Blood & Baltazar

by Liam Inscoe-Jones

  Josiah croaked; a strange little noise that got caught in his throat. He looked to Lylith, mouth open, helpless. His companion raised her head and turned back to face them. “Why should we care about her?”

  Josiah looked at her in disbelief. “Lylith…”

  “No, listen to me Josiah. I’m not going to let you help a killer before you explain why this matters to us, why Hope’s little sob story isn’t just that – a story. She’s already helped to kill three men, now it’s clear that Josiah thinks she’s worth saving for some reason, so why wouldn’t you make up a something like this to ensure that he would do as you wish? Why should I let him listen?”

  Edgar Mulligan smiled. “Because Lylith White – we know where you live.”

  She stopped. “What?”

  “It didn’t take us long. Mr Hartt gave Hope your name. He won her over and then said you were caring enough to help her. Maybe that was true. It’s a little late for that now.”

  Josiah’s face dropped. A little saddened, a little disappointed. “Hope told you what I said to her?”

  “Yes.” Edgar tilted his head. Well, sort of. We bled it out of her. Not long before we forced her to firebomb your tower. The Civilian Index helped us work out the rest. The house belongs to Eloise White - or should I say, Aunty Eloise?”

  Lylith gasped. “Josiah…?”

  Josiah ignored her, looked to Edgar. “How did you find out about the Civilian Index? Most Detectors don’t even know…”

  “We’ve been watching you a little while. 10 Costello Mount, Aled’s Arachnids, and the Index of course. We followed you there, and while you two were old cold on the floor I made a little repeat visit.”

  Josiah groaned and rolled his eyes. “Again with the following? What is it with you people and following everyone everywhere? You’ll get a reputation…”

  “And so will her Aunty when we set her home alight.” Edgar snarled. “We know all about her now. The man on the desk, Alfred Myrian, helped us find Lylith’s file. It seems he speaks when he bleeds too. It’s a nifty little trick.”

  Lylith’s lips twisted. “You shits.”

  Edgar Mulligan grinned. “Yes, no, maybe so… The facts are simple none the less. George is standing outside your home watching dear old Eloise sleep on the couch and Hope Finnegan’s life is quite literally in my hands. Josiah Hartt - you don’t want to help a killer, but you’ll be just as bad as me if you don’t, because all this - it would all be your fault.”

  Edgar let those be his final words as he picked up Hope by the collar and dragged her through the door, kicking her out of reach and slamming the wood shut.

  “He’s nice then.” Lylith panted as the door clicked into place and the room was left silent again. “I don’t want to help them either but we don’t have a choice, they’re watching my Aunty – you have to prove this thing’s fake somehow…”

  “What about Hope?”

  “She already helped to kill Mr McCoy, John Tyler, that Advisor on the hill-”

  Josiah Hartt sighed. “That’s the thing, that’s why I care. She’s never did anything, not with her own hands. The people down here lie, I know that, but Hope Finnegan wasn’t, not when she told me she hadn’t touched them. I’ve seen too many, I know the real ones from the fakes. Hope’s honest but worse than that, she’s innocent. She deserves to be saved. She’d just strayed a little from her morals, but that’s what grief does to you - you and I know that. I’m doing this for your Aunty, I’m doing this for Hope…”

  Lylith stumbled in response, recovering herself quickly. “Okay, fine, for her too. As long as you can you do it - I mean, it’s not like we’ve been presented with a crime scene.” She looked over at the scrappy sheet of paper and the flimsy pen beside it. “It might be pointless; we can’t know the Patriarch even did it, what if it really was Todd Finch…”

  “Of course it wasn’t!” Josiah retorted. “If the name on here was correct and Cedric was really innocent then why didn’t he just say Todd Finch was the General who gave the orders rather than watering down the truth for his own pleasing? No, the Patriarch did it alright. Whichever official filled out this report must have been payed to lie for Baltazar – by Cedric himself or by someone’s whose interest it was to protect him. “

  “Then how on earth are we supposed to prove it from this page alone?”

  “There’s always evidence of a lie, a ripple in the residue of truth.” Josiah Hartt mused. “A lie breaks the pattern; it changes everything around it because it’s a piece that doesn’t fit the jigsaw. All you have to do is find it in the crowd.”

  Lylith White was intrigued. “It can be found even here?”

  “Everywhere.” Hartt grinned. “Just watch me!”

  He shrugged of his coat and threw it aside, yanking out the chair from beneath the table and swinging himself onto it, leaning his whole body across the paper and running his eyes over it. “The date says it was signed on the 5th of December 1952; that was during the war, a little while after the attack on Ashton village. That makes sense.” He nodded. “These things are processed overseas so that events are reported without a bias and absolute truth is ensured, it would have taken a few days to process and publish officially.”

  Lylith winced as Josiah began running his tongue across the pages’ corners, lapping up the residue of ink before running his fingers over the paper. He proceeded to sniff the sheet and inhale its damp, stale dust. “The ink’s beginning to fade, the sharp edges you get at the side of new paper have been blunted and the corners creased despite preservation and careful filing – I’d say it’s about eleven years old, which would fit perfectly, but then; how hard is it to age a new sheet of paper? Dodgy Stan down the road makes a living out of it, so that proves nothing.”

  He looked around at Lylith, who stood there cluelessly as he worked his way around the sheet and so he curled his face in mock annoyance. “Lylith White, why are you here if not to be witness to my doing something really rather brilliant?” He dropped the act and smiled gently. “Take a seat; I’m sure you could help.”

  She did so obediently, intimidated by the task before her and the knocking at the door as a huddle of people struggled to hear them work.

  “Ignore them.” Josiah tutted, picking up the pen and rolling it along his palm. “So this pen is Austrian, which was one of the countries used for the processing of matters from this nation during the war. It’s a pen they would use and the dates match too.” He grunted in frustration: “Everything here seems to fit!”

  “Wait...” Lylith sighed. “How did you know its Austrian, does it say?”

  Josiah paused as he looked at her like the answer was plainly obvious. “Well no, but just look at the thing, it reeks of it…”

  “All it reeks of is rust Josiah.” She muttered. “You seem to be forgetting that for you ‘obvious’ is the most obscure of things…”

  “But for each few seconds of thought in my head it takes a good few minutes to explain to everyone else, I simply don’t have the time…” He groaned as Lylith looked at him expectantly and he couldn’t help but explain, drawn by the lure of a captive audience. “Okay…” He beamed. “…But just a quick one.” He twisted the pen in his hand; pointing towards her the base of the nib where three words were engraved into the silver. “Can you see that? It says Feinen Spitze Steife.”

  “Please don’t say that means ‘this is an Austrian Pen’”

  “Well, no, it may sound like someone coughing up a hairball but actually it means fine tipped pen. Though that’s not the point...”

  “Nice pun.”

  “Thank you.” He grinned. “What’s important is that it’s written in German, so the country of its origin’s official language is such and that narrows them down to three; Luxembourg, Austria and, well... Germany. Luxembourg has a hundred thousand citizens, I hardly think they’re priority is pens, so it’s either Austria or the homeland. I happen to know Germany is a major manufacturer of fountain pens like this one, they were the
creators of the first iridium point, they were the makers of the ‘Sheaffer Snorkel’, for them it’s surpassed being an everyday writing tool and became a symbol of status. With prestige like that do you think this pen would look quite so shabby?”

  “But it doesn’t look shabby.” She replied, “It’s really rather elegant.”

  “It’s elegant alright, but look at it. It’s falling apart. The seal fastening the silver of the nib to the gold of the rim is cracking around the edges; the varnish has rubbed away where fingers have held it too long.” He twisted the top half of the pen from the base, pouring out its insides of ink stained tubing and rusting cogs across the table top. “Did you hear that? Squeaking when I twisted them apart, this pen’s nearly a dozen years old but a proper, solid German pen would last decades more before arriving at a condition like this. The thread’s already worn to nothing, despite, judging by the staining on the inside of the cartridge, its owner having to change the ink only a few times in its lifetime. This pen may be expensive Lylith, not because of how well it’s made, but because it’s handmade. Now, do you honestly think with an industry as big and strong as this in Germany the country would have time to make each one like that? No, this is Austrian alright. As Austrian as Hitler.”

  “But how did you know the person who lied about Todd Finch being the man in charge didn’t just buy an Austrian pen from somewhere else, they might have been living in Botswana when they filled in the report…”

  “Because it’s expensive.” Josiah tutted. “When you buy something like this and you plan to spend money on it, you don’t look at the best from overseas but the best from home. If you were an Englishman wouldn’t you rather fork out on a bit of Wenslydale from Lancashire than get some posh relative to mail some of the finest Brie from France? Trust me, when you opened the post all that would be left is mould.”

  “This helps exactly how?” She quizzed.

  “It doesn’t. It makes things worse. If this pen was made in Tokyo then there’d be a crack in the story, but now I know its origin is Austria everything still fits, everything still works.”

  “But the lie affects everything…” Lylith reminded him.

  “Maybe it doesn’t quite affect this, I mean, its tiny, as evidence goes it’s the Isle of Wight.” He groaned, slumping his head into his hands. “The truth is everywhere but you have to have something substantial to see it. I know this document is false - I know it!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Am I sure?” He growled, leaping from his seat as he yelped in frustration. “Yes I’m sure! Finch’s signature alone makes the whole thing obvious. Look at the strokes around the ‘h’ of ‘Finch’, its shaking around the bridge, and the curl between the two d’s is flimsy; the one doesn’t connect to the other. It’s a replication. When someone writes their signature they’re used to how they draw the pen across the page. Arcs like those come from hurriedly scrawling the links between words they’ve written a thousand times but when somebody else copies the signature every link is painstakingly etched into the paper, it’s unnatural, it’s tentative. That’s how I know whoever did sign this document; they certainly weren’t called Todd Finch.”

  Lylith looked at him, his face contorted with stress and frustration. There were tiny mutterings emerging from the corridor as the killers listened and so Lylith leant across and whispered in his ear. “But Josiah,” She began. “That wouldn’t stand up in a justice trial; it wouldn’t even stand up in a pub…”

  “I know Lylith.” Hartt sighed, pushing the page aside and laying his aching head on the oak. “But there is nothing else. I can’t do this, I can’t… There’s nothing here, the evidence is just not enough to serve its purpose.”

  “Then tell them that!” Lylith exclaimed. “Tell them it’s impossible and there’s nothing they can do about it, like they said, they need you...”

  “But they could still blow the town to kingdom come. They could still kill Hope Finnegan, your Aunt. That’s what would happen, and I can’t allow that. I have to find something else.”

  “You’ve said; there’s noth-”

  She stopped dead a Josiah’s head shot up from the table. He turned and grinned at her his toothiest grin before kicking back his chair and rising briskly from its cushion. “Pull yourself together Lylith, time is of the essence. We’re leaving now.” He bubbled excitedly.

  “What, hold on, what is it? Why are we going?” She flustered.

  “You know Austria, that brilliant, marvellous place?” Josiah bolted across to the door, raising a hand is preparation of a knock. “Are you aware of much of its history Lylith? In 1945, after the Nazi’s were defeated and removed from its cities, the Allies at the Yalta Conference decided the country would be split into four zones and they would become its occupants - it would no longer be a state of its own independence. In 1955 the Austrian State Treaty was signed, the Allies left and it was once again restored as a sovereign state…”

  “So…?” She sighed impatiently, sloping slowly to his side.

  “So Lylith… How was a form signed in Austria in 1952 where there wasn’t an Austria in 1952?”

  He turned sharply on his heel and slammed his fist into the woodwork in the doorframe. It burst promptly open and Edgar Mulligan strolled through, followed closely by Field Specialist Elisa Smith. On the ground below them Hope Finnegan was made to scuffle along the concrete; wrists bleeding as they scraped against the brittle rock.

  “Did you hear that?” Josiah Hartt asked sternly, to which Edgar just nodded and tucked his hands in his pockets.

  “Yes, it was mightily impressive.” Elisa Smith mused to the right of him. “You may be a smart-arse but it’s not completely unjustified.”

  “Good, then you can call the man you have watching my house away and let us go!” Lylith White snapped, her fear resurfacing at their reappearance.

  “And let Hope go too.” Josiah added, the girl on the floors eye’s rolling hopelessly toward him. “She didn’t do anything to harm you, she merely changed her mind.” Hartt could only smile at her as Edgar inhaled deeply for effect, before giving in and sharply breathing out and sighing.

  “No, you’re quite right, she did nothing to me. I suppose I’ll let her live.” He rummaged in his pockets. “Just a moment.”

  Mulligan pulled something from the fabric.

  All too late Josiah realised it was a gun.

  By the time he’d opened his mouth Mulligan had swung the barrel round and pressed the nib against Hope’s pounding temples.

  Edgar pulled the trigger. The side of the screaming girls head splintered to a plume of scarlet smoke which scattered like raindrops across the rotting wall and down Josiah’s blistered arm. The room fell silent as the gunshot echoed. Her killer stood proud and watched Hope’s head rattle atop her neck; the whites of her eyes fill with red. Like a rag doll the woman swayed for a few seconds before swiftly toppling over herself and softly dropping with a splash into her own ruby puddle.

  Edgar Mulligan sighed “Wouldn’t be good for appearances though would it?”

  Lylith screamed. She cupped her hands to her mouth, looked manically for a similar reaction of despair in the room’s other occupants, yet all seemed unnaturally unfazed. Elisa staggered back slightly, but refused to appear anything less than impressed. Even Josiah stood silently before her.

  Yet Hartt contained his anger for appearances only, thinking in the second he’d been given without all eyes on him and taking advantage of the moment of madness. He snatched the jar of arachnids from his pockets and pressed it into the wall. The glass splintered in his palm, the pair of spiders falling gently to the ground with the tumbling shards.

  Then Hartt launched himself at Edgar, stopping just a few inches from his face. He stood in silence for a second, Edgar’s eyes a few millimetres from his, his breath hot and shallow.

  “You said we could leave?” Josiah spat, remaining as calm as he could. Edgar nodded and Hartt took Lylith by the arm, pulling her forward, swi
nging her through the doorway while she stared desperately at the seeping corpse.

  “Yes, you’re free to go.” Edgar Mulligan nodded, curling his lips in a way he knew would repulse Josiah. Hartt responded by leaning sharply forward, pressing his lips against the leader’s ear and mouthing into them. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Edgar snorted. “I don’t think it matters. I don’t think letting you out will either. Whatever you try to do, it will lead to your demise. You can’t save Baltazar Josiah, his soul shall be vanquished. Even trying would be pointless at best.”

  “Why? What would happen if I tried?”

  Mulligan beamed at him. “Your worst nightmare.”

  “We’ll see.” Josiah muttered, pulling himself away and sloping after Lylith down the corridor.

  They emerged from the pit panting; Josiah scrambling onto the dirt and stopping halfway through standing. He rested breathlessly on his knees before composing himself and stumbling over to Lylith’s side. “Are you okay?” He asked, brushing her hair aside to examine her eyes.

  “They killed her! Right in front of us…” She exclaimed breathlessly, almost tumbling into the dirt as her knees buckled beneath her. The light in the forest was brightening at last, the dullness of night being quenched as a blazing winter sun began to rise in the sky and melt the layers of frost. “I know, I know…” He nodded, swallowing as best as he could.