Murder Between the Worlds: A Between the Worlds Novel Read Online Free Page B

of a reason?” Walters scoffed.
    “May we examine the last body?” Zarethyn asked ignoring the human’s attitude.
    “Sure, “Riordan said, feeling tired, “She hasn’t been transferred out to the state coroner’s office yet. You might as well.”
    He led the group down into the station basement which had a small section that acted as a temporary morgue when needed. The bodies were only held until a hearse could get there to transfer them out to the state office to be autopsied, but Riordan was sure #4 wouldn’t be much different from the first three. He walked over to the locker that held her body and paused for a moment of silent prayer before opening the morgue drawer and pulling the sliding table out.
    “Do you want me to open the bag?”
    The elf nodded, so Riordan made a note on the evidence tag and then unzipped the body bag. A strong bleach smell filled the room and he wrinkled his nose even though he’d been expecting it. Just like the others. To his surprise the red-haired female elf moved up to stand over the body holding her hands out about a foot above the dead girl.
    “What’s she doing?” Walters asked, clearly unhappy.
    “Checking for spells,” Zarethyn replied, unperturbed.
    Before either detective could respond to that Aeyliss spoke, “Yes, there is magic here.”
    “She was spelled?” Riordan asked, feeling uneasy
    “No, but she herself was part of a spell,” the Elven woman replied.
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means,” the other blond, Jessilaen, said grimly, “that your murderer is using these girls, their pain and their death, in some way. Either to power a spell directly or to raise energy for some larger purpose.”
    “So it is an elf then,” Walters sounded smug and Riordan shot him a cautionary glance.
    “Not necessarily,” Aeyliss replied. “Humans can work magic as well, especially here in these lands. The traces of this spell are too corroded to be certain of its purpose or what type of magic it was, but I am certain those traces are there.”
    “So what do we do now?” Riordan asked feeling frustrated and wishing elves would just say things straight out.
    “We need an expert in ritual magic,” Zarethyn said quietly “Someone who may be able to recognize what the purpose of the ritual is or what style of magic utilizes these methods.”
    “Okay, so we’ll find an occult expert and let you guys know what he says,” Walters said, a little too casually.
    The Elven Captain looked at him sharply, “I think it best if we conduct this investigation jointly; one of us may see something another might miss.”
    Walters scoffed openly, “So what all six of us are just going to walk around as a big group? That ain’t subtle and it isn’t going to convince people to help us. Seeing you four coming is going to freak most of our leads right out.”
    The elves looked perplexed. “Why should we need to convince anyone to help us? If they are innocent but have knowledge of this crime should they not want to help find the killer?”
    Riordan winced “It doesn’t work that way. People get scared, they get nervous…”
    “Nonetheless,” Zarethyn said, with an air of finality, “we are a joint task force. We will investigate together. Find an expert and we will all go and question him and see if answers can be found that might be the start of a trail to this killer”

Chapter 2 - Monday
     
     
    Later that morning as she drove in to work Allie couldn’t shake the general feeling of foreboding that had lingered since her conversation with Syndra. At first she drove on autopilot, the trees a blur next to the road, but as she left the house behind she found herself thinking of what the town must have been like 100 years earlier, before the Sundering. The event itself was still a mystery; no one knew why it had happened, only that one day reality had fractured; mortal Earth and Fairy had been permanently fused together. In some places Earth remained unchanged, in