vs invisible

Neither one of us, during this conversation, looked back toward the body in the living room. An uncomfortable silence fell. The floorboards creaked.
"Murder," Murphy said, finally, staring at the wall. "Maybe someone on a holy mission."
"Murder," I said. "Too soon to make any assumptions. What made you call me?"
"That altar," she said. "The inconsistencies about the victim."
"No one is going to buy magic writing on a wall as evidence."
"I know," she said. "Officially, she's going down as a suicide."
"Which means the ball is in my court," I said.
"I talked to Stallings," she said. "I'm taking a couple of days of personal leave, starting tomorrow. I'm in."
"Cool." I frowned suddenly and got a sick little feeling in my stomach. "This isn't the only suicide, is it."
"Right now, I'm on the job," Murphy said. "That isn't something I could share with you. The way someone like Butters might."
"Right," I said.
With no warning whatsoever, Murphy moved, spinning in a blur of motion that swept her leg out in a scything, ankle-height arc behind her. There was a thump of impact, and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. Murphy - her eyes closed - sprang onto something unseen, and her hands moved in a couple of small, quick circles, fingers grasping. Then Murphy grunted, set her arms, and twisted her shoulders a little.
There was a young woman's high-pitched gasp of pain, and abruptly, underneath Murphy, there was a girl. Murphy had her pinned on her stomach on the floor, one arm twisted behind her, wrist bent at a painful angle.
The girl was in her late teens. She wore combat boots, black fatigue pants, and a tight, cutoff grey T-shirt. She was tall, most of a foot taller than Murphy, and built like a brick house. Her hair had been cut into a short, spiky style and dyed peroxide white. A tattoo on her neck vanished under her shirt, reappeared for a bit on her bared stomach, and continued beneath the pants. She had multiple earrings, a nose ring, an eyebrow ring, and a silver stud through that spot right under her lower lip. On the hand Murphy had twisted up behind her back, she wore a bracelet of dark little glass beads.
"Harry?" Murphy said in that tone of voice that, while polite and patient, demanded an explanation.
I sighed. "Murph. You remember my apprentice, Molly Carpenter."
Murphy leaned to one side and looked at her profile. "Oh, sure," she said. "I didn't recognize her without the pink-and-blue hair. Also, she wasn't invisible last time." She gave me a look, asking if I should let her up.

White Night, Chapter 2, Page 13-14


Molly rubbed at her wrists, wincing. "Um. Sergeant? How did you know I was there?"
"Floorboards creaking when no one was standing on them," I said.
"Your deodorant," Murphy said.
"Your tongue stud clicked against your teeth once," I said.
"I felt some air move a few minutes ago," Murphy said. "Didn't feel like a draft."
Molly swallowed and her face turned pink. "Oh."
"But we didn't see you, did we, Murph?"
Murphy shook her head. "Not even a little."
A little humiliation and ego deflation, now and then, is good for apprentices. Mine sighed miserably.
"Well," I said. "You're here. Might as well tag along." I nodded to Murphy and headed for the door.
"Where are we going?" Molly asked. Both bored medtechs blinked and stared as Molly followed me out of the apartment. Murphy came out behind us and waved them in to carry the body out.

White Night, Chapter 2, Page 16-17