by A. C. Cobble
“Here’s my rendition of what the body looked like when it was here,” offered McCready. He laid out a worn leather notebook and flipped through until he had the page he wanted. They gathered around the apothecary’s stained and pitted table and examined the sketch.
Sam peered over Duke’s shoulder, seeing the rendition of a naked woman. The inspector had accurately captured the scene in the room as it was, so she had no reason to doubt he hadn’t also accurately depicted the dead woman. She shuddered.
“She had recently had sex?” queried Sam. “I assume you know that because fluids were leaking from her body? Could the physician tell — was she violated, or was it consensual?”
Duke turned and blinked at her.
McCready coughed uncomfortably. “We, ah, we did see the-the remains of the activity, ah, leaking... The physician did an examination, and I’m not sure what he’d be able to tell, but there were no signs of that type of violence on her body. No bruises, no marks of a struggle on her arms, legs, under her fingernails, or, ah, down there. Below her neck, she was quite uninjured.”
“Please do not be nervous around me, Inspector,” instructed Sam, walking slowly around the room, looking at the three pentagrams that had been marked on the walls, and leaning close to study the other symbols and designs. “I’m familiar with sexual activity and the results of it. None of us are children here.”
Behind her, she could feel the inspector sharing a glance with Duke. In other circumstances, it would have brought a smile to her lips, to shock the two men, but not now. Now, she wondered why her mentor had sent her on this errand instead of coming himself. Whether or not any contact with underworld spirits had been made, she wasn’t yet certain, but someone had made the attempt. Someone had practiced sorcery — real sorcery. Why would Thotham send her and not come himself?
“Inspector,” she asked, “how are bodies disposed of in Harwick?”
“They’re cremated, m’lady.”
“Can you take us to the place they are burned?”
“What?” exclaimed Duke. “What does that have to do with this crime? Countess Dalyrimple was not burned, Sam.”
She turned and eyed the two men. “The pentagrams on the walls are drawn with what looks like plain chalk, nothing special about it, and I’m not certain what half of those symbols are meant to represent. Those could have been drawn by anyone, but the materials on the floor are authentic. Both the chalk and the wax were formed using the ash of the recently deceased. Perhaps we can find out where they got the ash. Look at the blood — see how cleanly it pooled? Power was called here. Inspector McCready, your report was correct. Sorcery is alive in Enhover.”
McCready grimaced.
“Fetch us a carriage?” asked Duke.
“The mortuary will be locked this time of night, m’lord,” replied the inspector. “I’ll roust the physician and have it opened up, though. Shouldn’t take more than a turn of the clock.”
Duke nodded.
“In the meantime, you could look upstairs where the second victim was discovered.”
“Was that victim involved in the ritual?” asked Sam.
“I’m not sure,” responded McCready. He pointed to a curtain at the back of the room. “Through there, up the stairs. There were no… no obvious signs like down here, and the physician couldn’t determine which person died first. There was no evidence linking the apothecary directly to Countess Dalyrimple’s murder, but it doesn’t take an inspector to infer they were related. Perhaps you’ll see something I did not. We removed the body and the valuables, but the shelves were left like we found them.”
“There were items missing?” guessed Sam. The inspector nodded confirmation, and she cursed. “That kind of apothecary, was he?”
The inspector glanced outside where his supervisor was standing. He drew a deep breath, then said, “That kind of apothecary.”
The Inspector II
“Looks like you were right, McCready,” muttered Senior Inspector Gallen.
Patrick McCready grunted in assent. It was true. He’d been right, but he wasn’t happy about it. He rubbed his knuckles across his mustaches, brushing away the damp from the fog, feeling the soft whiskers beneath his fist. He looked up and down the quiet street, dead so late at night.
“What’s on your mind, McCready?” asked Gallen.
“Nothing, sir,” he replied.
His supervisor snorted. “Don’t lie to me, Pat. We’ve got Duke Wellesley here in Harwick, investigating a murder that we don’t have a single lead for. You know he’s got the power to wave his hand and put us out of work, right? How do you think that’s going to make the missus feel when you show back up at the house with no job, no income? And don’t be thinking you’ll find any other work, not anytime soon, and not in Harwick. You got friends here, Pat. You are well-liked, but no one is going to cross the duke and give you a helping hand. He turns on us, Pat, and we’re finished.”
McCready glanced at the senior inspector and shook his head. “The duke isn’t going to run us off the job, sir. He doesn’t seem the type. That’s not what’s got me worried.”
“Maybe you’re not worried…” muttered Gallen, crossing his arms and hugging himself in the chill air. “What is it, then, Pat?”
“There hasn’t been sorcery in Enhover in twenty years,” replied McCready, staring down the street at the fog slowly drifting between the granite buildings. “Not since the Coldlands War, not since Northundon. Why here, why now?”
“Hell if I know,” declared Gallen.
“A countess with an estate in Derbycross, a husband who is governor of Archtan Atoll… She probably has estates in all of the provincial capitals, so why is she here, sir?” questioned McCready. “A peer, one who by the looks of things is involved in sorcery somehow. Why’d she come to our little hamlet? There’s nothing here but whalers and moss. Why’d she come to this building, sir?”
Gallen hugged himself tighter and walked over to the window of the apothecary, peering inside where the duke and the strange girl he’d brought were still investigating the scene.
“You knew the man, sir,” pressed McCready. “What did the apothecary have to do with a countess — with sorcery?”
The senior inspector spun, stabbing a finger toward McCready. “You trying to take my job, Inspector?”
McCready frowned. “No, of course not. If I wanted to do that… Sir, I’m just asking — how was the apothecary involved? Why was the countess murdered in Harwick, in this building? It has a unique architecture, but—”
“Coincidence,” snapped Gallen.
“If the Duke finds out about your peculiar interests, he’s going to have a hard time not thinking it’s somehow related to this murder, m’lord.”
“If he finds out,” growled Gallen.
McCready eyed his supervisor, watching the man’s nervous shuffling, his angry glare. The senior inspector had turned from the building and was facing McCready head on, his arms still crossed over his chest. The dead apothecary, Holmes, had been Gallen’s sometimes business partner and friend, or at least, McCready thought he had been. Gallen showed little sorrow at the man’s violent death, though. The only concern he displayed was for his position if the investigation turned on him. The senior inspector was a political animal, a ladder climber, no doubt, but this was his friend. If McCready didn’t know the man better…
“He’s a victim in all of this, just like the countess,” growled the senior inspector. “Whoever killed her was surely the same perpetrator who murdered him. You want to keep your job, McCready, you find out who it was. We get a name, and we’ll keep the duke happy.”
“Who and why,” suggested McCready.
“Find out who, and why will be apparent,” snapped Gallen. He glanced back inside the window of the apothecary. “Go back inside, Pat, and assist in whatever way you can. I’m going to the office and will update the report. Let’s keep my relationship with Holmes between the two of us, at least until we find some relevant
evidence. No need to have the duke chasing leads that go nowhere. I’ll send a carriage around to take them to the mortuary when the physician has had time to get it unlocked.”
“We don’t know anything yet, sir,” challenged McCready. “What are you going to put into the report?”
“You think they want to hear that in Eastundon, that we don’t know anything?” barked Gallen. “Royalty is involved. If I don’t send regular reports to provincial leadership every few turns of the clock, they’ll be coming up here themselves, and that is the last thing we need. You handle matters here, Pat. We both know you’re better at the investigation bit than I am, and I’ll manage the politics. We handle this right, and neither one of us has to worry. If leadership or that spirit-forsaken duke gets upset, though…”
“Understood, sir,” responded McCready. He watched his supervisor as the man hurried off into the darkness.
The Priestess III
“What was the ritual intended to do?” asked Duke.
She drummed her fingers on the hilt of her kris before responding, “Contact the spirits of the dead… force them to perform an act for the sorcerer or divulge knowledge. Honestly, I don’t know. My mentor has taught me the signs, but I’ve never seen anything like this in person.”
“Contact the spirits of the dead and make them… It was really sorcery, you think?” wondered Duke. “I thought…”
“That’s what dark magic is,” explained Sam. “In sorcery, the practitioner calls upon the underworld spirits. Using rituals to invoke power over the shades, they bind them. They use that binding to compel their service. Depending on the ritual, the skill of the sorcerer, and the spirit they’ve called, there are a number of things they could do. Some are truth, we know. Some are only rumored…”
Duke frowned skeptically. “I was told sorcery is gone from Enhover.”
“Magic, based on the spirits of life, is gone,” explained Sam. “The connection between people and the spirits of the living world was severed in Enhover decades ago. Severed because of the rise of technology, severed because people just turned their backs on it, or maybe something else. No one knows for sure. We do know there are no more druids in Enhover, and there have not been any in our lifetimes. There is still death, though. Death is everywhere, and it only takes someone knowledgeable to call upon the underworld.”
“How come we never hear about this, then?” challenged Duke. “If all it takes is a sorcerer, surely there would be some? Once the knowledge has been discovered, it’s always there, right?”
“Unless it is suppressed, somehow,” agreed Sam.
“The Church?” speculated Duke, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “Is that why the bishop sent you with me, to suppress knowledge of what happened here? If the Church is acting in Enhover without my family’s knowledge or permission…”
“Would you allow sorcerers to roam freely?” asked Sam.
“No, I—”
“Carriage is here,” said Inspector McCready from the doorway.
“We’ll talk later,” muttered Duke.
Sam shrugged and allowed him to lead her into the cold night.
McCready was standing by the door of a sturdy-looking carriage. Sam was surprised to see a horse attached to it.
“Not enough mechanical carriages in Harwick?” she asked.
The inspector rolled his shoulders. “Not that our office can afford.”
Duke paused and glanced back at the apothecary.
“What?” Sam asked him.
“I think we’ve been going about this wrong.”
“How so?” inquired McCready.
“I certainly don’t know enough about occult rituals to determine anything from what we’ve found inside,” responded Duke. “That’s a mystery to us all, but there have been no reports of odd happenings, have there?”
McCready shook his head. “Aside from the crime itself, nothing unusual at all, m’lord.”
“Countess Dalyrimple got here, though, somehow,” continued Duke. “She traveled from Archtan Atoll, likely into Southundon, and then to Harwick. Surely there are records of her journey — records from the rail, records from the airship or vessel when it arrived from Archtan Atoll. If we find how and when she got to Enhover and then to Harwick, we can narrow down her movements and perhaps find who knew she was here and who was around her.”
“It’s a good thought, m’lord,” agreed McCready. “I’ve already checked the passenger manifests for all inbound rail over the last two weeks, though. Any earlier and I think there’d be some sign she was in the village. No one resembling the countess was listed on the first-class rosters, and unfortunately, they don’t take names for tickets in the public coaches.”
Duke frowned. “Airship or vessel manifests, then. We should be able to figure out when she arrived in Enhover, if not into Harwick. It’s a place to start.”
“Those are Company records,” replied McCready. “The Company won’t release that kind of thing. Not to some village inspector, at least.”
“They will to me,” assured Duke. “I suggest instead of the crematorium we head to the glae worm station. I’ll dash off a note over the filament to Company House in Southundon. Within a week or two, we’ll have the records of every vessel that arrived from Archtan Atoll in the last several months, and any passengers will be listed on the manifest of the voyage. If the countess arrived on a Company ship, and I don’t see how she could otherwise, we’ll find out which one.”
Sam’s breath puffed in cold autumn night, drifting in front of her as the men talked. She studied the dark, lantern-lit streets of Harwick. At night, in the dim light, the gray granite of the buildings and the cobbles blended into each other, and then into the surrounding hills and cliffs, and then into the sky. Only the lichen and the moss stood out, giving the place some personality. A damp, depressing personality, but the little bit of life was more cheerful than grim stone and darkness.
She stepped around the carriage, eyeing the horse. It was rare to see one in Westundon, and the beast was fascinating to her. Tall, its shoulder near the height of her head, and powerful. Muscles rippled under a glossy coat as the creature shifted beneath the light atop the carriage.
“Whoa there,” whispered the driver, leaning forward to pat the rump of the animal. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
The horse shifted again then pranced to the side, whinnying loudly. The driver nearly lost his balance, only his grip on his seat preventing him from pitching forward onto the back of the horse. The beast danced ahead, pulling against its traces, dragging the carriage a hand forward despite the squeal of the brakes.
“Weapons out!” cried Sam, spinning toward Duke and McCready.
The inspector just stared at her, his truncheon hanging untouched on his belt while she drew her two kris daggers. Duke was quicker, and in a blink, the heavy steel of his broadsword slid from the leather scabbard.
“What is it?” he hissed, his eyes darting back and forth, peering into the night.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she centered herself, drew a deep breath, and in a slow, steady release, breathed out. Barely visible in the darkness, her clouded breath billowed in front of her then twitched to her left. She twirled, whipping one of her kris daggers around and flinging it without looking for a target. The blade spun and, with a thump, impacted the wood of the carriage door.
McCready eyed the dagger which had flashed by a pace to his left. Then, he screamed as a gleaming tip of steel punched through his chest.
Uttering a stream of unintelligible curses, Duke leapt toward the inspector, slashing past the man, but she knew the nobleman couldn’t see his target.
The steel of his broadsword made an unmistakable sound as it clanged against iron. Duke’s eyes widened in surprise. He lashed the blade in front of him frantically, trying to strike an invisible assailant.
Sam darted past the flailing duke, and with her open hand, she grabbed the shaft of a blackened spear and then slammed her kris dagger in
to a cloaked body.
A grunt, a pained wheeze, and she felt their assailant struggling to pull the spear from her grasp. She yanked out her kris and stabbed again. The tug on the spear weakened and then stopped. The cloaked shape fell back, landing heavily on the damp cobblestone street.
“What the frozen hell was that!” shouted Duke.
She stood, shaking, her bloody kris in one hand, and she realized, a harpoon in the other. It wasn’t a weapon at all, really, but it had been effective.
“You, on the carriage, bring the light!” instructed Duke. She heard him scrambling behind her. “Frozen hell, the inspector is dead. The alarm, man, raise the alarm!”
Shouts and questions rose as concerned citizens threw open windows and peeked out doors. The light from the carriage swayed wildly behind her as the driver struggled to comply with Duke’s frantic, contradictory instructions.
In front of her, in the dancing shadows from the lantern, she saw the face of the man she’d killed. A man. It wasn’t a woman or something worse. The cold knowledge did nothing to slow the churning boil in her stomach. She’d killed someone with her dagger. A person, not a spirit. It wasn’t a friendly sparring match. It wasn’t a straw dummy her mentor had set for her. It was a person who was gone now.
A hand rested on her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” asked Duke quietly.
“I will be,” she breathed.
“This is the first time you have killed a man?”
She looked over her shoulder, up his arm, and saw him staring at the body.
“A man, yes, my first,” she mumbled.
“I won’t lie,” he said, turning to meet her eyes. “It is going to keep you up at night for a bit. If it helps, and I know it may not, you saved my life tonight.”
She looked past him to McCready. The inspector was on his side, his eyes wide in shock. A trickle of blood leaked from his open mouth, collecting on his bushy mustache then dripping to the dark cobblestones. From the puddle around him, a fountain of it must have spilled from his chest where the harpoon rammed through his body. It clipped his heart, she guessed, making it quick at least.
