She wiped her tears before they turned into icicles and stepped down from the doorway, wrapping her coat around her as the wind begin to blow the tussles away. Through the chaos of the gathering clouds she at first didn’t recognise the figure emerging through the dust. It was a man she felt sure, but the oncoming shadow wasn’t a shape she knew well. It was only as his nose was practically pressed against hers did she recognise him as Deputy Detector Rosin Ash.
“Lylith?” He shouted above the gale. “Is Josiah with you?”
“No.” She muttered in reply, her home and her Aunty suddenly seeming so insignificant at the mention of his name. “Josiah’s gone; he left for the valley early this morning.” The Deputy’s furrowed brow raised her suspicions. “Why, what’s happened?” Her voice suddenly became panicked. “Is something wrong?”
He kicked his feet into the dirt in frustration, the wind blowing harder and picking up their heels. “There’s nothing wrong but I really need him to help us right now. Damn it!” He grunted. “Chief Detector Fraun is angry and scared – we all are. There’s a threat on the life of one more politician and then it’s the Patriarch. If Josiah could work out who’s next then… Christ knows. I’ve been looking for him all day. I’ve been to the Head Offices, his tower, the Civilian Index.” He nodded towards the nearest cabin. “I got your address from your file, but if you don’t know where he is either…”
“I know exactly where he is Detector.” She interrupted. It had never quite registered before yet now it was just the two of them she noticed something strange about Rosin Ash, beady eyes like he was constantly interrogating, even though his lips remained sealed. “It’s pointless telling you, there’s no way you can go near him.” She resisted to no avail. “He’s gone to find the murderer. He disguised himself to try and become one of them, to integrate himself and get them to tell him their plans, just like you and the Chief want. He said it was the only way to find out how they’re going to assassinate the Patriarch.”
“Then I’ll be discrete, Miss White, I can assure you. I won’t give him away, but if he’s found anything out then surely we need to know and give Cedric a warning? Maybe they have something to do with Elisa Smith too; she’s been gone almost a day now. If he could ask them…”
Lylith winced awkwardly. “I think he already knows. Let’s just say I’d hold back on her pay cheque.”
“What does that mean?” He enquired
“It doesn’t matter - he’ll tell you everything if you find him.”
“Well then time is of the essence, surely? I promise you I’ll only approach him when its dark and he’s alone.” He shuffled. “I don’t know, perhaps if I could help him escape when he’s done. That will be the hardest bit - blending in, that’s a doddle, but to come away free, unscathed…”
“And how would you do that?”
“There’s evidence from a case recently closed. It’s no use to us now, though to your friend Josiah it might just be invaluable. I could get it to him, if only I could find him…”
Lylith White sighed. “Okay, he kept most of it fairly quiet but I know he’d worked out the killers are hiding in Ashton Wood, this side of the river where that old town was destroyed. That’s where he was headed this morning, but it might be hard to find, he has a knack for these things remember?”
“Thank you Lylith.” The Deputy Detector smiled.
She nodded and started to walk back up the path. “Come and see me once you’ve found him.” She shouted back at Rosin Ash as she walked.
“Where are you going?” He asked, his words barely audible in the storm.
“Back where it’s safe.” Lylith White answered, pacing up the pathway and vanishing in the plumes of dust.
Everything Michael Prince did seemed to inflate his ego further. His voice sounded like a smirk, the way he sat looked like he was winking at the Patriarch from across the desk, taunting him with his subtly twirling fingers and calm, cool glances. It would be bearable if his words ever matched his smiles, but they didn’t: every one of them was brimmed with spite.
“You know there’s a limit to how much the mind can conceivably take.” Michael muttered, legs draped over the arm of the chair. “There’s a certain point where the human brain says ‘no’ and your emotions take charge, it’s scientifically proven, no matter how cool you are, no matter how level headed, the human mind can snap, just like that, no warning at all. Just a few days at the height of stress followed by the tiniest of things - a broken glass, a wonky chair, someone misplacing an important file, the most important of files and I could lose it, say, lean over this desk and decide to rip the hair from your skull.” Michael swayed. “Apparently there’s one way to contain the anger and that’s to resolve the damage; fix the glass, mend the chair, find the file...” He sniffed. “Find the file Cedric. You know what will happen if you don’t. You’ll be wearing a swimming cap for the rest of your days.”
Cedric Baltazar squirmed, rocking gently on his chair with his hands squeezed between his thighs. “I would if I could but it’s not that simple.” He explained cautiously. “It’s not lost, it’s been stolen. I thought it was Lucy, what with the bug under my cup but then, I don’t think she knows. Maybe it was just a burglar, the cleaners perhaps?”
“Okay…” Michael mused. “It’s a possibility, although… no, hold on a minute.” His face dropped. “There was money in that safe wasn’t there, receipts, cheque books? Unless your entire cleaning staff is from the simple farm, which I doubt because most of that seems to have been emptied into management, then there’s no way on God’s Earth anyone on their wage would crack into a safe and take just one slip of paper, something completely meaningless to them, especially considering most of them couldn’t even read it…”
Cedric sighed in disbelief. “Then it must have been her… Why deny it?”
“Oh come on!” Prince exclaimed sharply. “Do you really expect her to take something like that then just hand it right back over? Whatever she wants with it, she’s not done yet. So what, it turns up in the bread bin in a couple of weeks’ time? But that’s just not good enough Patriarch.” Michael Prince’s anger fizzled and he leant over the desk, his stubbled chin resting on an upturned first. His voice was calm again, so smooth it was sinister. “The question I’m asking though is: how hard did you try? You went in there and you asked for her to politely give it back? Or were you a man, were you a husband? Did you fight for it, did you pin her to the chair…?”
“She’s my wife Michael…” Cedric Baltazar pleaded.
“She listened to conversations that weren’t for her ears, she broke into your safe and took your things and now she won’t give them back. She’s a thief, she’s a liar. And she’s out to get you just like everybody else.” He began to smile as the Patriarch started to understand, and so he stood confidently from his seat. “Don’t just let her walk over you this time Cedric. You don’t have to worry about her, there’s nothing make up can’t fix nowadays.”
He clasped his hands together with a grin, his lips pouting.
“Now go get her tiger.”
An Initiation
J osiah Hartt shuddered where he stood, rumbled it seemed by the Detector who had betrayed him. Elisa Smith stood before him, gazing at his face with wonder and anger, waiting expectantly for an answer. He quivered and coughed nervously, his hands trembling as he dug them into his pockets. He didn’t know what to say, not that he could say anything with his heart so firmly lodged in his mouth. The silence was horrible, a terrible absence of sweet, camouflaging noise as all eyes turned his way, only the creaking of wood occupying the vast, impatient void.
“I don’t know what you mean…” Josiah began reluctantly. He found his words however dampened by another’s, a voice behind him stumbling over his own. It coughed and claimed the silence. With relief Josiah allowed it to talk.
“What about him?” It asked, the tone and rasp all too familiar.
Hartt turned sharply around, finding behind him Edg
ar Mulligan standing confidently in the doorway. Josiah backed away, waiting for a response from the couple but found to his surprise that the conversation continued without him.
They spoke of Josiah Hartt, bitter and invigorated but completely unaware that he was standing with them now. Field Specialist hadn’t spotted him at all; his mangled face had done the trick because she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking through him - just as her leader had emerged behind him.
Josiah ran a hand through his hair and breathed a heavy sigh of relief, a thankful smile crossing his dry, shaking lips. Then he realised should he show anything more than mild fascination his game would be up. He backed away, sliding gracefully out of the centre of attention and the line of sight.
As Hartt stood watching her as the Field Specialist spoke quietly to Edgar he noticed she slowly began to unravel her scarlet robe that she’d been using as a scarf. She pulled the two pieces of fabric apart, wrapping one tightly around her right arm and then the other around her opposite leg. In moments she fitted, the two emblems of the group marking her body like that of Josephine and George beside her. As he looked closer there it was, the same figure of eight scar, more faded than the others, embedded into her neck. She’d been hiding it the whole time.
“Now tell me Edgar.” Elisa Smith caught Hartt’s attention as she suddenly raised her voice, turning away from Mulligan and looking directly at him. “Who the hell is he?”
“He’s no one; he wants to help us get Baltazar.” Edgar explained.
“Now come on, wait a minute!” Josiah exclaimed, thinking as his character would and jumping in between them. “I hardly think that’s fair, do you know how many times I didn’t wash on my way here? Please, I put the effort in...” He turned to the lying Detector. “My name is Oscar White. I’m not just ‘no one’ at all - I came here to assassinate one of the great leaders of our nation. I’ve killed people before and so I’m sharp on the trigger, I can talk my way into a bank vault and I’m one hell of a dab hand with a whisk.” He beamed at her, nodding his head gently. “Who the hell are you?”
She grunted, little lips sharply turning sour. “The people you’ve killed, did they deserve it, was it your revenge upon them?”
“Sometimes.” Oscar White said.
“I’ll tell you this,” Elisa Smith began. “I’m no scum of the Earth murderer like you - to me you’re a criminal, you’re the enemy and that is why I became a Detector, to catch scum of the Earth murderers like you. That’s justice, that’s my job. What I am doing here? I’m fighting injustice just the same – except this time there’s no place for handcuffs because he’s in the seat of power. This time justice is dethroning that man, not arresting him. I didn’t come here because I was looking for a fight. I worked for this. I became a Detector, I passed my exams and I’ve saved lives before this. Now it’s my right to take one.”
“Is that how it works?” Hartt sniped, his morality pushing out the words before his mind had chance to think them through.
“That’s rich, coming from a self-proclaimed killer.” The Field Specialist observed.
Josiah sighed, acting as if Oscar White was conceding before picking his head up, moving away from the argument before questions could be asked. “Why weren’t you here with the other three when I arrived here?” He asked tentatively.
She looked at him with confusion. “And that’s your business, how?”
“Well, everyone else was huddled up in here - hiding away and plotting, while you were out there, jumping about in the early hours. It’s not like you had work, Detectors shifts are hardly arduous around these parts…”
“I went for a walk.” Elisa’ eyes shifted to Edgar’s. “I needed to clear my head.”
Josiah Hartt knew instantly she was lying. He knew for reasons it would have taken a dozen awkward minutes to explain, but in his mind he’d spotted them on her in a mere moment of observation.
On the right collar of her jumper there were snags on her stitching, the marks were new but whatever had caused them had already been removed. Like she’d been wearing an ID card she needed to gain access to somewhere special. He doubted the Orchid Gardens required one of those. Nor somewhere outdoors where fences could be climbed and dirt wriggled through – if it had security like that it had to be inside.
Supporting the ever-growing theory were those grubby-black boots. The thick leather was caked in dirt, but when Elisa lifted her heels the soles were much less so. On a long walk across the boggy countryside the pattern would usually be reversed and so he could only presume she’d walked down some pristine corridor and the smooth floor had polished the bases. She’d been wearing a strange pair of gloves too, her hands were covered in sweat and the stench of plastic reeked even from across the room.
More revealing was that even in the freezing winter Elisa had been somewhere hot. She had taken her coat off since she’d visited his tower as it was adjusted differently to its arrangement before - the collars were ruffled, other buttons unfastened and readjusted. Also, when she folded her arms he could see her skin meaning even walking through the bitter cold of the winter valley she’d taken off the coat and rolled up the sleeves - something nobody would ever do if they were going for a long, frosty walk.
Of course, even if she’d been inside a sweltering sauna of a building any logical person would have straightened their sleeves before they disappeared back into the cold. Unless, that is, they left in a hurry. The now-absent identification badge told him that wherever Elisa Smith had gone she was a well-known face. But tonight, just this once; she wasn’t meant to be there.
Stating such observations out-loud would have raised eyebrows past their foreheads however, but his senses were tingling now, he had to know where she’d been. “I don’t think you’re telling the truth.” Hartt muttered. “I don’t believe you’d go for a walk on a day like today”
Elisa tilted her head. You sound rather sure of yourself. Quite like another annoying prick I know…”
“What, Josiah Hartt?” He stammered, trying now to cover his mistake and realising too late that he’d just made another. Her gaze was powerful, and he sweated and panicked beneath it.
“You know him then?” The Field Specialist quizzed. “How? Have you met?”
“No!” He exclaimed, trying to cover his tracks. “I mean, he’s a legend, an absolute legend.” He explained clumsily, “People don’t know much about him but what they say is… good. Very good. All of it. He has a brilliant mind. I mean - I can see why you don’t like him; he has some negative features… I can’t think of any at the moment - obviously there’s something… He’s a little arrogant I suppose?” Hartt coughed awkwardly. “Is that why you said his name, is he working with us too?”
“No. Infact quite the opposite. I went there last night to find out what he was doing. I didn’t speak to the man himself, his favourite bimbo opened the door but I could see him, waiting, watching me, thinking he was hidden but there he was, his eyes stalking me from afar.”
“He has someone with him? I thought he worked alone?” Josiah acted. “If she’d involved shouldn’t we deal with her too? What’s her name, do you know?”
Elisa shook her head. “I don’t have a clue. He said it enough but that was hardly what interested me most about him. It’s not like it matters, she’s hardly a threat.”
Josiah nodded. Good. She’s safe.
“Was it wise, going there?” Josephine piped up. “I mean, won’t that rather arouse suspicion, the Deputy Detector said Hartt knew there was a leak.”
“I used a cover. I said I went to inform them of Robert Acrimony’s death.”
“Wasn’t that the victim of those drug traps in Stonemoore?” Josiah quizzed, constantly trying to tease out information. “Why tell him that, why help Hartt if you’re really one of us?”
Elisa Smith sighed. “I’m still a Detector, Oscar, and for some reason they’ve decided to make Josiah Hartt an ally, and unfortunately he’s supposed to be my ally too. If I didn�
��t cooperate and go along with the Detector sheep, not telling Josiah that Robert Acrimony was dead – that would look suspicious…”
“And is he dead?” Edgar Mulligan asked.
“Yes.” Elisa smiled. “He is now.”
Josiah frowned. “What do you mean, now? You said you told Hartt and the ‘bimbo’ last night?” He looked to her in confusion, then back to Edgar who glanced at the Detector and nodded gently. Hartt returned to her expectantly, to which she cleared her throat and began to explain.
“You were right Oscar, I wasn’t walking last night, I was somewhere else.” She revealed. Hartt couldn’t be bothered to act surprised. “When I went to Josiah’s tower I wasn’t being entirely honest, because at that point Robert Acrimony was actually still alive. As soon as I left I went straight to the hospital, to the Intensive Care ward where Mr Acrimony was waiting. He was unstable, in a very deep coma, useful as a rotten tomato but he was still alive. And one day he might have woken up.
You see, in the ground beneath Robert’s body before he was found poisoned by that spider I planted a note telling the rest of the Detectors that when the people in this room are finished there will be four new graves, and Robert’s would be the first. I know he was frozen before we could get to him and that he was as good as dead but the fact is: the attack upon him by that idiot drug dealer was a coincidence, it served a purpose sure, but a coma simply wasn’t enough. Acrimony would have to be killed if we were to deliver on our promise and ensure the Patriarch and the coward Board took us seriously.
Cedric has to be scared of us Oscar, he had to spend weeks having nightmares that one day soon we will ensure come true. But it can’t be instantaneous. Baltazar has to see his friends names, the titles of his allies printed as headlines on the front of the paper in the days leading to his death. See what was done to the three men before him. Realise that their fate is his too. That’s why I killed Robert Acrimony.”
Blood & Baltazar Page 19
