Unbinding by Eileen Wilks Page B

discovered when you checked out those who’d been bitten by the butterflies.”
    “That took for-freaking-ever.” Cullen pulled out a chair and sat. “I checked the toddler first, but didn’t find anything. Then I sorted them roughly by number of bites, starting with those who’d been bitten the most. The first guy I checked did have a trace of noninherent magic, just barely enough for me to see without my magnify spell. I confirmed that it was worked magic—a spell—that was tied to his blood, and that’s about all I can tell you about it, other than the color, which didn’t make sense. It vanished while I was studying it. None of the others had any trace of externally imposed magic.”
    “What color was it?” Arjenie asked.
    “Purple. That color is usually associated with those of the Blood, and specifically with whatever magic is their heritage—the Change for us, illusion and body magic for elves, all things rock-related for gnomes. Which is why it doesn’t make sense.”
    “Why not?” Kai asked.”
    “I’m oversimplifying now,” Cullen warned. “But generally speaking, while spells often retain some of the color of the caster’s innate magic, that’s intermingled with the colors of the elements and other sources a spell draws on. This was worked magic, yet it was uniformly the color of one type of innate magic.”
    Nathan nodded. “Likely that’s the color of magic generated by chaos energy.”
    “Maybe.” Cullen spread his hands. “Only that still doesn’t make sense. It was
worked
magic. It should’ve taken on some color from its components or the elements.”
    “Hmm. We’ll come back to that later, but likely there weren’t any components. Do you have any ideas about why the purple magic vanished?”
    “Most likely, the spell simply expired. There wasn’t much power left in it by the time I spotted it. But it’s possible the caster yanked it. Maybe he didn’t want to leave something for us to study. Maybe he’d gotten what he wanted with that one woman and didn’t need the others who’d been bitten.”
    “That poor woman,” Arjenie said. “I just don’t see what he wanted with her.”
    “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Nathan said. “Something he couldn’t get from the little girl, it seems, since he sent her back. Your turn, Special Agent. What happened today ended with one person missing. What can you tell us about her?”
    Ackleford looked sour, but opened one of the folders he’d brought. “Britta Valenzuela went to Fagioli with Henry Lester, who didn’t initially respond to my question about people being missing due to him being an idiot. Valenzuela and Lester work at Littleman-Hughes, a legal firm a couple blocks from Fagioli that specializes in maritime law. She’s a paralegal. He’s fresh from law school. They’ve been on two previous dates. She’s wearing an orange shirt and brown slacks.”
    He went on to tell them about Britta Valenzuela. She was twenty-eight, five-six, weight around one-thirty. She drove a ten-year-old Fiat that spent a lot of time in the shop and lived in a tiny studio apartment in Clairemont with two cats. Her father had died when she was eleven; her mother never remarried. Her mother said she was a good girl. Her older sister said, “Britta likes men and they like her right back.”
    No arrests. Two speeding violations. Catholic, but didn’t attend mass regularly. Two previous jobs: one at a fast food place when she was in high school, followed by a stint as a receptionist at a posh salon while pursuing paralegal training. She’d graduated with decent grades, gone to work for Littleman-Hughes, and had been there ever since. Well-liked by most of her coworkers and received good evaluations from her boss. Her neighbors didn’t know much about her except for one old woman, who broke down in tears when she learned Britta was missing. Britta had been doing the old woman’s grocery shopping for the past year. Every Saturday,