Starside by Joshua Sheppard

Author:Joshua Sheppard [Sheppard, Joshua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781796008319
Publisher: Xlibris AU
Published: 2020-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

I hid the remaining catalysts in a drawer in the back of my basement. I’d only remembered them the day of our first investigation when, two days after the briefing, an antihuman had been killed in west Detroit. Coincidentally she also reportedly worked for Checkmate.

All of us, except Detective King, arrived on the scene. We saw multiple burn marks on the walls of the narrow side street.

Lyn was there as well, working forensics. She waved us over. “See this?” She pointed at a small pile of a white sandlike substance. “It’s salt.”

“How will this help us?” Julius asked.

“Well,” she said, walking over to a blue sheet covering a body, “it is very hard to identify someone when their head is missing.” She pulled back the sheet to reveal a headless woman.

“I think I could’ve gone my whole life without seeing that,” I said as if joking, but I was completely serious.

“As I was saying,” Lyn continued, “her antihuman ability could help us determine her identity. She has no form of identification on her.”

Sam looked around the scene. “Salt … scorch marks … but precisely marked on the wall. They’re not directionless either. … And what’s this line? It seems like the scorch marks stop here.” She bent down and looked at the body. “Small signs of burns on her hands, arms, legs, shoulders, and chest.”

“What’s she doing?” I asked Paige.

“Her job,” she answered with a smirk.

“I’ve got it!” Sam jumped. “This is none other than Nina Collins, also known as Salt Master, who does indeed work for Checkmate.”

“You determined that in a fraction of the time I did. Very good, Ms. Martial,” Lyn congratulated.

“Wait, so you already knew? That’s so unfair.”

“All right, what seems to be the problem?” Detective King approached us from behind.

“Nice of you to show up,” Paige said sarcastically.

“I was running errands. Now what do we have here?” He paused. “Salt Master. So she’s the one who’s been killed, huh?”

“What!” Sam replied, shocked. “How did you figure that out so fast?”

“I’m just smarter than you. No secret.”

“Rude,” she muttered, though we were all thinking it.

King adjusted his tinted glasses. “Basically,” he said, turning to face us, “Salt Master could generate explosions from the salt in her sweat with minimal effect on herself.”

“And what can you tell us about Villain?” Paige enquired.

King bent over and inspected the body. “Somehow he forced the fire back in her direction. A wind ability, perhaps. Just look at those burn marks; they completely stop at a certain point. And it seems the head wasn’t ripped off; it was disintegrated. You can tell from the sear marks on her neck. And not much blood either.”

I thought back to the moment when Villain decapitated Flaming Fury. He’d controlled the ball of fire and sent it back at him. The same thing may have happened here. “What if he controlled the explosions that Salt Master made and sent them back at her?” I asked, prepared to be shot down.

Detective King looked at the wall and back at the body.

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