Free Spirit Animals (Ritual Crime Unit Book 3) by E. E. Richardson Page B

that better belonged on a man contemplating a difficult crossword. “Hmm, yes. Judging by the patterning, I think this might be a Schiavelli.”
    “Meaning you know what to do?” Pierce said.
    “I hope so,” he said. “Schiavelli was known for working a back door of sorts into the enchantments, so that he could reclaim control of his creations, so perhaps...”
    He left off explaining in favour of doing, drawing a stick of chalk from his satchel to begin sketching symbols on the mirror. They disappeared into the glass like powder dissolving in water; watching in the reflection of the compact mirror, it took Pierce a moment to cotton onto the fact that she couldn’t see Cliff’s hand reflected in the glass at all, though she could still see Deepan’s face there, submerged in murky red.
    Had his eyes been closed before?
    Cliff muttered to himself as he worked, half-heard syllables that Pierce couldn’t decipher; she didn’t know if it was ritual or he was just lost in thought, so she stayed silent, though her nerves were twanging.
    Was the mirror surface changing as Cliff wrote? It seemed to her it had taken on a subtle new shimmer. Or was that just a stray reflection? She burned to turn around and look at the thing directly instead of through the tiny window of the compact mirror, but it wouldn’t help anyone if she got ensnared too.
    Cliff’s chalking had grown faster, a flurry of impassioned strokes like a teacher finding sudden inspiration. Without warning he slashed the chalk across the mirror’s surface, two quick strokes to make an X, and barked, “Release!”
    He held still. Pierce started to twist towards him, but he held up an urgent hand to stop her, frowning at the mirror. “No...” he murmured to himself. “That’s not the... Hmm.” He started another frantic chain of hastily scribbled symbols, culminating in a swirling figure eight. “Release!” he boomed again, and this time the image in the mirror visibly rippled , like the reflection in a pond disturbed by a stone. Pierce looked at Deepan for a reaction and saw none, but then Cliff roared again, “Release!”
    Deepan sagged out of his crouched position like a puppet with cut strings, collapsing toward the mirror; he would have fallen against its thorny frame if Cliff hadn’t stopped him with an arm across his chest. Pierce was with him an instant later, helping to lay the sergeant down on the ground so she could take his pulse. It was there, but it was weak. She glanced up at the mirror before she could stop the idiot impulse, but it seemed to have been neutralised for now; the blood it had absorbed was oozing back out from the glass in beaded droplets, running down to puddle in the dust on the shed floor.
    There was a lot of it. Deepan had no obvious wounds anywhere she could see: the mirror had drained him of it with no need for contact or trace of an injury, and if Pierce had been coming from further away or Deepan hadn’t got around to calling Cliff before uncovering the mirror, they might have found him dead on the floor without any evidence of had what happened.
    And he wasn’t out of the woods yet. She threw the dust sheet back over the blood-stained mirror and helped Cliff to hoist Deepan up off the ground and get him away from it, looking for the first uniform officer with a radio as they got back outside.
    “We need an ambulance here! Now!”

 

     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
    T HE AMBULANCE TOOK Deepan off, but Pierce didn’t get the chance to accompany it; there was still a storage shed full of artefacts to be dealt with, and it took most of the rest of the day to bag, tag and shift the contents. After the incident with the mirror, everything they didn’t immediately recognise had to be subjected to various improvised tests before they dared move it, and Pierce didn’t want to risk involving extra pairs of hands who didn’t know what they were doing.
    A call from Deepan’s wife at the hospital a few hours later at least