The Thames River docks in the center of London were a place that Athena, Artemis and I didn't like. Artemis and Athena had begun their life in London there under the care of an exotic animals dealer - the now deceased Mr. Martin Gerrik - who could become very abusive when provoked. The snow leopards who would shortly thereafter become my familiars had not wanted to have an owner chosen for them. They were strong-willed and free-spirited creatures (as most felines were), and fought tooth and nail to escape so they could find their own owner.

Gerrik, needless to say, hadn't liked that. When Artemis had found me on the docks less than five minutes after my own arrival in London, she had just escaped from Gerrik and gone in search of help for her sister. Upon arriving at his shop, I had found him beating Athena - then still completely feline - to within an inch of her life for having allowed Artemis to escape.

Part of me - a dark part that I'm not proud of - had wanted to strike him dead on the spot. A nice big lightning bolt would have left him a greasy smear on the pavement. I will never understand the mentality of anyone who can violently abuse another living creature. It's one thing to kill in the heat of battle, but what Gerrik had been doing was simple pointless cruelty.

Instead, I struck a deal with him. I offered to take both of the snow leopards off his hands for a sum of money my mother had given me for the purpose of buying a familiar, pointing out that he wouldn't get anything at all for two dead snow leopards. I freely admit to having taken a certain smug satisfaction in knowing that he was getting less than half of what even one of them would ordinarily have cost.

I definitely got the better part of that bargain. Artemis and Athena were parts of my soul I hadn't known were missing until I'd bound them as my familiars.

A few days after that, we'd visited the docks to pick up a package for Hollis Ellister, my employer and teacher. While there, we'd been jumped by a half-dozen thugs in the employ of Smith Smithson, the man I'd called 'Eyepatch' in my own mind, as that was the single most striking feature of his appearance. Athena and I had been forced to kill three of them, disabling the other three while Smithson escaped.

Clearly, the docks were not a place we associated with happy memories. And now, Gerrik, Smithson and his thugs were dead...and I appeared to be the only common link between them. At least, the only obvious one.

Gerrik's unnamed exotic animals emporium was still occupied when we arrived there that afternoon, though it wasn't open for business. Instead, a young woman with a fading bruise on her cheek, who looked to be a few years younger than me, was tending to the animals. They seemed to be responding well to her, which was reassuring. She looked up as we approached, settling into a wary posture.

"Good afternoon," Ben said politely, producing an ID wallet from a pocket, "I'm D.I. Ben Donovan from Scotland Yard. This is my associate, Mage Alys Kinnear and her familiars, Athena and Artemis. We're investigating the murder of Mr. Martin Gerrik. We need to have a look at the crime scene, and were hoping we could look at the current inventory."

The girl's eyes moved over us, pausing on Artemis and glancing to Athena before returning to me. "I remember you. My father grumbled for days about having to take such a small amount of money for a pair of snow leopards." She returned her attention to Ben and continued, "I'm Tina Gerrik. Martin Gerrik was my father. And if you think I'm going to help you find whoever killed him, you're sorely mistaken."

I got it immediately, and could feel that Athena and Artemis understood all too well. Tina had been just as abused as her father's animals.

"I'm afraid it's very…" Ben began, then stopped when I laid a gentle hand on his arm. I squeezed gently, then let go and stepped forward.

"Miss Gerrik…May I call you Tina?" I paused for a moment, took in her wary countenance and was reassured when she didn't respond with hostility. "Tina, I'd be the first person to let this crime go un-investigated. What your father did to these animals…and, I'm guessing, to you…was unconscionable."

From the way she blushed and turned away, hiding the fading bruise on her cheek, I knew I'd hit the mark.

"But we believe that this murder might be connected to two other recent crimes, and in one of them innocent people were harmed," I said quietly. "Please, we just need a few minutes of your time."

She met my eyes, then looked at Athena and Artemis who had come up on either side of me. "I can tell you're taking good care of them," Tina said softly. "They look happy and healthy. And I'm glad to see they're both alive. I was so afraid when I watched you carry the injured one away that day. I'd wanted so badly to come down and stop him, but he'd locked me in my room…" She trailed off into silence.

<> Athena said telepathically. <>

<> Artemis confirmed. <>

"I couldn't get through the day without them," I said with a smile. "And I'm sure you did all you could. Is the store yours now?"

Tina shrugged. "I guess it is. He didn't have a will, and I'm his next of kin. Once all the taxes are paid, I guess it'll all be mine. I might have to grease a few palms to do it, but this place is what I have, so I’ll make it a shop to be proud of."

"I'm sure you'll take better care of the animals than your father ever did," I said reassuringly. A quick glance around showed me that I was right; after less than a day without him there, the animals all looked more alert and less restless than they had when I'd been there buying Athena and Artemis.

"You can count on that!" She replied fervently. "You said innocents were hurt by whoever did this?"

Ben nodded, stepping back in then. "We have reason to believe that the person who did this - or who caused this, anyway - was responsible for the destruction of a town in Ireland a couple of weeks ago. We're hoping to find some piece of evidence to connect the crimes."

Tina was silent for a long moment, then nodded a little. "All right. You’re welcome to have a look around. I’ve been so busy with the animals, and dealing with the first bits of paperwork, that I haven't had a chance to go through the books to find out if anything doesn’t add up. And my father made sure that I was too out of the loop to know how many animals he actually had here at any given time. If you want a look at the books and manifests…well, I've had my hands full calming everyone down. An extra pair of hands to go over all of that stuff would be a huge help."

I smiled. "Thank you. Athena, why don't you go with Tina and have a look. Between the two of you, I'm sure you can quickly determine if any money or animals are missing."

Athena smiled and nodded. "Of course, Mistress."

“Alys and I are going to take a look at the crime scene,” Ben said. “Then we’ll come help too.”

Tina looked at Athena in wonder as my familiar approached her, then the two of them walked towards the storefront as Tina was saying, "I've never met an Elevated familiar before…"

Ben's hand closed on my shoulder gently and squeezed. "That was very well done," he said softly. "You have good instincts for this. Come on, the crime scene is in the side alley."

"I'm sorry if I stepped on your toes by doing that," I began.

"You didn't," he replied quickly, before I could finish apologizing. "When you work with a partner, you have to trust their instincts and back them up. It's best to present a unified front when interviewing someone…it reassures whoever you’re interviewing that you know what you're doing." He smiled and patted my shoulder. "She recognized you, she knew your familiars and was obviously relieved to see them doing well even before she said it…trusting you to take the lead was a reasonable choice on my part, and you didn't let me down. As a result, we have the run of the place, and even get to take a look at the books. Now, come on."

It didn't take the three of us long to find the crime scene. The dried blood was sprayed everywhere, a giant stain on the ground and splatters on both walls of the narrow alley, covering brick, trash cans and empty crates alike. I covered my mouth and nose to block some of the smell. "Odin's beard," I whispered. "What could have done this?”

Ben was standing at the edge of the mess, silently casting a spell I didn't recognize. As he finished and released the spell's energies into the air, the blood sprayed on the walls, garbage cans and crates began to glow with a soft yellow light. He stepped forward carefully, pulling a small camera from his jacket pocket and starting to take pictures.

"What're we looking at?" I asked curiously.

"Forensic spell," he replied absently, crouching down to get pictures from a lower angle. "It shows the spray patterns more clearly."

Standing beside him, Artemis looked around thoughtfully. <>

“Too much?” I asked her.

“Huh?” Ben asked.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Artemis says this wasn’t an animal,” I relayed, as Artemis padded carefully around the edge of the area Ben’s spell had picked out. “I’m not sure why yet, though. I’m not sure she is, either.”

She gave me a dirty look, huffed, and said, <>

I twigged to her meaning. “Ah. She thinks that the area the blood is spread over is too large to have been caused by an animal hunting.”

Ben grunted. “I don’t have any experience with animal kills larger than a fox, so I’ll take her word for it. I do know that humans can be unimaginably violent towards one another.”

I moved forward a little to stand near him and looked more closely at what his spell had revealed. I wasn't entirely sure of what I was looking at, to be perfectly honest. I'd begun learning about forensic magic as part of my studies to become a wizard, but the legal studies were so much more complex (from my personal perspective) that they'd eaten up most of my study time. "What should I be looking for?"

Ben looked up and smiled at me. "Am I to be your teacher, too?"

I shrugged and crouched down beside him. "Consider it on-the-job training. Enlighten me, oh wise one."

He leaned towards me and startled me by stealing a quick kiss before turning his attention back to the dried blood before us. "Okay, so what the spell is showing us right now is just the total mass of displaced blood."

"Displaced blood?" I asked.

"Yes," he said dryly. "Displaced from the victim's body. It's a bad joke, but an accurate enough bit of terminology."

I cleared my throat, trying not to gag at the mental image on top of the smell. "True. Go on."

"The purpose of this part of the spell is to make sure that we know where the spray of blood reached," he said, pointing to clusters of glowing points that were further away, "Distance and shape can indicate that the attack was a violent one, that the victim was struggling, or both."

I nodded. "Makes sense so far." Artemis crept up on my other side and wormed her way under my arm, a warm and comforting presence as we examined the crime scene. I could tell that she wasn't particularly bothered by it, and knew that - intellectually, at least - I shouldn't be either. But it had obviously been incredibly violent, and there was a strangely unnatural quality to the air.

"Once we've laid the groundwork," Ben said, extending his right hand and spreading his fingers as he gathered his Anima again, "We look for density. Blue is the least dense, red the most."

As he spoke, the yellow glow faded and returned as a solid mass of red. I looked around slowly, and saw no blue at all. "So what does this mean?"

Ben sighed. "It means we're in the same boat as the Smithson murder. Nothing was in the way of the blood as it was spraying around, and it happened so quickly that the victim didn't have a chance to struggle." He rose slowly, one of his knees popping almost inaudibly.

I ruffled the fur at the scruff of Artemis's neck before rising to stand beside him. "So this could be the same killer."

"Unless there's two entities that're completely incorporeal, but still able to affect the living world, roaming around London tearing people apart," he replied, then smiled wryly. "Seems a bit unlikely."

"You can say that again," I sighed, then brightened a little. "Do you think something like what I did at the Fishers' the other night would help? Bottling the area and looking to see if something left an afterimage? There's nothing like the wards here to work with, but an attack this violent might have left a stain on the environment."

Ben considered the question for a moment, then nodded. "It's worth a shot. Let's find out." He considered the alley for a moment, then looked at me. "I'd rather not mess up the crime scene with chalk or salt, though. Not to mention flower. Would your rune blocks work for something like this, and a construct made out of pure Anima?"

I saw the hope and interest gleaming in his eyes and the boyish smile trying not to emerge on his lips, and smiled myself. It was only fair…he'd explained his spell. Using nothing but Anima to assemble the image would be difficult…but in the same way lifting a heavy object is. It wouldn’t be complex, just tough. Also, it’d be fun - if anything could be under the circumstances - to demonstrate my method. "I think I can make that work," I said.

It took me only a moment to find the right pouch on my belt and extract a half-dozen cubes a little smaller than my fist. I looked at them closely for a few moments, put two of them back and pulled out four others for a total of eight, nodded to myself and looked around. "I need half of these in a semi-circle around the other side of the kill-site," I said to Ben. "It doesn't need to be a perfect circle as long as they're in positions that'll encompass the spot we want to bottle up."

Ben nodded and took four of the cubes from me, examining them curiously. "What runes do you want facing up?"

I was running on pure creativity and intuition here. For me, the Germanic rune alphabet was mainly a source of inspiration. I know that Norden Runecasters and Runecallers can be very precise and specific in their use of runes in magic, but I was sort of making it up as I went. It wasn't common to use them in Hermetic magic the way I was doing, but a lot of the props used by Mages and Wizards only work because they’re associative for the caster; in other words, it's entirely up to the caster what a specific prop means in relation to the spell they're casting.

"Fehu, Thurisaz, Dagaz and Óhdinn," I replied as he carefully stepped to the other side of the dried blood on the pavement. "In that order going clockwise."

Fehu represented mobile power or readily-accessible assets; Thurisaz for work to be done with caution and for not acting without knowledge; Dagaz signified a major breakthrough in overcoming an obstacle or achieving a goal; and Óhdinn represented the unseeable and unknown. Like I said…flying by the seat of my pants. But it sounded good, and that was what mattered.

"Interesting combination," Ben said as he crouched down and started to lay them on the ground with only a little hesitation. "I especially like the 'unseeable and unknown' element."

I looked up from where I was laying out my four. "You know the Germanic rune alphabet?"

"Not as well as I probably should," he said. "At university, we used its runes when laying down ritual circles...amongst other things." He looked up and smiled at me. "Never quite like this, though. How quickly can these be deployed under pressure?"

I smiled lopsidedly. "I could pull out a double handful and scatter them on the ground, but it might make for some pretty wild and random side-effects."

"Which could be useful in and of itself, depending." He rose slowly. "All right, have at it."

I nibbled on my bottom lip for a moment, mentally constructing the spell I was about to cast. How to go about it most efficiently? I would begin with a column of force like last time, but this one would be designed to hold in energy rather than matter. I'd need the Anima I was calling up to create the image this time rather than flour, so the circle needed to hold it all in and bind it together. I doubted the result would be as good, but anything might give us a lead…and if there was something, we could always go a step further and do it again with a material component to sharpen the image.

In my mind, I drew a line of energy from one rune block to another in a clockwise motion until they were all connected by it. As the circle closed, I poured my gathered Anima into it, raising the invisible column of force and spreading the rest of the energy into the space within. Then I envisioned the Anima coalescing, gathering itself to the residual energies of whatever had committed the extremely brutal murder.

Evidently, there wasn't much left to work with. The result was bits and pieces of a vaguely humanoid form. A foot, part of a knee and thigh, what might have been a hip, part of a chest, one hand across from part of a forearm, both shoulders, and…and...

I rose from my crouch, so chilled to the bone that I barely felt the brief exhaustion of expending that much energy at once tugging at my muscles.

A face had formed, one that was bisected by a vicious, crack-like scar that ran from forehead to chin on the right side. It was the only completely clear feature in the blurry, incomplete image.

Across from me, Ben had risen as well, eyes wide and confused. "What the hell? Could that be an afterimage of the other spell you cast to do this? At the Fishers' home?"

I shook my head. "I don't see how. I did it a completely different way there. Sure, I was thinking about it and using it to shape this spell, but it shouldn't have had any effect on the image it created. All I had to work with is right there." I gestured to the partial image floating in the air above us.

We stared at it in silence for a minute before Ben dug a quartz crystal out of a pocket. "I'm going to make a recording of it. Later, we can compare it to the one you got the other night. As soon as I have the image, let the spell go…there's no need for Tina to see this."

"Ben, how could this be connected…" I started to ask.

He waved me to silence, more serious than I'd ever seen him. "Later, not here."

I blinked in surprise, then thought about it. We were out in the open where anyone could hear us, and we'd already said more than we probably should have. It was paranoid, and we were probably perfectly safe discussing it here. But, as the saying goes, better safe than sorry.

On his signal, I released the spell and watched the image in the air fade away. As I did, I was startled by a jolt of surprise and alarm from Athena. I began to turn, and beside me Artemis tensed and turned to look back down the alley with me.

"What is it?" Ben asked, coming to stand beside us.

"Athena, she…"

Athena arrived in the entry to the alleyway, Tina appearing a moment later. "Mistress," Athena called, "There's a panther missing!"

Oh, bugger.

It didn't take long to double check and verify what Athena and Tina had found. According to the manifest, there were two male panthers and a female in stock. The males were there, pacing restlessly in their cage, but the female was nowhere to be found.

"That settles it," I said grimly. "That's just too huge of a coincidence to be written off. It has to be Brenna behind this."

"Why?" Ben asked, closing the binder of manifest papers and handing it back to Tina, who disappeared into the store to put it away.

"During our fight on the train, she said that she was upset that she'd have to get a second familiar. So that we matched, for some reason." I rubbed my palms on my pants, feeling sweaty with nerves.

"And she had an Elevated panther familiar," Ben finished, his voice nearly as grim as mine. "Well, we have a suspect. We just have no idea how to find her."

"Or how she's doing it," I added. "This is beyond anything I could do without some big magic. It'd leave tell-tale signs even a week later. But here…"

"The forensic Mages who examined the site early this morning only found traces of some air magic, which would account for the lightning burns...but not this." Ben said. "According to their report, anyway. Did you want to double-check it?"

I shook my head. "I have no reason not to believe them. She didn't do this with direct magic."

We both fell silent, trying to connect the dots. A town burned to the ground, two brutal murders, an attack on a family that failed, and evidence that suggested that Brenna was involved in at least two of the incidents, and an as-yet unidentified spirit was involved in two of them. With Brenna and the spirit apparently overlapping at the most recent one.

I met Ben's eyes, certain that my expression was as confused as his. Athena shook her head and whispered, "Nothing about this adds up."

"No, it doesn't," Ben agreed. "Not to us, not right now anyway. But it must, somehow. We just have to put the pieces together."

Tina returned then and looked around at us. "I take it you found a connection?"

Ben nodded. "We believe so, yes. Thank you for your time and help, Miss Gerrik. If we can find a way to return your stolen property…"

She shook her head sadly. "Don't bother. That cat's probably a bound familiar by now."

Athena and I exchanged a look. With a second familiar, Brenna would be on a perfectly even footing with us the next time we met. During our fight on the train, Artemis had given us the edge we'd needed to eventually overcome a foe who obviously knew more about us than we knew about her, and who had been better prepared for the confrontation.

"Well," Ben replied gently, "Perhaps we can find a way to get compensation for you, then. We'll do whatever we can."

Tina smiled tiredly. "Thank you, but it's not necessary. Frankly, bizarre as it might sound, the loss of one panther isn't much of a setback right now."

We took our leave of her and went to put our heads together.