In a matter of minutes me and Jiro were stuffed into the back of a cruiser, and we were lit up, racing across the city. The magic quickly had us turning into the steep hills away from the bay. We cut through the outskirts of Orchard Hills and up beyond Ptoma Point. We were practically in the mountains now. The constant lights of the city had fallen away a while ago, and the forest had crept up against the winding highway, blocking out all light and trapping us in a pitch black tunnel with only a thin trail of starlight up above.
When we first left the station, Kari’s magic was flaring up at sporadic, but continuing bursts. There was definitely pauses that lasted an uncomfortably long time, but her power always came back. 
The officer at the wheel had stopped bothering with the flashing lights and sirens, there was no one out here on this old rural mountain pass anyway.
We were getting close enough that we could actually see the intense white beams of light shooting down from the clouds.
The driver’s voice was stunned, and the cruiser swerved a little.
“Holy shit, what the hell is that?”
Yeah, it wasn’t a good sign that Kari felt she needed to use that much power, but at least it was helping us pin point her.
Another wave of frozen needles peppered my skin, and I had the weird sensation that we needed to get to her. Like now!
My heart was pounding, adrenaline pumping through my veins, there was a thrumming in my ears.
We needed to go, go, go!
I grabbed the back of the seat in front of me, and barked at the officer driving.
“Hey, can’t you get moving a little faster?”
The younger officer, replied back in a forced civil voice, but didn’t speed up.
“We are going as fast as what’s safe, Ma’am. This highway isn’t in the best shape.”
And then it suddenly just stopped.
The flashes of light in the sky cut out. The pounding in my head, the zinging buzz of urgency, the icy prickles, all of it just stopped.
We rounded another corner. 
The officer was on the radio with  the other cars in the pursuit. Marion had already triangulated a probable location. 
There was a small farm in about the location the lights seemed to have come from, and we turned down a dirt road.
Jiro tapped my arm and leaned into my shoulder.
“I haven’t felt Kari’s magic in a while.”
I silently nodded. 
Dread lurched in the pit of my stomach. It might be nothing. It could be a sign that Kari had somehow subdued Rex and didn’t need to use her magic anymore.
But there was something that told me that wasn’t right.
We pulled our cars into a large roundish dirt and gravel area with a small falling down house and an open field around it.
As the headlights of the patrol cars passed over the landscape, we got a fast-forward panorama of the carnage that took place. 
A whole side of the little house looked like it had exploded out. Broken siding and debris littered around the gaping hole in the building. And from there it was easy enough to see the trail of body parts and small pond’s worth of blood sprayed across the grassy pasture.
There was no one moving in that corpse filled battle field.
Oh god’s, oh god’s no.
Jiro barely waited for the car to slow down, much less stop, or the officer unlock the door. He exited the cruiser with a screech of metal and popping plastic. 
No one was quick enough, strong enough, or stupid enough to try to stop him, as Jiro blitzed into the blood soaked land. 
His deep thunderous voice held an strangely high panicked note and even cracked a few times, as he ran from one pile of carnage to another. 
“Kari? Kari? Answer me!”
Like any new crime scene, it quickly became a hive of activity within minutes. There was just so much here, it was hard to even take it all in. There had to be dozens of corpses. Almost none of them were in one piece. 
I just kind of stood by the side of the gravel parking area with my hand on my forehead. I had been in the organized crime and smuggling division of the force. I’d seen some bad stuff, but nothing like this. 
Detective Marion was already barking out orders, having someone search the house for any sign of Kari or Rex, and calling in to the mage techs with their evidence collection van to come. The ambulance that had followed our convoy was lingering in the back, having no one left to rescue.
Finally after some long minutes, an officer on scene called out.
“Hey, we got something here.”
My head instantly shot up.
Kari?
He kept shouting, using his illumination spell to light up the area and direct people over.
“We got a partial ID on a body.”
My breath froze in my throat.
Body?
“It could be Mortis Rex.”
It could be? It either is or it isn’t. We have a sketch, it isn’t that hard.
“He’s pretty chewed up.”
Chewed up?
“Got another one!”
An officer a few paces away from the Rex body called.
When his light flashed across the body in the trampled grass, I instantly recognized her. My feet were moving before anything about wrecking a crime scene and destruction of evidence crossed my mind. 
The tall grass all around her was flattened from the conflict, but oddly there was very little blood spray where she rested. The area was clear of carnage or other signs of the battle. She was face down, the gentle night’s breeze playing with a few strands of her hair. Her arms laid at her sides as if there had been no struggle at all. Like she had simply fallen where she stood.
I was racing towards her, threading through the heaps of body parts, slipping on the blood soaked mud, as fast as I could. 
Jiro got there faster.
He slid to his knees beside her. Slowly, gently rolling her into his arms, and lifting her onto his lap. She was completely limp as he moved Kari, her arms hanging at her sides like soaked rags. 
His eyes were wide and glazed. 
Had she always looked so tiny? Kari looked like a small child cradled in Jiro’s arms, barely older than Tina. And thin. So impossibly thin. Like any little thing would cause her to shatter.
I had never seen Jiro tremble before. Nothing disturbed him. He was a rock. 
Until now.
The reporting officer was trying to talk to Jiro.
“Sir? Sir? You need to calm down. We need to check this woman for injuries and give her whatever assistance we can.”
I don’t think Jiro could hear him.
Coming closer, I could see that Kari was drenched in blood, even if she was still holding on somehow, the likeliness that she would survive to the hospital wasn’t very high.
I knew that Jiro was a criminal. I honestly wouldn’t be that surprised to hear that he had killed someone. I had every reason to believe he wasn’t a nice guy.
But the anguish carved across his face as he held his niece, in most likely her last moments, I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
The officer and medic that were called in had to work around Jiro, but I don’t think he noticed.
He had curled himself around Kari’s shoulders, cradling her head in his arms. His mouth pressed to her hair, he murmured gently.
“Hime, if it’s too hard, it’s okay to let go now.”
“We can go together.” 
“Don’t be afraid, you won’t be alone.”