The reaction to Hand's magic. Kaldar grimaced. The Mirror relied on gadgets to supplement their agents' natural talents, while the Hand employed magic modification. Officially, all countries of the West Continent abided by an agreement that limited how far the human body could be twisted by magic. The Dukedom of Louisiana made all the right noises and quietly manufactured freaks by the dozen. Men with foot-long needles on their backs, women who shot acid from their hands, things that used to be human and now were just a tangled mess of fangs and claws.
Magic augmentation came with a price. Some agents lost their humanity completely, some held on to it, but all emitted their own particular brand of unnatural magic. If you were sensitive to magic, the first exposure made you violently sick. He'd experienced it firsthand, and he didn't care to repeat it.
Erwin straightened. "The Egyptians believe the Hand hired the thieves to steal the object and scheduled the trade in Adriana, where things went badly for both parties. Your wyvern is on standby. With luck and good wind, you should be in Adriana in an hour. After you review the scene, I'd imagine you will have a better idea of the supplies you'll need. Please stop at the Home Office, and we'll provide you everything you require. This assignment is rated first priority. Should you be captured, Adrianglia will disavow any knowledge of you and your mission."
"But you'll miss me?"
Erwin permitted himself a small smile. "Kaldar, I never miss."
Ha! "What's the nature of the stolen device?" Kaldar asked.
Erwin raised his eyebrows. "That's the best part."
KALDAR surveyed the sea of rubble, enclosed by a line of fluorescent paint and guarded by a dozen undersheriffs. Before him stretched what had once been the Center Plaza: a circle of clear ground, which until this morning had been paved with large square blocks. The blocks had radiated like the spokes of a wheel from the tall round fountain in the shape of a pair of dolphins leaping out from the water basin. He'd picked up a tourist brochure on his way to the scene of the crime. It showed a lovely picture of the fountain.
Now the fountain lay in ruins. It wasn't simply knocked down, it was shattered, as if the dolphins had exploded from the inside out. Not satisfied with destroying the fountain, the perpetrator had wrenched the stone blocks around it out of the ground and hurled them across the plaza. The brochure stated that each block weighed upwards of fifty pounds. Looking at the giant chunks of stone, Kaldar didn't doubt it. A small tea vendor's wagon must've gotten in the way of the barrage, because it lay in shambles, blue-green boards poking out sadly from under the stones.
Blood stained the rubble. Gobs of flesh lay scattered here and there, some looking like they could possibly be human and others sporting weird bunches of fish bladders strung together like grapes. About ten feet to the left, a chunk of an oversized, flesh-colored tentacle curled around a piece of cloth. Long strands of yellowish slime covered the entire scene. And to top it all off, the slime stank like days-old vomit, harsh and sour. The deputies downwind, on the opposite side of the ruined plaza, valiantly tried not to gag.
The tall, broad bruiser, who was the sheriff of Adriana, was giving him an evil eye. His name was Kaminski, and he was clearly having doubts about the wisdom of Kaldar's presence at his crime scene. Kaldar couldn't blame him. His skin was at least two shades darker than most faces in the crowd. He wore brown leather, fitted neither tight nor too loose, and he looked lean, flexible, and fast, like a man who scaled tall fences early in the morning.
The sheriff stared at him. He could just go over and introduce himself, but what fun would that be?
Kaldar grinned. The sheriff's blond sidekick began weaving his way through the crowd toward him.
Strange pair, these two, but probably highly effective. And respected, too. They didn't bother with putting up any barriers, not even a rope. Just a line of paint around the crime scene and a dozen undersheriffs, but the crowd stayed way back.
Cops were the same everywhere, Kaldar reflected. In the Broken, they called you "sir" and Tasered you, while in the Weird, they called you "master" and hit you with low-level flash magic, but the street look - that wary, evaluating, flat look in their eyes - was the same everywhere. Cops noticed everything, and few of them were stupid. He had committed too many crimes in both worlds to underestimate them.
The blond undersheriff stopped before him. "I'm Undersheriff Rodwell. Your name?"
"Kaldar Mar."
"Do you find the destruction of Adrianglian landmarks humorous, Master Mar? Perhaps you would like to visit our jail and spend some time in our jail cell to collect your thoughts and explain to all of us what is so funny?"
"I'd love to," Kaldar said. "But my employer might take an issue with that."
"Who is your employer?"
Kaldar sent a spark of magic through his spine. A faint sheen rolled over the earring in his left ear. It dripped down, forming a dull tear hanging from the hoop. The tear brightened, and Rodwell stared at his own reflection in a mirrored surface.
"Kaldar Mar, agent of the Adrianglian Secret Service." The tear sparked and vanished. "The Mirror is grateful for your assistance, Undersheriff. Thank you for securing the crime scene for me."
"I just want to know one thing." Sheriff Kaminski kept his voice low. "Is the Hand involved in this?"
Kaldar considered before making his answer. He needed their cooperation. It would make things easier, and he needed to build contacts in law enforcement. "Yes."
The sheriff chewed on it for a long breath.
"How do you know?" Rodwell asked.
Kaldar cycled through his options. Neither one of the men struck him as a social climber. They were good at what they did and were happy right where they were. If he came on with an imperious aristocratic air, they'd stonewall him. The buddy-buddy approach wouldn't work, either - their town was on the line, and they were both too grim for jokes. A straight shooter, just-doing-my-job type was his best bet.
Kaldar delayed another half a second, as if weighing the gravity of the information, and pointed at a fragment of a tentacle a few feet away.
The two men looked in the direction of his fingers.
"That's a piece of a Hand operative, pieuvre class. Six to ten tentacles, amphibious, weighs in close to five hundred pounds. A nasty breed." He clipped his words a bit, adding a touch of a military tone to his voice.
"You've seen one before?" Rodwell asked. The hint of challenge in his voice was a shade lighter.
Kaldar pretended to think for a moment and grasped the sleeve of his leather jacket. The clasps on his wrist snapped open, and he pulled the sleeve down, revealing his forearm. Four quarter-sized round scars dotted his forearm in a ragged bracelet, the reminder of a tentacle wrapping around his wrist. The suckers had burned into his skin, and not even the best magic the Mirror had at its disposal had been able to remove the scars. He let them see it and pulled the sleeve closed. "Yes. I've seen one."