“His hat?” I asked.
“Well of course his hat! What else?” Jackaby shook his head in exasperation and gave a curt nod toward one of his leather volumes that lay in the wet moss. “Maybe if you would bother reading a book once in a while instead of hurling them about every chance you get, you would have put the pieces together yourself by now.” He sighed. “What we have been battling is a creature called a redcap,” he explained at last.
“The redcap is a horrible goblin who usually haunts the ruins of old castles, especially in Scotland and England. They’re antisocial beasts. It is unheard of to find one in a bustling metropolis, but as times change, so must we all, I guess. I was right about my first instinct as well. His magic is ancient. Redcaps are old creatures, nearly immortal if they tend to their namesakes properly.” He waggled the glistening hat as if in explanation, and a thick, sticky drip fell to the earth.
“I should have caught on much sooner—stupid of me. All of it fits with your descriptions, but I’d never met the man, myself, not until tonight. Those silly drawings of him in the newspaper don’t look a thing like him, of course. The polio braces were a nice bit of misdirection, I must admit. Covered the sound of his shoes and drew attention, while his fairy glamour helped him hide in plain sight. That’s classic, old magic, glamour. He kept the telltale signs, though—clearly not ready to give up his traditions. Redcaps stand apart from most of their fairy brethren in their immunity to iron, which, historically, they flaunt by wearing heavy iron shoes and wielding an iron spear or pike. He kept his hidden as a cane, but Swift had the lot, the arrogant bastard, and I missed it all.”
“Don’t feel bad,” I offered. “I met him face-to-face, and I missed it, too.”
“Yes, but no one expected you to be clever, Miss Rook.”
“Thanks for that,” I said.
“We got him in the end, at least. That’s something.”
“So, how do we finish this?” I asked. “You said it’s his hat that’s keeping him alive?”
“The blood,” answered Jackaby. “So long as the cap is kept wet with fresh human blood, he will not die. That’s why he had to keep finding new victims.”
“What are you waiting for, then? Burn the horrible thing!”
“Not so fast!” A new voice thundered out of the darkness of the forest. Jackaby froze with the bloody derby poised over the fire. A heavy drip sizzled on the burning embers. We both turned to watch as Chief Inspector Marlowe pushed past the underbrush and into the clearing, his pistol trained on Jackaby. His eyes passed over the scene as he moved, pausing on the fallen form of Officer O’Doyle, then Swift’s prone body, and widening as they took in Charlie. “I don’t know what happened here, Jackaby, but I’ll thank you not to destroy the evidence.”
“Oh, put it down, Marlowe,” Jackaby replied. “We’ve done your job for you. It’s over. All that’s left is to finish him off before he kills again”—he nodded toward the commissioner—“and then get some medical attention for that one as soon as possible.” He gestured over his shoulder at Charlie.
Marlowe lowered his weapon and eyed Charlie. “You’re right about that,” he grunted. “The city will sleep safely tonight with that thing dead and buried.”
“What, Charlie? Don’t be an ass. You said yourself that boy was one of your best detectives.”
At the sound of his name, Charlie stirred, one deep breath sending a ripple of shudders through his body. He remained prostrate, but his heavy, felted eyelids flickered open a crack.
Marlowe started at the sudden motion, and his gun flashed back out, fixed on Charlie. Jackaby was almost as fast, stepping between the inspector and his mark. “Come now, Marlowe, let’s not do anything rash.”
“Have you gone completely and totally insane?” Marlowe demanded. His weapon, now pointed squarely at Jackaby’s chest, did not waver.
I heard a quiet clink and my eyes shot to Swift. The commissioner still lay on the damp earth, but now the shadowy form was beginning to awaken. The silky gray coat rose and fell in slow breaths, and the moonlight glinted off his heel as the iron shoe twitched.
“Jackaby!” I cried in a hoarse whisper, but the detective was occupied with Marlowe.
“As usual, Inspector, you have entirely failed to see things for what they truly are.”
“What is wrong with you, Jackaby? For the first time ever, there really is an impossible monster behind everything, and now you’re the one who doesn’t believe it?”
“Marlowe!” I called out as the commissioner’s leg brace creaked again ever so slightly.
“You saw what that thing did to O’Doyle and Swift,” the chief inspector was busy barking. “Move aside!”
“I did not personally see how Officer O’Doyle was dispatched, as it happens, but I doubt Officer Cane was involved,” said Jackaby, “and he definitely did not put those bullet holes in the commissioner. I did.”
Marlowe actually stepped back a little. “You are alarmingly bad at making yourself sound sane, do you know that?”
A faint wheeze escaped the commissioner, and his dark coat shifted as signs of life crept back into the body.
“Men! Please!” I cried.
“You think I’m crazy?” Jackaby continued. “Then let me burn the hat.”
“Yes, because that doesn’t sound crazy at all.”
“If I’m crazy, it’s just a hat. It burns. Nothing changes. Then you kill the poor beast. If I’m right, then burning the hat will destroy Swift, the monster behind all of this, and you’ll see what magic has been at work here. Either way, you get your murderer.”
Marlowe thought about this for a long moment, and my heart thudded as I considered leaping up and throwing the bloody thing into the flame myself. Pushing off from the tree trunk, I immediately realized that leaping was not an option. The smallest exertion sent pain hammering through my chest and left me reeling. My vision swam and I sank back to the dirt.
“We’re too late,” intoned Jackaby with sudden sobriety. I struggled to focus my eyes in the direction of his voice. “See for yourself, Marlowe. Swift is on the move . . . God help us all.”
I choked, whipping my gaze back to the spot where the villain had lain, willing my blurry vision to crystallize. Marlowe spun around as well, that much I could see, and then he swiveled slowly back to Jackaby.
“No,” Marlowe said evenly, with the forcibly patient tone one uses with a small child. “He’s right there.” My eyes found the gray shape in the dark at last. Swift had not moved.