Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

Detective Chief Inspector Lance Mercer of the Manchester Major Crimes Unit looked around his latest crime scene and sighed. It was a fucking mess and it would have to have happened in his city. On his turf. Then again, these days, most things seemed to be happening in his city on his turf. Manchester was rapidly becoming the place of messed up crime scenes and have-a-go-heroes.

The office was small enough that only a few of them could come in at a time. One tech, head to toe in a white jumpsuit, examined the older of the two victims – both in terms of age when alive and in terms of the time of death. He’d been shot sometime approximately four hours earlier, quickly and cleanly – execution-style. As had their second victim, the younger doctor who’s phone had been clutched in his hand in his pocket like some damn millennial when he’d died. Their third victim was back in the Egyptology section, being checked out by yet another of their lab techs while the other officer waited with them.

Two shootings, one throat cut. Three dead. All at tea time in a building open to the public – granted one which was not always packed to the rafters but it still did not narrow down their suspect pool any. And of course, the security cameras were all down at the time of the incident.

At least this latest crime looked like a spree or a hit, there were no eyes gouged out. The last time he’d had to deal with a serial killer it hadn’t quite gone as expected and he’d ended up with a knife in his back – literally. Still, the scar had mostly healed.

He heard noise coming from the hall and stepped beyond the tape to find Dr Andrew Wells had arrived, dressed as though for dinner.

“Dr...Andrew thanks for coming,” he greeted him, indicating to the officer he was okay to pass. He asked her to give them the landing and like that they were alone, save for the lingering dead and tech over in the office. “Hope I didn’t interrupt the party.”

“You did, thankfully,” Andrew agreed.

“Sorry we couldn’t meet under better circumstances, but with things being what they are…” he let it hang for a moment before adding, “It’s been a busy night. Apparently, there was a car crash on Canal Street and some chatty witnesses. Anything I should know about?”

“I’m sure Ruth will fill you in,” Andrew answered cagily.

DCI Mercer understood why Andrew was cautious. He’d originally arrested him and three others during their first super-powered showdown that went somewhat public. Ruth had come sweeping into his interrogation room with all the power she held and minutes later he’d had a phone call from the Commissioner telling him to stand down. It had only piqued his interest.

Sometime after the Blackout, he’d come to Ruth about the rumours. The rumours that there were powered people fighting in the middle of the chaos. That some people had died not from the falling planes or from the failing medical equipment or any of the other things victims of the Blackout had succumbed to. But from a superhero smackdown. No power, no phones, no photos – only whispers of witnesses awed by what they had seen.

The powers they’d described, people with control over water, fire, earth and the wind sounded a lot like the boys and girls he’d locked up for fighting by the Cathedral. Then he’d dug deeper. A cackling maniacal villain crackling with dark power – whose description sounded a lot like one of their employees who’d died three weeks earlier on a dig that no longer existed. She’d wanted to know how he’d got some of this information. He’d explained that non-disclosure agreements meant crap when your livelihood collapsed on top of some of your co-workers.

Maybe it was a power play on both sides, maybe it was a game of cat and mouse-like suspect and interrogator. Whatever it was it had led to something more. A trust developed through something new to both of them – openness. She told him where her people’s powers came from, he told her about the vigilante that thought he was King Arthur. She told him about the Four Horseman, him about how he got the scar leading deep into his left lung. He told her about why the woman he loved and his partner in the force for years had walked out of his life, she told him about the death of her husband and her scramble to reconnect with her daughter.

Somewhere along the line duty crossed over with something else. Over the coffee and whiskey. He didn’t know how much of it her friends (co-workers? Employees?) knew she’d shared. They only seemed to know that he was safe to discuss things with – even if they rarely did directly.

“What happened?” Andrew asked him, drawing him from his thoughts.

“How did you know Professor Nelson and Dr Steele?” he countered.

“Nelson was one of the professors on my course, Nate was a friend from university,” Andrew explained, “I haven’t seen either of them in years. What happened to them?”

“They were both shot four hours ago,” he explained. He watched Andrew absorb the knowledge and visibly compartmentalise it. He supposed in a way they were both trained to deal with crap; it was just disconcerting to see it from the other side. “I need you to identify both individuals if you’re up to it.”

Andrew gave him a curt nod and he led him into the office where Karen the lab tech politely gave them some privacy. The job was quick, one, then the other and confirmation on both. With that done Mercer got to the next point of business.

“There’s another reason I called you, Andrew,” he began hesitantly, “Look, I know you were otherwise ‘engaged’ tonight so please don’t take offence when I ask you why your phone number was the last thing your friend punched into his phone before he died?”

To his credit, Andrew did look bewildered at the question. He stared at him blankly while Mercer handed him the mobile phone, a brick-like Nokia from sometime before the turn of the century, wrapped in an evidence bag.

“He was clutching it in his pocket and on there was your number followed by a bunch of other random gibberish,” he continued. “Our techs say death would have been instantaneous so this was the last thing he did before he died. Why? Why would he try to call you and not the police when he was in danger?”

Andrew looked at the phone screen and shrugged, seemingly puzzled.

“That’s my number alright, but I don’t recognise the rest of it,” he admitted, “The last time I spoke to Nate he was calling me about something he’d found in the Med. Something he wanted me to take a look at. We were supposed to have lunch in a day or two after he’d gotten back.”

He nodded, afraid of that being the answer. He thanked him and took a moment to hand the evidence bag back to Karen who was packing up in the office landing. He asked her to put a rush on, feeling the grim feeling that came with knowing everything was a dead end and by the time he got back Andrew was looking at him expectantly.

“Now as much as I like to miss a party, I’m sure Ruth and Louise will be wondering where I am,” Andrew explained, before offering, “Unless there’s anything else?”

“No, but if I have follow-up questions…”

“You know where I’ll be.”

He allowed Andrew to leave and took a few more moments to stand there in the office, soaking up the atmosphere, the detail. Every last thing he could.

What the good detective didn’t know, what he’d not even considered – was that the very thing which had led to the deaths of Professor Nelson and Dr Steele had just left the office, safely and securely tucked away in Andrew’s jacket pocket.