The Final Case for Detective Jones (part 2)

           It is a good five minutes before Detective Jones can stand again. When he does, Jones kicks a trashcan at the door while muttering a string of profanities. He walks to the car and grabs his bag from the trunk as well as another pack of Marlboros.

            When he reenters the bar, Jones pulls a lantern from the bag and, with a match, lights it and his cigarette before hanging it from the ceiling (the lantern, not the cigarette). It casts an odd glow on the room, or rather a spotlight on only the things worth looking at. Obviously the two bodies are illuminated, their magical wounds glow the brightest. Around the room several other spots on the wall also glow. With a digital camera he photographs the wounds, making sure to capture the blue glow. He jots a line or two into his notebook. Typically Jones would take better notes, but he has no interest in the case before him.

            Instead Jones thinks about spell signatures: that glow on the wand that occurs when a spell is cast. How they are different down to the slightest hue. How they vary from one magician to another. How no two are exactly alike: like snowflakes; like fingerprints; like striations on a bullet.

            Jones jumps into his car and drives down the wet streets of the city. He drives with the radio off. Distractions prevent people from noticing their world, or rather the magic that lies hidden within it. Most people (or New Men as Master Grim calls them) don’t even perceive it exists, but it’s there. They avoid the supernatural, allowing things like The Recession, The War, The Climate Change to consume their thoughts. They flood their senses constantly with devices like their iPods and cell phones so much that they don’t even notice the magic all around them.

            During this drive though, Jones distracts himself with thoughts about spell signatures, bus fires, and Master Grim.