Chapter 7

Jaelyn and the team meet up with their mentors to investigate a crime scene. (very slight language warning!)

“Thirty-four-year-old Rob Jeppson was found dead this morning at the base of Squaw Peak, where it’s believed that he was killed in an attempt to poach some of the wildlife up there,” the news reporter said. “But the strangest part about his death is the manner in which he was found. Witnesses say he was bound by what looked like a bristly dewberry shrub, a plant that is not native to Rock Canyon where he was found.”

Jaelyn watched the news from her bed, over a cup of tea and a plate of French toast. It was a Sunday morning and she was intent to enjoy it, though somehow she doubted anyone watching the news right now would find it enjoyable.

There was a knock at her door, and Phyllis popped her head in. Jaelyn smiled at her kindly godmother and paused the television, setting her half-eaten breakfast aside.

“Your friends are here,” Phyllis said. “Something about orders to investigate something. I’ve made them all some breakfast, so you should have a few minutes to get ready.”

“A few minutes? Phyl, if Ruby’s here eating your French toast, I have seconds,” she snorted.

The woman laughed. “I’ll let you alone, then,” she said, closing the door behind her.

Jaelyn scarfed down the rest of her French toast, leaving her coffee for now--she could pour it in a thermos and drink it on the fly. She attached her mace, cuffs, and radio to her belt, tying her hoodie around her waist. Lastly she tied her sword onto the belt, applied some chapstick and slid the tube into her pocket, and threw on her shoes and socks.

As she entered the kitchen with her coffee and empty plate in hand, she noticed that Ruby was already done with his toast. As expected. But there were two faces that she wasn’t expecting around her table, and seeing them almost lost her the capability to hold onto her dishes.

“Carol!” she said, to which the girl waved. “When did you get back? And what’s new-kid doing here--and what the hell is he wearing.”

“Hello,” Giovanni said. “I...think I’m wearing modern clothes.”

Everyone else at the table looked at him. He had his Yankees snapback on backward, and was wearing blue basketball shorts and a horribly clashing, bright orange polo.

“Okay, first order of business. Ruby,” Jaelyn said, dumping the contents of her coffee mug into a thermos, “as resident fashionista, you get this kid some actual clothes. Gio--can I call you Gio?”

He shrugged. “Okay?”

“Cool. Let’s stay away from the jock look, Gio. It looks weird on you. Now, what’s he doing here?”

Opal and Gio frowned at each other. Jaelyn raised a brow.

“We sort of broke into Carol’s house to give her a book for class. Apparently she was visiting her grandparents in Mexico, and the trip ran a little late,” Opal said, but her eyes had the familiar look--the look of “I’ll tell you the rest later.”

“Broke in,” Jaelyn said, arching a brow. “Okay… You all have some explaining to do later, but first, let’s have that debriefing. Ruby, what exactly are we investigating?”

“You saw the news this mornin’, right?” Ruby said. “The poacher found deader’n a rusty trowel in Rock Canyon?”

“Rock Canyon? That’s in Provo. What do they need us there for?”

“Apparently some DNA was found at the site,” Ruby said. “Some hair, blood, those non-native plants...It’s weird, though.” Ruby’s face grew serious. “Accordin’ to the DNA, there was a kitsune Child, a dragon, and...someone related to you at the scene.”

Jaelyn’s heart dropped to her intestines.

“Someone related to me,” she repeated slowly.

Ruby nodded. “The hair was that fella’s. The blood was that of the Child and the dragon.”

“Excuse me,” Gio said, raising a hand. “A Child?”

“Someone whose title is usually suffixed with the Japanese suffix meaning ‘child’,” Carol piped up in the usual monotone she used when explaining things like she wrote the textbook on the subject. But Jaelyn frowned. She sounded even more lackluster than she used to--before, that monotone was meant sarcastically. Now, it sounded more like it was instinctive.

Had something happened to Carol while she was gone?

“A Child,” the girl went on, “is usually a nature spirit, tasked with guarding a specific thing of nature. The blood found at the scene belonged to Hiko, Child of the Day. ‘Hi’ typically means ‘day’.”

“Wait. Hiko’s blood was found?” Jaelyn said. She didn’t know the kitsune personally, but she’d heard of them--the mischievous fox spirit who could and usually did switch their body back and forth from female to male. From what little she knew of them, she’d gotten a “wouldn’t hurt a fly” vibe.

“I reckon that the poacher was after the dragon, and Hiko stepped in to help. Which is mighty odd, considerin’ they usually take up residence in Hobble Canyon.” Ruby sat back. “And there’s the issue of what that other person was doin’ there.”

“James,” Jaelyn said quietly.

There was a collection of knowing looks from around the table--except from Giovanni, but he wasn’t exactly aware of the issue there; and, more surprisingly, Carol. Carol didn’t look like anything at all, wearing just the same blank expression as before. Jaelyn frowned. Could she still be suffering from jet lag?

“They said that’s the only reason they’re givin’ us instructions to investigate a murder case,” Ruby said.

“Then let’s not disappoint. Opal, you drove here, right?”

Opal nodded.

“Good. Everyone in the car. We’re going hiking.”

“So, you’re interested in joining the team.”

Gio nodded in response to Jaelyn’s question.

“And you’re not human or demon.”

“Spiritual entity.” Gio nodded again. “I’m similar to a nature spirit, but I hail from the sky.”

“The sky.”

“Specifically, I’m one of very few who are indigenous to the sky above Italy,” he added. “Like the Childs--”

“Children.”

“Are you sure it’s not Childs? Children is specifically for young offspring, but--”

“‘Childs’ sounds stupid. Anyway, ‘like the Children’ what?”

Gio sighed. “My name,” he said. “Del Cielo means ‘of the sky’ in Italian. As for my first name…I just liked the name ‘Giovanni’. I heard it once--”

“From an anime,” Opal added.

Gio huffed in her direction. “I still heard it and liked it. So what if I overheard it from some kid’s TV?”

“Nerd,” she snickered.

“Anyway,” he went on, huffing in her direction, “when I received my orders, I knew I couldn’t carry them out in my natural form--which is normally just a ball of condensed energy manifested as white-blue light. So I touched base with one of the vampires who was under the tutelage of Count Melzi way back when, and asked him to construct me something to get around in. I had to leave before he could fix the eyes, though,” he said a little mournfully, adjusting his too-big glasses.

“Count Melzi,” Jaelyn repeated.

“The apprentice of Leonardo da Vinci,” Gio explained. “I thought, considering the man’s history with machines, requesting an automaton body from his student wouldn’t be too difficult, especially since Signor di Anziano has been around for centuries. He even changed his name to match his age.”

“Anyone up for Wendy’s?” Ruby asked from the seat next to hers.

“You just had Phyllis’s heavenly French toast, why are you still hungry?” Jaelyn demanded.

“Two plates of it,” Gio added. “I don’t need food, so I let him have mine.”

Jaelyn squinted at Ruby. “What are you?”

He returned the squint with a cocky smirk. “Why, it’s just li’l ol’ me,” he said in a falsetto.

Jaelyn groaned loudly and smacked both hands into her face. “We are not going to Wendy’s.”

“Awww…”

“We need to get to the crime scene,” Opal reminded him with a biting tone.  “Or have you forgotten how important this is to Jaelyn?”

That seemed to give Ruby pause. He frowned, opened and closed his mouth once or twice, and shrunk down in his seat with a muttered “sorry”. Jaelyn felt bad, and she shot Opal a look for that tone, but she secretly agreed with her.

She looked out the window, eyes on the fast-approaching Squaw Peak. Could James really be there?

Minutes later, she filed out of the car after the other four, looking around. The canyon looked the same as it always did at midday, though the amount of police cars was new. She glanced at Carol, frowning as she saw that same blank look on her face.

This wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting when her friend returned.

“Aurelius.” One of the policemen spotted her and strode over. Officer Ahiga Volkov had the weirdest name she knew of, and usually had a cheesy grin on his face. Today his grin was replaced by a somber frown as he gestured up the trail a bit.

“The Vengeance agents are waiting to take you to the scene,” he explained. “I hope you kids haven’t eaten anything you’d want to taste twice.”

Jaelyn and Ruby looked at each other. The girl nodded and the officer tipped his hat before returning to his car. The group started up the trail.

“Seriously? The Vengeance team?” Jaelyn hissed to Ruby. “What the hell sort of murder scene is this?”

“What’s the Vengeance team?” Gio piped up.

“They usually deal with cases regarding the undead,” Opal explained patiently. “Ghouls, sanguivores, the reanimated, that sort of creature. The Vengeance team is also sort of mentors of ours, so it makes sense that they’d be here to show us the scene, Jaelyn.”

“Right,” Jaelyn agreed, peering up ahead. Two people in black uniforms stood on the trail a few yards away, making small talk. One of them was short and bordering on scrawny, her hair cropped into a pixie cut and dyed black and red. The other was taller and broader, stubble sandpapering the lower half of his face. They both had the word “VENGEANCE” embroidered in red on patches and velcroed to their left shoulders, while the words “Utah County PITF” were stitched in white into patches on their right shoulders.

“Lady Vengeance,” Jaelyn greeted them as she approached. “Dusty Vengeance. Officer Volkov said you were going to show us the scene?”

“Yep,” Dusty agreed. His real name wasn’t Dusty, but Jaelyn had never actually discovered what it was. She’d been too busy speculating what her own code name should be. “We had to extract the victim first, or else you guys would have been brought in sooner. Don’t want you kids seeing something like that just yet.”

“Who’s that?” Lady asked, jerking her head toward Gio. “Did you get a new team member?”

“No, I’m just here observing,” Gio said with a winning smile.

But Lady wasn’t impressed. “Observing or not, the crime scene isn’t open to civilians right now,” she said in a no-nonsense tone. “Wait here.”

“But--”

“You heard the Lady,” Jaelyn said sternly. “Wait here. We’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Gio said sullenly.

Dusty and Lady Vengeance led the remaining four up the trail. The scene didn’t look too out of the ordinary, but for the out-of-place plants and puddles of dried blood, the clawmarks in the stone that signalled a struggle had taken place here.

In other words, it looked really out of the ordinary.

Jaelyn looked up at the peak towering above them, wondering what it must be like to die in a place that made one feel so small.

“This is the one that was wrapped around his ankle,” Dusty said, kicking at one of the vines. “It was a b***h to get it untangled from him.”

“Bet it was more of one to get this one out of his chest, then,” Jaelyn said, looking at the other vine. She crouched down and peered closely at the plant. “A phytokinetic must have done this. Can’t kitsune control plants?”

“Control, yes,” Lady said. “Growing new ones that aren’t native to the surroundings doesn’t exactly fall under that.”

“So, a phyto...mancer?” Jaelyn frowned. That didn’t really sound like a thing.

“Or someone could have planted seeds here, either on purpose or on accident,” Carol said in that strange monotone. And this time Jaelyn knew she didn’t imagine it, because the Vengeance team looked at each other. “Just because it’s rare to happen, doesn’t mean it can’t.”

“Yeah, Jae, where’s your sense of imagination?” Ruby teased, elbowing her ribs, then yelping as Opal pinched his ear.

“We’re at a crime scene, you dolt,” Opal hissed. “Show some respect.”

“So...what exactly are we looking for here?” Jaelyn asked the adults, ignoring the slight bickering for now.

“Mainly, this is sort of a...practice,” Dusty answered. “As PITA, your duty will be to figure in all of the clues of a crime scene yourself. But there is the fact that we found some evidence that links you, if indirectly, to the scene.” He gestured with a hand. “So, look around. Look closely. Then tell us what you find.”

Jaelyn nodded. “Ruby and Carol, look around here,” she ordered, gesturing at the spot where the poacher had been killed. “Opal, with me.”

She headed for the cliff face, glancing at the ground as she did. The terrain was rocky, but there was gravel underfoot. The footprints of officers that had been here earlier almost covered up the signs of the struggle from last night, but Jaelyn spotted something and looked close.

“Someone with small feet made these prints,” she said, putting her own footprint down next to the one she’d found. They were nearly identical, but the treads in her shoes were a little more distinctive. Maybe the one who’d stepped here hadn’t had the forethought to put on hiking boots. “But they weren’t running. Look, it’s deep. They must have stood their ground.”

“How do you know it wasn’t an officer’s footprint?” Lady asked. She’d followed them, and was standing a few feet behind them.

“Because the dragon must have swiped the end of its tail through the footprint,” she said, pointing; a shallow depression scored through the footprint and curved away, toward the mountainside.

“These clawmarks weren’t made in battle, either,” Opal said. The shadows seemed to bend around her.

That part was always weirding Jaelyn out. When Opal was observing, she did what she liked to call “talking to the shadows”. The way she’d explained it, the darkness was a sentient thing, and the shadows left over from the night were witnesses to what went on when no one else could see. Opal had figured out how to converse with these shadows by making herself seem more like one to them, a feat that hadn’t been seen before in a whole lot of people.

“The dragon was looking for a way out,” she went on. “And obviously found one, or else it would have died here, weird deus-ex-machina or not.”

“It weren’t no ‘god is the machine’,” Ruby called out. “Hiko ain’t no god. Or didja forget his blood was found here, too?”

“It’s the name for a plot device, you country bumpkin,” Opal sighed in exasperation.

“Would you two quit? You can argue your faces off at home,” Jaelyn snapped. She looked over at Carol, who usually had her back when the siblings were fighting, but the girl was looking down at the vines, where they sprung up from the gravel.

“Green,” she was mumbling.

Jaelyn frowned. Usually Carol was more on top of things like this. Maybe she needed more rest.

Dusty and Lady Vengeance looked at each other. “Okay, junior agents, let’s get back to the station,” Dusty said. “We’ll review your observations and cross-examine it with the evidence gathered earlier. This part can’t include your civilian friend, either, so you’d better send him home.”

Jaelyn nodded, heading off down the mountainside. “Everyone to the car,” she said, giving Opal and Ruby hard looks.

As they all set off, Jaelyn stumbled. Looking down, she noticed something she hadn’t seen a moment ago; a tall, bluish flower, not unlike bluebells. She leaned down to examine it a little more closely.

“Hey, let’s go,” Lady said, raising a brow at her. “Did you find something else?”

“Nah, just some monkshood,” Jaelyn said as she got up again, speedwalking down the hill. “Think we should call poison control for that?”