Chương 53: Chapter 37 - In Jacky's Study

The scroll was sitting, bagged, in my lap. I didn't like it. It still looked too fake to be what all this fuss was about. Two men were dead. Two souls were missing. I thought about Miranda crying in the interrogation room, Frost's heavy grief, and the Dead Enders all raising their glasses to toast to Trevon Wayde. I wanted to hurl the thing out the window. Since we were flying back toward the mansion at well above the speed limit, it would probably be lost forever—which meant Darius would get mad at me.

I refrained.

"Darius?" He hummed to show he was listening.

"Rena Drix says she had this scroll when Louis Summer died."

"You noticed that?"

"Does that mean that the scroll isn't responsible for the missing souls?"

"That's always been a possibility, but I find it hard to believe."

"Why?"

"Relics are hard to come by, even fake ones, and there's no evidence that Wayde had anything else that was even remotely magical."

"But then…what does that mean? How could Summer's soul go missing if Drix had the scroll?"

"The most obvious solution is that Drix is the one who killed him." The blood drained from my face. Vasil glanced at me.

"Are you going to tell me that she didn't do it?"

"Well! She gave you the scroll! And you saw her—she was heartbroken. She wouldn't have killed Wayde. Why would she risk disobeying her master if she didn't love him?"

"There could have been something else that made it worth it to her."

"Iset said that the scroll turned a mundane into a magician. Drix is already a witch."

"Yes, and using that scroll would have required magic. We've only found two magicians associated with the case, Drix and Aubert."

"Natalie Both said that you needed a special kind of magician to use a religious relic!" The count hesitated.

"That's true, but it depends on the relic. That's why our first priority is getting that scroll to Iset so she can start translating it. I watched out the window as the world rolled by. The foreground flashed past. The background moseyed.

"Darius, if the murderer was a magician, why would they shoot Wayde with a gun? Shouldn't they have used magic? Or would that have left"—I thought back to our conversation with Cosmo and Drix—"residual magic?" Darius threw on his blinker and pulled into the exit lane.

"That would depend on what magic they used, but most magicians would know enough not to use magic that would leave a trace."

"Then—""Wayde was already known to the Torr. It's possible the murderer was more worried about our investigation than a normal police investigation. If Wayde had died under mysterious circumstances, the Torr probably would have sent someone like me out. If he was murdered with a gun, the murderer might have assumed that no one would suspect his death was tied to anything magical."

"But we knew."

"We knew because of Jacky. Most people, even magicians, don't know about Jacky. If he hadn't been there to tell us Wayde's soul was missing, it would have been just another murder. It's the same with Louis Summer. If Jacky hadn't told us that someone else had been there, it would have looked like a suicide."

"And the gun would have been found in his apartment. Case closed."

"Something like that."

"That would explain why Summer's place hadn't been broken into."

"How so?"

"Didn't they use magic to get inside?"

"That's a possibility. It's also possible they got their hands on a key in a mundane way."

"Like how?"

"Like stealing it from the apartment manager."

"Geez. Do criminals take a class somewhere or something?"

"What?"

"It sounds so obvious once you say it, but it never would have occurred to me—like using a real scroll to forge a fake one. I don't think I'm cut out to be a criminal." The vampire smiled wide enough, I caught a glimpse of teeth. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"What are you laughing at, Count Vasil?"

"The idea of you as a criminal mastermind."

"You know, this conversation is going to be a part of my tragic backstory." I lowered my voice, "They all laughed at me!" When we arrived home, Darius drove us around to the garage. It used to be a stable, large enough to house the horses and their carriages. The five arched doors looked old fashioned and elegant, but the second one rose automatically when Darius tapped his remote. We went in through the kitchen. Igor was working on lunch. Iset was standing nearby, talking to him.

She stopped and turned when she heard us enter. It was odd seeing her there. I never had before.

"You're home," she said.

"We've found the scroll." Darius held it out to her.

"Can you start translating it?"

"Darius, Jacky wants to see Emerra in his study." Me? I thought. I wasn't the only person who was surprised.

"He wants to see Emerra?" Darius said.

"You should go with her." Darius looked from Iset to me, but it wasn't like I could tell him what was going on. The vampire turned back to Iset and pressed the scroll into her hands.

"You start on that."

"I will." Darius motioned for me to follow him. We walked out of the kitchen, through the hall, turned just past the grand staircase, and stopped in front of a door. I remembered it from Iset's tour. Big Jacky's study. I caught myself squeezing my fingers and forced myself to stop. Darius knocked.

"Come in," Jacky called. The room was well furnished and generously sized for a study. There wasn't much in the way of clutter, but on every tabletop, empty shelf, or flat surface, there was some kind of board game laid out, ready to play. I spotted chess, checkers, mancala, and more that I couldn't name. Standing off to the side, half hiding the go board, was Conrad. I smiled when I saw him—as a victor might smile when she stands before a man about to be introduced to The Powerpuff Girls— but he didn't smile back.

His gaze dropped to the rug.

"Emerra," Jacky said. I looked at him. He was sitting behind his desk with his elbows propped up on the surface and his bony fingers laced together in front of his skull.

"I understand from Conrad that you've been having recurrent nightmares." Everything in my chest went cold. The air in my lungs froze, then a sudden blaze of heat ran up my face. I couldn't look at Darius, and I couldn't look at Conrad, so I kept staring at Jacky's white skull. I unclenched my jaw.

"Sir?"

"Why didn't you tell us about them?" I thought I could feel the count's eyes on me.

"They're only nightmares. It isn't a big deal."

"Have you ever had nightmares before?"

"Everyone has nightmares."

"The same one? Every time you fall asleep?" I grit my teeth again and let my attention wander up to a random game, high on a shelf. Tears stung at the edges of my eyes, but I willed them back. Wow. The wolfman had really told him everything.

"Jacky," I said, "I'm okay. They'll pass. It's not important." Noctis suddenly stood up from his chair. He leaned over his skeletal hands, braced against his desk.

"Emerra Cole, you are a seer." He straightened up.

"But perhaps you don't yet understand what that means. Please, sit down. We need you to tell us about your dreams." I stumbled over to a chair and sat. Darius sat in the chair behind me. Conrad stayed standing. Jack Noctis wandered over to his window.

"How long have you been having them?"

"It's been five days."

"I understand you've been witnessing Wayde's death?"

"Yes."

"Please tell us, in detail, everything you can remember." I put my hands in my lap and studied my pale fingers.

"Close your eyes," Darius said. I looked around. The vampire's face was grave. Yup, I thought, I knew it. As of tomorrow, I would be off the case. If all I was going to do was sit around, they might as well have left me in my casket.

"Close your eyes," Darius repeated.

"It'll help you remember. Take your time." I faced forward and closed my eyes.

"I'm sitting in the armchair across from Wayde," I said.

"It's night. The windows are all dark. I'm talking to him—""What are you saying?" Jacky asked.

"I don't know. I feel like I'm babbling. Like what I'm saying doesn't matter. Wayde's watching me, and he isn't saying anything. He's frowning. He looks—" My words and my breath caught. I had to start again.

"He looks sad and worried. And angry. Then someone raises a gun and shoots him."

"You?"

"No. There's someone else in the room. They're beside and behind me, on my left. I can see them raise the gun out of the corner of my eye, then—" Then blam, and a hot spray of blood. I swallowed.

"It's loud."

"What happens after that?" I opened my eyes.

"I don't know. That's when I wake up." A skull stared back at me.

"Did you see who pulled the trigger?"

"No, but I know them."

"Is it you who knows them?" My brows pulled together.

"Yes? Like, no. I don't know who they are, and I can't see them, but I feel like I know them. Do you get dreams like that—where you know something, even though there's no way you should know it?"

"I don't dream. But that wasn't my question. Is it you, Emerra Cole, who knows that person, or is it the person sitting in the chair?"

"I am the person sitting in the chair."

"No, you're only the person who dreamed it." I looked over my shoulder for help. Darius moved the hand on his jaw to say, "Do you remember anything else?" A slow sense of displaced unease unfurled from my spine until it reached the far ends of my fingers and toes. Everyone in the room was taking this way too seriously. I turned back to Jacky.

"They're just nightmares."

"Dreams and visions, Emerra. You will see things others can't, and you will have dreams and visions."

"But how do you know that these dreams matter?"

"We don't, but it's curious that you should be having them so frequently." Darius repeated, softly, "Do you remember anything else?"

"I remember everything!" I shouted.

"I know where everything in the room is. I can see all the shadows. I could sculpt Wayde's face—I'm never going to forget it. The blood hits me here"—I pointed to my face again and again—"here, here, here. It splatters my shirt." I hesitated.

"I'm holding something really tightly." I clenched my fist, trying to recreate the tension I felt in the dream.

"Is it the scroll?" Jacky asked.

"No."

"Is that something else you 'just know?'" Darius asked. I nodded.

"Did you ever look down and see what you're holding?"

"No, but it was heavy. A cylinder, about this big around." I put the tip of my thumb against the tip of my middle finger to make a circle.

"I think it's made of stone, but there are lines and cracks in them. And…metal."

"Do you know what it is?"

"I feel like I know," I said, "but I can't tell you what it is."

"Is there anything else? Any other details?"

"I don't think so."

"Do you feel any emotions?" Jacky asked.

"Horror."

"Is it your emotion, or theirs?"

"Yes." Mine, theirs, everyone's. It filled the universe. Lightning and thunder—the shot, then the horror.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the dreams," I mumbled.

"You're new at this," Jacky said.

"You'll grow more accustomed to your gifts as they develop."

"May I go?" Jacky looked over my shoulder, presumably at Darius, then he nodded. I kept my eyes down as I left the study and went up the stairs. I shut myself away in my room, where I sat against the wall, with my knees up at my chest, and tried not to fall asleep.