“I work with The De­tec­tive.”

You freeze. Your fin­ger, al­ready halfway to the “End Call” but­ton, re­tracts.

You were in the mid­dle of some­thing some­what del­i­cate and rather im­por­tant, but this may be more im­por­tant still.

“You can call me Wat­son.” Her voice crack­les over the poor con­nec­tion.

All roads lead back to home; her name, no dif­fer­ent. Your son and his friend liked to play Sher­lock Holmes.

“Wat­son,” you ac­knowl­edge. “Wat­son. I know your name, but not your pur­pose.”

“I work with The De­tec­tive.”

You hes­i­tate.

At last, you grunt your ac­cep­tance that this fact might in­deed be of in­ter­est to you.

“I have in­for­ma­tion.”

You take in a breath.

In­for­ma­tion is ex­actly what you want. You tried to get it your­self. You failed.

Yet now, it is of­ferred to you freely.

“There’s a price.”

Fig­ures.

“When you find the killer, you will tear him limb from limb. You will poke out his eyes, tear out his liver, and fi­nally, make him eat his own en­trails.

“And when you are done–when he has been thor­oughly, com­pletely de­stroyed–you will make him live. You will make him live a long life, the rest of his life, to­gether with his pain.

“For that, and no less, is what he de­serves.”

You take a heavy, de­ter­mined breath.

“It will be done.”

“Good.

“The De­tec­tive is mov­ing slowly. We’ve caught the dri­ver. Some cult re­lated to the num­ber thir­teen is in­volved–we got one of their fi­nance peo­ple. The As­sas­sin is still on the loose, but hope­fully not far away.”

“Noth­ing new,” you ob­serve.

“No,” she replies, “but this is: there was­n’t a strug­gle.”

You blink.

Not a strug­gle?

There were scratches on the body; cuts; bruises; scrapes.

“No strug­gle, though one was faked. All of the in­juries were in­flicted prior to death, but there was no fight. One would think th-the vic­tim must have been se­dated, but there were no traces.”

You frown.

You sus­pect magic.

Then again, you al­ways sus­pect magic.

You did from the mo­ment you found his body.

For there was magic on the body, es­pe­cially in the drops of blood.

But there was no magic in the body. No way your son could have been se­dated, or even held still; the echo should have still been vis­i­ble.

Then again, you’re no ex­pert at magic.

You think The De­tec­tive might be, though.

“What about the in­volve­ment of Magic?” you ask.

“Magic? What?” Wat­son is, ap­par­ently, en­tirely be­wil­dered by the con­cept.

“Nev­er­mind.”

“It would ap­pear that, per­haps, he… the vic­tim was in some way com­plicit in…” She takes in a deep breath to steady her­self, “In his own death.”

You don’t be­lieve it.

You can’t be­lieve it.

You hang up.

You’re not go­ing to face it.

You’re go­ing to break this door down, and ques­tion the man in­side.

SMASH!

You storm in, hold­ing a gun aloft.

There’s no man.

Just a woman.

“You’re not here,” she says.

You set­tle into your couch, bring the cof­fee cup to your mouth, and take a sip. You dip the bis­cotti.

De­li­cious.

Every­thing’s fine.