To say that Maxwell was pleased with how the day had gone would be a lie. In fact, he was rather upset, and doing a very poor job of hiding it as he trudged back up the stairs to Bones' office, Ed tagging along behind him.
Max barged into Bones' office without knocking, and practically hurled himself into the chair in front of the skeletal mafioso. Normally, Bones would have made some form of protest or cutting remark, but right now he looked dead serious.
"Well, it turns out that the assassin wasn't laying low." Was all Max said before opening his backpack and rummaging around inside it. Bones nodded in agreement, and then produced the broken remains of the recording device.
"They played it smart. Left a little bug in my office. I'll have to be more involved than before. Still wanna do this by the books?" Bones asked, to which Max responded with a shrug.
"Playing loose has its advantages and all, but if the charges don't stick against that psycho, then we're screwed. Me for cheating, and you for helping me cheat. Not that the law can do much to you anyway. Doesn't change the fact that I'm still in trouble." Bones nodded, and Max emerged from his bag, a large glass cylinder which contained a strange liquid in hand.
"What's that?" Bones asked. If he'd had an eyebrow to raise, he would have. Max didn't answer yet, instead pulling another item from his bag. This time, it was a key.
"This is Aether Skin. Basically, I pour this on myself, and I have a reactive shield that can block bullets." Max spoke casually and opened the container and poured it into a cupped hand. The liquid seemingly seeped through his skin and into his body, disappearing without a trace.
"That's amazing! Wait a minute, why weren't you wearing this in the first place?" Bones asked, confused. Ed arched an eyebrow, also confused by the lack of usage of a seemingly amazing product.
"Well, It's not perfected yet, so it's not permanent yet. I only get about twenty-four hours of coverage from it before it decays. That and it takes forever to make and is super expensive. Like, this container took me about a month to make. I'm only using it now because of just how important this case is. It's also useless against high caliber guns. It might be able to block a shot from the standard sniper rifle, but even that's a big if. It's also no good against pointy things and edged weapons." Max grunted a few times as he spoke, and his muscles convulsed a few times as the compound set in.
"Interesting. We'll have to talk about this more in the future." Bones remarked, then tapping the bug again.
"What are we gonna do about this? If you won't play dirty, that's fine, but we really need to figure out who did this."
"That's true. Well, I still need to get that information from the police, but first I want to investigate the parking lot. See if I can find those bullets. If the sniper touched them with their bare hands, I should be able to get a read off of that."
"Wait a minute. You can get a tracing spell going from a mere touch that could be God knows how old?"
"What? No, no. I'd need DNA or a strong mana signature for that. No, all that I can do from that is feel if a person has mana. People who have access to the stuff leave a type of supernatural residue whenever they touch something. It fades in about a week and can't be removed by normal means, so the heat from a gunshot wouldn't erase it." Max sat back, trying to relax his muscles. He was still tense after the incident, and his heart rate was only just now back to normal.
"What would change if this person has mana?" Bones asked, who had taken out his laptop and opened the notes app and typed down everything Max had just said.
"Depends. The more mana a person has, the higher the chance it's active. Which would mean that we're not just facing off against a skilled assassin, but a skilled assassin with the potential for magic. Just having mana would be bad enough, as even if it isn't active, there's a chance that it can influence things without the holder's knowing. Like making bullets travel faster and hit harder, or make them more physically impressive."
"Quite the wild card. Seems like more of a theoretical threat than anything else, but something we should still consider." Max nodded and stretched again. Bones finished typing and sat back. He didn't know much about magic, after all, he'd never had to know anything about it. However, he now had a mage right in front of him. And a seemingly knowledgeable one at that. Asking a few more questions would provide him with more information on how to handle the theoretically magical assassin, but would also chip away at the time they had to find said assassin.
"Can you explain a bit more about magic to me?" Bones asked, ultimately caving to his curiosity and deciding that information would give him the bigger edge in the long run.
"Depends. What is it you need to know?" Max countered, sitting forward in his chair and arching his back. He still had a minor headache, but the pain was fading at a reasonable pace.
"Should the assassin know magic, what exactly could they do with it?"
"Well, they could do pretty much anything. Magic is really just a way of altering the world around you, so to speak. And our world can be best explained through ideas and concepts, so magic works in a similar way. There's an aspect of magic for everything, and magic can technically do anything. Granted, us humans are only born with access to three or four of these aspects on average. Most of the hexes humans can pull off on a moment's notice are pretty low level. For example-" Max snapped his fingers, and Bones' hat appeared on his head. "I took your hat. You're too far away for me to reach, so how'd I do it? That's thaumaturgy, or miracles." Max handed Bones' his hat back. The skeleton put it back on, and then steepled his fingers against the desk.
"You mean to tell me that you can do anything? Because that's what a miracle is, really. A possible impossibility."
"It does sound like that, but it's not quite that powerful. Basically, Thaumaturgy has to abide by the laws of physics. Not necessarily natural laws, as by using it I could say, make this desk bleed. That would work by turning the water content in the desk to blood, and then forcing it out of the desk. In short, if it's naturally possible, thaumaturgy can do it instantly."
"Seems pretty useful." Bones mused, tapping his fingers together. He figured he had time for about one more question, so he decided to get as much basic information as possible.
"Last question for now. You mentioned hexes, but I've seen you do tracking spells before. Are those hexes, or what?"
"Jeez, nothing slips past you, huh? All right, yeah, there's a difference. Hexes are low forms of magic that can be produced without a circle or catalyst. Something a person can control without too much focus. Ideal for combat. Spells are very different. When a spell is used, there's a lot more mana, or energy, put into it. As a result, there's a lot more that could go wrong. So that's why we use circles or potions or whatever to focus the spell and minimize the chance of us dying. For every spell, there's a hex version. For example-" Maxwell snapped his fingers, a bright puff of silver flames dancing to life on his fingertips. With another snap, the flames were extinguished. "That was a hex. If I used the spell version, I could end up burning down the building." Max finished, now getting to his feet and stretching.
"Interesting. Well, thanks kid. Meet up with me after you get the lowdown from the police, okay?"
"Yeah, I'll give you a call. I've got a few places to go after the police. Oh, uh, before I go, is my gun fixed yet?"
"The M-23? Yeah, I actually just got it back yesterday. Gimber said that it already takes a lot to break one of these things, so you need to be more careful." Bones responded, pulling a case from his desk. He opened the case, and Max took the hand gun that was contained from the case.
This gun was a Heckler & Kotch Mark 23 Pistol. Heavy, mostly silent, and powerful when loaded with .45 Super rounds. While it was on the bulky side, Maxwell liked the weight. He'd quickly found that the weight was very beneficial when bludgeoning someone of the bulkier supernatural variety.
He slipped the gun into his jacket pocket after checking to make sure that the safety was on. Didn't want to be that guy from Florida that shot his dong off. He nodded at Bones and thanked him again, leaving the office and walking down the stairs quickly. The stage singer tried to catch his eye, but he missed it and kept walking. Not able to call out to him, she clicked her tongue in between notes.
Max hurried through the parking lot, this time looking around the lot and the rooftops every few seconds. Now he was back at his car, where he saw the dent on the side of the vehicle. He groaned and ran his hand through his hair. That was gonna be a fortune to fix. Taking a final look around the area, Max got into his car and pulled out of the lot and headed in the direction of the police station.
By now, he was sure that Gil would be back and that he would have processed the camera footage and statements by now. The roads were snowy, and despite it being very close to noon, it was still a rather dark day.
A few minutes of driving later, Maxwell was back at the police station. It was a large square building made from concrete, with many windows and a large set of glass doors. Max found the station to be awfully boring, and didn't like going there very often.
Max went inside and immediately headed up to the front desk and asked the woman working there, an attractive young officer by the name of Hart, to tell Gil that Max was here to see him. He left and sat down in the waiting room. There, he observed the occupants. The room was mostly full, with numerous people sitting in handcuffs, with an officer next to them. Violent crime had always been slightly higher than average in Fargo, and despite how dark and cold the day was, it would seem that the phrase "Evil never sleeps" was more true than Max would have thought.
Ten minutes later, Gil waved to Max, who waved back and got up. He walked over to the Detective, who looked much more tired than he had the last time Max saw him.
"Glad you're here. I need your help." Gil turned around and began walking away. Max followed close behind, gears turning in his head. He'd remembered signs of a significant struggle at the zoo, but when the same assassin, or at least who he assumed to be the same assassin had attacked him, it had been from long range and with a silenced sniper rifle.
Max was much stronger than the average human, but a beefy goblin of Galgan's build was just as much of a physical threat, if not more of one, due to his small stature and thus greater maneuverability. Was it because of his magic? That was likely, but if the shot had missed, then he could easily kill the assassin with a ranged hex.
The more things he thought about, the more he became confused. Perhaps the tapes held something that could help him.
"Here we are. Would you rather watch the tapes first, or read the statements?"
"I'll start with the tapes." Gil nodded and picked up a small remote from the table. A large desktop computer monitor flickered to life, and a few seconds later, the camera footage came up on the screen.
The footage that flashed on screen featured Galgan speaking with two people. One an elf, and the other a goblin. The mysterious duo stood with their faces away from the camera, and even when sped up, they did not turn towards it at any point. The elf was male, at least Max assumed this, as was the goblin. Roughly thirty minutes after they had started talking, both parties left in opposite directions. Even when changing camera footage, the goblin and elf duo never showed their faces. Galgan, on the other hand, took no such care to hide his identity. A short distance from the entrance of the building, a hooded figure stepped out of the camera's blind spot and attacked Galgan. There was a struggle, with the smaller goblin disarming and landing numerous heavy blows on his attacker, who Max was able to confirm to be female. She was rather well endowed, something he made note of. Eventually, Glagan had managed to get away and run, but was shot down by the assassin, who had reclaimed her firearm. To Max, it looked like an Uzi, but someone like Bones would know much better than him.
While the contents of the footage had not been expected, it did answer many questions. Mainly as to why Galgan was even at the zoo, and also why the assassin used a rifle in her encounter with Max. She was too injured to battle him at close range and couldn't risk such a confrontation, especially not with an opponent with known magical ability.
"I'll take a look at the statements now."
"Sure thing." Gil handed him a new manilla folder that contained three sheets of paper. Each one had one of the three goblin's names on them.
Unsurprisingly, all of the pages read almost exactly the same, almost as if they were rehearsed. When summarized, it all came down to this. Galgan and his team had met after work for drinks the night of his murder. He'd left at just after ten, and his time of death was exactly one in the morning. Then, all the goblins had heard from an anonymous source that Galgan had been murdered at the zoo. They'd come to check on those claims, and had thus met the police.
Naturally, Max was left with two questions. Who was this enigmatic informer, and what had Galgan been doing during those three hours between his last alleged meeting with his crew and his death?
Max closed it and handed the folder back to Gil.
"So, did you get anything from that?" Gil asked, pulling a notebook from his coat pocket.
"A good bit, actually. I had a little run in with the killer from the video on my way over here, and the video explains why she attacked me as she did. Next, we obviously need to find out who that goblin and elf are, and I'm also going to take a closer look at the statements. They all seem too perfect to me."
"What do you mean you had a run in with the killer!?"
"Someone tried to kill me with a sniper rifle. They missed."
"Obviously. Do you have a plan going forwards?"
"Yes. However, I'm pretty sure that it isn't safe for you or the department to come with me. You see, I'm gonna have to go to Goblin Town, and whether you've been there or not, you should know just how much they hate human police… well, just humans in general. Basically, you'd be in danger if you came with me."
"I see. Any ideas on what we can do while you're investigating?" Gil nodded and closed his notebook.
"Yeah. Look for the assassin here, in the human sections. In fact her hiding in the human sections would make sense, as the supernatural sections would all be on high alert looking for her."
"Good idea. What do we do if we find her?"
"Don't engage her. There is a chance she has mana, which would in turn offer the chance that she has magic, which none of your officers could handle. No. Not even SWAT. For real. If she even has access to the most basic offensive fire spell, she could reduce a room twice this size and everyone and everything in it to a charred mess."
"Hpm. So we'll track her movements when we find her, and I'll keep you posted on that."
"Sounds good. Catch you later."
With that, Max left the room and police station, but not before he heard Gil calling some officers over to explain the situation. He got in his car, and turned east after leaving the police station's parking lot. Just two more errands before he could begin his investigation properly.
He glanced at his bag, which was now torn from the assassin's attack. He'd have to mend it later. Right now, a trip home, a shower and a quick visit to an old friend.