Trace the centre of magi.., p.1
TRACE (The Centre of Magical Affairs Book 2), page 1
TRACE
The Centre of Magical Affairs Book 2
DM Gilmore
© 2020 DM Gilmore
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact the author.
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Also by DM Gilmore
The Centre of Magical Affairs
Drake
Trace
Chapter 1
Asher squirmed in the chair, sitting in the police chief’s office. He didn’t particularly care; all he cared about was getting in, hearing what they had to say, and getting out fast. Growing up in the broodtown, the slums, surrounded by drakes and victims of magical infusion, Asher’s worldview was that cops, more likely than not, would target and harass anyone who didn’t look 100% human.
If his boss at COMA hadn’t told him to be there, he wouldn’t have come.
So it was, with a mixture of disgust and fear, that he sat on a chair in the office of Trevor Malone, one of the many chiefs of the York Region Police Department. This station was in Markham—a short drive outside the Scarborough broodtown, which meant they had to deal with any crime leaking out.
The man on the other side of the desk was old, maybe in his late fifties or early sixties. He had a round gut and a greying walrus moustache that accented his dark skin. He looked into Asher’s glowing yellow eyes, and Asher looked into his dark brown ones.
“Son, would you perhaps be more comfortable in human form?” the police chief asked, folding his hands onto his desk.
“No,” Asher said defiantly. He was a drake, and while he needed draquartz to maintain the form, he wasn’t about to take it off just because somebody asked. His thin, scaly tail flicked nervously from side to side, and he idly tapped his toe-claws against the linoleum floor.
Malone tapped a pen on his desk. Asher could tell he was put off by the drake’s appearance, either because he was pardrake and had the choice to be human, or by the simple fact that he chose not to be human at all. Asher’s dark grey scales bristled, and he narrowed his eyes. He was used to discrimination, especially from cops. People didn’t like drakes, in his experience. Cops always told the same story: drakes are too aggressive. Drakes take everything as offensive. Drakes will kill people for no reason.
Asher didn’t care. He wouldn’t change himself just to accommodate somebody who already didn’t like him much.
Suddenly, the door to Malone’s office burst open, and a short man, maybe about five-eight, entered the room. He was maybe only a few years younger than Malone, with a salt-and-pepper beard and short hair. He was just a little overweight, and it showed in his chin and gut. He glanced from the seated grey drake to Malone’s weary face.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the newcomer grumbled, in a low voice that barely registered, even to Asher’s own heightened hearing, “the greenhorn’s got literal horns?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Asher growled, rising to his feet and whipping around to glare at the newcomer. He fought down the instinct to bare his teeth at the smaller man, on whom he had nearly a full foot in height; a perk of being a drake, even if that size faded away when he changed back to human.
“Asher Itzcovitch,” Malone said, rising to his own feet again and clearing his throat, loudly, trying to draw attention away from the newcomer, “this is Ivan Kowalski. Ivan, this is your assigned trainee.”
Kowalski did a double take, once again looking between the drake and the chief before he let out a displeased groan. “They sent me a drake? Are you serious? Chief, this is a joke, right? A really shitty prank?”
Asher did bare his teeth, that time. “Keep talking, softskin, see where it gets you.”
“Are you threatening me?” Kowalski asked, his voice going low as he reached a hand into his jacket. Asher’s eyes narrowed, and he assumed the smaller man had just gripped a weapon in a shoulder holster.
“That’s enough from both of you,” Malone said, raising his voice just loud enough that it echoed through the office. “We’re not here to start debating racial politics. Asher chooses to be a drake, Kowalski will respect that.”
Asher remained unmoving, his fingers twitching, waiting for Kowalski to make a move.
“Likewise, Kowalski is human, and Asher will respect that in turn.”
Asher’s eyes narrowed but he said nothing else. They remained standing there, in an uncomfortable standoff, until finally Kowalski nodded to the chief and started for the chair next to Asher. Asher simply smirked at his supposed victory and retook his original seat. It wasn’t comfortable, just an old plastic thing. He was surprised that it had a hole for his tail.
“I assume you both know what this is about, correct?” Malone continued, once both men were seated and silent for more than a few seconds. Kowalski nodded, but Asher shook his head.
He’d woken up that morning to a message from his new boss, Nicholas Jones of the Centre of Magical Affairs, telling him to be here at a certain time. It had been two weeks since the Centre hired him for an impromptu hit. Two weeks since he’d joined their ranks personally.
Two weeks since he’d murdered over a dozen drake gangsters, and their leader, Duncan Smog.
Asher’s mind wandered for a moment, and he felt the barest touch of another’s mind against his own. His dragon, Esther, was waiting outside the precinct for him. Despite the walls and distance, he could still feel her thoughts and feelings. They were inextricably linked, and according to Jones, they would be for all times.
Malone snapped his fingers, and Asher realized he’d been staring into space over the officer’s shoulder. He blinked a couple of times, refocusing his thoughts and bringing his attention back to the cops and the room.
“Sorry, I have ADHD,” Asher muttered. It wasn’t a lie, exactly; he did have it, but it wasn’t the reason he was so distracted. Ever since Esther had bound herself to him, he’d been picking up sensations from her across their link. Sights, sounds, smells, emotions, nothing was safe from his wandering mind. Worse, though, was that he knew she could do the same.
“Well, try to pay attention, this is important,” Malone grumbled, rubbing his eyes in frustration. “As I was trying to say, Asher, Kowalski has been assigned by COMA to serve as your mentor, show you the ropes around investigative work. COMA wants to make sure you’re not entirely useless if and when you get called upon to do actual work, understand?”
Asher blinked a few times, but he wasn’t about to argue that fact. Before COMA, he’d been working in tech support and writing programs on the sly. Now, he had a dragon and a job working for a branch of the United Freaking Nations that specialized in policing magic use worldwide. Asher wasn’t normally the kind to feel pressure, but this was a doozy.
“What makes Kowalski qualified to be my mentor, exactly?” Asher asked, crossing his arms and shooting the pudgier man a look. “He looks like any other beat cop to me.”
Kowalski narrowed his eyes at the comment, then cleared his throat. In truth, he looked about as far from a beat cop as you could get. He was wearing a faded tan duster with a white dress shirt and black tie under it. He had a watch on his left wrist, and it didn’t take a genius to tell it was mana-powered and probably packing a magical arsenal. Asher himself wore a pair of watches, one on each wrist, and had a different selection of spells already loaded up and ready to use. Could never be too careful.
“Son, Kowalski is one of the best detectives in this precinct,” Malone said when it was clear that Kowalski would not come to his own defence. “I trust him implicitly, with my life and with your education.”
“Plus, Jones asked me to do it as a personal favour,” Kowalski muttered, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pixie stick. He tore the plastic open with his teeth and downed half of its sugary contents in one go before he started chewing on the tube.
Asher wanted to grumble, wanted to groan, but he knew better than that. He may have been new to the whole COMA agent thing, but he’d picked up enough already in his couple short encounters to know that what Jones said was effectively law. He exhaled through his nostrils and rubbed his snout.
“All right,” he said, taking a deep breath, “fine. Kowalski’s going to teach me how to, what, be racist against drakes?”
Both cops shot Asher a deadly look, but he ignored it.
“The pair of you will investigate a string of robberies that have happened recently,” Malone said, trying hard to pretend that the comment hadn’t been made. That he spoke through his teeth and clenched his fists told Asher he might have struck a nerve. Oops. “There have been three break-ins at three separate locations within the last nine days. We have security footage from all three locations, but we have yet to catch the perpetrator.”
Asher was about to open his mouth to comment when suddenly Malone looked him in the eyes and stopped him cold.
“So far as we can tell, the perpetrator is not a drake,” he explained, which was enough to make Asher shut his reptilian maw. “But we have reason to believe that they are, at the very least, infused or using magic.”
“What makes you so sure of that?” Asher asked. This wasn’t a question of their intelligence, though, given his attitude, he worried it may come off as one. Asher was genuinely curious about what they could have perce
“The footage shows the perp moving and lifting objects far too large and heavy for a normal human.”
“That wouldn’t be hard for a drake,” Asher mumbled. Superior strength was another perk of the form, part of the reason Asher liked to be in it so often. “In fact, if they were looking for somebody strong, they’d have a lot easier time finding a drake than a human with an enhanced strength infusion, I’d wager.”
“They definitely aren’t a drake, kid,” Kowalski said, dumping some more sugar into his mouth before he resumed chewing on the plastic tube. “The physical description we’re working off of is that they’re about six feet, two inches, about a hundred and eighty pounds, presenting as male, and they can lift a car as though it were made of styrofoam.”
Asher’s eyes widened and he did a double take between Malone and Kowalski. “That’s impossible,” he said, narrowing his eyes and tapping his chin. “Drakes aren’t even that strong.”
“We know, that’s what made us fairly confident that he’s infused,” Malone explained, “which is technically COMA territory.”
“Hence why Jones called me in, great,” Asher mumbled. He let out a slow, almost exasperated sigh, before meeting Malone’s gaze again. “Okay, guess that means I’m on board. Give me any evidence you have on the robberies and I’ll go look them over or something.”
Kowalski cleared his throat, and Asher looked down at the smaller man seated next to him. “Did you forget something?”
Asher groaned and rolled his eyes. No, he hadn’t forgotten something, but he’d been hoping he could get away from Kowalski before the smaller man got him into a squad car. He supposed it was unavoidable. If Jones wanted Asher to learn from this man, he supposed he would have to do it.
It wouldn’t pay to get on Jones’ bad side.
“If that will be all, Chief?” Kowalski grunted, rising to his feet and smoothing out his duster. “The kid and I better get going.”
“Dismissed,” Malone said. “Kowalski, I expect your report on my desk before you go home for the day.”
“Sure thing, boss!” As they stepped out of Malone’s office, Kowalski shut the door and pulled Asher aside into the hallway, pointing a finger up at his snout. “Let’s get one thing very clear right now, okay, kid? I was asked to teach you a few things, and with God as my witness, I’m going to. Lesson one is showing respect. While we’re on this case together, you will be respectful to me, is that clear?”
“Or else what?”
“Or else I submit a report to Jones with all the shiny details about how you were a rude, ungrateful little turd, who jeopardized an investigation for his own personal grudges. I’m sure that would go over very nicely with the COMA council.”
Asher’s lips immediately pulled back to show off his teeth, and he could feel Esther’s rage bleeding into his mind. With a tremendous force of will, he shut his eyes, lowered his lips, and clamped down on the psychic connection to his dragon. A bit of her anger had still made it into him, and he took a moment of deep breathing to purge the emotion. When he opened his eyes, he took a final deep breath and looked Kowalski in his slate grey eyes.
“Understood, sir,” he said venomously.
“Lesson two,” Kowalski spat, holding up a second finger and waving it in Asher’s face, “cut it with that tone. As of right now, and at least until we finish this case, you and I are partners. Do you know what that means?”
Asher shrugged.
“It means we have to work together. Now, I have seniority over you in every way, so that technically means you should do what I say. I don’t work like that, though, and I definitely don’t teach like that. If you’re here to learn how to do the job, I’ll be here to teach, but don’t go acting like some petulant school child and expect me to be open with you about anything.”
Asher blinked in surprise a few times and took a moment to absorb Kowalski’s words. “Okay, sorry,” he finally said, with no small amount of sincerity in his words. “I really am interested in learning how to do the job.”
“Then start acting like it. We’ve got work to do.”
Chapter 2
Asher sat uncomfortably in the car while Kowalski got to work typing their destination into the automatic navigation system. He’d been hoping to take his own car to wherever the hell they were supposed to go, but there were two problems with that notion. The first was that Kowalski neglected to tell him exactly where they were supposed to be headed, and the second was that he had yet to provide him with any of the evidence, video footage, or notes they had on the case. Experienced or not, there was nothing Asher could do without that intel. So, there he sat, on the plush seats that weren’t graded for use by drakes. There was no hole in the back of the seat for his tail, and his six-inch-long horns were scraping against the roof of the car. For the first time in his life, Asher idly wondered if this was what it felt like to be Ruth, his younger brother, who was so large that he could barely fit in most vehicles.
Finally finished fiddling with the console, Kowalski leaned back in his seat and tugged on his own seatbelt. The autonav console blinked a couple of times, before being replaced by a map. Slowly, the car backed itself out of its spot in the precinct basement parking lot and made its way out. Asher eyed the console nervously. This car was one of the newer models, that lacked any form of driver control. It was 100% AI-driven: no steering wheels, no pedals, nothing.
“All right,” Kowalski finally said, breaking the silence as the car exited the underground garage, “let’s start your first day on the job by reviewing the existing case file.”
Kowalski reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out a sleek black phone. He flicked his wrist, and a crackle of mana, the energy that powered pretty much everything these days, released into the air, forming a holographic display. Kowalski sorted through a few menus, before poking an icon in the shape of a YRPD badge. He passed through even more windows before he finally came up to a stack of hologram file folders. He grabbed the one on top and handed the mana construct to Asher.
Asher could feel the mana of the hologram on his fingers. It felt tingly, like pins and needles. Normally, when he interacted with holograms, it was only for a brief click. He wasn’t used to handling them, not like this. All the same, he opened the folder, and let its contents spill out into the air around him.
There were eyewitness testimonies, security camera footage, and even a police sketch. The sketch would probably be useless; the perp had been wearing a mask and goggles, so nothing of his face could be seen. Asher mumbled that out loud, to Kowalski’s approval, before he pushed the sketch back into the folder.
Asher tapped the first video file, and the window expanded, giving him a good view of an old jewelry store. He watched as the man in a black suit threw a motorcycle through the door to the place, before starting his rampage inside. Asher’s eyes narrowed as he watched the perp smash glass cases, then turn around and smash something else. There was no real rhyme or reason to what he was doing. To Asher’s eye, it looked as though the perp was just causing wanton destruction for no good reason.
“Wait, hold on a second,” Asher mumbled, rewinding the first minute of footage and watching it again. He did this twice more before he paused the video and turned to look at Kowalski. “He’s not taking anything?”
Kowalski nodded. “Keep watching.”
Asher watched, paying close attention as the man in the black suit continued to shatter glass cases. The video ended after about five minutes, but he could swear that he never saw the perp grab anything. He rewound the video again, and played it back at half speed, trying to get a sense of what the hell was going on. Perp breaks in. Perp breaks the store. Perp breaks another window to get out.
It was on his third viewing that he saw what was happening. One second, a case of jewelry lay cast aside, and then the next, the pieces within the perimeter disappeared, one by one. It was so fast that, were Asher not viewing the footage in slow motion, he would have missed it.
