Rai opted for two cups of coffee and started gulping one down immediately. Sao was just stirring in the last of his sugar when Rai tossed the first cup and pulled the lid off the second. At the same time, he drew a folder out of a messenger bag and slapped it down with a explosive crack. The level of noise Rai could elicit from a stack of paper was ludicrous.

“You got the rest of them?” Rai asked.

Sao placed his own folder on the table - gently. Rai swiped it up and went at it like a present from under the tree.

“Is it really alright to talk business here?” Sao asked, glancing around the cafeteria. The expansive dining area was warm, bright, and thoroughly empty - it felt obscene to lay a police case out on its immaculate tables.

“Of course it is. At least until lunch. Even then it’s mostly staff that eats here, and besides,” Rai said, drawing out the photographs, “the office has to marinate a while. Pest control just came through.”

“That’s right, I saw them. What were they there for?”

“For the pests.” Rai flipped over the papers and began to leaf through the photographs. He paused on a particular sheet. Rai stared deeply into the paper for a few moments, as if trying to draw something out, but the moment concluded with a sniff. “Strange family.”

Sao frowned and stirred his tea.

“I’ve heard stories about the mother in particular. Shrill, argumentative.”

Sao put down the plastic stirring stick.

“She could be a real piece of-”

“Rai, her child is dead.”

“Oh, you read through it already.”

“I checked what I was asked to pick up, yes.”

Behind the papers, Rai twitched at this insolence, but in a moment he had composed himself and set the photo down. The printout showed a child lying in the snow in a forest.

Sao sat forward. “I’m listening.”

“Right. There’s another file to cover, but since you’ve already taken a look at the kid, we’ll start with him.”

The child was on his side, wrapped in a brown overcoat with small golden buttons. His brush of hair, a nostalgic shade somewhere between ash brown and premature grey, splayed out like dried grass. The photographer who had provided the pictures was no a professional. It was off-center, there were even smudges on the lens, but intentional or not the photographer had captured the child’s frozen blue face in perfect focus. His small mouth was open, almost in protest under his open, glazed eyes. His upturned side was dusted with snow.

“Kuro Fleming,” Rai read, “Twelve years old, one of three Fleming triplets. The kids live with mom, dad, uncle and grandpa, in a mansion out on the North hills. Kuro was found dead two days ago.”

“That’s awful.”

“Around noon that day he was spotted, in the state seen in the picture, by five neighboring kids, little-ish, like 8 to 10 years old, still on school vacation. The group snuck onto the property to snowboard, play in the snow, things like that. The Flemings own a huge property, acres of woodland with a house up on a hill, so the family didn’t know anyone snuck in. Kuro’s body wasn’t too far from the house. The little visitors didn’t know who he was. Some of them took a few photos and prodded the body, but when they saw he wasn’t moving, they panicked. Phone reception wasn’t good so they ran to the nearest house - the Flemings’. And when they came knocking, the family...” Rai set his dull red eyes on the picture. “The family were so upset by the sight of the trespassers that they chased the kids out without listening. It wasn’t until the police came that they realized what happened.”

“So the family didn’t notice that Kuro was missing before that.”

“The parents thought he was still in bed, so no prior police report. They definitely weren’t happy when the police did show up.” Rai dipped his head. “I guess you can’t expect people to be all smiles when they hear their kid or grandkid is dead, but the detectives had a hard time getting anything out of them past that.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t easy for anyone.” Sao pressed his fingers to the sheet and pulled it closer. “Do we have any idea how long he was there? What time he may have...”

Rai drained his second cup of coffee and frowned. “Time of death? There are a couple of problems. There hasn’t been an autopsy, and the inspection was rushed. The family chased everyone off the property as soon as the news broke. The detectives thought they just needed some space to cool off, but within hours the mom officially declared that they’ll be holding onto the body - keeping him in some private mortuary - and the police will have no access. You could probably tell from the fact that they own a forest, but the Flemings are loaded. In short, they don’t want us to see the body, and we’d have a lousy time forcing them. So HQ dragged their heels, thinking the family might hit us with a lawsuit.”

“The family aren’t interested in an investigation for Kuro...”

“If anything, they’re against it. No body. No returning at the scene. No interviews. It’s snowing again, so anything like footprints are going to get buried. All we have are pictures snapped by the kids and a couple of notes from the local officers who only managed a few questions before getting tossed out. The best timeline we can come up with says that Kuro died in the night or early morning; probably the latter since he wasn’t buried in snow. The parents saw him in bed the night before. If we trust them.”

Sao slid the photo to the side, just slightly, to see the one below it. Kuro was hardly in this picture, just a blur at the edge of the frame. Standing at the forefront were a man and a woman. The man was facing someone off to the left, his sulfur-yellow eyes distant. His look was somber, but the woman was in a state of near collapse. Her arms were spread wide, shielding her son from onlookers, but her face was crumpled, red cheeks shining with a web of tears. She was facing the camera directly, mouth frozen in an anguished scream.

Sao slowly let his gaze slide off the table.

“Art and Carion Fleming,” Rai said. “Mom and dad. The grandfather - mom’s side - his name is Red. He had no comments on the record, but apparently he was the one who cleared everyone out. Probably with a show of money and legal threats.”

Sao pushed the photo to the bottom of the pile. “It must be hard for them.”

“Yeah, investigation’s pretty much walled.”

Sao put up a wall of his own. Rai sighed.

“I don’t feel great saying so, but the Flemings are not easy to work with. Giving them time and space won’t change anything because they already have a surplus of both. They’re rich. Red inherited forests overseas, and have a share in pretty much anything to do with properties - plus landscapers and furniture ‘side projects’ that are probably worth more than the whole police force. And you might notice from a family living in a private forest, they’re notoriously closed off from the rest of the world. None of their public appearances have been happy occasions as far as I can tell.”

“Maybe.” Sao folded his arms. “I know we want answers, but consider it from their end. No matter how much money they have, it’s not going to bring their child back. And that’s painful - why should we be expecting them to change at the hardest time of their lives? Having police crawling around could upset the two kids who are still there. And… maybe they already know the truth. Heavy snow, three children on a huge property - accidents happen. If they would rather bury the tragedy, we have no right to force them into anything else.”

“Sure, they always have their say. But we should be concerned about letting things go a second time.”

“A second time?”

Rai shook out the contents of his rather battered envelope, which was marked with the hospital’s name and address. “Kuro wasn’t the first Fleming found dead on the property. Last Monday, the gardening crew were making their periodic visit and found Chiro Fleming - Kuro’s uncle - out in the garden, lying in the snow, dead. Again, nobody was looking for him - they thought he was in bed. He was uncovered in the early morning, like his nephew. There are a lot of similarities, except...”

Rai slid a photograph out of his files and placed it next to Kuro’s.

There was an uncanny similarity to the scene: the same trees overhead, the wiry brown hair and even similar coats. But while Kuro had been surrounded by nothing but white woodland, Chiro’s was lying in a clearing before some sort of structure made of thin beams. And Chiro had a slightly thicker covering of snow on and around him, from laying out longer, or from heavier snowfall.

Then there was the blood.

And a lot of it. Chiro’s body, skin, hair, face and arms were splattered, and a huge stain spread around him like a demonic flower. Its crimson hue was scalding against the white snow.

Sao turned the photo around. “What in the world happened?”

“Pretty gruesome, huh? This was early morning, and groundskeepers were able to call in police before the Flemings woke up. An ambulance had the body out before the protests began. That’s why we have his file. We actually have his body too, downstairs. The family never asked for it.”

“Very different treatment from Kuro. But lord, two deaths in the family, that is...”

“Don’t just assume it’s bad luck. Chiro Fleming was --” Rai paused. “Did you hear that until recently the grandfather - Chiro’s father, Red - was stuck at this hospital in a coma?”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like good luck.”

“He’s up now, isn’t he? The old man is running his house, calling lawyers on investigators - he’s better than fine. The doctors called it a miracle - he was never expected to get up again.

“The Flemings brought him in after an apparent stroke last summer and he lay in a hospital bed wired up to a monitor for almost half a year. The family came almost every day - they had demands, but nothing medical related. They wanted more space, catering, playrooms for the kids, a new TV, special lights and cabinets… Meanwhile, old Red wasn’t getting any better but neither son nor daughter nor son-in-law would sign off anything but the most basic support to keep him alive.

“Most of the info I have now trickled down through the doctors and nurses, but even the media got on some of it, there were some... confrontations. The family acts all secretive now, but in hospital they couldn’t keep their mouths shut, didn’t care about disturbing a whole floor. There were noise complaints. One of the triplets, Karik, has some kind of learning disability. When the volume hit a certain point he’d curl up and scream if anyone got close, you wouldn’t be able to stop him until he was done. Most often, he was triggered by his own family. The mom was extremely abrasive towards any advice. The dad, from what I could tell, total wallflower, and the other kids were just upset to be there. Then this guy...”

Rai tapped the picture of the bloodied Chiro.

“Spectacular asshole, by the staff’s words. Acted like he was in a bordello and, didn’t seem to want to look at his dying dad. He came by a little less often than the others, but made sure you knew when he was in. He picked fights, and more. You met Axelle downstairs - Chiro made a habit of cornering her or anyone remotely attractive and saying he needed ‘emotional support’; got pretty pissed when anyone stood up to him too. He never got physically violent, just ran his mouth… though when guns and fighting came up, he toed the line. He probably butted heads with a dozen patients and visitors over those months, and many more before that, so I guess some assumptions were made about his death.”

He passed the dead man’s photo to Sao, for a re-assessment.

“Red Fleming’s miraculous awakening happened last Thursday night,” Rai continued. “The hospital was in overdrive - first a bunch of accidents on the highway, then a gang stabbing. The gang calling themselves the Sparrows checked in with four injured members. They wound up in the same room as the Flemings. And the Sparrows gave the Flemings a run for their money when it came to inappropriate yelling in the ICU. Chiro started making threats, getting personal. It didn’t turn into a brawl, and the two groups only shared the room a couple of hours before Red woke up and gave the Flemings something else to do, but… consider that the Sparrows are the sort of people who picked a fight over a lawn. An argument with neighbors over some grass turned into three injured and one fatality. So...”

“Any small offense could have done it. What happened to Chiro at his house could be gang retaliation.”

“Even the Flemings seemed to consider that. Art Fleming couldn’t give a straight answer for any enemies Chiro might have had, but as for recent confrontations, both she and her husband brought up the Sparrow gang.”

Sao flipped through the preliminary report. Heart failure? “Was there any follow-up with the gang at all?”

“Nope. The detectives at the time needed clearance from the Flemings for a full autopsy, but the Flemings never picked up the call. Bury the tragedy, right? If a gang really had managed to sneak onto their property and kill the uncle, then yeah, maybe they were just scared.”

“And then something happened to Kuro.”

“You’re starting to see it too. These deaths don’t look like standard gang fare. Kuro didn’t have any obvious injuries in those photos. Chiro had no major injuries either.”

“Chiro wasn’t injured? But he was covered in blood.”

Rai pulled another sheet from the hospital’s records. “Proof positive. Unlike Kuro, the doctors had a good long look at Chiro. Some slight bruising from when he fell and police found a knife nearby, with Chiro’s fingerprints, but no blood on the blade. Chiro wasn’t stabbed or bludgeoned to death. There was nothing resembling poison in his blood either. Without the autopsy approval, doctors guessed heart attack. Since the Flemings never followed up, the detectives left that as COD and dropped the case.”

“Just a minute.” Sao now gave the photo a second look. “If not from Chiro, where did all the blood come from?”

Rai’s lip curled into the bemused shape Sao wouldn’t call a smile. “Pigs. And family.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mostly pig’s blood, with a dash of human. Those humans would be relatives of Chiro, but not Chiro himself, or Red, the hospital checked those. Only a few of other possibilities, but we don’t have any samples from Art or her kids for comparison.” Rai sat back and crushed his empty paper cup into a small disc. “So doesn’t look much like a petty gang strike at all, huh? And if it was an accident, that’s a hell of a bloodbath.”

“Other than the Sparrow gang, could anybody else have a reason to go after the family? Anyone who’d have access to their blood?”

“Six months of hospital scuffles, and a lifetime of aggressive isolation and big money. No doubt they have enemies we haven’t even heard of. Private doctors, debts, who knows what else.” Rai rolled both of his crushed cups into a small ball. “Don’t know if you’d consider it or not, but the family on their own are pretty suspicious in this situation too.”

“Professionally speaking, why would I not consider it?”

“The way you were looking at the parents…” Rai bit his tongue and held up his hands. It was a familiar sign. Sao sat back, arms folded as Rai pulled off his gloves and began tapping his phone with his neon fingers. “Okay, it’s hard to believe that they would intentionally let something happen to their kid, especially since eyes were on them after the death of the uncle. So next up... if you’re willing to consider all options, what do you think of curses?”

“Curses? You’re referring to magic?”

“Know anything about them?”

“I know very little about magic at all, though by the sound of it ‘curses’ are likely illegal.”

“So is murder. Take a look at this.”

Sao’s phone buzzed with a message. He pulled it up and opened Rai’s stream of headlines.

CURSE OF DEATH

Millionaire family picked off one by one… who’s next?

DEMONS: He came back from the dead, what did he bring with him?

Then an advert for hot singles in the Central area.

“These are…”

“‘Entertainment news’. Weirdly enough, mainstream news hasn’t got wind of the story yet, or Red’s gagged them with cash, but these literary dumpster fires aren’t afraid of lawyers.” Rai smirked. “I interned at one. The Daily Update. Daily Mail? They have to go by a different name now, some scandal forced a rebrand.”

“You don’t say.”

Rai held his hands before them. “But think about it - nobody denies magic is real. There’s no reason to immediately discount it as an option.” Rai folded his fingers together, setting his face alight with their blue glow. “You know how the police aren’t always on top of the latest studies, the newest threats. It took years for them to pick up on shapeshifters. Psychics. Satyr cults. Dinosaurs. Life Fountains. Their knowledge of magic is especially minimal. The Chief’s the only one who can really handle magic crime, and even he’s not great when things get technical.”

Rai set down his hands and leaned forward, surveying the files. “Typically, records default to heart attack when we can’t explain the death by injury or any other physical means. And if you look at the numbers, there’s been hell of a lot of them in the last ten years. Incidentally, hard magic usage started to leak outside the military around then when that Emperor Army wiped out and all those rebel magicians suddenly lost their jobs. So it makes sense that a bunch of unexplained deaths might actually be the result of magic. We just don’t have a method for investigating them. Well, HQ doesn’t.”

Sao smiled. “I see, so this is why the case was directed to you.”

“I may have asked for it.” Rai gazed down at Chiro’s photo, which sat between them like a conspicuous third guest at the table. “This one bothered me. Having a stroke in your own garden doesn’t get you covered in blood. Even if it was somehow intentional, some gross statement intended, who knew if forensics would even get all the blood identified? And then, what would it prove? It’s too specific for a random nutjob, or even revenge. But if we take the blood as the component as some sort of magic spell, a targeted curse... ” He unfolded his hands and held one out, throwing a blue light over Chiro’s collapsed form. “Possibilities open up. I don’t know a ton about magic, but blood sacrifice has always been a known feature of larger-scale spells. Often crude ones. Often malicious.”

“You’ve thought this through. But who would we call in on this? What can we do?”

“I haven’t gotten that far.” Rai began stacking the papers back together. “Like I said, there isn’t much in the way of protocol. I guess once we find proof, we tell the chief. If there’s something hanging onto the house, we get them out of there. If there’s something attached to the family itself, maybe we call an exorcist. But the way things are going, we need something tangible to make it more than a floaty tabloid theory. We haven’t even been to the scene.”

“What would we look for?”

“Who knows. Magic is a huge open subject, but we’ll never know anymore than we do if we don’t try.” With the papers in two piles, Rai gave each one a thunderous crack against the table edge to straighten them. “Are you busy today?”

Sao gazed out the glass side of the cafeteria at the snow furling, and unfurling. “Not particularly,” he said slowly.

Rai patted the repackaged folders and pulled his gloves back on. “Thought so. And the office is out of commission today so why don’t we take a drive out to the forest?”

---

Rai’s ancient sedan was warm. From past trips Sao assumed it would be drafty, with its loose frame, shaky windows, and a constant clatter that seemed to be coming in from outside. But today he settled comfortably in his seat, he didn’t even need his gloves. Of course, it may only have been warm because the heating was maxed. It blasted the front seats like a turbine.

Rai asked him something when they turned onto the highway, but he didn’t hear it over the roaring vents. He simply nodded, and with a standard look of disapproval, Rai set is eyes to the road and didn’t speak for the rest of the trip.

The drive itself was unusually smooth, another testament to the old car’s unexpected talents, the wheels gliding easily through snow. Sao found himself thinking it was made for winter, if nothing else. The streets were still empty, the lamps on to make up for the failing daylight. A faint fog coated the air. Still postcard material. In the distance, he saw the tops of trees and the mountains dusted white. A deafening dreaminess overtook him, he felt he was looking out of a plane. The all-consuming static from the heating vents only helped him along. His eyelids grew heavy and he thought about the things outside.

Children and snow-covered forests, the words on their own were building blocks for a fairytale. He knew better than that now. But he had known before the case even began.