“Yes, this is definitely the missing piece of rib from the last victim,” Andreaa said as she popped the magnifying glass up, “and you say it got delivered to your office this morning?”

I nodded. “Yes, so my partner told me. We were discussing a case she was having trouble with, so I didn’t open it right away,” I replied.
“And did you notice the etched letters in the surface of the rib?” Andreaa asked me.
I looked at her. I hadn’t felt any etching in the structure. “What do you mean? I didn’t feel anything when I took it out of the envelope.”
She nodded. “It’s like one of those old music boxes. Only this one doesn’t hold any music, but rather a text,” she explained.
Petra, who had been listening all this time, finally looked up from her notepad and asked, “So we need to find one of those old music boxes?”

Andreaa shook her head. “No, that would mean having to look for a particular one and I don’t think he went to those lengths; there are faster ways of doing that,” she replied.

“Such as?” I asked.
Andreaa just smiled at me and got up, snatching Petra’s pen, who protested by shouting “Hey, I was using that!”

Andreaa ignored her; she screwed the pen’s top off, broke open the ink container and poured it into a petri dish. “Now watch,” she said as she took the rib and rolled it through the ink. “And now, before the ink dries, we run it over a piece of paper.” She reached for Petra’s notepad and rolled the rib over the paper; a written text was revealed. She picked the notepad up and examined it. “I think it’s is a riddle: I never was, am always to be, No one ever saw me, nor ever will, And yet I am the confidence of all, To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball. What am I?” she read aloud.

I looked at her. “I don’t get it. Petra, do you have any idea what it means?”
Petra shook her head. “I have no idea what it is supposed to mean. Why did he send you that thing anyway?”
“This will be part of his masterpiece,” I replied.

Petra agreed with me as she got up and took back her notepad. After noting down a couple of copies of the riddle – one for herself and one for me – she tore off the page with the original and gave it to Andreaa. She looked at me. “I don’t know how, but we have to find the answer to this thing.” She walked to the door of the morgue. I sighed and said goodbye to Andreaa before following Petra out of the morgue and into the police station. “So what are you going to do, Tara?” she asked as I caught up with her.

I just shrugged. “I think I’ll go and see Hud. We need information, and I can’t think of anyone with more information than her.”
Petra nodded. “Ah yes, the Broker. That is actually a good idea; although I am wondering if she would know much about human riddles.”
I stopped and looked at her. “How do you know it’s a human riddle?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Well, he was a human and he didn’t strike me as the smart type. It makes sense to me that he would have used a human riddle.” I had to agree with her. She stopped as we reached the Chief’s office. Without knocking, she walked in. “So, Chief, how is that search going for gemstone-named missing Favored?”
been put in his place by a fragile-looking angel and we were no further forward than yesterday.

He shot her a look that could have melted the entire building. “Just the six we already found dead. Are there any other leads you bitches you might be able to follow? Or are we just flying blind here?” His voice was angry and raspy as he looked at us. I could understand why he was pissed; he had

Petra shook her head. “Nothing concrete yet. We’re going out now for some coffee and to compare notes, see if we missed something,” she replied as she walked out. “Thank you for showing how fucking useless you are,” she sneered at him as she closed the door and then turned to look at me. “Let’s go and find the answer to this one ourselves,” she said.

I shook my head as I reached into my pocket and took out the scribbled note. “Don’t you think he might have known the answer to this?” I asked her.

She just shrugged and told me it would have made no difference if he had known; she wasn’t going to let him have all the glory on this one. I once again shook my head and walked out of the police station to my car. I would go to see Hud after I’d stopped by one of the ghoul street hustlers that still owed me a lot of pepper leaf. I was going to need it; my head already hurt more than I wanted it to and the voices kept creeping out of whatever part of my brain they hid while I smoked the leaf.

Next Chapter: A meeting with Hud