MUSE OF ECHOES Chapter 2

Hi Patrons! Here's the second chapter of Muse of Echoes. The problem with writing a mystery as a serial: a bunch of the mystery-relevant det

Hi Patrons!

Here's the second chapter of Muse of Echoes. The problem with writing a mystery as a serial: a bunch of the mystery-relevant details in these early chapters are probably going to change as I discovery write my way through the rest of the story. So sorry about that.

As always, this is a rough draft, so please forgive the inevitable typos and inconsistencies.

You can find the previous chapter here, and I'll be updating the masterpost with new chapters as they drop.

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MUSE OF ECHOES
Chapter 2

With Barny lighting the way ahead, Reeva tore over miles of Rulilia’s suburbs as fast as a small aircraft. In less than a minute, grand beachfront properties rose from the skyline, followed by a white stretch of sand, followed by the ocean. Like many humanoid-friendly planets, Mara had large oceans that appeared impossibly blue to the human eye, and like many humanoids, Reeva was always re-energized upon seeing that blue sparkle on the horizon. Pumping an extra shot of power into her wings, she broke past the final row of ocean-view mansions and hotels to race over the quartz-sand beach.

“Below,” Barny supplied just as Reeva caught sight of a body sprawled on the sand, staining the white beneath it a noticeable red.

“Thanks.”

Reeva plunged onto the scene at full speed, forgetting that her body had not done this in a long time. Her legs buckled as she hit the ground and went to one knee. Pretending the dramatic landing had been deliberate and that the flight hadn’t done odd things to her stomach, she straightened up—and nearly vomited.

The murder victim lay on the sand in two pieces, as though slashed through with an enormous sword, which was not the sort of weapon typically found on Mara. He appeared freshly dead, iridescent flies just beginning to gather on his parted lips and the lids of his sightless brown eyes. But the thing that had drawn Reeva’s attention and turned her stomach stood on the far side of the corpse in a pristine white uniform.

There she was—

Barely changed from the last time the two had faced each other over an unmoving body, her brown skin just as smooth, her dark lips drawn into the same mocking bow, her eyes the same unbearable blue like pools of ghosts. Only her hair was different, combed straight to her waist in a shining curtain instead of wild around her shoulders. 

This tidiness was just the newest form of her deception, Reeva thought with contempt—like those wings. The blade-like feathers were white now, matching that enforcer’s uniform, the whole ensemble glowing with pure light that put the quartzite sand to shame.

“Reeva,” said the deceiver.

“Echo,” said Reeva.

Long-dormant teenage rage came boiling to the surface as Reeva drew her shoulders back and realized that Echo was still, after ten years, taller than she was. Tall, svelte, and stronger than she looked… like an evil tree.

“Excuse me,” said another enforcer—one of two Reeva had barely noticed standing alongside Echo; they were so dull in the blue-white halo of the Volta’s aura. “That’s Lieutenant Echo. And who are you supposed to be?”

The two native enforcers appeared unsteady on their feet, suggesting that Echo had flown them both to the beach—and she had still gotten here before Reeva. The thought was bitter and nauseating to contemplate, but Echo was likely the stronger of the two Volta. Reeva had left Aurin Volta training nine years ago. And whenever Echo had broken with the Xin rebels, it had been after that. Given the timeline, it stood to reason that Echo’s powers had outstripped Reeva’s at their peak. Maybe she had even stabilized there.

“Citizen,” the native enforcer prompted impatiently, “you don’t have clearance to be here.”

“No, no, I do.” Reeva extended her hand, and Barny automatically zoomed into it, resuming his wallet form. “I’m here representing the Nulenbo Metropolitan Police.” She flipped the wallet open to show her ID crest. “This is our jurisdiction.”

The stockier of the two native enforcers stepped forward to squint at the crest. Beady eyes narrowed under her thatch of short blond hair. “That’s a consultant’s badge.”

“Oh, of course! You would be the famous Volta consultant for the Nulenbo Precinct!” the other native enforcer exclaimed, her tone considerably warmer than her companion’s. “That explains the beautiful wings!”

Reeva glanced back, suddenly cognizant that Echo could see her wings just as she could see Echo’s. Even to someone who had only ever seen her feathers once, it would be obvious just how much they had darkened. The jolt of self-consciousness caused her wings to respond reflexively, turning to intangible light and folding back into her body. In a moment, they had vanished into her person, leaving the breeze to brush her tattoos through the twin slashes they had torn in her shirt. The literal bare skin left Reeva feeling less exposed than Echo’s eyes on her—a discomfort that only increased as the tiniest flash of amusement passed across Echo’s expression.

“A consultant can’t take charge of a crime scene.” Even in Eren-Mara, Echo’s way of speaking was rhythmically distinct, otherworldly—and intolerable. “But surely you knew that.” 

Reeva lifted her chin, wishing she had worn boots with a heel—ankle-rolling cobbles be damned. “This is Nulenbo Metropolitan jurisdiction.”

“So it is.” The taller of the native enforcers spoke kindly, and it was only then that Reeva noticed the curling gold bands on the sleeves of her uniform. She wasn’t just an enforcer like the short one. She was a captain… Captain Kinell. The fool who had promoted Echo to her high rank. “I asked Lieutenant Echo and Enforcer June here outside the usual protocol. They’ll be handling this case alongside any local police as a personal favor to me. You see, the victim here was a dear friend of mine. My first partner from back when I joined the force.” 

Surprised, Reeva turned to look at the body again. Though his face was drained of color and half-obscured by sand, the victim did appear to be around the captain’s age—mid-fifties, maybe?—his hair graying and just beginning to thin on top. “He was an enforcer?”

“For many years, yes,” the captain said, sounding distant. “He was a great one.” 

She had aged more gracefully than her former partner, the lines in her face and gray in her hair offset by the brightness in her brown eyes—though, to be fair, nobody looked their best after being cut in half. 

“Obviously, it would not be appropriate for me to work this case myself,” Captain Kinell went on. “I have too much emotional attachment to the victim, but I need to see that it’s in the best possible hands. No judgment whatsoever on the quality of police work in this jurisdiction,” she added as though Reeva would care. “It’s just that Lieutenant Echo’s hands have certain abilities others lack.”

“I’m aware, Captain.”

“If I recall correctly from the paperwork that crossed my desk, you are a… an ex-Aurin operative mind Volta?” Captain Kinell hesitated on the unfamiliar terms and titles.

“That’s correct, ma’am,” Reeva said stiffly.

“Coincidentally, our own Lieutenant Echo is a mind Volta as well.”

“Yeah.” A bit of hostility crept into Reeva’s voice and aura. “And she tell you where she came from?”

Kinell just smiled patiently. “As you may have learned, we here on the Eren Islands try not to concern ourselves with the larger goings on of the Kiloverse. We take outsiders as they come to us and judge them by their actions here.” One of the reasons Reeva worried this planet wouldn’t be around for long. “And Lieutenant Echo has solved more cases in her time here than anyone in the history of the force.”

“I bet,” Reeva said dryly. Echo’s powers were perfect for law enforcement. Better than Reeva’s, and certainly better than the other primitive tech at the natives’ disposal.

“Since we already have a mind Volta here to handle the case, you are free to go,” Captain Kinell said—just a softer way of telling Reeva, ‘You’re dismissed.’ “I’m so sorry that you troubled yourself flying here—and in this wind!”

Reeva shook her head. “No trouble, Captain.” Her shoulders had relaxed slightly in relief. With any luck, she could turn her back now, forget what she had seen here, and never lay eyes on Echo again. Reeva had just opened her mouth to offer condolences and the shortest goodbye she could get away with when the demon interrupted.

A placid, “No.”

“What?” Kinell and June both turned to Echo.

“She should stay, Captain.”

“What?” Reeva spat, more shocked and derisive than the other women had been.

“Mind Volta is a classification that describes a range of magical aptitudes,” Echo explained. “In practice, Miss Reeva’s magic is quite distinct from mine. She enjoys an entirely different insight into the minds of those she touches. If you want the person who did this caught quickly, we stand a much better chance including Consultant Reeva and any detectives she prefers to work with.”

“Oh,” the captain sounded surprised. “If this is your assessment, and you’re comfortable with it, then it’s done.”

Reeva’s eyes narrowed. What kind of game is this? she wanted to demand but held her tongue. No matter how forcefully she asked, there would be no straight answers from Echo.

“Consultant Reeva.” Kinell looked vaguely concerned at the murder in Reeva’s gaze. “My dear, is something wrong?”

“Apologies, Captain,” Echo offered. “The two of us have an uneasy history. But even as a very young person, Miss Reeva handled this sort of work with the skill and professionalism of an adult. I’m sure that once she understands the situation, we will be more than capable of working together.”

“Again, whatever you think is best.” Kinell cast a last glance at Reeva before turning to Echo with a disturbing air of trust. “I assigned you this case because I know you can do it.”

Echo nodded demurely. Her wings folded back into her lower back, where her uniform had been tailored to accommodate them. “I won’t let you down, Captain.”

With the usual Eren-Mara disregard for crime scene integrity, Captain Kinell knelt by the body of her old friend. A deep sadness overtook her bearing as she slowly closed his dead eyes and murmured a goodbye. The words were too low for human ears to pick up over the wind, but with her aura active, Reeva’s hearing was enhanced just enough to hear:

“I’m going to make this right, Kam. I promise.”

A moment longer with her hand on her friend’s shoulder, and the captain stood, straight but broken. Blood from the sand stained her perfect white uniform at the knees, but this didn’t seem to register through her grief. It hurt Reeva to see the trust in her eyes as she looked up at Echo, the tenderness as she clasped her lieutenant’s shoulder.

How in the Kiloverse does a seasoned law enforcement captain put her confidence in this demon? Reeva seethed. How does she not see through the trick? But the logical part of Reeva recognized that this was not the captain’s fault. This was Echo. This was how she operated and always had.

Echo met the captain’s gaze, mirroring her affection with sickening finesse. Then Kinell was walking away—leaving Reeva in this scenario right out of a nightmare.

Echo smiled. And suddenly, the air was too thin, as if the physical toll of flight was belatedly catching up with Reeva. Her head spun. She tried to get her bearings in this unthinkable situation but found herself suddenly overcome with the feeling of tumbling, untethered, through open space—like she had before she’d learned to use her wings.

Why did Echo want her here? Want her close? Why the smile? Was Echo trying to assess whether Reeva was a threat that needed to be removed? Or had she already decided to get rid of Reeva and just thought she’d use this case to create an opportunity? If so, did Reeva have what it took to beat her to the draw? Was Reeva’s aim still what it had been ten years ago? Was her finger as fast to the trigger? 

No. No, it wasn’t. Of course, it wasn’t. Reeva’s flawless aim had always gone hand-in-hand with her confidence. And she had never had less of that.

She needed to get out of here. If it meant using Barny’s blowback to launch herself out to sea, she needed to get out of this.

Echo tilted her head. “Your heart is beating terribly fast, Consultant. Do you need to sit down?”

Reeva took a slow breath, fully intending to pull her Aurinmate and attempt an escape—when the putter of an Eren-Mara engine came rattling across the beach. And Gods, Reeva had never thought she would be so thankful to see Gunter’s stupid police car trundle into view. He pulled off to the shoulder when he spotted them, turned off the clunky machine, and hopped out.

“Your detective handler, I assume?” Echo asked.

Instead of answering, Reeva turned and made a beeline across the sand to meet Gunter, ignoring Enforcer June’s ruffled, “Excuse me! The lieutenant just asked you a question!”

“Get me out of this,” Reeva said under her breath as soon as she estimated that she was out of range of Echo’s enhanced hearing.

“What?” Gunter asked, earnest brown eyes blinking in confusion.

“I’m being kidnapped by enforcers, Detective. Save me.”

“Oh. I’m not sure I have the authority to—”

“Detective,” Echo whooshed up beside Gunter, sending up a rush of sand, apparently unashamed of using her supernatural speed to intrude. “Consultant Reeva will be working under myself and my partner on this new case.”

“Oh…” Gunter visibly paled as he looked up at Echo, having never seen anyone move at Volta speed on land. Then he glanced at Reeva and, bless his heart, still tried to help. “The thing is… um… If you can believe it, Consultant Reeva and I are actually in the middle of our own murder case this morning. I worry about pulling her off that since we really were counting on her magic for the remaining interrogations.”

“I see,” Echo said. “Worry not, then. I’ll help you resolve your current case.”

“What?” Gunter said.

“I thought the captain’s case was supposed to be important to you,” Reeva said, and Gunter looked shocked that his stoic consultant would speak that way to an enforcer.

“It is,” Echo said, annoyingly unbothered, “but my abilities—and yours for that matter—won’t become useful until we have witnesses and suspects to work with. Enforcer June can easily assemble those for us.” 

“What—By herself?” Gunter glanced down the beach toward Enforcer June, probably wondering if the stockier woman was also a Volta with the ability to move between locations in a flash of light.

“We have a team on the way,” Echo said, “as do you, I’d assume.” Of course, any Nulenbo Metro police who arrived on the scene would now have to defer to the Enforcers. “While they knock on doors, I’ll assist you in solving your current murder case. I can’t imagine it will take long.”

Gunter faltered, out of his depth, in no position to object to an enforcer and lacking the context to understand the tension between the two Volta.

“Do you object, Detective?” Echo asked.

“No, ma’am,” he said with an apologetic glance at Reeva. “How could I?”

“Perfect.” A smile turned the corner of that insufferable mouth. “Allow me a moment to take my notes on the crime scene. Then the three of us can make our way to your headquarters.”

When Echo had moved away to rejoin Enforcer June, Gunter turned to Reeva.

“Your coat.” He held the garment out to her, and she eagerly pulled it over her torn shirt.

“Thanks.”

“You going to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

“The Lieutenant covered it, I think.” Reeva didn’t meet his eyes, but he was a detective, and she had never been good at hiding her agitation.

“What’s really going on?” he prompted.

“Not here,” was all Reeva said. Echo’s aura didn’t look like it was active anymore, but experienced Volta could be subtle about shit like that, and Reeva wasn’t going to trust anything she saw where Echo was concerned. “Let’s go look over the crime scene.” Before those two have a chance to contaminate it too much.

“It’s not our crime scene.”

“I’m consulting,” Reeva said, “and we’re a package deal, so it is now.”

The wind had picked up on the beach as Reeva motioned Gunter to follow her back toward the body. Gunter looked confused—understandable, considering he had never seen Reeva eager to look over a crime scene. Normally, she wasn’t; if Eren-Mara wanted to kill each other, that was all part of their Kiloversal right to self-determination, and Reeva wasn’t keen to disrupt that. But the more Reeva considered the victim’s body, the more she suspected that this particular murder was not the work of another Eren-Mara.

“Gods!” Gunter exclaimed as he got a look at Bora’s injuries. “What happened to him?”

“Unclear,” Enforcer June straightened up from where she had been kneeling by the corpse. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, Detective…” She raised her eyebrows, prompting Gunter to offer a name.

“Oh—sorry,” he said, realizing his rudeness. “Detective Samar Gunter of the Nulenbo Metropolitan Precinct.”

“Enforcer June.” She gave him a stiff nod. “I’m working with Lieutenant Echo on this case, which effectively means that you will answer to me.”

“Right,” Gunter sighed, only a little of the rueful edge making its way into his tone. Now that the damage was done—the Enforcers had won control of the scene—he was willing to be a professional. “Can I ask what we know so far?”

“As you probably heard, the call came in not an hour ago. A resident of one of the homes up there was out for her morning walk when she came upon the body.” June nodded toward the line of houses far up the beach. “When she realized she had come across a body, she ran straight back to her home and called in an emergency. Due to the violent nature of the crime and the location, the emergency services operator notified our headquarters as well as yours. Based on the description the witness provided, Captain Kinell had a feeling that the victim could be her old friend and partner, retired Enforcer, Kamden Bora. Having observed the body, she confirmed. This is him.”

“She got a feeling just from a physical description over the phone?” Reeva said. The victim—Kamden Bora—was hardly visually unique among Eren-Mara. Light skin, dark blond hair, brown eyes, a nice frock coat and boots, indistinct from those of any well-off older man of this planet.

“It wasn’t his physical description that caught the captain’s ear,” Echo said just as Reeva noted the long object in Bora’s right hand, half-hidden in the sand. “It was—”

“The weapon,” Reeva realized. Kamden Bora had died holding a gun—the sort of long pistol only an Enforcer carried. “But he was retired,” she said in surprise. “He still had his firearm?”

“Firearm ownership permits only expire for police,” June said. “For former Enforcers, the permit is permanent.”

“Okay.” Another odd quirk of Mara’s law enforcement structure that made no sense to Reeva.

“That said, there aren’t many retired Enforcers who hold onto their guns in a safe city like this,” Echo added. “Captain Kinell happened to know that Enforcer Bora was one of only a few. Add to that his physical description and her hunch was understandable. Unless we assumed the gun was stolen, a broad-set man in his fifties carrying an Enforcer’s pistol would almost have to be him.”

“Does—or did—former Enforcer Bora live near here?” Gunter asked, looking toward the large beachfront homes, which a retired Enforcer just might be able to afford.

“Not even close,” June said. “According to Captain Kinell, he lives downtown with his husband, almost an hour from here by train. To her knowledge, this was not a place he came often. He didn’t even like the water.”

“And where is the witness now?” Reeva asked. “The one who found the body?”

“Presumably in her house, where she was instructed to stay until we sent officers to call,” June said. “I will have her rounded up along with any other potential witnesses for examination by Lieutenant Echo… and you, I suppose, if the lieutenant deems it necessary.”

“Do we know how long the victim has been here?” Gunter asked.

Enforcer June shook her head. “We haven’t established a window yet. This part of the beach is private, so he might have lain here a long time before our caller stumbled upon him. Once our team has arrived, I will go to his house to notify his husband and see if he can give us any insight into how Enforcer Bora may have ended up here.”

As June spoke, Reeva had gotten on her knees by the corpse to peer at Bora’s nearly bisected body.

“What are you looking for?” Gunter asked.

This, Reeva thought as her eyes traced the blackened edge of Bora’s coat where it had been cut and the lightly cooked flesh beneath. Burns. The wound that had killed Bora was not only dramatic in its size but slightly singed—as though the metal that had cut him had been hot… or perhaps not metal at all. While she was up close, Reeva also looked at his hand, wondering about gunshot residue, but it was pointless. Particles that small were invisible to the human eye, and amid all the wind and sand, even Reeva’s aura-enhanced eyesight wasn’t going to do her much good.

Nobody balked the way they should as Reeva took the gun from the victim’s hand—because as usual, no one on Mara handled a crime scene with any care. 

June did say, “Careful handling that, Consultant! If it’s not secured—”

“She knows,” Gunter and Echo said almost in unison, after which Gunter looked at Echo in confusion. 

Since she wouldn’t be able to explain the situation to Gunter until they got a moment in private, Reeva ignored them both in favor of studying the victim’s pistol.

Mara’s firearms had always confounded her—not because they were particularly strange or poorly put together. Just the opposite. They were better, more advanced, more elegant than the rest of Mara’s tech, and nowhere was that more evident than in Bora’s long-barreled automatic pistol.

Plenty of societies had firearms that were more impressive than their cars, printing presses, and radios, but those were usually violent societies—cultures that had participated in a massive war or two, maybe a bloody expansion into neighboring lands, or maybe just relied heavily on big game hunting. Peaceful, metropolitan Mara met none of those criteria. But Reeva supposed there were always weird outliers in the way tech developed. Sometimes, all it took was a single eccentric inventor lucking into the right opportunities. For the moment, Reeva was just thankful that Bora’s firearm was similar enough to many she had handled back home.

June made a sound of surprise when Reeva handily drew the little box magazine from the grip to examine its contents. Six bullets, centerfire cartridges still intact. And the chamber was empty.

“One’s missing,” Reeva observed. That could mean that Kamden Bora had squeezed off a shot at his attacker before dying. She looked to June because it was easier than acknowledging Echo. “Do you know if former enforcers usually keep a full clip?”

June shook her head. “In the field, yes. In retirement, that would be a matter of Enforcer Bora’s personal preference.” She looked to Echo. “We’ll certainly check with Captain Kinell and Bora’s family to see if they have insights.”

“But we do have some implications, if I may,” Detective Gunter said. “Enforcer Bora kept his pistol—with ammunition, no less—even though he didn’t need it for work anymore, which implies that he wanted it for something other than its sentimental value. And he brought it with him to this place, which implies that he came here knowing he might need to defend himself.”

“And, if he feared for his safety, he probably wanted a full clip,” Reeva said, looking out over the white expanse of sand before the body. Bora’s finger had been on the trigger when she slipped the weapon from his hand. All her instincts said that there had been a shot.

“We can get magnets and try to sweep the beach,” Enforcer June said, “but this is a lot of sand and it won’t be free of litter. I wouldn’t count on finding such a small piece of metal.”

“Reeva can find it,” Echo said.

“What?” June and Gunter turned to the lieutenant in surprise.

Echo was still looking at Reeva. “Your little friend can scan for items like a bullet, can he not?” As a Xin Volta, Echo didn’t have an Aurinmate, but she had encountered enough Aurin Volta to know how they worked. “He could sweep the beach.”

“Yeah,” Reeva said. “I just don’t get him out at work.”

“Well, I’m telling you to,” Echo said. When Reeva just glowered up at her, she added. “Today, if you don’t mind, Consultant.”

Rage crackling at her core, Reeva considered refusing, considered spitting on Echo’s immaculate boots just to see what would happen. But something was off here, and as much as it turned Reeva’s stomach, playing Echo’s game might be the only way to figure out what.

“Barny,” Reeva said tightly, and the wallet jumped from her pocket to hover on his little leather wings. “Scan for a bullet similar in size, shape, and composition to this, disregarding cartridge case and contents”—she held up a bullet from Bora’s clip—“within a… what range?” She looked from the gun to June. “Nine hundred fifty feet from our current position?”

“That’s right!” June said, again surprised at this foreigner’s knowledge of the most cutting-edge firearm Mara had to offer. “How did you—”

“Roger!” Barny chirped, making both June and Gunter jump. And Barny fluttered off, hovering low over the sand so he could scan.

“Wait, could… could that thing always do that?” Gunter looked to Reeva, stunned. “And you’ve been limiting yourself to interrogations?”

“There are ethical problems with using off-world tech on a planet like this,” Reeva said with an accusing glare up at Echo. “It’s easy to throw off a world’s natural balance.” Especially a delicate flower of a world like this one. Of course, Echo knew that. She just didn’t care.

As Reeva stood, brushing sand from her knees, Echo tilted her head to indicate that Reeva should follow her Aurinmate down the beach. A pointless endeavor as Barny was just going to slowly sweep down and back until he had either found the bullet or covered the prescribed area. He didn’t need supervision.

“Your eyes are the best of anyone’s,” Echo said when Reeva didn’t move. “A visual sweep for evidence in tandem with your Aurinmate can’t hurt, can it? And if it does, I’ll take responsibility for any damage to Mara’s natural balance.”

“Speaking of the world’s natural balance,” Gunter said, turning to Enforcer June, “I have to ask: have you ever seen an injury like that before?”

“No,” June said, baffled.

But Reeva had—and it was making the hair stand on the back of her neck.

That sort of burn on flesh was characteristic of a crackling hot magical construct slicing through a body. Injuries like Bora’s were extremely common in fights that involved magic… fights between Volta. 

“You should get back in the car, Detective,” Reeva said, suddenly feeling protective of her very mortal non-magical companion.

Gunter turned to her in confusion. “What?”

Aware of how odd it was for her to start ordering her handler around, Reeva hurried to form a plausible explanation. “It’s a bit of a drive to the station, and we have multiple witnesses to interrogate for the Reed case, right? You should get a head start.” She wasn’t going to turn her back and leave Gunter in proximity to that demon. If Echo wanted Reeva to follow her Aurinmate down the beach like an idiot, she’d do it, but not before making sure Gunter was on his way out of danger. “Lieutenant Echo and I can catch up in the air after we find the bullet,” she added. “Go.”

“Are you sure?” Detective Gunter said. “Your aura or whatever you call it… Isn’t it finite?”

“Yes,” Reeva said, “but I’ve got more in the tank than your little car, I promise.” Even if her powers had weakened during the years of disuse, she wasn’t going to burn herself out on a flight of several miles. “I’ll see you at the station.”

Reeva tried not to take it personally that Gunter looked at Echo, getting a nod from her, before doing what Reeva said and heading back toward his vehicle. Echo was the highest-ranking officer; it was his job to do what she said—which meant it fell to Reeva to keep him safe.

She had intended to stand right where she was until that dumb little engine was running, carrying Gunter away from the scene. But Echo, perhaps reading her fear, pre-empted her.

“Why don’t I walk with you, Consultant?” she said, pointedly turning away from Gunter to move toward Reeva. “We’ll follow the Aurinmate together.”

Reeva frowned, wondering how much she had given away, hoping it hadn’t been too much. “Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”

Barny was moving slowly, scanning deep into the sand as he went, and it took the two women only a short stroll to catch up to him. Their pace slowed to match the Aurinmate’s as Barny led them alongside one of the stone boathouses belonging to the homes further up the beach. Reeva waited until they were partly obscured in the shadow of a boathouse, out of earshot of enforcer June. Then she rounded on Echo.

“I know it’s hardly worth asking a creature who lies like she breathes, but what is your game here, Xin Volta?”

“Xin Volta?” One of Echo’s knife-slash eyebrows lifted, as though Reeva had offered insult by calling her what she was. “I haven’t been that for a long time.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I wouldn’t presume… Aurin Volta.”

“Do they know what you are?” Reeva demanded with a nod down the beach toward Enforcer June. “Do they know what you did?”

“Yes.”

“Really?” Reeva had a hard time believing that even a trusting, near-dark-world official like Kinell would employ Echo knowing what Reeva knew. Had Echo honestly told them about all the Aurin infrastructure she had blown up, all the people she had hurt, all the innumerable lies she had told to further her Xin terrorism?

“My immediate superiors are aware of my background, but they are also aware that I was young, and stupid, and… unfinished when I did those things.” Echo frowned. “They know that I’ve changed and continue to change.”

All the right words. Echo had always had all the right words.

“I wonder what the rest of the city would say if they found out.”

Something flashed in Echo’s eyes. There was the Xin. Destroyer. Demon.

In an instant, Reeva’s back hit the wall—not the wall of the boathouse where they had been standing but the next one down the beach, a hundred feet away. Echo’s hand crackled with power. 

“Don’t,” she said, her voice strained.

“Ooh,” Reeva looked down at the hand on her chest. “Or what? Gonna cut my legs off at the shins and watch me bleed out?”

Something in Echo’s expression twitched ever so slightly—in contempt? Disgust? Impossible to tell with a layer of fabric blocking skin-to-skin contact. “I’m not that person anymore.”

“Of course not,” Reeva spat. “You’re wearing a different color now. How silly of me!”

Echo’s hand didn’t leave Reeva’s chest, but the burning danger went out of it. Echo blinked, looking suddenly unbearably fragile. Her blue gaze dropped. And Gods, it was no wonder she had been able to fool Captain Kinell and the rest of these hapless people; she did a masterful job looking not just repentant but sad.

“If you want to out me to the wider public, I won’t try to stop you,” she said at length, “but this murder may not be solvable without our powers. And I do want it solved.”

“Do you?” Reeva demanded. This was dangerously close to voicing her true suspicions, but she had to at least imply… to see how Echo would react.

“Yes,” the master pretender insisted, stone-faced. “So, before you broadcast my past to all of Mara, please… can we finish this case together?”

So you can take your time thinking up a way to outflank me? Reeva thought viciously, but she didn’t say it.

 Sure, Echo had probably gotten a little smarter since their last run-in, but so had Reeva. She wasn’t the gullible dimwit Echo had faced in that interrogation cell ten years ago.

“It’s cute what you’ve done with your wings,” Reeva observed instead of giving Echo the answer she wanted. “Convenient, too. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you designed them to invoke a Mara angel. Blameless, faultless, pure.”

“You know I don’t have control over that any more than you do.” Another lie. Echo could control a lot of things no Volta should be able to. The color of her wings would not be an exception. “Which begs the question…” Echo paused to look Reeva up and down. “Your wings didn’t always manifest that way, did they? What happened to you?”

The wave of rage was so dizzying that Reeva couldn’t even speak. She dared to ask Reeva that? She dared.

“Take your hand off me,” Reeva whispered when she finally found her breath, “or I will take it off you.”

Echo obliged, calm as ever, dark fingers opening and held up before her as if to placate. As though she was the one being reasonable. “This one case, Reeva. That’s all I ask. Then do what you want with the dirt you have on me. Or ask me to leave this planet and never come back. I will.”

“Sure,” Reeva snapped. She wasn’t duplicitous enough to mask her contempt; nothing she could do about that. But let Echo think that contempt was as far as it went. “On one condition of my own.”

“Yes?”

“Never put your hands on me again.”

“Done.”

A musical ping interrupted, and Reeva turned to find Barny hovering at her shoulder, aglow with self-satisfaction. He had found the bullet.

“Show me,” she said and followed as he zipped back in the direction of the body.

“Here,” Barny said as he came to hover over a patch of sand not far from where Bora had fallen. “Two inches down.”

June had moved up the beach to meet the small army of Enforcers and police arriving in their sad excuses for cars. Only Echo was there to see Reeva carefully dig two fingers into the cool sand and pluck out the little nugget of metal. And it really was a nugget rather than an intact bullet; the tip had been crushed to a nub as though it had met with a hard surface shortly after leaving the barrel.

“It’s squashed,” Echo observed even before Reeva blew the sand off to give them a better look.

“Deformed impacting something,” Reeva agreed, “but what?”

“Body armor?” Echo suggested.

Or a Volta’s aura. “Who on this planet wears body armor?”

“Enforcers.” Putting her hands to her breast, Echo quickly undid three brass buttons and pulled her uniform open to reveal scale-like armor of many overlapping steel pieces, each about the size of a thumbnail.

“Okay,” Reeva said, skeptical. “That looks like it would be decent protection against a knife, maybe. You’re telling me it’s thick enough to stop a bullet at short range?”

“The armor is a fairly new regulation, so it’s hard to say.” Echo pressed at the metal scales with the fingers of one hand and looked back up to meet Reeva’s gaze.

And suddenly, Reeva was ten years back, watching Echo softly press that same hand to her heart and look up at Reeva—a doe’s wide, artless eyes, desperate for life, a painfully fragile voice saying: If you found it in yourself, you could kill me.

Echo dealt in images. She knew what she was doing.

Rage shot from Reeva’s heart straight into Barny, bypassing her skin and tattoos. The Aurinmate transformed in a hard snap of metal, taking the form of the last firearm Reeva had held in her hand—Kamden Bora’s Enforcer’s pistol, six bullets in the clip.

“Are you asking me to test that for you?” She pointed the weapon at Echo’s chest.

“If you have it in you?” Echo’s tone was oddly meek, more question than challenge. That plaintive little sing-song—that play at innocence—only made the challenge more infuriating.

Reeva’s finger moved to the trigger. If you think you’re dealing with the little girl from that interrogation cell, you’ve got another thing coming, she thought. 

BANG!

Reeva and Echo both started as the shot sent a burst of sand across their boots. With her own finger still frozen on the trigger, Reeva didn’t know where the gunfire had come from until she registered an Eren-Mara voice bellowing “Hey!” over the wind. 

Scrambling into a better shooting range, Enforcer June leveled her pistol at Reeva, ready to put the next shot through her chest. “Drop it!” Behind June, several other enforcers drew their guns and trained them on Reeva.

Reeva’s aura activated in response, golden light ready to shield her from the bullets—if it was still strong enough for that.

But Echo had lifted a hand in June’s direction, shouting, “Hold! Hold!”

“Hold?” June repeated, a little shrilly.

“It’s alright, Enforcer June. You can stand down. Consultant Reeva and I were just testing something.”

“Testing something!” June said, incredulous. “Lieutenant, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Then we’re even,” Echo smiled, flicking her eyes to where June’s bullet had struck the sand. “Now that you have a team to assist you, Consultant Reeva and I should head to the Nulenbo Metropolitan Precinct.”

“Really?” Enforcer June looked between the two of them in disbelief. “You’re just going to leave with her now?”

“Yes.” Echo was calmly buttoning the front of her uniform, her eyes still on Reeva as she smiled. “I think I have what I wanted to know.”

That Reeva still couldn’t do it. That, ten years later, she was still the spineless girl who turned to putty in the hands of a skilled manipulator. 

Let Echo think that.

Let her think she was safe.

“Found this in the sand right about here, Enforcer.” Reeva pointed to the sand at her feet, then tossed Bora’s blunted bullet to June, who fumbled to catch it.

White wings extended from Echo’s back, bigger than Reeva’s ever had been, twin shapes casting great shadows on the sand. 

“Would you care to lead on, Consultant?”

With her aura already activated, Reeva whipped her own wings out with force to compensate for their size. Dark feathers ripped straight through the back of her coat, the air pressure sending up two bursts of sand that billowed far across the beach in both directions and caused the assembled enforcers to shield their eyes.

“If you can keep up,” she said and exploded into the sky.