Centaur of the Crime: Book One of 'Fantasy and Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 1) (26 page)

I came to stand on the Fayleene princeling’s left. Liam’s muzzle felt cool and wet as he nudged open my palm and gently look one of the bullets in his teeth. I returned the remaining pieces of metal to my pocket as he placed the bullet on my carpet. He carefully traced a circle around the bullet with his nose, and then placed his forehoof firmly on it.

Liam murmured under his breath. I recognized the liquid, musical tones of what Galen had called the ‘Old Tongue’ of the Fayleene.

“
Cith piléar a chaitheamh ley duine,
” he recited. He repeated himself once, twice, three times. A flicker of light ran from the tips of his antlers down to his hooves. The air around us felt charged, moist, somehow electrical.

Galen stood across from me. To his right, Shaw’s mountain of fur and feather overshadowed the diminutive Fayleene. But the griffin watched Liam work respectfully, almost in awe. And then Liam spoke again, his words sounding deeper, somehow more resonant.

“Close the circle.”

Gingerly, I reached out and laid my hand on the cool, bony nub of his broken antler. Galen grasped the other. We gasped as a tingle, like a tiny static shock, arced through our skin. Together, we each lay a palm on one of Shaw’s massive shoulders. The griffin shivered as he felt the sensation.

The sight of my companions began to undulate. To ripple. As if my vision were a disturbed pool of water. Then, overlaid on top of what I saw, came a mist-filled hint of someplace else.

Somewhere up fairly high. I got the feeling of looking out over something. Not over something big, like a view of the mountains. A courtyard?

Somewhere noisy. The noise, the bustle of crowds of people. From below, outside. A constantly shifting, changing crowd of people.

Somewhere with lots of color. Lighting. I heard a dull, ear-tickling crackle. It wouldn’t mean anything to my companions, but it did to me. The sound of flickering neon signs.

The cool glint of a rifle barrel. Red and green motes of light danced along the black of the metal. The viewpoint pulled back. Pulled away. Outside.

A throng of people crammed into a large courtyard. Steep-sided, gaudy roofs of red and green tile. A brace of king-sized klieg lights that could illuminate the side of a building.

The sounds of an excited crowd, background buzz of neon, honking car horns on a jammed street. The smell of asphalt, fresh concrete, and… freshly buttered popcorn?

The scene blinked out and the dim confines of my living room re-appeared. Galen and I each staggered backwards a step. Shaw let out a snort. Eyes intent, he lunged forward and down. The whip-fast griffin got his feathered head under Liam’s as the Fayleene collapsed, cushioning his fall.

“Thank you,” Liam said, after a moment.

“Think naught upon it,” Shaw replied.

Galen laid a hand on Liam’s brow. The wizard frowned, and then put his fingers to the Fayleene’s neck. Liam’s fur lay flat against his skin, matted and shiny with droplets of sweat.

“You are close to burning out your candle,” Galen said. “You must leave time to recuperate. Preferably someplace dark and quiet.”

“Wait,” Liam replied. He blinked slowly, owlishly, as if his eyes had trouble focusing. “Dayna? Did you see? Enough to know where to go?”

“Yes,” I said, “I saw enough. And you’ve done enough, too.”

“You may need me…”

“We certainly do need you. But if you don’t let us take it from here, then none of us will get the chance to be heroes.”

I motioned to Galen, and he gathered up the little Fayleene in his powerful arms. I opened the door to my guest room, went to the bed, and pulled aside the top sheet. The wizard gently put Liam down on the mattress. I swaddled him up as best I could so that he’d stay warm.

“No magic for the next few hours,” Galen said firmly. “Rest. Sleep.”

“Understood, wizard,” Liam replied sleepily. But he raised his head one last time. “But I must speak with Dayna. Alone.”

Galen nodded and retreated to the living room.

“I watched your face when you said that you’d encountered one of my kind before,” Liam said, his voice drained and weak. “I saw sadness. Grief. Shame. Before you leave…I want to know why.”

So I told him. Liam’s eyes didn’t waver from mine as I told him about the coldness of the winter day. The trail of blood glistening in the snow. Daddy’s sobbing confession of what he’d done.

It turned out that Daddy wasn’t the only one who felt he needed confession.

I wrung my hands. It seemed impossible to keep my fingers still. Warm tears trickled down my cheeks as I finished the story.

“I know it can’t make up for what happened,” I choked out, “but I’m sorry.”

Liam lay his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes for a moment.

“Perspective,” he whispered. “I understand better now.”

I didn’t. But I stayed at his side, silent, until he spoke again.

“What happened was a terrible thing. But it didn’t involve you. It didn’t involve me. Different people, different time, different place.”

“Different perspective?” I ventured.

“Mayhap. I was told once, at a critical moment in my life, that all events, even ones you think bad, must be viewed in perspective.”

“It’s good advice to get at a…critical moment.”

“Life has been troubled for me, Dayna. Very troubled. A Fayleene without luck is deemed unfit. Unworthy of association. Unworthy of friendship. One dark autumn night, I traveled to the peak above the forest’s highest waterfall.”

His voice grew softer. I had to move closer to the bed to hear him.

“I remember that the rocks below looked like slick, black teeth in the moonlight. And yet, the water that plunged among them sounded so inviting. The rush of the fall sounded like…release. I remember trying to run through all the reasons that I should not leap from that high place. I didn’t find any. And that’s when I heard something else.”

“What did you hear?”

“A female voice. I thought it was the lead doe, come to upbraid me yet again. But it was someone else. She told me that she’d seen my troubles, that my fellow Fayleene had misjudged me. That ‘luck’ wasn’t a power. It was a ‘perspective’. Like all events in life itself. She told me that the only true waste would be to despair. To give in.”

“And you did not.”

“I did not.”

“I’m grateful she spoke to you,” I said truthfully. “Who was she?”

“I don’t know, Dayna,” Liam’s expression came as close to a wistful smile as a deer’s face could. “But she was the most beautiful owl I’ve ever seen.”

And with that, Liam’s eyes closed. I wiped my tears away, listened to the smooth sound of his breathing. I turned off the light before leaving and closed the bedroom door as I did so.

I pulled a road map from a closet shelf and spread it out on the kitchen table. Galen and Shaw joined me. Galen had removed the griffin’s medallion. He stuck it in a handy pocket as Shaw cleared his throat with a rumble.

“Our Fayleene companion remains amongst us?”

“He’s resting,” I said, “which is more than we’ll be doing. We’ve got quite a drive ahead of us, gentlemen.”

“And with combat at the end of it,” Galen said grimly. “I doubt that Kajari would return to this world and remain apart from his weapon of choice for long.”

Shaw flexed a set of his talons, which glinted evilly. “So be it. ’Tis time to flush the game from its hiding-hole.”

“Now you get to see up close what I was talking about,” I said, glancing at Galen. “When I drew up that sign I made for Shaw earlier.”

Galen’s gaze slowly traveled to the spot I indicated on the map with my index finger.

Chapter Thirty-One

Galen and Shaw squinted at the spot on the map I indicated. Smack dab in the middle of downtown, only two blocks from the Medical Examiner’s building. Their look remained puzzled as they read the inscription.

“
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
” Galen recited. “Am I correct that this place appears to be more than a few miles distant?”

“You’ve got that right.”

“Will your friend ‘Esteban’ not object? Strongly, at that?”

“Esteban’s okay. I’ll handle him,” I said, trying to find the right words, “He just doesn’t like…well, how I’ve had to think outside the box lately.”

Galen paused for a moment to absorb that. “I gather that ‘thinking outside the box’ means to look at things from a different angle.”

“That’s right. It’s how I’m wired, how I was trained. One of my instructors once told me: If you hear hoof beats, don’t always think ‘horses’. Sometimes, you have to think ‘zebras’.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it,” Galen said. “Whenever I hear hoof beats, I think ‘centaurs’.”

Shaw made a throaty chuckle. It made me grin too. Yeah, it sort of made sense that Galen would think in that manner.

That’s when my brain went
click
again.

When you hear hoof beats, think ‘centaurs’.

My mind felt like it was trying to latch onto something. Something that didn’t make sense on its own. But once put in a pattern...

“Something’s been bothering me from the start of all this,” I announced. “What, really, was the motive for murdering Benedict?”

“’Tis always the same with humans,” Shaw intoned. “In the end, for Power.”

“I agree,” Galen said. “It must be what false-Kajari wants. Why else go to the trouble of killing a king?”

“There’s two problems with that. First, if you really wanted to seize power, you’d have to murder Benedict
and
his only heir to the throne. Second, why kill Benedict in a way that would plunge the kingdom—now your kingdom—into near-certain war with the centaurs?”

“Thou art more enlightened than I,” Shaw said, with a shake of his head.

“Both of those problems vanish when you realize that our fake Duke has a completely different goal in mind. He doesn’t want the throne of
Andeluvia
. He wants the throne of the
Centaur Kingdom
.”

Both griffin and centaur stared at me as if I’d sprouted Fayleene antlers. I felt my face grow hot under their bemused looks. Undaunted, I continued.

“I’m not crazy,” I insisted. “It all makes sense. Everything Kajari’s done has pushed Andeluvia towards open battle with the centaurs. In Andeluvia, he doesn’t have to go out on the front line! Nobles like Lord Behnaz or Captain Vazura will be happy to do so in his stead. But on the centaur’s side, Angbor will be out in front. Even if he isn’t killed in action, it’d be easy to use a rifle during the chaos of a battle. Then he could step in, take the throne without a fight.”

“I am trying very hard to follow you,” Galen said carefully. “But, praytell, why would a human wish to rule my people?”

I locked eyes with Galen as I replied. “Because Kajari isn’t a human. He’s a shape-shifted centaur, just like you.”

“But…how?”

“Who else would harbor a grudge against your father? Who else would have the magic to cross worlds and shape-shift? You told me yourself, Galen. The only Archmage-class wizard the centaurs ever produced. Until you.”

Galen shook his head mulishly. “That can’t be! That wizard, Magnus Killshevan…my father had him executed when his play for the throne failed.”

“This ‘Magnus’ appears rather lively to mine eyes,” Shaw observed, with a wry tone in his voice. “When did thy father perform this execution?”

“Twenty years ago.” Galen blinked in astonishment.

“The same time that my father and I encountered a Fayleene,” I finished. “Someone crossed over to this world.”

“And if they were badly hurt, or near death, they could have left a passageway open behind them,” Galen mused. He slammed a heavy fist into his palm. “You’ve convinced me, Dayna. It’s well past time to finish the execution my father began.”