Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3)

by Jill Braden

  “You haven’t visited me. She hasn’t either.”

  Lizzriat stubbed out his partially smoked kur and picked up a pen that he fiddled with. “It’s an ongoing negotiation. It requires many drinks late at night. Long silences. Rueful laughter. Lightly stroking the inside of her arm. I’m sure you understand.”

  There was no reason to be jealous of Lizzriat. QuiTai could do what she liked.

  “I came back because I think you have more to tell me about Turyat.”

  Lizzriat put his feet up on his desk and leaned back. “No wonder you aren’t getting anywhere. All you do is walk in circles. Are you sure you’re investigating the right murder? His death is so trivial.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “Cuulon is the only one who loved him enough to put him out of his misery.”

  “Not Turyat’s wife?”

  “She donned her widow’s veil the day you were named Governor. One might suspect that she – well, it would be unkind to suggest she smiled behind it, because I don’t know her heart, but I never got the impression she was devastated. Thampurians don’t show their emotions in public, though, so maybe she was truly upset but hid it skillfully.” Lizzriat rolled his pen across his knuckles. “Very skillfully.”

  That confirmed Kyam’s observations. “Can you think of anyone else who might have killed him?”

  “Maybe it was the militia. The ones who live in the fortress. They used to keep to themselves, but lately they’ve spent a lot of time in the quarter, making trouble.”

  “Why would the militia murder Turyat?”

  Lizzriat jabbed the tip of his pen against his desk blotter, making dots across the paper. “Have you spoken to QuiTai, or are you still sulking? She probably knows who killed him.”

  “I was not –” Kyam lowered his voice. “Yes, I asked her if she knew. She told me I had to figure it out for myself.”

  Chuckling, Lizzriat set down the pen. “Did she really?” A smile not only lit up his eyes and face but seemed to invigorate his body as well. “She still surprises, doesn’t she?”

  “Always. Do you know why she wanted to be arrested earlier today, before Turyat’s body was found?”

  What gave liars away was how long it took them to respond. Too quickly – or as in Lizzriat’s case – far too slowly. It was as if a difference engine had churned into action inside his head. Kyam half expected Lizzriat’s mouth to open and a ribbon of paper to roll off his tongue like a farwriter message.

  He shook his head to clear away the image. How did Lizzriat stay so sharp while breathing in vapor-tainted air day and night?

  “Do you know something you’d like to tell me?” Kyam asked. Sometimes a question like that had surprising answers.

  Lizzriat leaned across the desk to pat his hand. “I know lots of somethings, none of which I’d like to give away to you. Information has value.”

  “Do you want QuiTai to hang?”

  “What a very interesting question, Governor. I can see the benefits and drawbacks of her death, as well as her continued existence. So call me neutral.”

  This was going nowhere. Kyam knew he was wasting his remaining time. He could feel freedom slipping from his fingers. “If you hold anything back, you’re making sure she’s executed. That doesn’t sound neutral to me.”

  “I’m no expert at investigating murders, Governor, but if I were you, I’d concentrate on the scene of the crime and who was there.”

  “So you do know–”

  “That’s common sense. You pretty much have to be present at a murder to commit it. Unless, of course, one has a newfangled contraption– Oh, damn it. Now you’re going to waste time thinking QuiTai set up one of the toys in her office to kill him. Use the brains QuiTai swears you have and realize how very lucky you’d be to get someone to stand at the exact spot and wait patiently to be killed by a little contraption.”

  “Point taken.” If only Lizzriat would be helpful instead of making him feel defeated already. “I tried to interrogate the workers over at the Red Happiness, but their petty squabbling and stupid little personal vendettas drive me crazy. I can’t stand listening to them bicker. It’s as if they expect me to solve it for them.”

  “They expect QuiTai to step in, not you. They’re giving you the message to carry to her since they can’t visit her and you can.”

  “Even if I tell her everything they say, she can’t step in as long as she’s in the fortress.”

  “Exactly. That probably has someone very worried.”

  Kyam perked up. “Who? Tell me.”

  “I can’t. I don’t dare. You’re Governor. You should know what’s happening in this colony.”

  Kyam’s last drop of patience had been wrung from him. He opened his purse and tossed a handful of coins at Lizzriat. “Is that enough to buy the information from you?”

  “It isn’t even close to enough. If I’m seen siding with QuiTai, she had better win, or I’m finished. It’s safer for me to stay neutral.”

  “Sides? Winning? What’s going on?”

  “Don’t come see me again. You’ve put me in a bad enough position already. Go solve your case on your own, and let everyone see that you did it without my help.”

  Desperation was a swift tide engulfing him. “Please, Lizzriat. Give me a hint.”

  “Everything you need to know you’ll find at the Red Happiness. And that’s all I’ll say. Now get out.”

  Lizzriat opened his office door. Two huge Ingosolians lurked in the hallway. When an Ingosolian shifted gender, they rarely went for subtlety. These two were caricatures of men: brutish, overly muscled, and bristling with red facial hair.

  “I take it I’m to be dragged out to the curb,” Kyam said.

  “If you don’t mind. I have a reputation to maintain, after all.” Lizzriat turned to his thugs. “Make it look good.”

  They gripped Kyam roughly by the arms. His boot heels dug tracks in the thick carpeting the length of the hall and raised the nap on every stair. They didn’t push hard when they shoved him out on the veranda, but he reeled back a few steps to make it look good. They turned and walked back inside, trusting him to complete the performance. Lizzriat would never make an enemy carelessly.

  ~ ~ ~

  It had seemed like a good idea when Kyam headed for Voorus’ apartment, but now that he was there with a cup of tea in one hand and plate of sweets balanced on his knee, he wasn’t so sure. Something was odd about the way Voorus was blushing and wouldn’t look him in the eye. Mityam Muul, however, seemed quite content to talk.

  “It’s been a busy first day here for you. Things aren’t usually this exciting in Levapur,” Kyam told Mityam.

  “Good. I wanted slow. The heat is wonderful. I can feel it down in my bones.” Mityam grasped his tea cup between two cruelly twisted fists and brought it to his lips.

  With time slipping out of his grasp, Kyam didn’t feel he could waste it on pleasantries. “You said you were with QuiTai from the moment you left the harbor–”

  “Even earlier. We rode the funicular down together,” Voorus said.

  Kyam nodded. “Her sarong looked normal at the harbor, but when she got to my office, it was lumpy and odd.”

  “That would be because she put another one on under it. Don’t ask me why. On our way to your office, after we brought Mityam here and left him to rest, she stopped in the marketplace and bought a men’s sarong from one of those women who walk around with a basket on her head. She bought a man’s blouse too. Then she put them on under her clothes, right there in a tamtuk stall.”

  “And you never left her side?”

  “I didn’t watch her put on the extra clothes, but she wasn’t more than five feet away, right until she walked into your office.”

  She was innocent of Turyat’s murder, or she had pulled off an impossible trick.

  Kyam turned to Mityam. “I know your reputation was made interpreting our constitution, but do you have any insights into murder, Mister Muul?”

 
Mityam grinned at his tea as if he shared a secret with it. “Not professionally, but it is a little hobby of mine. Cases, I mean. I haven’t left a trail of bodies behind me in Surrayya.” He smiled at his tea again. “That you know of.”

  “Your wit in court is legendary.”

  “Your grandfather, Theram, doesn’t always find me so amusing.”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  Rather than pull his desk chair over, Voorus settled behind Kyam and extended his long legs under the coffee table. Kyam’s neck twinged every time he turned back to include him in the conversation, so he concentrated on Mityam. He had a feeling Voorus might prefer that. They’d never been close friends, but they’d never been awkward together. QuiTai had only told Voorus this morning that he was Kyam’s half-brother. Maybe he was still in shock.

  “I’m looking into the murder of ex-Governor Turyat,” Kyam said. “I’ve never had to make a case that could bear legal scrutiny. It’s different in Intelligence. Motives are presumed to center around espionage, and you proceed under the assumption that it’s your right and duty to be judge, jury, and executioner.”

  Mityam directed a knowing nod at Voorus. “How is that different from how Chief Justice Cuulon runs Levapur?”

  “We have a lot of work to do here to reform the justice system, I’ll admit.” Kyam waved off the refill of tea offered by Voorus. “But I don’t have time for that now. I want to talk to you about murder. What kind of person is a typical killer?”

  “A husband. Or a father.”

  “Are you being funny?”

  Mityam sighed. “Sadly, no. If your victim was a woman, forty percent of the time her husband or lover killed her. Higher than that if she was pregnant. That’s not just Thampur. Across the continent, it’s a sadly consistent number. Except, of course, in Ingosol, but let’s ignore them since most people on this island have a fixed gender. Men tend to be killed more often by strangers than women are, but still overwhelmingly they are killed by someone they know. No wonder some people chose to be hermits.”

  “That doesn’t help me. Turyat knew QuiTai.”

  “Are you trying to prove her innocent, or find the killer?”

  “That’s the same thing, isn’t it?” Voorus asked.

  “Innocence is almost impossible to prove. Find a better suspect instead.” Mityam suggested.

  “I’m trying! Either I can look at who might want to kill Turyat – I haven’t had much luck there – or I can look into who might want to frame QuiTai for murder. That list is longer and much more complicated.”

  “Frame QuiTai?” Mityam laughed. In the uneasy silence that followed, he glanced from Voorus to Kyam. “She’s a retired actress who runs a brothel. Who would want to frame her for murder? Another brothel owner? Did she have a rival in love? Is she up to her old tricks seducing the power brokers?”

  Kyam wondered if Voorus wanted to handle this, but the captain raised his hands and shrugged elaborately.

  “You knew QuiTai back in Surrayya?” Kyam asked.

  Mityam settled back as if ready to take a long sail through his sea of memories. Kyam’s teeth ground together.

  “The first time I met her, I brought flowers for Jezereet and handed my cloak to QuiTai. I never made that mistake again. Fascinating girl – once you got past the eyes and her nature, of course.”

  Voorus choked out, “Her nature?”

  Kyam bristled too, but he didn’t have time to lecture Mityam. The more interesting thing was Voorus’ seeming change of heart about QuiTai. Something clearly had been going on between the two, even if they weren’t lovers.

  Even though he felt it was a waste of time, Kyam decided to give Mityam a truer picture of QuiTai in the hopes that it would trigger the man’s insight. “Maybe you’re not aware of QuiTai’s career since she returned to Levapur. She opened the Red Happiness with her spouse, Jezereet Karula–”

  Mityam made sympathetic noises. “I understand our beloved Jez passed away last year. A great loss to the stage. QuiTai was devoted to her.”

  “Before that, QuiTai and Jezereet’s daughter was killed by werewolves,” Kyam said.

  “The whole family was slaughtered, right in front of her,” Voorus said.

  Polite sorrow sat like a mask on Mityam’s face. “I hadn’t heard. How terrible.”

  Kyam hoped Voorus would stop interrupting. “At which point QuiTai took up with a local criminal known as the Devil.”

  “Isn’t that always the case with women of her caste? They’re sexually attracted to the brutes.”

  Even though he sometimes thought the same thing about QuiTai, Kyam was deeply angered by Mityam’s words. Voorus grunted and shifted in his chair. They didn’t have time to behave like frosty, overly polite, wounded Thampurians, though, so he plunged ahead with her history. “The Devil was, by all accounts, merely a local thug among many small gangs. He didn’t stand out enough to make a lasting impression on anyone. But after she took up with him, he consolidated power. Anyone who didn’t join him disappeared, or so I’ve heard. This was before I arrived in Levapur.”

  Voorus nodded. “Although there are always fools who test the Devil’s power.”

  And sometimes, they win. Kyam thought about the two bodies found in the alley last week. Someone was after the Devil. He could probably protect QuiTai from the militia, but not from the Devil’s enemies. He wouldn’t even know where to look for them.

  “So you see, if you look at who might want to frame QuiTai for murder, you have all the thugs forced to surrender power to the Devil, and anyone wanting to take over the Devil’s networks,” Voorus told Mityam.

  Kyam wondered when Voorus had become such an expert on the Devil.

  Mityam seemed to think they were telling sailors’ tales. “But why would they go after the Devil’s woman?”

  How could he explain it to Mityam? “It’s… she’s… No one knows who the Devil is. You can’t attack him. It’s like trying to grasp a smoke wraith. He’s nowhere. He’s everywhere. Only QuiTai seems to know who he is. But his anonymity is his weakness too. Kill her, and you’ve hit the Devil where it hurts. Her lieutenants wouldn’t know who to report to. A dozen people could claim to be the real Devil. It would be anarchy.” It left a bad taste in his mouth to admit it, but it was true. Lizzriat was right. Without QuiTai’s iron fist, Levapur’s underworld would be far more dangerous and deadly than it was now.

  The Devil, though – Kyam could execute him and no one would miss the bastard. He could free QuiTai from the Devil’s clutches.

  No! He couldn’t think that way. He wouldn’t choose the Devil’s name over his freedom.

  Did QuiTai know those thoughts would creep into his mind? She probably put them there.

  “This is a fantasy.” Mityam laughed uneasily.

  Kyam forced himself to stop obsessing about the Devil. “That’s just the local angle on who might want to frame her. My Grandfather is another good suspect,” Kyam said. “Although he’d be acting through an agent, and who knows who his agents are?” Except that he knew one. Nashruu.

  Voorus sprang out of his chair. He smoothed back his hair as he paced the room.

  Mityam leaned back and watched Kyam over the rim of his teacup. “This is interesting. Why would Theram Zul be interested in a former actress? Although did you know she was once a magician’s assistant? And before that, she was a lady pugilist. She had to flee Thampur after she knocked out a Thampurian woman in the ring. It seems no one explained to her that the barbarian girl is supposed to lose. She thought it was a real fight, not a staged one.” Mityam clapped his fist against his thigh as he laughed heartily. “Knowing our QuiTai, she knew she was supposed to lose but won anyway. She told me that she escaped the country in a dirigible, minutes ahead of the police.”

  When this was over and QuiTai was safe, Kyam vowed to sit down with Mityam and listen to every QuiTai story the old man had – but this was not the time.

  He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “Mister Muul, you
have to stop thinking of QuiTai as a performer. See her for what she’s become. She wields major influence on Levapur’s political landscape. From the fashions Thampurian women wear to the price of whiskey, her fingers are in every rice bowl. She’s started riots–”

  “And stopped them,” Voorus said.

  Kyam shot him a look and turned back to Mityam. “She’s a shadow government.”

  “And she’s a thorn in Theram Zul’s side.” Voorus smiled.

  Mityam seemed pleased about that. No doubt he’d pass that gossip back to his family in Surrayya as soon as he could get to a farwriter. There were many members of the thirteen families who would love to see the Zul family’s grip on power broken. Kyam didn’t care. By its nature, power was fleeting. To think the Zul family could remain on top forever was foolish.

  “Well, my boy, you had better hope that the murderer meant to kill Turyat and only framed QuiTai by accident, because if she’s as nefarious as you say, there’s no telling who might want her out of the way,” Mityam said.

  “If she were Thampurian, she wouldn’t have been accused. I mean, her alibi would have been enough. Instead, it’s ignored,” Voorus grumbled.

  Kyam agreed with that but didn’t want to prompt Mityam into another lecture. He got quite enough of that from QuiTai. “That’s because Cuulon is seizing the opportunity to get rid of a witness to his crimes instead of looking for Turyat’s real killer.”

  Voorus grumbled, “Unless he is the real killer.” From his expression, it was clear that that had slipped out before he thought it over.

  “Oh, hell.” Kyam covered his face as he realized Voorus might be right. “And I warned him that I’m looking for the truth. I think I moved her execution up by several hours.”

  His ticket out was slipping away. He had to fix this. He had to save her.

  As if he read Kyam’s thoughts, Voorus jumped to his feet. “I’m coming with you.”

  ~ ~ ~

  As Kyam and Voorus rushed toward the town square, Kyam pulled his watch from his pocket and consulted it. He also glanced at the sun, and saw it was already below the top fronds of the palm trees. There wasn’t much time left. Executions were typically held at sundown, although if Cuulon wanted to, he could kill QuiTai before then.