Chapter 9 Chapter 9
“Are you smelling anything other than magic?” Connor asked me.
“No. I can’t even tell what kind of magic I smell.” I reached inside the body, pushing innards around looking for the source. Some of them made a squishing sound. Tristan ran back to the sink. By the sounds of it he hadn’t tossed all of his cookies yet. My hand slid under the heart and I froze. I couldn’t see what I was almost touching but it was definitely the source of the magic. The feeling of cold bitter magic nipped at my fingertips. I looked over my shoulder at Samson. “Come over here and remove the heart. Get it out as quickly as you can. Don’t touch the body.”
The vampire moved at a speed that would be blurry to the human eye and had the heart out in seconds. He’d even made clean cuts on all the arteries. Lying under where the heart had been was a small, black, sphere. Connor and I locked eyes. I knew I had no idea what it was. But I couldn’t tell if he knew what it was. One of us was going to have to pull it out. Only one way to decide that. Apparently he had the same thought. We brought our hands up at the same time, wrapped them into fists and thumped them onto our palms three times. Damn, Connor went for paper. I’d thrown out rock. He snickered as he stepped back with his hand raised, palm facing me ready to block anything nasty that I might accidently activate. I took a deep breath and grabbed the forceps. As I started to move them into the body cavity I sensed movement at my shoulder.
“Why is there a marble in his chest?” Tristan asked beside me.
I slid a dark look his way before I spoke. “When someone is about to pull an unknown object out of a body, it’s good manners not to sneak up on them. Now step back.” I picked up the forceps and moved them into the body while Connor waited patiently for me to get on with it. We locked eyes one more time and nodded. Careful not to squeeze the object I clamped the forceps on and gently pulled it out. Holding it up to the light it did in fact look like a marble. No light was shining through it and it was perfectly round. I didn’t care for the bitter smelling magic coming off it. “Samson, please get me a vile to put this in. Preferably one with a magic containing spell on it. “I carefully lowered it in when he brought one to me. Connor didn’t lower his hands until the stopper was put on.
“So, I’m thinking we take a trip to my lab and figure out what this thing is. Pretty sure it’s safe to say it’s the cause of death.” I said while washing my hands. When Connor agreed I ripped a portal. Turning back to Samson I thanked him for his help and shoved my partner and the pup through. Thankfully quick enough that the vamp didn’t have time to say anything else.
We stepped out in my lab. It was a windowless bunker buried in the ground. Built to withstand bombs.
Which was good since I had been known to explode things in here. Shelves scattered everywhere. Dusty. The occasional spider web. Books stacked haphazardly. An assortment of jars, boxes, and objects lined the shelves. In the middle was the work table. It was spotless. Not because I keep it that way. But because the last thing I worked on down here caused everything on the table to disappear. I had yet to discover a way to recover the items lost. I really missed those sunglasses. They had been plain black and normal looking. No weird colors or rhinestones.
“Where are we?” Tristan asked for the second time that day.
“An underground bomb shelter in Great Britain. I use it as my lab. Used to use a basement in Kansas. But it got damaged. So far I haven’t found anything that can hurt this place.”
“Damaged? I think you mean until you got your hands on a weapon from medieval times. Instead of turning it over to a weapon’s expert, you tried to figure out how it worked and triggered its failsafe. Which blew up the lab AND the house above it. We had to convince the locals it was a gas explosion.” Connor expanded with irritation. He was pacing around the lab with his hands gesturing wildly. Such a drama queen.
“Ignore him. He’s just cranky because it was his basement.” I carefully placed the vial on the work table. Connor and I both stared at it like we expected it to blow at any minute.
“You blew up his house?” Tristan asked in disbelief.
“Well, not on purpose. “ I looked over at Connor and asked “Have you seen anything like it before?”
He shook his head. ”You know a weapons expert. Why don’t you give him a call?”
I gave him my death glare and smiled with my fangs showing. “This isn’t his area. “ I said with my jaw clenched. “Tristan, there’s a piece of canvas on the wall behind you. Please grab it for me.” He turned and reached out to pull the canvas off the wall. I nodded towards the table and he carefully laid it down. Once again Connor and I locked eyes before bring up our fists. Rats! I went with scissors, he went rock.
I carefully picked up the vial and removed the stopper. Connor raised his hands to face the vial. He moved his eyes towards Tristan and then back to me. Oh yeah, we had an audience. One that had no magic to defend himself with. “See that door?” He followed my eyes and nodded. “On the other side is a talisman hanging on a nail. Go put it on.” My partner and I waited until he had come back wearing the talisman around his neck.
“Why don’t you want to call the expert?” Tristan asked while fidgeting with the talisman. It was an old bronze coin that I’d laid a protection spell on awhile back. It wouldn’t stop anything big. But it would work for the minor blast I felt the marble could deliver.
“Yeah, Cole, why don’t you want to call an expert on weapons?” Connor’s question earned him a deep sigh and a shut the hell up look.
“Because I don’t think it’s a weapon. I think it’s a mistake. A leftover from a spell. Might even be a clue.” Throwing caution to the wind I rolled the marble out of the vial and onto the canvas. I breathed a sigh of relief when the canvas had no reaction. I wasn’t sure of its origins, but, I had discovered that if you put anything with active magic on it, it changed colors. Connor cocked an eyebrow at me and tilted his head. “I think it’s from someone preforming death magic that didn’t know what they were doing.