Iain Hund, former supernatural homicide detective, now mere magical vandalism inspector, feels the staleness of his car's air like a strangling hand upon his thoughts.
He sends a last baleful glare at the wall he has pointlessly stalked for the past eight hours and starts his car to drive back to the station.
In all his years in the Sup-PD, Hund had never doubted his own righteousness. When the Harris case had come his way, he'd broken all the rules necessary to land the damn man behind bars and still felt like it was right.
He had accepted his demotion as a cheap price to pay to save the public from the likes of Jack Harris.
So when he put down his things on his new cramped desk at magical vandalism, and even after a year chasing Blues dealers, petty curse carvers, and weres doing their claws on public property, Iain Hund had remained serene.
Regret bloomed in him when the Artist's case was made his top priority.
Tom, whom he shares his desk with, is a cold shoulder to cry on.
"No chance with this new stake-out then?" Met only by moody silence, Tom pushes a box of donut accross the desk. "You look like you need some."
"You eat donuts like a road cop."
"Well, those guys know what's up. Didn't you work with them, back in the day?"
"Yes," Iain sighs, dunking his hand in the proffered box, "and this case is the most pointless and disheartening task I've been given in my career, which includes these old patrols with the normal's police, writing tickets and shit."
"Come on, the Artist has been taunting us for years, but she can't be flawless. Guy with an ability like yours, what's that? Magikolour synaesthesia? Why go for stake-outs and CCTV? Why not make some traps? You've got more magical ability than this whole floor put together!"
"Tom, I'd need so many warrants for one trap, it's not ever happening. I think I got given this task as extra punishment. Something senseless to run after until I retire."
"What if they really think you can catch the vandal who's never been caught?"
"Why do they want that anyway? Because some loony normal might scrap some paint off a wall and somehow figue out there's something off with it? What am I to say to her if I catch her? 'You're under arrest for artistry. Your fingers will be broken... No, sorry, I mean, I need your address so we can send you fines!' Don't you think we'd all be better off with more art like hers in NY, and less wendigos or murderous weres I could put behind bars?"
"Hund, I don't wanna disappoint, but the world's been doing just fine without you. Also, moaning to me isn't getting you back into homicide and you know it. Artist is no murderer, maybe you've got to change your tactic, get original."
Iain, knowing good advice when he hears it, wonders about the changes he could make. The police, sup or normal's, has no name or face to put on the Artist. Even her gender is as good as the street word, rumours from the guy who knows a guy who's seen
her.
Dusting donut crumbs from his notebooks, Iain peruses through weeks of drawings. When seen by normals or photographed, the Artist's work is static, if beautiful graffiti art.
The drawings were to capture the details of what sups–anyone with a shred of magical ability–saw instead: myriads of images, sometimes a whole scene, with characters turning to the watcher, mouth opening in mute calls, sometimes the paint exploding out of the walls, pulling you in clouds of coruscant particles.
In his book Iain has little boats on the calm waters of a lake, the face of a submerged god half hidden under lotuses; a pale man weeping liquid gold; a woman playing a sitar, each sound coming alive in the shape of a fantastical animal; a highway bridge pillar turned into an aquarium in which twirled a bigger-than-life mermaid; and many more. His notebook is far thicker than the case file ever was.
In the last pages he finds the sketches made of a long mural of dancers. Their appearance changed depending on the angle you looked at it, a masquerade of shape-shifters. In it is a message for the man the Artist knows is on her trail, for hidden behind the legs of a dancer stands a black wolf-dog and though it has no collar, a golden tag gleams beneath its jaws, etched in the faintest strokes with the name
Iain.
That's how she must see me: the law's dog on his invisible leash."Alright, let's get original."
"Mmh? Where are you going?"
"Hudson Heights. I'm gonna get friendlier with our local alchemists."
He leaves Tom to choke on his donut.
Alchemists have no claws or tooth to rend through you, but they don't need them. The power they wield, and their tendency for single minded obsession, makes them a prickly bunch, and the Sup-PD has a special unit for policing them.
Iain's badge feels like a flimsy shield in his hand as he steps down from the sunny, all-American street and into the subterranean entrance to the alchemy quarters.
The skills of the Artist and the finesse of her alchemical paints has already sent Iain deep inside those hidden galleries of shops and studios, where his questions revealed envy, admiration, and wholesalers of raw materials who did most business online and all proudly claimed her as a loyal customer, whilst unable or unwilling to prove anything.
The man at the entrance smiles at Hund.
"What do you want this time, cop?"
"Just visiting Toby Smith as a customer today." Iain grimaces. "Please."
The doorman grins sardonically, Smith being a famously irascible alchemist. He reaches for the door handle and applies his magic to it. To Iain it looks like a blue aura. A small displacement magic, that opens doors to other places. He nods his thanks and scuttles past and right into the maddening chaos of Toby Smith's shop.
"You again? What do you want now?" a disembodied voice asks from all corners.
Smith does business like this, never bothering to be present in the same room as his customers, his store guarded by an arsenal of curses that would make any hardened criminal as docile as a puppy.
"Paints."
"You're still after the Artist?"
"Ah, yes sir."
"You planning on defacing her work?"
"No sir. I–well, I like her work too. She caters to her fans though, and I thought, maybe, I can get to discuss with her somehow?"
Drawers open at invisible hands, glass jars and packets start drifting towards Iain.
"You're planning some sort of painting show-down? You've got guts Hund, I like it. Leave two hundred behind, follow the instructions on the packs, and work on your magic before mixing, unless you want blowing your moronic face off."
"Thanks sir."
"You're a better guy than I assumed."
"Sir?"
"Mixing paints to life is a tiny magic, but it's also very rare. The Artist has a unique gift. That someone with such a high grade magic as yours can appreciate her work is good. Maybe with you on her case she won't get wiped after all."
Iain mouth goes very dry.
"Wiped? Why would..."
His mind reels. It makes perfect sense now. Why bother with breaking fingers, indeed! Such a small gift, to breath life into a pot of already alchemical paint. It would take a tiny trap seal with her name on it to erase her magic as surely as if she were born a normal. He can picture his bosses, patting him on the shoulder.
Good job Hund.
"Hund?"
"Thank you sir. For your honesty."
Iain goes home on autopilot, lost in his thoughts. He spends several evenings practising, and more building the final spell-works and paints before going out. He's mapped the Artist's work throughout Manhattan, and picked a wall she is likely to walk by. Finally he sits behind the wheel of his car and works a small shifting magic on his face.
He has decided to go into the night to do what he's paid to stop. He feels shivers of anticipation and dread, a kinship and a respect stronger than ever before for the Artist who so inconspicuously prowls the nights.
He does her portrait, suggested, unfinished, broad strokes of paint revealing how little he knows of her. Sitting beside her stands a black hound with a golden tag, his muzzle resting in her lap, adoring eyes gazing up into her unpainted face waiting to be filled.
Artist and Hound, he titles it.
A promise.
Two days later, Iain finds that the mouth of the Artist has been painted over in a slight smile.