Calamity's Child by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

"Here it is, sir. We've left everything as it
was found."
    Nick did not number precognition among
his talents, but there was something in Appleton's face that put
him on his guard. Carefully, he walked forward, steeled for the
worst.
    It was well that he was, for the
object lying on the floor bore no relationship to the dapper and
impatient little man Nicky remembered meeting at various
professional symposia across the years.
    The corpus was hirsute, and thick,
where Wolheim had been bald and thin. Rags of what had once been a
laboratory smock and corduroy trousers clung in ribbons to bestial
arms and trunk. The head was misshapen, showing a curved growth of
horn from the temple, sweeping back around an oddly elongated ear.
The face... Nicky sank carefully down on his heels. The face was as
hairy as the rest of the body, the features thickened into
something ape-like or worse.
    Nicky looked up to Appleton. "You're
certain this is Sir John?"
    "Sergeant Beerman cast the True-See,
sir. Housemaid identified the ghost."
    Nicky nodded. Sylvia Beerman was a
first-rate 'caster. Wasted in the police force, really. He rose and
stood staring down at the thing on the floor.
    "Beerman said you was to check her,
sir. Said she didn't believe it herself."
    "Well, then. We mustn't disappoint a
lady, eh?" Sighing, Nicky slid his wand from its long pocket inside
the lining of his jacket, and held it poised, eyes half-closed,
gathering energy. The tip of the wand glowed a ridiculous bright
green, which had pained him in his youth, when he first learned
that the wand light's color reflected the magician's life force. He
had been quite the esthete in those days, and would have given his
soul for a wand-glow of icy blue or starry silver. Thank God Nora
had come along and knocked that nonsense out of him.
    He glanced at Appleton,
who held the police department's
camera obscura
at the
ready.
    The glow from the wand-tip was steady.
Nick drew the pattern in bright green fire around the corpse,
murmuring, "I will see with the eyes of truth."
    The pattern flared, bathing the
monstrous corpse in a brilliant wash of color. Superimposed on the
bestial body, emblazoned in brilliant green, was the image of a
thin and tidy little man in rumpled lab coat and at-home corduroys,
his face hairless, his features contorted in agony.
    "Got it!" Appleton said, over the snap
of the shutter closing. He fiddled with the camera a moment, then
nodded and held up a glass slide. "Same as Beerman caught, sir.
Hers was a little fainter. Shall I run this past the
maid?"
    "It can't hurt, I suppose. Please
express my compliments to Sergeant Beerman -- first rate work, as
always."
    "Will do, sir."
    The green image above the horrid body
was fading. Nicky stood with the wand between his palms, watching
the last of the spell dissolve. He glanced at Appleton.
    "I'll need some room,
Inspector."
    "Of course, sir. I'll be right outside
the door."
    Nicky stood, his attention was focused
on the ...thing... on the floor. His next order of business was to
identify the magician responsible for the spell -- or spells --
which had beset Wolheim during his last hour of life. This was work
of high order, less energy intensive than the True-Seeing, but more
wearying for the magician. It was not Nicky's favorite spell,
though it was certainly among the enchantments he worked most
often.
    It had become something of a challenge
among mages of a certain level of skill -- and mischief -- to
conceal -- to attempt to conceal -- one's magical signature. In
some circles, it was a parlor game. Among the criminal element it
was far from a game, and there were those who were quite ingenious
in their methods. But it all and always came down to cover-up,
obfuscation and misdirection. No one -- no matter how skilled --
could completely erase all trace of their own signature.
    Sighing, Nicky had recourse once more
to the wand, this time enclosing himself and the corpse within the
same circle of glowing green