A/N: On to chapter 2! I've never written with anyone before and I'm finding it fun blending our styles of writing :) This is also arguably my first case fic, and I hope you are enjoying the story as much as I am. Thank you so much for reading!
Co-written with Bossybossninja.
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I'm being followed. I could tell, my predatory instincts that had stayed with me giving off the feeling, and I turned a corner, fading into the shadows, waiting to see who had made the mistake of trying to hunt me. But no one came. Slowly, I came out of the shadows, and I got that feeling again. But no one was on the street. I looked, and a box-like thing was sticking out of a wall, and I knew that was what was watching me. With a quick thought, I released a corruptive magic, and the wall around the object, the thing itself, and the metal wires all corroded at a rate much too fast to be natural, all the while I stood still. With a crash, it fell, and I was satisfied. My hunt could continue.
I can almost smell him. Humans, the fools, think they can hide from me. There! A man with a case in his hand was walking towards a yellow metal thing, he got inside, and it started moving with an unnatural sound. This will not do. I found the correct spell, and a web of vines covered in thorns began to engulf the thing. With a screech, it stopped, and I approached, taking my axe off my back. A door opened, and my quarry took a step outside that would be his last. "Die, planeswalker!" With a great leap forward, I swung my axe, timing the jump with a downward cleave, and buried it into his shoulder, the momentum carrying it into his lower chest, killing him instantly.
"Wha- No! Please!" I looked behind me, and another man had come out of the thing on the other side, but the thorn-covered vines that were still rapidly growing caught on his clothes, and were beginning to crawl up his legs, entangling him further. This is a regular human. I have no quarrel with him. So I ceased the spell, and the vines stopped growing. I walked back to the body of the planeswalker I had slain, and took a closer look. He wasn't the one either. Frustration pent up inside me. I must find the one that did this to me. Pain wracked my body. I can't even think straight. I wanted to just be alone, in the forest, but every living thing I touched died. Speaking of which, I thought, and once again, an instinct I did not recognize drove me to touch the man. I felt the last of his life's energy become my own, and only a husk of a body remained.
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"Excuse me, is this the reward for any information on, 'Gregory Smith?'" Jace pointed towards a paper featuring a man, a convicted and escaped murderer.
"Yeah, Greg has a $10,000 reward on any info that leads to his arrest. Not that it is going to happen or anything. He's more likely than not already out of the country, or hunkering down somewhere he can't stir up trouble. Who are you? You know anything on this guy?"
"No, we were just looking around, I'm Gideon and this is Jace."
"Gideon, Jace? You got last names? You from around here?"
"Um… Gideon Jura and Jace Beleren. And no, we're from… out of town." Espo wrote the men's names in his notebook.
"Jura and Beleren," he mumbled. "Huh, never heard of those names before. All right. If that's it, would you excuse me? I have some business to take care of."
"Thank you for your time, Mr. …"
"Detective Esposito, at your service." And with that, the two left the building.
"Down that way. I have an idea." Jace led Gideon down to an isolated bench, where he explained what the two were going to do. "What I'll do is, to find this, 'Greg,' I can use a simple divination spell. It should be able to pinpoint his location, because he has no magic to protect him. Then we find him, and tell the police where he is, and get money for us to live off of while we search for Garruk."
"I don't know if it will be that easy, what if the police don't take our word for it?"
"You're right, we need evidence." The pair thought in silence for a while when Gideon remembered something.
"Hey, how was that man's image on the paper?"
"Umm, let me figure that out." Jace closed his eyes, and after a minute or two, Gideon broke the silence.
"I hate and love your telepathy, it feels like cheating."
"My ability to read minds has already proved useful time and time again, now shut up, I'm concentrating." Eventually Jace saw an image in another person's mind. "Pictures, photographs, all taken by a device called a camera.
"Wow, that is, dare I say it, really cool."
"Agreed. Now, if we get a camera and take a picture of the person and the location, that should be enough to convince them, and get our reward."
"How are we supposed to get a camera?"
"I'm a little rusty as an artificer, it isn't exactly my forte, but I can replicate the camera with a spell." Falling into a deep concentration, Jace drew upon the mana in the ocean that was next to the city, and a digital camera slowly materialized in his hand.
"Why can't you do that with money?"
"Paper money, remember?"
"What about coins?"
"The coins here are only worth a fraction of paper money, and something even this size," Jace sighed, "was exhausting."
"All right. Let's move."
"Gimme a sec, I still gotta divine the location." Jace recovered from the fatigue, and once again drew upon the mana in the ocean. "That way." Jace led the pair down alleys, across streets, over a bridge, and finally to a part of the huge city with only large houses.
"Is this it?"
"Yeah." They finally arrived at a house, not unlike any of the others they had seen in the area, a two-story brick building with metal gates and barred windows.
"Do you think he's in there?"
"Only one way to find out." With a twist of a ring, Jace, his clothes, and the camera he was holding vanished from sight. "Be back in a minute." Gideon hated when he did that. The bodiless voice unnerved him, even though he had heard it far too many times before. Jace silently walked up the steps, and looked through a window with open curtains. No one there. He circled the house a few times, and almost was going to consider finding a way in, when he heard the muffled sound of footsteps. Looking through the window, Jace could see the murderer. He brought the camera up to his face, looked through the lens, and once he faced the window, took the picture.
The man stopped. For whatever reason, he had sensed something wrong. He walked up to the window, and for whatever reason, even though Jace knew he was fully invisible, without a shadow even, he was sweating with distress. Gregory was looking right through him.
He turned away, shrugging his shoulders. With a silent sigh of relief, Jace came back to the street, found Gideon, who had wisely taken to walking around like he was doing something instead of stopping and spying at a house.
"Let's go." Jace materialized in front of Gideon, and after recovering from the initial shock, followed him back to the police station.
"Wait, we need something to tell them where this is, give me a second." Jace searched around with his mind, and heard the thoughts of a man on the other side of the street. "An address, that's how to find places here. He took a picture of the building, and the street name, and they continued to the station.
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"Kate, this is Rachel Waters from the museum. You remember her from the mummy case a couple years back?"
"Yes, I remember. Hello, Dr. Waters."
They shook hands and got to it.
"What can you tell me about our mummy?"
"Well… It's not really a mummy. It is, but it isn't, you know? It's not unlike Ötzi, – the Iceman, but looking at what's left of the clothing, I can tell it's modern. Also, there's the smell. Most mummies just smell a little musty. They're dried out, and internal organs are usually removed – at least those artificially mummified. Natural mummies can smell or not depending on where they were preserved."
"Like the Iceman was buried for 5000 odd years under a glacier," Kate nodded.
"Exactly. Or freeze dried on top of the Andes, among others. But this is like nothing I've ever smelled before. There's something else going on here."
Kate's phone rang.
"Excuse me."
As she walked away to take her call, Lanie covered the body and placed it in a special container so the stink wouldn't permeate the morgue. It was worse than any death odor Lanie had ever come across.
"Apparently, we've got another one," Kate announced. Dr. Waters, will you come with us? See if you can make anything of it? You know more about bodies that look like this than anyone else."
"I don't know how much help I can be, but I'll come."
"Thank you."
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"What is going on over there?" Gideon gestured to a street corner that was swarmed by those metal things, and men in similar uniforms. The area was fenced in with a yellow tape. Jace let his eyes become unfocused, reaching out with his mind. He picked around, and got a feeling for what was going on.
"The machines are called cars. They move, and people can get in them, kind of like a really fast armored transport, but with wheels. The people are around a body." Jace was still poking around with his mind when Gideon noticed a strangely familiar, but unnerving sight.
"Jace look!"
"What?"
"That car!" following the pointed finger with his eyes, Jace saw a car that was entirely draped in vines. A few of the police officers were taking pictures, but of what they couldn't tell.
The two made their way across the street. A small crowd had gathered around the scene, staying behind the tape line, a policeman watching them.
"Would vines like that grow on these cars?" asked Gideon.
"No, the cars are metal. This could be magic."
Just then Esposito came into view talking to another man.
"There's Detective," said Jace. "We can show him our photo and claim the reward."
"Yes," replied Gideon. "I'm getting hungry again."
Gideon lifted the tape, and ducked under.
"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?" The man in the uniform grabbed Gideon's arm and pulled him back to the tape.
"We need to speak to Detective," Gideon protested, pointing from Jace to himself, then toward the scene.
"Which one?"
"Which one, what?
"Which detective, numbskull. There are two over there."
"He said his name was Detective Expo something."
"Detective Esposito? Hang on. Stay there!" The officer moved to Esposito and Ryan, keeping a close eye on the pair.
"How confusing, they have the same first name," Jace mentioned.
"I know. Easier to call them if you need them both."
"Yeah, but if you only need one?"
"I guess use their last names."
Esposito looked up as the officer explained what had happened. He saw the two and frowned.
"Hey, Jace and… Gideon, right?"
"That's correct, Detective. We have some information for you."
"Well, I'm kind of busy right now, maybe come down to the station later?"
"We need our reward!" exclaimed Gideon.
Espo glared.
"Is that what this is about?"
"Yes," replied Jace. "We have a photograph of Gregory Smith and an address."
Espo was confused. "How long have you had this photo and address? Why didn't you give it to me before?"
Now the two men shared Esposito's confusion. "We didn't have it before."
"This smells. You're telling me that you found the wanted poster, decided to go for the reward, and found the guy in less than a day?"
"Yes." Jace replied with a sincerity that stunned Esposito.
Espo stood back, looking at the pair.
"Well, Smith isn't my case, and I'm busy right now. Head over to the station and I'll meet you there. No…" He turned to the man next to him. "Call a car to take them in. I don't want them to go anywhere until I can get back and contact the detectives on this case. Have them put them in holding if needed."
"Yes, sir." The officer went to his car and radioed for another.
"What are we gonna do now?"
"Sit down, and have some fun answering some nice little questions."
He watched as the car drove the two men away, then turned to Beckett's car which had just pulled in.
"Hey Espo. What's up?
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What did you think?