Dim Sum Asylum(28)
“So that leaves out a dual casting. That usually tears an animation apart after a while. This one lasted for over two hours. Maybe even more,” the Captain murmured, pulling up the blinds hanging across a picture window on the office’s long wall.
The window faced the Bay, and since the station was built on one of C-Town’s steep hills, it overlooked a lot of the surrounding district. I coveted that window. The only place with a better view than Gaines’s office was the evidence morgue below, and if it hadn’t been for the parade of ghostly Chinese prostitutes walking the half floor’s halls every night, I would have begged, borrowed, and stolen that space for Arcane Crimes.
Chinatown didn’t look like it’d just survived a lust-fueled mob of matching T-shirt–wearing tourists. It fended off the darkness as it usually did, with bright lights and a bit of dirt smeared on its face just to keep things interesting. People catching ferries to the other side of the Bay packed the wharf, while the piers’ restaurants and clubs appeared to be doing steady business drawing in customers. If I strained my neck, I would have been able to watch the lingering shoppers along C-Town’s main strip, everyone looking for a bargain from businesses unwilling to give even an inch on their prices. It was all very normal, especially when a swarm of rainbow-horned narwhals cut through the dark waters of the Bay, their spires glittering in a passing ferry’s lights.
Except now we suspected there was someone out there in our city, someone powerful and with an agenda.
“Someone’s using people, Captain. That’s my takeaway on this. Last night, someone asked me to put a bug in Missing Persons’ ear about a woman who’d gone missing from a temple event. I didn’t think anything about it, but now I’ve got to wonder.” I stood up as well, needing to stretch my legs. “Are they connected? She went to get a token, a luck charm, and vanished. Suppose she met someone who convinced her they could sell her something stronger? Something to make her prayers resonate more?”
“Would someone be that gullible?” Trent asked. “They’d believe someone could infuse enough magic into a piece of pottery, and poof? Everything’s better?”
“You’d be surprised at how easy it is to get desperate people to believe you can fix their lives, Leonard.” Gaines turned, watching me with hooded eyes, and Trent shifted in his chair, probably unsure if he should join the sentinel party or just sit tight while we mulled over what could be borrowed trouble. “Walk me through the basics, Roku. How bad can this get? How is this magic angled?”
“The only way essence theft supposedly works is if the other person has faith in whatever token the mage is using. A crucifix or prayer beads… Hell, even if they believed a damned teapot makes the best jasmine tea ever, it’s still a belief,” I explained, running through my knowledge of essence magic. It was normally benign, but like all things, it could be subverted. “It’s how fortunetelling works. Just not as… dangerous. The caster and the subject both have to believe the sticks or stones will tell them what they want to know.”
“So if the spell caster were using someone to animate that statue, it would have to be someone who believed it could bring them love.” Trent tapped at the chair arm, then shook his head. “But why animate it?”
“Because once you’ve got someone to buy in on a ritual, you’ve got a free line into their chi.” Rocking back on my heels, I ran through several scenarios in my head. “The caster could pull out nearly all of a person’s life force and push it into one or fifty statues. They’d have to do it carefully or it would burn them out. And the commands couldn’t be complicated. The sex command makes sense. It was a love token, meant to fuel desire.”
“Do you think it was powerful enough to be…? Would animating that thing kill the caster’s victim?” Gaines asked sharply. “What are we looking at here?”
“I don’t know. I’d say no because it didn’t have another purpose other than to induce sex, but we don’t know if the caster stole bits of chi to do other things. It’s the whole one broom carrying a bucket of water turning into an army of brooms emptying an ocean. Control keeps it to one broom, but that’s not to say the army can’t be created.” I wished I could give Gaines more, but I didn’t have anything other than my gut instinct. “The fertility statue was simple. The caster could have bled power into something else with a more directed purpose, or he could have just stopped at the statue. I can’t tell you which.”
“Okay. We’re going to have to get someone from Pagan Studies to consult. I want someone who knows how essence magic works to get on this. And yeah, I know Forensics won’t like it, but tough shit. I need a handle on what to expect.” The Captain shifted his feet and stared out into the city. His reflection was fierce, anger mottling his flesh and a flush pinking his ears. “What’d you do about the missing woman? Did you tap CAP and follow up?”
“I just talked to my contact there this morning. She took down the info and said she’d chase it down. After that… well, you pulled me into the statue thing.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, and a flash of white-hot pain reminded me my shoulder wasn’t in the best of shape. “I wanted to talk to the person who bought the fertility god. See who they got it from and chase it down there. If it wasn’t their chi driving the thing, then whoever sold it will know who made it.”