Wrath of the Fury Blade

by Geoff Habiger

  Betulla glared at the three of them and then turned and stalked off, still carrying the sword. FC Churlsleaf followed her. He didn’t need to be shaking any branches for himself.

  When they’d left, Reva said, “Sir, we’ll be able to prove that Gania’s death wasn’t caused by the killer. With the evidence here, we’ll be able to compare it with the evidence from the other murders, and certainly a Speaking Ritual on our masked elf will tell us that he’s not our killer. Then we can—”

  Aescel held up his hand to silence her. Reva might be right, and she usually was, but he wanted this case closed as much as Betulla did. “Finish here, Lunaria. Collect your evidence, but I won’t authorize a Speaking Ritual. File everything away and then give me a report matching what FC…LCI Betulla said happened. I want this case closed before the sun comes up.”

  “But sir, this is just a set-up to get us off the case.”

  “I don’t care. This has gone on long enough and it needs to end. Betulla is already pissed enough at us right now. If I let you continue, even with some kind of justification, she’ll come down on us hard. We’d be lucky to end up working the West Gate on night shift.”

  “Fine.” Reva crossed her arms.

  “And none of your plots!” Aescel pointed at her. “I know you, Reva. If you go behind my back on this, I’ll demote you myself. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” Reva gave in, letting the dejection show on her face. Aescel glared at her for a moment, then turned to leave.

  “Close the case, Inspector,” he called back. “Don’t tempt me on this.” He walked down the hall and out of sight.

  Reva looked at Ansee and Willem. Grabbing a strand of hair, she started to suck on the end of it. After a moment, she said, “Well, come on. Let’s get this scene processed.”

  “And then what, ma’am?” asked Willem.

  She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “And then we go behind Aescel’s back.”

  Thirty-two

  Reva was utterly exhausted as she sat down on the stool at her table in New Port. Although she’d spent nearly the entire day unconscious in Ansee’s flat the day before, the events of last night and this morning had drained her. Her body screamed for a hit of Wake and merely the thought of a pinch of the fine, reddish-brown snuff, with its characteristic sweet and earthy odor, sparked a deep yearning in her mind. She struggled for a while, plotting how she could get some—many of the drunks and riffraff that got brought in had Wake on them…

  Reva realized that she had stood up again without even knowing it. The urge for the Wake had been so strong that she was about to go look for some. She wanted to give in to the urge—it wouldn’t really hurt, not just one hit—but instead, she managed to force herself to walk over to the tea nook, where she reluctantly poured herself a mug of tea. The brew had been sitting most of the night and was lukewarm and probably bitter as hell. It would have to do. She took a sip and almost gagged on the horrid taste. Apparently her body was mad at her for the cruel substitution.

  She set the mug down and sat back down. She’d put her report on LCI Gania’s death in the basket hanging from Aescel’s door a few minutes earlier. It was well past sunrise, but he wasn’t in yet, the lucky bastard, so she’d technically met his deadline of closing the case by sunrise. He’d never know the difference.

  Sitting at her table, staring at the horrid cup of tea, a part of her wanted to just say “fuck it” so that she could go home and sleep. So the bastard was still out there, plotting to kill his next victim. She’d been told to close the case and it was closed. Done. It would be on Betulla’s head if the elf killed again.

  Reva crossed her arms on the table to make a pillow and laid her head down. You know that won’t be how it gets played, she told herself. When this bastard kills again they’ll find a way to blame you. Guaranteed. Preservation of her job and her reputation was part of the nagging reason that she wasn’t just going to go home and leave everything alone.

  The other part, the larger reason, was that Reva, in good conscience, couldn’t let the killer stay out there to kill again. She was a Constable, sworn to protect the citizens of Tenyl, even if her bosses forced her to do it behind their backs.

  She was about to drift off to sleep when Ansee called out tentatively, “Inspector,” followed by a gentle shake on her shoulder.

  Reva cracked open one eye and looked at him from the crook of her elbow. “What?”

  “It’s gone.” His face was ashen.

  She lifter her head. “What’s gone?”

  “The evidence. It’s not in the evidence room.”

  “What? Maybe somebody just moved the boxes.”

  “No, I checked. It’s all gone, everything from the previous murders.”

  “What’s gone?” asked Willem, walking up to the table with a cup of tea.

  “Our evidence,” Reva replied, dejected.

  “Hells. I was just coming to tell you that our witness from the second murder is gone.”

  “What?” Reva was fully awake now, her exhaustion replaced by anger.

  “LCI Betulla, or one of her minions, signed the order this morning,” said Willem. “He was released about an hour ago. We can try to get him back.”

  Ansee shook his head. “He’ll disappear into the warrens of Nul Pfeta. Nobody will be able to find him.”

  The three of them were silent for a minute, unsure what their next move should be. The sound of slow clapping came from the top of the stairs. They all turned to see Constable Inspector Pflamtael standing at the entrance to the Stable, clapping. Seeker Pfinzloab stood next to him, her arms crossed, her face filled with contempt.

  “Let’s all give a cheer to the great and all-knowing Constable Inspector Lunaria. Not only did your wise and omnipotent leadership allow our beloved leader to be slaughtered at the hand of a mad-elf, you also graciously allowed Betula Division the honor of stopping and killing the bastard.” He clapped again, slowly. “You do us all proud, Inspector.” The sarcasm was unmistakable.

  Reva probably shouldn’t have responded, or maybe she should have said something more intelligent, but she was too tired. “Fuck you, Olwyn.”

  “Is that an offer?” Pflamtael leered at her as he walked to his own table. Reva remained silent this time and he started laughing.

  “Come on,” Reva finally said to Ansee and Willem, loud enough for everybody in the Stable to hear her. “Breakfast is on me for closing our case.”

  They walked toward the stairs. Passing Pflamtael’s table she asked, “Close your floater case yet, Olwyn?”

  He grunted and flipped Reva a rude gesture.

  “In your dreams,” she laughed as she trotted down the stairs.

  † † †

  Twenty minutes later, the three of them walked up to the House of Theobroma. Reva chose a table on the patio, nodding to Iliam through the window and holding up three fingers.

  “We must have passed a dozen restaurants, cafés, and cacao houses between New Port and here,” Ansee complained.

  “Iliam serves the best cacao in the city,” Reva countered.

  Ansee made a show of looking around before sitting down in a wooden, straight-backed chair painted a gaudy pink and blue. “And the best ambushes, too.”

  Reva waved the comment away as she took her own seat in a large wicker armchair with a fluffy cushion. She leaned her head back, eyes closed, letting the morning sunlight warm her skin. A moment later, the warmth was gone. Opening her eyes, she saw clouds scudding across the sky.

  “Damn clouds.”

  “Maybe we’ll get some rain,” offered Willem. He was leaning back in a rocking chair, his legs crossed in front of him.

  “We could use a break from this heat,” Reva admitted.

  “Aww, ma’am. The heat’s not that bad. Not like it was a few years ago, remember? We had that crazy fanatic who was a follower
of some sun god.”

  “Lyzar,” Reva said.

  “Yeah. He kept saying that the heat was punishment or some hawkshit, and in order to save the city he had to sacrifice a dozen virgins.”

  “I remember. He killed four before we could capture him. And he almost killed Cas.”

  “Well, she did insist on being the bait to lure him out.”

  Ansee looked between Reva and Willem as they reminisced. Finally, he couldn’t take it any longer. “Are you two going to live in the past, basking in your damn glory days? Or are we going to figure out how to deal with our own lunatic killer?”

  “So testy, Antsy,” Reva said.

  “I think somebody was up too late last night,” remarked Willem.

  Ansee was about to explode, but he bit his tongue as the server walked out with the tray. He set three large cups of hot cacao on the table, large dollops of whipped cream floating on top, as well as a plate with a large sticky bun coated in honey, cinnamon, and slivers of almonds. As he set down three plates and napkins, Reva offered him payment, which the server—Reva had called him Iliam, so he was also the owner—refused. They fussed for a bit before Iliam retreated back inside, payment flatly refused. Ansee shook his head in amazement.

  “What?” asked Reva as she pulled off some of the honey bread.

  “We’re a bunch of hypocrites,” Ansee said. “We complain when somebody like LCI Betulla gets promoted through obvious corruption and favoritism, and we then perpetuate that same corruption every day at cafés, cacao houses, pubs, and shops all around the city.”

  “It’s not the same. They don’t pay us enough to do the job, so this is just our due,” said Willem, setting down his cup. A large bit of cream was stuck to the end of his nose. Reva burst out laughing, almost spewing her own cacao.

  Ansee was annoyed at first; he felt strongly about not accepting “gifts” and “services” from shopkeepers. He didn’t think that the Constabulary should be above the law, but the stress and exhaustion overwhelmed him and he started laughing too.

  Willem was angry at first, the tips of his ears starting to redden. Then he, too, started laughing, wiping the cream from his nose.

  People on the street gave them funny looks, but the trio didn’t care. They continued to laugh for almost a minute before the feeling passed and they all stared down at their cups.

  Reva picked hers up, taking a long pull, savoring the bittersweet flavor. Ansee and Willem were both biting into hunks of the honey bread. She set her cup down, cradling it in the palms of her hands, letting the warmth creep up her arms. “We need to know who this elf is if we’re going to stop him.”

  “How do we do that?” Ansee asked. “All of our evidence has disappeared.”

  “We couldn’t look at it even if it were still there,” said Willem. “The case is closed, remember?”

  “The evidence isn’t all gone,” Reva said, pulling out her small leather notebook. The elephant grinned up at them. Willem chuckled but kept his mouth shut.

  Reva opened the notebook. “So what do we know about our killer?”

  “He’s a he, and he’s an elf,” said Willem.

  Ansee frowned at such an obvious answer but saw that Reva wasn’t upset. She was writing down what Willem had said in her notebook.

  “He stole the sword in order to be able to use it,” Willem continued. “And he wears a mask when he kills.”

  “He takes on a persona,” Reva said.

  “Or he’s just hiding who he is,” countered Willem.

  “He uses magic,” Ansee said tentatively. He had never seen this kind of discussion about a case before from other Constables. When neither Willem nor Reva chided him, he continued. “But he’s not a practitioner. He’s not casting his own spells but is using potions instead.”

  “That means he has money,” said Willem. “Potions aren’t cheap.”

  “They’re cheap enough,” countered Ansee. “Cheaper than a magical item like a ring or something.”

  Willem nodded, acknowledging the point. “But he was also able to get a copy of the sword made well enough to fool the owners. That couldn’t have been cheap.”

  Ansee nodded back in agreement. “So he probably has money.”

  “The mask he wears,” Reva said, continuing to jot notes, “it’s called a Basvu Mask. Pfeta fey Orung uses them in their rituals.”

  “The sword was hidden for a long time at Pfeta fey Orung,” said Ansee.

  “He’s probably a member of Pfeta fey Orung,” put in Willem.

  “Or he works there,” countered Ansee. He was starting to like the free-form manner this discussion was taking.

  “His choice of targets would suggest that he’s a member,” said Willem.

  “He’s killing members who have secrets,” said Ansee.

  “Not just secrets,” Reva said. Her own family tree hanging on the wall of the secret room at Pfeta fey Orung flashed into her mind. “But members who’ve lied about their heritage. Lied about who they are.”

  “‘Lies in shadow no more the red light reveals the masquerade,’” quoted Ansee. “Elves who are not pure.”

  “Halpbloeden,” said Willem.

  “The worst kind of halpbloeden,” Reva said. “Those with dark elf blood.” Her family tree again flashed in her mind and Reva briefly closed her eyes, willing the image from her head.

  “‘Burn in the fires of hell, halpbloed lover.’” Ansee said it calmly, but both Reva and Willem turned to him, saying “What?” at the same time.

  “It’s what the killer said to me right over there.” Ansee pointed toward the street. He stared at the road, his mind lost in the events of the past few days. “‘The halpbloeden have no place in an elvish history.’”

  “I’m surprised to hear you say that, Seeker,” Willem said.

  “I didn’t. Roya Locera said it to me when he first showed me the archives.”

  “You mean that mousy archivist at Pfeta fey Orung?” Willem asked.

  Ansee nodded. “He and I got into an argument about halpbloeden. He was quite vehemently opposed to their existence.”

  Reva had stopped taking notes and was flipping through her notebook.

  “A lot of folks feel that way,” Willem said, maybe a bit defensively. “I’d bet that most of the members of Pfeta fey Orung do, too. It’s not a crime.”

  “In Auracii’s possessions,” Reva asked, looking up from her notes, “Did you find a message or a note on him? Anything that might have summoned him to Pfeta fey Orung that night?”

  Willem shrugged, but Ansee said, “Yes. Thea pulled it from the remains of his cloak. It was cut and soaked with blood, but there was enough there to see that it was a note telling Aucarii to come to Pfeta fey Orung. We couldn’t see who’d sent it. Thea was going to look for more pieces and try to clean it up.”

  “Son of a succubus,” Reva swore. “When I questioned Locera, he said that Aucarii was probably lured to his death with a note.”

  “How would he know that?” asked Willem.

  “Well, it’s a logical thing to conclude,” said Ansee. He ignored the “that’s hawkshit” glare from the Senior Constable and picked up his cup of cacao.

  “And how did the killer know that you were a halpbloed lover when he attacked you?” asked Reva.

  The cup didn’t reach Ansee’s lips. “Son of a succubus.”

  “Language, Seeker,” Willem chided playfully.

  Ansee turned to Reva. “We can’t just arrest Locera. We have no proof that he’s done anything wrong.”

  “Then we just need to find the proof.”

  Thirty-three

  Ailan awoke slowly to soft, but persistent, kisses being applied to his left arm. They started at his elbow and moved up slowly, curving over his shoulder and down his neck. He gave a low moan of pleasure and, rolling over, he opened his eyes
.

  Veronnia, his mistress, looked down at him, a playful smile gracing her face. She was young, just forty-four years old, and had a vibrant body. Her skin was fair, with a honey-brown tone to it. Fine, golden-brown hair hung loose about her shoulders. The morning sunlight shone through a small gap in the curtains, highlighting her skin with a soft glow. She gazed at him with sparkling, brown-colored eyes, and then she leaned down and gave him a long, passionate kiss.

  Ailan returned the kiss hungrily, nibbling at her lower lip and then pulling away. “Gods, I love waking up to that.”

  Veronnia giggled playfully, running her hands across his chest, tracing a new scar from the dagger wound. It had been healed crudely by a Sucra healer at the Red Keep after they’d finished at Gania’s villa, leaving behind the slight scar. Veronnia propped herself up on her left elbow, letting the sheet fall away. “And I love finding that you have slipped into my bed without me knowing it, Malvii.”

  Ailan grinned, letting his hands trace the curves of her body. It had been late when they’d finished staging the scene and returned to the Red Keep. Eillana had known that he was working late and Ailan hadn’t been in the mood to return home. While Eillana understood that he often worked long hours, he knew that he’d need to do something special for her in order to keep her from being suspicious. It wouldn’t do if she learned about Veronnia.

  He rolled Veronnia over onto her back, applying kisses across her body, working his way down. She sighed with pleasure, running her hands across his back and through his short-cropped hair.

  The knock on the door came when he’d reached her navel. It was loud. It was insistent. It was the kind of knock that demanded a response before the next one was delivered, because if a second knock was needed, the person delivering it would be extremely unhappy. In short, it was the kind of knock only a Green Cloak could deliver.

  Ailan didn’t hesitate. He jumped up from the bed, grabbing a robe from the back of the chair. Opening the bedroom door, he stepped into the front room. The flat was small, though well-furnished, and in a good part of Old Grove. It cost Ailan a fortune each month in rent, but its location close to the Red Keep was convenient for him. Veronnia had complained at first, but once she got to know the grove, with its charming little cafés and cacao houses and the shops filled with jewelry and clothes, she’d changed her mind.