Sheridan Bell & the Vanishing Beast: Chapter Four

CW: Brief depictions of gore (Henry examines the body)

Inspector Zhou threw open the carriage door and climbed out, paying the cab fare while Henry took a moment to look around. They were parked in the circular drive of a grand estate, both the drive and the surrounding lawn teeming with police and reporters and police trying to hold back the reporters. At the end of the drive, a high wrought-iron fence separated the estate from the city beyond.

“Are Mrs. Hathaway and the baby still at home?” Henry asked, following Inspector Zhou around the wooden police barricade and toward the house. He squinted up at its darkened windows and noticed only one was open, up on the second floor. He pointed. “What room is that? Was that window open when you arrived this morning?”

“One question at a time, Henry,” Inspector Zhou said, exasperated. “That’s the nursery. Yes, it was open when we arrived, but whatever you’re thinking is wrong. No one could get in or out through that window.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll see.”

“Fine. And Mrs. Hathaway?”

“We thought it best to clear the house, since we haven’t had any luck removing Ms. Evans’ wards. Mrs. Hathaway, the baby, and the family nurse have gone to stay with Mrs. Hathaway’s parents.”

“Has a sídhe analyst come to look at the wards yet?”

“Not yet. We’re expecting one from the other city sometime this morning. And nothing’s been touched at the crime scene, since we’re waiting on them to check for residual magic in the room.”

“Good,” Henry said. He followed Inspector Zhou through the front doors and into an echoing foyer, elegant in structure but smothered beneath gilded statues, tasteless rugs, and an array of artwork fitted into mismatched, expensive-looking frames. The colors clashed and the clutter stifled, and Henry couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at it all. More officers lingered here, making notes and interviewing estate staff. One of them, who Henry recognized from a previous case, waved a cheerful greeting.

“We received the call around one-thirty in the morning,” Inspector Zhou said, hurrying Henry along empty hallways. Henry practically had to jog to keep up with his long strides. “The nursery was in quite a state — Hathaway bled out in front of the baby’s crib, his throat torn and his body covered in lacerations.” The inspector shook his head. “I’ve seen more than a few sídhe-related crimes in my life, all of them strange, but none so ruthless as this one.”

They headed up a flight of stairs, then turned down another long hallway. Two officers guarded a door at the end — Henry could only assume it led to the nursery suite.

“According to witnesses, Hathaway was seen in his study at 12:30. Around 12:50, several people — including private security Hathaway hired to watch the grounds — heard three gunshots.” Inspector Zhou stopped, then pointed up and down the hall. “The nurse and one of the guards ran up from the left, arriving at the nursery at the same time as Mrs. Hathaway, who came from her room just down the hall in the other direction. All three came immediately, and none of them noticed anyone fleeing the hallway in either direction. Aside from Hathaway and the baby, the room was empty when they arrived. So unless they’re all lying, whatever killed Hathaway couldn’t have escaped this way.”

“And the open window?” Henry asked.

Inspector Zhou smiled, a sharp, triumphant little baring of teeth, and beckoned Henry to follow. He led Henry into the nursery, stepping around a body-shaped mass covered in cloth, and gestured at the window with a flourish. Seeing Henry’s confusion, his smile widened. “There, you see? The window was open, yes, but it’s barred. Barred with iron, no less. Nothing could’ve gotten in or out this way, either.”

Henry approached the window to study the iron bars more closely. There were about six inches between each of the bars — enough for a hand to fit through, enough for an arm, to a point. Wide, but as the inspector said, certainly not wide enough for any person. Henry grabbed one of the bars and pulled on it, but it was firmly secured to the wall. He couldn’t help but recall what Saoirse said about Hathaway’s paranoia, which had seemed to direct itself at the sídhe — was this a product of it? What had he been trying to keep out?

“And besides,” Inspector Zhou was saying, “There was security posted down at the gates. Visibility was low last night because of the fog, but they swore they would have noticed anyone —or anything — fleeing across the lawn.”

“What if it was something invisible?”

Inspector Zhou hesitated. “I suppose that would be possible…”

“Or something small?”

At this, Inspector Zhou scoffed. “Look at the body and then try to tell me something small did this.”

“How do you suppose the killer escaped?” Henry asked.

Inspector Zhou stood a little taller. “A beast summoned by magic could also disappear by magic.”

It didn’t sound like any form of sídhe magic Henry had heard of, but then, of the hundreds of branches and schools, he had only personally encountered a dozen or so. Inspector Zhou’s theory wasn’t impossible, but it was one of the more obvious explanations, and with the added element of Saoirse’s charm, it was the explanation Henry had expected the inspector to settle on. Still, he asked, “But how could such a thing be summoned? Would someone have to have been in the room to do it?”

The inspector, thinking he’d stumped Henry, smirked. “Did Ms. Evans fail to tell you about the charm she hid in this room?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulled something small out of his pocket and tossed it to Henry, who caught it on instinct. It was a small cut of wood, round and smooth like a coin. A strange sigil was burned onto one side.

“We’re waiting on the magical expert to examine it, so we don’t know the full extent of what it does, but one of the sídhe on staff said he’s never seen anything like it. All he could say was that it was supposed to attract…something. Gods know what, but whatever it is, it’s got sharp teeth,” Inspector Zhou said, casting the shrouded figure on the floor a wary glance.

Henry sighed. A charm of my own invention, Saoirse had called it. He ran his thumb over the useless trinket in his hand, then tossed it back to Inspector Zhou, saying, “You believe this thing attracts monsters, but you were keeping it in your front pocket?”

Inspector Zhou paled and nearly dropped the charm. While he tried to find somewhere safer to store it, Henry stooped beside the body and lifted the sheet. He grimaced. This was the part of this job he had never gotten used to, even after the years of study in school, after the dozens of grim cases. Talking about death was one thing, seeing diagrams of it another, but he couldn’t bear to look too long at a body.

Still, he steeled himself and looked. It didn’t look like there was much of a struggle, gruesome as the sight was: there were puncture wounds on the victim’s neck, lacerations across his chest and arms, but no signs of a mutual struggle. Henry pulled a collapsible ruler out of his pocket and measured the spacing of the puncture wounds, then turned his attention to the lacerations, hastily tying up his hair before leaning in close to study each wound.

“What do you think?” Inspector Zhou asked from behind him.

“Has the coroner seen this yet?”

“He only came by briefly, just to make an initial assessment. We can’t move the body until the sídhe expert’s come by.”

Henry nodded and studied Hathaway’s face, peaceful in death. “His windpipe isn’t torn, it was compressed,” he muttered, pointing at where sharp canines had pierced Hathaway’s throat, far back, behind his jaw. “The killer secured its grip there and used its molars to compress, a common killing tactic of large predators. It then used its weight to hold Hathaway down.”

When Inspector Zhou leaned over to see where Henry was looking, his own long hair draping over Henry’s shoulder, Henry pointed out the cuts. “The lacerations come from its front claws — too blunt to be feline, I think. Whatever did this, it didn’t have to adjust its grip during the process, which means it’s strong.”

Inspector Zhou made a disgusted noise and quickly straightened out, leaving Henry to drape the sheet back over the body. Henry sat on his heels and looked back at the inspector. One thing about the victim, more than anything else, struck him as strange. “How old was Hathaway?” he asked.

“Late twenties, I think,” Inspector Zhou said. “Why?”

“Hm. Given his wealth and accomplishments, I had expected him to be older.”

Inspector Zhou shrugged. “Inherited wealth?”

“The papers called him a ‘self-made man,’” Henry said. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “You said there were gunshots?”

“Mm. Hathaway’s gun was found here,” Inspector Zhou said, indicating a marked spot on the rug near Hathaway’s outstretched hand. “It was missing three bullets, matching the number of shots heard. We found one lodged in the wall there, left of the window, and another lodged in the window frame. We couldn’t find the third, but since the only blood around here seems to be Hathaway’s, I’m guessing it missed its target and flew out the open window.”

Henry nodded. “Do you mind if I keep looking around?”

“Do what you want, just don’t touch anything.”

With that, Inspector Zhou left Henry to his own devices, and Henry took advantage of the new independence to take in the room as a whole. An empty crib stood along one of the walls; based on the placement of the body, Hathaway had been facing it when the creature tackled him, had dropped his gun in the process. Henry checked the door; though there were heavy bolts across it, there was no sign it had been forced open at any point. Nothing else in the room seemed to have been disturbed, and there were no other possible points of entry.

When he felt he’d seen everything the room could offer, he thanked Inspector Zhou for his time and turned to leave. The inspector quickly stopped him, catching him by the arm.

“What, all that and you’re not even going to tell me what you know?” he asked. “What was all that about us working together?”

Henry tugged his arm free. “I’m sorry, Inspector Zhou. I’d tell you what I know, but I hardly know anything. You’ll certainly hear more from me as I work through it.”

Inspector Zhou spluttered indignantly, but at last let Henry go with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll hold you to that, though, Henry.”

As Henry wound his way back toward the foyer, he paused to peer into a few of the other rooms. Satisfied, he passed through the rest of the house quickly, stopping only to speak to the constable from earlier and leaving the conversation with an address on a slip of paper tucked into his coat pocket. With that, he was out the door and continuing down the gravel , then through the grand, arching gate.

Several steps past the gate and back into the street, though, he paused, suddenly overtaken by the peculiar sensation of being watched. He looked up and down the street, then turned, his gaze falling on a patch of tall hedges lining the fence. A flash of gold disappeared behind dark leaves. The branches rustled, something behind them moving.

Henry stared, waiting for further movement. He briefly debated going to get one of the constables, but would then run the risk of whatever lurked in the bushes getting away. Carefully, his heart pounding in his chest, he picked his way over to the bushes and pulled back the branches to find—

Alice Evans.

He breathed a sigh of relief. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to stay with Joseph and Ines!”

Alice winced at being caught and shrank back, as if hoping to disappear into the hedge behind her. “I couldn’t help it,” she said in a childish whine. “I had to make sure you were doing what you said you’d do, so I snuck out when they weren’t looking.”

“That was very rude of you,” Henry scolded, though there was no real heat behind it. “More importantly, if you had been caught snooping here, you could have made the situation worse for your sister.”

“I didn’t think…I’m sorry.”

Henry waved her off. “How did you even find me?”

“A tracking spell. They’re not as precise in this Tamarley, but I already knew where you were going. I was here yesterday, remember?”

Henry hardly heard her, his gaze drawn to something near Alice’s feet. “Ms. Evans, please step out of the hedge. Be careful not to disturb anything more than necessary.”

Alice’s eyes widened and she did as she was told, hopping through a gap in the bushes onto the muddy street. Where she had been standing, between the fence and the foliage, sat a cigarette that appeared to have been lit and then hastily discarded, the damp mud around it indented by a sharp-toed boot from its owner quickly stamping it out.

Henry looked at Alice, who peered over the hedge at the cigarette with open curiosity. “You don’t smoke, I presume?” he asked.

“No. Saoirse says it’s bad for you.”

“Saoirse is right,” Henry said, resisting the urge to point out that Saoirse had been smoking in his apartment not two hours earlier. Instead, he stooped to pick the cigarette up using the slip of paper the constable gave him, then briefly examined the custom label before slipping both paper and cigarette into his pocket.

“Small feet,” he observed, eyeing the footprints, then scanned the grass for other signs of disturbance. Finding none, he stood, looked up and down the street — even this far uptown, this road was ridden with potholes, most of them left muddy by the rain they had gotten the night before. “There’s one more thing I’d like to see before we leave.”

“What’s that?” Alice asked. She followed close behind Henry as he started a slow, meandering route down the street, heading about fifty feet in one direction before turning on his heel and starting down the other.

They didn’t go far this way before Henry clapped his hands together with an excited shout and stopped Alice just before she stepped into a muddy patch of road. There, impressed in the mud, were the same small, sharp-toed prints as before. This time, though, they weren’t alone: a set of massive pawprints accompanied them, sank deep into the mud beneath a heavy weight.