wanting it to get damaged or destroyed by her probing. "I am busy. Why don't you put it with the other cases, I still have to get the reports from the lab regarding the blood in the Mirror case."

Word had spread quickly about Meredith Bauer’s obscurely strange case. It had even earned itself the ‘Mirror’ nickname, already.

"Been there, done that," she said before snatching a file from the pile and opening it up. "The blood is Meredith Bauer’s, with a high percentage of tin chloride and silver. No other traces of blood were found. Kai was very dismissive of it, but after some research-"

"It's used in the production of mirrors," I cut her off, grabbing the now topmost file from the pile. "So, what's so special about this case?"

I looked at the header on the file and read the name of the victim, Harvey Klein. Harvey Klein might have been just another name for the majority of people but I knew this Klein, every Detective dealing with the esoteric in Cologne did.

He had been the Alpha of the pack living in Cologne for years, uncontested by the others due to his overwhelming strength and ties to dozens of high-ranking officials. He supposedly knew the dragon that took residence in the Sauerlands.

He was dead.

I reread the report thrice, uncomprehending.

It just didn't want to compute, he had been uncontested for years and now he was dead with fist-sized holes in his torso and almost no blood left in his body. The photos were savage, worse than a fight among werewolves.

I had to give it to her, this was a higher priority than the other case.

Werewolves were notoriously difficult to kill, even dropping one from an aeroplane didn’t bother them. They could only be hurt by magic, or weapons forged out of specialised alloys that were restricted to government-sponsored task forces. Even if you managed to get your hands on such weapons, their increased senses and reflexes would have alerted them to you long before you could have used them. One exception were snipers with specialised training, who could shoot them from outside of their perception.

I scanned through the rest of the folders but it only got more and more ridiculous with every fact uncovered.

He had been killed in his private manor, surrounded by the elite of his pack, during a short, vicious brawl. The wounds on him were similar to huge spikes puncturing him and he was halfway through his transformation, which should have made him ridiculously resilient.

His corpse had been found twenty kilometres away from the manor, dumped next to a, no points for guessing correctly, mirror.

A Dragon would have been able to kill Harvey in an ambush, but it would have taken the entire manor with them. They are very prideful after all and were disgusted by the thought of having underhanded techniques, such as ambushes, staining their reputation. Destroying the entire manor did solve that neatly, even if it left them hypocrites, but they rarely cared about that.

"I think you figured it out yourself," Claire said with a knowing grin, placing the Bauer file to the side. "Is this worth putting the other case on hold for?"

"Do you have a coffee for me?"

She pulled out a coffee mug from behind her, placing it in front of me. "Never doubt me."

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"Can't let you in, boss's orders," the guard told me for the third time, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

I took a sip of my coffee, unimpressed by his attempts to make me back off by using his huge frame. I'd seen more impressive people a lot more closely. "Tell Martha that Kurt wants to speak with her, she'll understand."

"Don't know any Martha," he lied, taking a step back and preparing to slam the door in my face.

I put my foot in the doorframe, which was really more a symbolic gesture than a practical one, as he could probably break my foot without much inconvenience for him. "I know how this works," I said, fishing for the last 20 Euro bill in my wallet, "This is for your loyalty to whoever your new Alpha is -very impressive- but I need to talk with Martha, so if you are heading her way by coincidence, tell her to give me a call. "

He snatched the bill from my hand, gave it a sniff, and stuffed it in his pants pocket. "I might head her way but I can't guarantee that she will call you."

He must have been a new member of the pack. I pulled out my phone and selected Martha's contact, subtly angling the phone so he could have noticed the name of the contact and confirmed the number if he tried. "That's alright, this is just a courtesy, after all, Phil."

His face morphed into an ugly, remarkably wolfish grin as he snarled "Don't you dare threaten me, human."

"Why do you think I am human?" I asked with a cheeky grin, simultaneously admitting to my threat and unnerving him as best as I could. I didn't have to mention that my fey inherited ability was useless in combat and that while my Skills and reflexes were rather impressive, they were still entirely within human possibility, just effortlessly elevated to that level. It did have the unpleasant side-effect of making me look kind of scrawny but it definitely had its upsides.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He sniffed twice before replying "Wait here, fey. " He all but spit the word fey, slamming the door in my face.

I just managed to pull my foot out of the door frame before it got squished. Rude.

Claire, who had been silently listening in and checking out the flora, finally spoke up "How does everyone fall for the fey thing? I am a genuine fey and people don't fear me nearly as much."

She had dropped her disguise once we got into the actual estate of Harvey, her ears elongating and her skin taking on a remarkable shade of orange, which was normally reserved for her disguise's hair colour. Her hair turned into its natural colour, a deep crimson with strands of purple.

"Because I hold myself with enough self-respect and don't get excited or distracted by the smallest disturbances," I teased her, knowing that she could divine what I actually meant with her gift. Having a living lie detector as a secretary was incredibly useful especially when it works on writing as well, even if it is overall inferior. "It also doesn't help that I give no indication of what my gift is so they have to speculate themselves and you tell anyone who indicates that they want to know. Is he going to get her?"

She hummed thoughtfully, pretending to study the patch of flowers next to the door. "Yeah, you scared him pretty good for some reason. He doesn't want to deal with you anymore and dislikes Martha, so he is loading you off on her."

I wasn't even hurt by her statement even though I knew it was true. I didn't need to have her gift to know when she was lying, she was hilariously bad at it and I'd aimed for him to think like that after all.

It didn't even take a minute for Martha to open the door with a huge grin on her face. "Kurt, I haven't seen you in ages," she greeted me, leaning against the door frame.

She was just as I remembered, an elderly woman with an apron and an outfit that does its best to conceal her figure, looking like the most stereotypical grandmother anyone had ever seen. I had seen her fight once before and knew that beneath all the fluffy clothes and slow movements, she could and had killed many people with her bare hands. She was just as dangerous as Harvey, but had more experience in hiding it.

"I was hoping to keep it that way," I said with a much more restrained grin.

She looked unimpressed, but stepped out of the hallway to let us through. "What can I do against you?"

I followed her -Claire walked along without saying anything, probably intimidated by her- and got straight to the point "I need to investigate Harvey's murder, specifically his room."

"Why do you suspect that he is dead?" She asked, eying me suspiciously.

I pulled out one of the folders and flipped it to show the pictures of Harvey's corpse, knowing she would have wanted to confirm it herself and wouldn’t care for any regulations. "His corpse was found twenty kilometres away from here, but one of our informants told us that Harvey was in his room at the time of his death. Surely there is no harm in taking a look around, if you haven't found any traces of a fight?"

"It was Mark, wasn't it?" She inquired, not even bothering to hide it as she took a sudden turn to lead us to Harvey's room instead of the common area.

I didn't remember reading who it was but either way, there was only one correct answer to this "Our informant asked to remain anonymous."

Claire snickered as Martha nodded. "Yeah, that's Mark, " Martha said confidently.

We arrived in the room shortly after and it was a huge mess, even more than Meredith Bauer's apartment was, but more strikingly, there was a bloody trail of footprints going from his room to the opposite one.

The footprints were soaked in so much blood that they were reduced to puddles of red and blue, but I still asked Claire to check them for partials or anything regarding our suspect. The pattern made it look like the person was limping, and I was hoping the blue was the blood of our aggressor.

Sending Claire to do it had the unfortunate side effect of leaving me alone in the room with Martha.

Harvey had had a lot of sway and wasn't afraid to show off. His room, larger than Rebecca and my apartment, demonstrated that perfectly with the abundance of decorations and riches.

Once I was left alone with Martha, I spoke up "I am sorry for your loss, Harvey was a good man."

"Stuff it," she said, "he was a shit man and you know it, but he was a great Alpha."

Her calling someone great was probably one of the biggest compliments one could get and I agreed. "Yeah, I can't say I agreed with him on everything, but he made the best out of every situation."

She snorted derisively. "He did have some weird quirks, that bag of bones. Now get to work or did you expect a refreshment?"

I let her grief in her own way, knowing how she hated to show 'weakness'.

The first thing I noticed was the mirror on the eastern wall, smashed to pieces, but I put it out of my mind for now, looking over the rest of the room independently.

Trophies from his previous hunts lined the northern wall, hanging over his very large bed. It had enough room to fit four people and according to the pictures and some official documents, he had been married to two of the members of his pack. It had supposedly been a happy marriage but I'd have to ask Claire to talk with them either way.

Blood splatter was spread over his bed and two of the trophies, having flown well over five metres. Someone powerful must've stabbed him, such as the Mirror Beast. Its tendrils had been unyielding when they’d penetrated my flesh.

The memories of it tearing through my abdomen and snapping my neck were still too vivid. I shook myself to get rid of the phantom feeling and continued my search, reminding myself that that happened to Meredith Bauer and not me.

The southern wall with the doorway we were coming from, was almost completely hidden by bookshelves with a few mannequins dotted in between. They were all pristine, which meant they weren't immediately relevant to why I was here. Maybe he had left a message, but that'd have required him to know who he was attacked by. I noted them down but continued on.

The Western part was similarly pristine, showing a clay workshop and a few chests I was sure I didn't want to open, leaning against the bed. His preferences weren't much of a secret anyway and my time with them drinking had led me to know quite a bit about their habits. I was glad that they had no traces of blood so I could ignore them for now.

I turned to the relevant section of the room, immediately finding a snapped sword with blue blood on it.

I took a cotton swab and collected a sample for the lab. This might have been the blood of the attacker so I put the sword in its separate bag, determined to try to watch through their eyes once I was safe, or done with the rest of the room.

Flipping the mirror over showed a bloody imprint on it. Harvey must have smashed it in the fight. Smart man.

I collected a sample of the red blood just to be safe, and finally looked up.

There was splatter on the ceiling, red and blue mixing to make a purple liquid that had already dried up and seeped into the material.

The antiques and decorations around this spot had been disturbed and thrown over, showing signs of a fight, or at least a tussle. The worth of the broken antiques was staggeringly high, eclipsing my monthly salary.

Following a hunch, I walked over to the bed and looked over to Martha. "Please wait outside, I'll have to follow a lead and need silence for it."

She looked at where I was sitting and gave me a stern look "Fey bullshit?"

"Fey bullshit," I confirmed. She knew about my ancestry, but I had always been secretive about the details.

She sighed and stepped outside, looking over Claire's shoulder for a while.

I put a hand on the blood splatter next to me, searching for traction until-