Josefine spent her morning stalking Rufino Vitali. His morning began at 8:00 when his chauffeur arrived with coffee and the two left together a half hour later. Their first stop was the newly Irish-owned Marconi's where he and his men were chased out again a short time later, both sides shouting curses. From there, she followed them to a few other mafia-backed businesses before they stopped at a little Italian deli where they stayed into the afternoon. Josefine parked her motorcycle and dismounted.
"Hunt," Wolf shifted in impatience.
"Patience," Josefine whispered back, earning a low growl of annoyance. She crossed the street and let herself into the deli, removing her hat as she crossed the threshold. She ordered a cup of coffee and took a seat off to the side where she could watch Vitali and the door. For most of her surveillance, the only visitors were patrons of the deli or the odd mafia foot soldier running errands. She was beginning to second guess if maybe she'd missed the exchange or been wrong about who was behind the theft when she noticed someone acting squirrely as he came inside. His hands were shoved deep into his coat pockets, his shoulders were hunched, and his collar was folded up in a way that would've been less conspicuous if Otsha were particularly cold or rainy that day. Josefine watched as the man approached Vitali's table where he was stopped by two large men Josefine recognized as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum—ex-security from Marconi's Refrigerator and Supply who were chased out when the speakeasy changed hands. Vitali waved him through and the two security men stepped aside so the man climbed into the booth across from Vitali. The squirrely man pulled a black leatherbound book from within his coat and slid it across the table. Josefine couldn't hear their voices from where she was across the deli, but she pieced together that the man was asked to deliver the book or something like it to Vitali as she watched. Vitali opened the book and immediately raised his voice as he didn't seem to like what he found within its pages. Vitali shot to his feet and shouted in Italian, gesturing between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and the squirrely man at the table. The two approached the table and the squirrely man shrank into his seat until they grabbed him by each arm and he was dragged out of the deli and tossed out into the street. Josefine watched them return to the table then and Vitali shoved the black book into the hands of Tweedle Dee.
Josefine was torn between following the squirrely man she suspected was Moller so that she could turn him over to Anna and staying with the book she'd need to find some way to collect.
After thinking it over a moment longer, she finished off her coffee and slipped out the door after Moller.
#
Josefine followed Moller back to an abandoned warehouse known for squatters or floating underground gambling games. He paused in the doorway to look around one last time and Josefine waited around a corner for him to disappear inside before she leaned out of cover. She didn't follow him inside as she checked her watch.
Eighteen and a half hours left.
She waited, lighting up another cigarette and watching for any sign of him leaving again or anyone else squatting until the sun began to set, dyeing the cloud sea on the horizon with reds and oranges that mirrored the sky. Josefine began to drum her fingers, arms folded across her chest as she decided she'd have to go in and deal with him somehow and she wasn't an experienced thief despite her Uncle Finn's teaching her to pick locks and despite her nights riding backseat to Wolf.
"You could kill him," Wolf offered helpfully and her brow furrowed.
"No, he's too easy to tie back to me," Josefine whispered back, but it only growled in reply.
"You've broken into plenty of places before without waking anyone inside," it snickered at her hesitation and Josefine's teeth clenched in annoyance because she didn't want to admit Wolf was right. Her fingers stopped drumming on her arm as she stepped out of her hiding place.
She checked the street discreetly as she crossed it and let herself into the warehouse, pausing just inside the door to look around. The warehouse was empty as if the city had started to turn it into extra housing but ran into roadblocks along the way and put things on indefinite hold. Josefine crouched down to check the thick layer of dust on the floor before straightening up to follow the footprints she found there. She kept low to the ground and her ears open as she moved through the large open space toward the office to the side just in case Moller wasn't the only squatter. Everything remained quiet but what she found when she reached the little office wasn't what she'd expected.
Moller lay face down in the dust unmoving and a disappointed growl echoed from the dark in her head.
Josefine crouched to roll him over and inhaled a sharp breath, her teeth flashing in a grimace. The body was cold as ice to the touch, colder than he should've been even if he'd been dead for a while in this chilly evening air.
"What killed you?" She studied the ink-black runes that patterned his skin, but she didn't recognize the language. Magic sparked between her fingers and the runes, something black and icy that sent a shiver down her spine as if the grim reaper had traced his fingers across her skin.
It seemed like that book was more dangerous than Anna had let on.
#
Neirin was there when Josefine finally returned home late from the crime scene; she'd reported the body and stuck around for their endless questions even if they didn't like her answers.
"How did it go?" He visibly deflated at her question.
"You were right, there was nothing strange about the Captain's actions. It had to be Moller." Josefine's lips pressed into a thin line.
"About Moller," she began and Neirin fixed her with hazel eyes that seemed to be begging for good news she didn't have, "he's dead," she finally said with her best attempt at gentleness.
"H-How?" His voice cracked on the word but he managed to get it out.
"Magic," Josefine thought it over for a moment, "some kind of curse I'd guess." Neirin was quiet for a long moment before he took a shaky breath and seemed to shake his priorities back into order.
"What does that mean for me? Where's the book now?"
"Safe with the Italians. I plan to get it back in the morning but Vitali is heavily guarded; it might take a while."
#
Josefine returned to Vitali bright and early the next morning because where she found him would be where she found Tweedle Dee and the black book. She followed him as he made the rounds of the Italian neighborhood until they came to a stop at the University of Otsha, or U of O, where she caught another glimpse of the black book in the hands of Tweedle Dee. Inside, they navigated the campus all the way to the department of linguistics, where they went inside a professor's office and Josefine was forced to linger, finding a notebook left on a bench nearby and pretending to study the contents. After reviewing some interesting notes on the effects of the Great War on the economy there in the United States, the door opened and she glanced up, watching from the corner of her eyes as Vitali and his security exited the office. They made it a few paces away before something made Tweedle Dee stop.
Josefine looked up curiously.
Tweedle Dee's breath fogged in the air and that dark magic crackled through the atmosphere before ink-black runes began to write themselves across his skin.
His eyes turned black as he exhaled one final breath and dropped to the floor with a thud.
Tweedle Dum reacted to the threat as any good bodyguard with a charge would do and ushered Vitali away into the university. The door to the office they'd just left opened and the linguistics professor stepped through to check the commotion, so Josefine set the borrowed notebook aside and joined him, crouching down to check for a pulse and finding the same icy skin as Moller.
She pressed her fingers together and rubbed as if unconsciously trying to return the warmth to her fingertips.
"Do you have a phone in your office?" She looked up at the frightened professor in time to see him nod. "Call the police, ask them to send Detective Andries." The professor nodded again and hurried back into his office as she watched, allowing her a glimpse of the black book sitting on his desk.
#
"You keep bringing me cases like these and my solve rate is gonna take a hit," Detective Janzen Andries joined Josefine in the university hallway looking over the body of Tweedle Dee. "You know what these marks are?" He crouched next to the body and gestured toward the ink-black runes, cognac eyes taking in the details.
"I help you solve these cases, too," she replied before she crouched next to the body with him, "and no. They look like runes though I couldn't tell you what language."
"Magic?" Josefine reached out as if to touch the body and something black sparked between it and her fingertips.
"Dark magic," she shifted back on her heels, "I was tracking something for a client, two bodies make me think it might be a cursed object." Andries exhaled through his teeth and rubbed at the scruff along his jaw.
"You found both bodies, the captain wants me to bring you in," he gave her a pointed look and she met his gaze; she tapped out two seconds before his gaze shifted to her nose when he saw Wolf shift in her eyes.
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," she straightened up and stepped back from the body, checking her watch for the time left on the case. The book was right there at least. "I already got a chance to look around, I'll wait for you."