Chapter Text
The fist slammed into the wall over Beau’s head, and the ensuing wind from the attempted strike knocked her navy blue fedora from her head. The momentum of her dodge pushed her downward, and she swung her leg out to trip her assailant. Thwack! The man fell to the floor, and Beau stomped down, once, twice, until his eyes fluttered shut.
A fist rocketed into her face and she went sprawling backwards, her shoulder catching on a corner of a bookshelf, and the thick material of her suit jacket wrinkled. The man in front of her smiled, pulling out a small six-shot revolver from inside his double-breasted coat pocket. “Fuck!” Beau yelled as she dove to the side, avoiding the first two shots. The third clipped her in the calf, drawing a line of blinding white pain into her skin before embedding itself in the wall. Beau stopped her roll behind the sturdy desk, getting her bearings.
The man’s voice called out from the middle of the study. “I can do this all day, detective. You trespass on my private property, you face the consequences.”
Beau merely grimaced in response. Could the guy have chosen a more cliche line? Her hands scrambled on the floor, searching for anything that could be useful as a weapon. Her hands landed on a few wood shards. That would do. She tapped her coat pocket again. The notebook, her quarry, stayed safe and sound in her pocket. She could leave, distract the guy, and sprint out of the townhouse, mission accomplished, but what was the fun in that? Besides, now that she’d been shot, she wanted to make him suffer. Just a little bit.
She paused in her assessment to note the slight creak of floorboards. He was walking. Very stealthily, sure, but he was moving closer. She had to bite back her grin. She couldn’t plan it better herself. Wait, wait, wait… The footsteps halted, a foot away from her desk, and she could pick up the barely perceptible click as the hammer of the gun locked in place. Now.
She burst up in a flurry of activity, her left hand hurling the wood chips into the man’s eyes as she vaulted over the desk. He got off one shot, firing blindly into the ceiling as his other hand frantically tried to pull the splinters out from his pupils. Beau was already there, snapping his wrist neatly so the gun fell to the floor, and, in two quick strikes, one to the sternum and one to the temple, the man fell beside his weapon. Beau stood, defensively, waiting for more assailants for a few more moments before relaxing.
She walked back over to the wall, dusting off her fedora before repositioning it delicately on her head. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror: bright blood speckling her dark skin in contrast to the bright eyes beaming back at her. The torn and scuffed dapper suit, the unknotted tie. Her hair fell messily around her shoulders. Beau smiled back at her reflection. She felt violently, perfectly alive.
Just as she was about to exit the townhouse, after limping down the stairs and wrapping her calf in some cheesecloth from the man’s kitchen (he was dead, he wouldn’t care), she paused at the phone. She picked it up. “Operator, how many I help you?”
“The uh, Cobalt Soul Detective Agency. Union Square offices.” Beau waited for the tone, a little ringing beep that told her she was alone on the line. “Yes, hi. This is Expositor Beauregard Lionett, requesting cleanup at 100 West 34th street. Yes, full crew. Three bodies. As far as I know they were all human, none of them burst into slime or any of that shit. Great, thank you. I’ll be back at the branch shortly.” Beau hung up without listening for a response, walking out of the townhouse.
As she made the mile and a half long trek back to the offices, Beau pondered the mission. If she was going to be frank about it, it had kind of sucked ass. She thought that, as an Expositor, after ten years with the agency, she wouldn’t have to deal with normal humans anymore. And yet, last week, Dairon had summoned her into their office, which Beau had assumed was just going to be another lecture about her new responsibilities. Instead, Dairon had told her to tail this random art dealer in order to get a notebook with a picture of the subway map on the front.
Beau followed the fellow for one week before finding the location of the notebook, and in that time came to realize he just might’ve been the most boring fucker to ever exist. He was an art dealer involved with no magical smuggling ring, no underground mafia, nothing. Not even a fight club! (Beau might’ve been an agent of the Cobalt Soul, but even she still participated in secret magical fight clubs from time to time.) She hadn’t expected the man to put up such a fight once she was discovered stealing his notebook. At least the flunkies were one-hit idiots.
Beau maneuvered through the throngs at Union Square to squeeze into a skinny yet impossibly tall building. She couldn’t put a finger on why she didn’t trust elevators, though they’d been around now for about 70 years, except that she didn’t love the feeling of free fall. That little lift right at the beginning of the ride when you could either ascend upwards or plummet down, and there was no way to tell which it was going to be.
She entered the elevator, and the tattoo at the back of her neck, the all-seeing eye of Ioun, began to tingle, and her Sight cleared. It was almost like a slight haze was lifted, and the Irish elevator operator morphed into a troll before her very eyes.
The Sight was… Interesting, to say the least. Beau had always had flashes of it, which was part of the reason she had taken to the work of the Cobalt Soul in the first place. She remembered being a kid, playing with her friend Angie Lopez in San Juan Hill, down by the Hudson River, and then seeing Angie’s hair, always so lively, become snakes before her very eyes. Beau had recoiled in horror, but the next instant, the curls were back, no vipers to be seen. She must have made it up. Or when she was sprinting through Central Park with some rich man’s purse, chased by mounted police, when she realized that the horse and the man were one. Her stopping had caused her to get arrested that first time. Beau learned quick. She didn’t stop after that.
The Sight was almost like Beau was seeing two worlds at once. As Dairon had explained it to her, there was this thick magical fog hanging around New York, a mixture of old Indigenous magic and ley lines and the Dutch that settled in what was then New Amsterdam. The fog was known as Nebula Magus (the Dutch were real big on the classics), though the Wappinger Tribe settled on the island of Manhattan had referred to it as the M’téoulin. It obscured the magic and non-human peoples of the city, and versions of it existed in every other major city on Earth. Having the Sight meant that you could pierce through it, with practice and discipline. Beau’s tattoo, gained when she became an Expositor, did that for her. She could choose whether to see the world with or without the Nebula Magus.
The troll cleared her throat, and Beau realized she must have been zoning out. “Sorry, Ula. Take me straight to the top, please.” Ula grunted in response, and pulled the lever of the elevator all the way down. Sigils flickered lazily to life, arcanic light surging beneath the machinery, and the elevator shot up, past the point where the building seemed to end, straight up, many more floors. It finally came crashing to a stop, and Beau stepped out.
The top level of the Cobalt Soul seemed more busy than usual. Bigwig Archivists and Expositors were dashing around, all exchanging reproachful looks at Beau as she walked through the halls, dripping blood on the wooden floors. The high ceiling soared above her, walls lined door to door with bookshelves and tomes. Beau was used to the looks she got whenever she paid Dairon a visit. Most high-ranking members of the Cobalt Soul were Elven or Half-Elven, and just general bastards to normal humans. Beau may have been a bastard of Black and Indigenous and Puerto Rican and English and German and god knows what else heritage, but at least she wasn’t a dick about it. She was an asshole about many things, but not that. Never that.
Beau headed down the long corridor, brushing by the other similarly be-suited members of the order, doffing her fedora to those who seemed important enough, finally stopping at a small wooden door with a frosted window. She rapped it lightly with her knuckles.
“Who is it?” Dairon’s lightly accented voice echoed through the door.
“It’s me.”
“Beauregard. Please come in.”
Dairon’s office bore no signs that anyone occupied it for a significant amount of time; Beau always got the sense that they were ready to pack up and run at a moment’s notice. There were only a few books lining the numerous shelves in the room, a desk filled with orderly paper, a chair across from the desk, and a side table covered in high-end alcohol. Dairon sat behind their desk, their suit crisply ironed, head freshly shaved. The only slight deviation from the standard outfit of the Cobalt Soul was a single gold piercing in their left ear, accentuating the Elven pointiness.
Beau threw her jacket over the back of the chair (not as casually as normal, since she was in a fair bit of pain), and flopped unceremoniously on the chair itself. She started to fix her appearance as much as she could in the moment: she rolled up her sleeves to make invisible their slashed cuffs, she tightened her tie and suspenders, she pulled her hair back into a bun. Dairon merely watched her, no expression passing over their face. Once Beau was done, Dairon finally spoke.
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks for noticing what none of the hundreds of fucking healers in this building didn’t see,” Beau snorted.
Dairon’s brow furrowed. “Do you require immediate healing, Beauregard?”
“Not really. But, uh, some of that hooch would be really nice.”
Dairon silently stood up, and poured her three fingers of whiskey, no ice. They made themselves a vodka tonic. Finally, they spoke again. “You have the notebook?”
Beau rummaged in her jacket, finally pulling out the battered little journal, but she didn’t immediately give it to Dairon. “So what the fuck, Dairon?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a fucking Expositor, and you just waste me on some bullshit human, non-magical art dealer. I flipped through this journal,” Beau stopped Dairon from interjecting, “and yeah, I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I had to check, y’know? And it was nothing. Some bullshit about his love, ‘Desdemona’. Why does the Cobalt Soul even care, Dairon?”
Beau hadn’t expected Dairon to start laughing quietly to themselves. She waited for the laughter to subside before cocking an eyebrow at them expectantly, demanding an answer. “You’re right, Beauregard. The situation you present is beneath your talents.”
“Thank you.”
“However, that is not the whole truth.” Dairon sighed, and Beau suddenly saw deep lines of worry and sleep deprivation, which was odd, considering elves generally don’t sleep, as far as she’s aware. “The truth is, Beauregard, that the city is… Under attack, as it were. Subtly, sure, but under attack nevertheless.”
They picked up a neat stack of paper, tucking it into a drawer within the desk, to reveal a map of the city. “Point out to me the nexus of power in the city.”
Beau scoffed. “Easy,” she said, pointing out Trinity Church Wall Street on the map. “The intersection of religious, political, and financial interests in the city, all atop the biggest reservoir of magic in all of New England.”
Dairon nodded, pulling out a thick pencil, and marking the spot on the map. “Good. And social power. Where does that lie?” Beau pointed to Central Park. “And the knowledge of the people?” The 42nd Street Library. “And why are these places so important to the very arcane fabric of the city?”
“Because these three institutions are the pillars on which the Nebula Magus is sustained. C’mon Dairon, this is like ley lines for children. Why are we doing this?”
When Beau made eye contact with Dairon, their eyes were burning with the severity of what they were about to say. “What were to happen if one of these places were attacked?”
“Ummm… The entire Nebula Magus would break down, first in that specific area and then across the whole city because the other pillars wouldn’t have enough arcane power to manage it. Complete anarchy, normal people going crazy. The entire city would fall apart overnight.” Beau half-laughed, her mind running wild at the possibility. “But Dairon, if there were a breach in the Nebula, everyone would know. It would be on the front cover of the New York World the next morning.”
“Unless,” they intoned, “those creating the breach did not want you to know.” Beau leaned back in disbelief. “Two weeks ago, thieves broke into the Main Branch of the public library. They created a small breach, enough to create a distraction among the librarians that they were able to take an object. The Key to the city.”
Beau’s eyes were wide with terror. “But that means… With the Key…”
“They have access to any hidden building, any temple. Any wall in the city, they can break down. They could use it to completely dismantle the Nebula Magus. Complete chaos, as you so eloquently put it.”
Beau shook her head once more. “I… I don’t get it, Dairon. I mean, it makes sense now why the top brass is freaking the fuck out up here but… Why the notebook?”
Dairon pushed it back across the table to Beau. “Open it. Look closer.”
Beau opened the notebook to a random page, and stared. The words were clear on the page the first time she looked at them, but when she bore down on them, they seemed to shift and change, becoming more and more murky. It made her head hurt to look, but the more she looked, the more they dissolved, and her tattoo began to itch and tingle, heating up as she honed in with her Sight on the page. The pressure built, like a pick drilling into the base of her neck, before it split with a moment of brilliant pain, and the Nebula Magus pulled back, revealing the truth of the book’s contents. The map spilled out from its pages, with a swirling nexus of words and street names. It filled the page. There were ley lines and objects and buildings and even people, glowing with a faint light on street corners.
“It’s…” Beau fought for the right word, the pain subsiding the more she got used to the object in her hands. “It’s a document of all the magic in the city. But… this should be locked in the library not in some random art dealer’s house.”
“Another stolen object, I believe. He was not just some art dealer, Beauregard. We believe there is one group enacting this plan. We need you to figure out who they are, who they are working for, and what their exact plans are so we can prepare a course of action.” Dairon leaned forward, their elbows resting tightly on the desk. “This item is valuable, meaning that there are some very important people implicated in this plot. You must trust no one, Beauregard, unless I have contacted them beforehand. Do you understand?”
Beau took a shaky breath, wincing a little at the force it exerted on her ribs. “Don’t trust anyone. Report directly to you, I assume. Secrecy needed to save the city. Do I have it all?”
A smile curled at the corners of their mouth. “The essentials.” The smile vanished as soon as it had appeared. Dairon looked terrifying and terrified simultaneously, and in that instant, Beau understood how serious this was. Dairon never got scared. They had worked covert operations in Germany in World War I without getting scared, back when Beau was in training. “Beauregard, this may be the most important mission you ever work on. You may not come back from it.”
Beau gulped. If Dairon was giving her an out instead of just ordering her to do it, it must really be bad. She felt the fear rising in her, but she remembered the training she had received. She remembered the cool breeze of the Adirondacks in summertime, the gentle swaying of the grass, the bubbling of the stream under the clear blue sky. Beau centered herself, eyes snapping open to meet Dairon’s. In a soft, firm voice, she said, “I understand, Dairon. But if there’s corruption, if there’s danger, if this mystery needs solving, that’s… Well, that’s why I’m here. That’s what we do, right?”
Dairon nodded. “That is what we do.”
Beau stood up, pulling her jacket off the back of the chair and onto her shoulders in one fluid motion, adrenaline replacing the pain in her body with coiled energy. “I figure I’ll start by paying a visit to the library, seeing what I can find out about the magic holding the city together and how the Key plays into it.”
“I have a friend there, whom I trust,” Dairon said. “I’ll let him know you’re coming.”
“Good.” Beau picked up her glass, forgotten in the excitement of the new mission. She downed it, screwing up her face dramatically as the warm whiskey shot through her body. She gave Dairon a tight salute, then turned to leave the office. Just as she was about to, she paused, and pivoted back towards Dairon. “For this sort of thing… I’ve got some old contacts, criminals, who might come in handy. Can I…”
Dairon interrupted her with another small smile and a handwave. “Why do you think I assigned you this case, Beauregard? Yes, of course.”
Beau beamed. “Perfect. Thanks, Dairon.”
“Beau?”
“Hm?” Beau started. Dairon rarely abbreviated her name. She made eye contact, the dark eyes of her mentor giving away nothing.
“May Ioun guide you to the truth.” Dairon’s voice shook a little.
“And may her eye watch over you,” Beau responded in turn. Dairon dipped their head in acknowledgement. Then, Beauregard left. The door slammed behind her with a sort of foreboding finality, and Beau knew that Dairon, too, was fearing this would be the last time they would be sending their protegee out into the world.