Red Mirror

Chapter Three

Chapter ThreeJenny appeared in the tent just outside of town in golden plume of dust. No one was startled by her appearance. “Tell me you have something that we can use as a lead,” she said, getting the point. “Lots of things, and at the same time nothing,” Dorf replied. Dorf was a Dwarf in a white protection suit with dark blue gloves.

“Out with it, I am in no mood for games,” she said and he looked at her. “Are you ever?” he asked and brought his attention back to the bodies on the table. “Aside from the obvious, we don't know how they were drained. We didn't find any puncture marks on the body. We assume that the pieces were drained one at a time,” he said.

“What kind of maniac does that?” she asked and Dorf just shrugged. “No idea, but who or what ever it was did really nice work. I mean look at the edges. If I didn't know better I'd say a this was a Razorhorn's art project or something,” he said and continued. “We do know these elves never worked much, nor were they even from here. The sand people are no where near this pale. There isn't anything on the missing persons line yet so who knows who they are,” he finished.

“Any magic energy on them?” Jenny asked, she knew there still had to be something. “Yeah, a low level teleport spell most second or third year mages could do. That doesn't help us much, but it does give us a range estimate,” he said. “Yeah, ten miles is the limit for the basic port spells, if it was. Cornell said he has footage of a weird purple light so it could be a proxy spell, too,” she said. Dorf frowned.

“If it was, it's impossible to know where it came from. But Proxy spells are really hard to pull off, so if it is, we are looking for a graduated mage or something bigger. Vanir keeps track of all the mages so that might narrow the list a little,” Dorf said. “I'll get looking into that. Do you know anything about this place Larenville? Why do they hate Pixies so much?” Jenny asked.

Dorf looked away. “History is such a pain in the neck,” he said. “Come on, tell me. It would make my life easier,” she replied. “I doubt it, listen. It was a century ago. I think you should just let it go, endure the annoyance and get out. If you really want to know just, well, look up the history on your own. Not the government standard stuff though, look deeper,” Dorf said and looked away.

Jenny didn't know what to think of all that but decided it wasn't that important. “Alright, whatever. I'm going to get started and see what mages are able to cast a port spell like that. If you find out anything else about the victims, let me know,” she said and walked away, moved towards a computer station on the wall.

Police work was the worst part of the job. Digging through endless lists, notes and all the lies people liked to tell was tedious to say the least. She sat down at the chair and quickly logged in under her name and looked up the mage registration list. The majority of the list were the new mages and beginners. Those part of the lists she closed out. The one she was looking for could pull off some pretty impressive tricks so she refined her search. Jenny typed in the search box at the top, Proxy.

The first one on the list was the Henne Ashe, Arch mage of the Cosmic Flame and head master of the Yondo Tower. Jenny was sure this one would easily be capable of doing something like this but, there was little to motive for it. Unless the mage was secretly insane or something and no one knew it, she could cut this one off the list, maybe.

The next one on the list was Master Zincol Roud. Royal Mage of Vanir. This guy rarely ever left Arket Palace. There was little reason to suspect him in this madness either. Both of these locations were nowhere near village anyway, it would have been a massive waste of energy to teleport such a vast distance to dump some bodies, besides, why would you leave them in the middle of a village. That didn't make any sense.

The last one on this short list was a name called Professor Zozo. Former Leader of the Firewalkers, exiled due to unethical experiments. Believed to be dead. Jenny read almost out loud and rolled her eyes.

“Well if anyone screams I'm a bad guy, this is it. Too bad we don't know where he is,” she said and decided that enough time was spent hanging around the dead things. It was time to head back to town. Jenny disappeared in that same plume of golden dust.

Seconds later she reformed in their hotel room. It looked just like they left it. Cornell wasn't back yet, however, her eye went right to the silver coin. It was procedure to place them in any room to make sure no one had broken into it. However, the coin was dragon side up. Someone had been in here and it wasn't them. Jenny cursed her luck, she didn't think that would happen so soon but who ever it was, didn't know about the coin. Not many people did.

Jenny walked over to the coin and was about to pick it up when the door opened. She turned around to see Cornell walking inside. He was about to say something when she pointed at the coin, showing it was turned over. Cornell rolled his eyes but then motioned her to press it.

She did and all at once the coin shot green beams of light over every surface. Then the playback began. The two of them watched as the woman behind the counter came in to the room. She was holding some kind of small device and moved towards the light in the center of the room. Then she proceeded to step on the bed and place the thing inside the glass cover, it disappeared after a button was pressed. She carefully got off the bed, straightened out the blanket and quickly left, locking the door behind her. Cornell opened the door back up and motioned for Jenny to follow. The two of them left the room.

“Bugged,” Jenny said and Cornell nodded. “Yeah, if we take it out, whomever is listening will know, so we play it like we don't know. Write anything down important and play stupid,” he said and she sighed. They both hated stuff like this. “Don't worry, I know a guy who's going to help,” he said with a smile and Jenny groaned.

“Fine, just don't do too much damage,” she said and rolled her eyes. “No worries,” he replied with a smile, opened the door and motioned for her to go in first. She did and he followed her in. “So, do you have any leads?” Cornell asked and she looked at him. “Yes, and now. We know a high level mage had to do the teleporting, but all the ones with the know how are leagues away. We'll find out who did it,” she replied. Telling him nothing, but saying everything.

Quickly with a pen and paper on the desk she wrote Zozo's name on it and held it up to him. He read it and nodded. “Well, everything will be revealed in time, we will just have to look a little harder. I'm convinced someone in this town knows something,” Cornell said with a smile. “And we'll find out who it is,” he finished, but he knew that name already. He pretended he didn't, at least for now.

The two of them sat down on the chairs on both ends of the desk. Neither of them knew why there were two chairs in the room but it was pointless to question that now. “Lets just wait until after dark and mingle, see what comes up,” Jenny replied with a smile.

“I'm sure there is lots to learn,” he replied and looked out the window. From here all he could see was endless desert, not a single sign of life anywhere. Cornell had no idea why anyone would want to live way out here in a wasteland.