by May Dawney
He pulled his head away. “I know.” He ran his hands over the horn bases and smoothed his hair back over them. “I’ve been busy.”
“When we get back to Lucerne, I’ll book you an appointment.”
He muttered something she couldn’t quite catch.
She left him alone to deal with his dual nature. “I can use my phone and laptop?”
“Yeah. I’ve wired in the masking boxes. Nothing gets traced, nothing gets overheard, just use the network app or chatbox.” He put his fedora back on, and for a second, she felt guilty.
Tempest stood a good two meter something tall and he was build like a tank. He looked human enough upon casual inspection, but the horns were a dead giveaway, which was why he always wore a broad-rimmed felt fedora. Another fact no one had ever questioned.
Fashion, she supposed.
She opened her laptop, pressed the power button and slipped into bed while she waited for it to boot. By the time she’d gotten comfortable, it asked for her login credentials. She pressed her thumb against the scanner and it unlocked. The chat window came up right away, and a long list of missed messages poured in, filling the screen from top to bottom. She pushed on until the last message, sent over a minute ago.
She typed a quick ‘Have arrived. Reading.’ then scrolled up. Theories, guesses, fears.
A name, Ania Zaleska. It seemed it had been her house that blew up, hers and a male who had already given a television interview, so the Inquisitio quickly dismissed him as a suspect of wild magic.
She grumbled when she realized Reisch was the one who’d figured this out.
By the time she got back down, a dozen messages had been added to the chat. It seemed 2 a.m. was a popular time to be awake.
(02:46) Wagner: Caught up. I’m going to sleep and will catch everyone up once we’ve completed our inspection of the house.
(02:47) Wagner: I didn’t see hacks of the Kraków police files yet. SITREP?
(02:47) Joyce: Welcome to Poland!
(02:48) Joyce: Nothing so far, RE: hack of police files. You should have them by morning.
(02:49) Messerli: What Steven said. Welcome to Poland.
(02:50) Wagner: Thank you, both of you. Reisch, are you still awake?
(2:50) Reisch: Of course.
(2:51) Wagner: Updates on the Zaleska girl?
(2:54) Reisch: Perfectly average for the generation. Dropped out of medical school in her second year. Worked in a tourist shop, I’ll send you the address. Not married, no children. She pays her taxes, and her bank balance hovers around the zero mark at the end of every month. No withdrawals since the explosion, no calls, no texts, no WhatsApp activity.
(2:55) Wagner: Get me those police files ASAP, Steven. We need to know if they recovered the body or if the Society did.
(2:56) Joyce: Working on it with every guy I trust enough to put on it. Leave it to the American to hack, okay?
(2:56) Messerli: Only because we don’t have a Russian delegate on stand-by.
(2:57) Wagner: Funny. I’m going to bed. Reisch, send me the address.
(2:57): Coming right up, then I’m signing off as well. Talk again in the morning.
Viktoria waited for the address to come through, then said a quick goodbye and shut down the chat. “How far along are you?”
“Half an hour.” Tempest didn’t look up from his screen. “I’m setting up some searches for anything related to the wild mage, magic, odd events, explosions, weirdos in the streets—things like that. And monitors for plane, train, and bus tickets in Zaleska’s name.”
“Can you work in the dark?”
“I can.”
“Good.” Viktoria shut her laptop and put it down beside her. She checked her phone for messages and emails, gave each a scan, then put that away as well. She hit the light switch and the room basked in darkness, except where the light of Tempest’s computer screen reached. “Night.”
“Night.”
* * *
The top floor of the Zaleska girl’s house had been leveled. The entire front façade had been blown onto the street, and the roof had collapsed. Warning tape stretched along the curb and halfway into the street, cornering off the slabs of bricks and mortar that had come tumbling down. At least one car and a couple of bikes had been flattened by the weight.
Up and down the street, glaziers replaced shattered windows, and onlookers and press milled about like ants on an ant hill.
Tempest pulled his fedora down a touch, then shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “Bad idea. I told you.”
“Hm.” Viktoria didn’t have access to mind control magic—and she wouldn’t have been allowed to use it anyway—but her own magic itched to be used. Where she usually resisted the urge to pull magical energy from beyond the Veil, here it seeped into her through every pore and left her wired.
She glanced at Tempest, but now was not the time.
If he noticed her interest, he didn’t show it. “Ideas?”
“Not at the moment, no.” She scanned the people around them, especially those with cameras. They had taken up station around the corner of one of the side streets with a view of the house, so there wasn’t a reason to film in their direction, but you never knew.
Tempest sniffed the air. “No magic I’ve ever come across, except for that energy wave.”
She nodded. “Wild energy. Veil energy. There is nothing like it.” She took in the building again, and the people. “We might have better luck through the back.”
“We’ll try.” He looked both ways, brought his shoulders up and his head down, then marched across the street toward the alley beside the house. She followed him after another careful inspection of the camera angles.
A wall separated the alley from the garden which, after Tempest boosted her onto the wall, wasn’t much of a garden at all. It had been covered in tiles, and except for a few trashcans, beer crates, and a rickety plastic chair, it was barren.
“Are you going to find a way over?”
Tempest looked up at her and took a step back to judge the height. “I’ll try.” He sounded doubtful he would make it. She didn’t spot anything for him to step on either—not something she could get across, anyway.
“Don’t bother. I’ll have a look. Just stay near, but out of sight, you’re not exactly built to blend.” Before he could reply, she dropped herself down on the other side of the wall. She was grateful she’d chosen to wear tennis shoes this morning instead of her usual heels.
The back door was locked, which was no surprise. Of course, the glass that had once been in it had been blown out. She reached inside, undid the lock, and opened the door.
The door creaked. The hallway was deserted.
Viktoria walked inside on tip-toes.
A motorcycle had fallen down in the hallway. She side-stepped it and glanced at the closed front door. Thankfully, this one was solid wood. She could hear voices on the other side, speaking in rapid-fire Polish, which was beyond her understanding.
The stairs creaked a warning under her weight. She stayed close to the wall and held on to the banister with both hands, just in case the steps gave out. All the while her heart pounded in her throat like a jackhammer. The combination of possibly getting caught and being inundated with magical energy made her tense. Her head buzzed. The hairs on her arms stood to attention.
The sensation got stronger with every step upwards she took. By the time she slipped under the length of another warning tape and stepped onto the rubble of the collapsed Zaleska girl’s apartment, she was so dizzy, she had to lean her forehead against what remained of the wall until it passed. Whatever had transpired in this space, it had been powerful. Frighteningly powerful.
She had expected debris, but there was only a smooth carpet of items, fused together and pushed away from the source like lava from the mouth of a volcano. It had rippled and rolled, and everything in the destructive path of the manifested energy had dissolved into one whole. She stepped onto a collection of apples fused wit
h a pair of pants and a boxset of DVD’s so mangled she couldn’t distinguish the name on it. A few steps on, she reached the first slab of roof; warped and twisted, but somewhat recognizable even where it had melted with the bedposts at the foot of the bed.
She took it in. How could any one person cause this kind of absolute devastation? Now she understood why wild mages never survived their manifestation. She shuddered. If this had happened to the room…what had happened to the body of the Zaleska girl?
She crossed herself; a remnant of a part of her upbringing she had largely rejected.
It didn’t smell of blood. The bed still showed an indentation of the body, but there were no burn marks, and nothing indicated that a body had exploded here. Perhaps it had been disintegrated?
The girl’s body was gone, that much was certain. The Polish police had undoubtedly gone over every millimeter of the space. There was nothing to find here, but seeing it was good. It brought home the danger of the monster she was fighting—both inside herself and out.
Magic.
Mages.
She looked around. The police report would explain where the body was. Perhaps it was intact? Magic worked in mysterious ways, after all.
Viktoria looked around for another source of DNA. A hairbrush, a toothbrush? If it was there, it was buried deep. She decided not to try for it. If the police report showed there hadn’t been a body, she would have to come back here with specialized equipment anyway. At the very least, a way to find traces of blood. She could try to find a toothbrush then.
Tendrils of energy coursed along her skin. Siren song urged her to give in to her nature.
She turned back toward the door of the apartment. She’d complete her mission in Kraków as soon as she could, then rejoin the only family—if that was a term she could use for an organization like the Inquisitio—she had left. The lure of magic was strong, but not strong enough to risk losing that.
She could be without magic. She couldn’t be without family.
History had taught her that mages, at least, where never to be trusted.
CHAPTER FOUR
Temptation is the mightiest tool of the witch. They are rarely people you’d suspect would harm you or your beloved, rather they are charmers who tempt you into trusting them with services or skill. They pretend to heal, when really they kill. They pretend to give, when really they take. Do not be tempted by a witch, because those who do will end up paying for it with their lives or that of those they love.
– Rudolf Wagner, ‘A Guide for the Death of Witches’
REISCH’S ADDRESS LED her and Tempest to a tiny storefront in the shadow of St. Mary’s basilica. It sold everything from ‘I ♥ Kraków’ sweaters, keychains, hats, and stuffed animals, to plates and mugs with scenery of Kraków’s highlights on them, to sunglasses and cheap-looking jewelry.
Much to Viktoria’s chagrin, she had to take the overabundance in through the window, because the shop was closed.
A little sign, made from a sheet of A4 paper, repeated the same message in various languages: “closed due to personal circumstances.” Some of the grammar looked suspect, as if the message had been run through Google Translate instead of noted down by someone skilled with the languages.
Viktoria straightened and pulled her hand from the glass. “Well, that’s a setback.” She pursed her lips and stepped back to look up at the second story windows. The curtains were closed.
“What do you want to do?” Tempest glanced around him. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s home. I can check, if you want?”
“As much as I appreciate your lockpicking skills, Tempest, I don’t think we’ll find Zuzanna Pietrzyk in her home.” She turned to the basilica at her back. “In a predominantly Christian country, what are the odds Ms. Pietrzyk is mourning the loss of her employee today, hm?” She started her march across the square, Tempest at her heels. “Sending a few prayers to the Lord to carry her soul safely to heaven?”
“I’d say that depends on if Ms. Pietrzyk is of the Christian faith.” He caught up with her, an easy feat with his far greater strides.
“A woman of her generation? I’d say the odds—” She pushed the door to the basilica open and headed in. “Are decent.”
Cool, moist air wrapped around her. Stillness blanketed the house of God, despite quite a number of tourists already up and about. The sound of snapping camera lenses and hushed conversation added to the sense of reverence.
Out of respect for the old practices, Viktoria made her way to the fount and wetted her fingers. She held Jesus’s gaze as she crossed herself and curtsied.
Tempest didn’t bother. “So, who is it? Reisch should have sent a picture along.”
“She should have.” Viktoria wiped her fingers on her pants. “But that would have made it far too easy for us. Well, how many sixty-something year old women are here, praying, hm?”
He laughed. “Quite a few, actually.”
She frowned and joined him under the arches of the organ platform to take in the space. He was right. Scattered along the benches at the basilica’s center and in various alcoves, women sat praying. Some on their knees, other rocking on rickety-looking chairs with rosaries between their fingers. She counted eleven at a glance.
“Do we ask ‘em?” Tempest sounded amused by the suggestion. “Could be fun.”
She couldn’t help but snort. “Say, I don’t mean to be rude, but have you recently lost an employee to a strange explosion? No? Sorry to bother you, ma’am.”
“Exactly!” He bared his blocky yellowed teeth in a grin.
“I like the idea, but I think it would be frowned upon.”
He chuckled; a low rumble in his chest. “Perhaps. So, what’s your plan?”
“Find a priest.” She dropped the words matter-of-factly into the conversation, but inwardly, she already grinned because of the expression he knew he’d get. She wasn’t disappointed.
Tempest arched his bushy brows and stared at her. “A priest? Why?”
“Because, if she’s a regular churchgoer, he’ll know her.” Pride—a lovely sin to have in a place like this—sent a flare of giddy energy up along her spine.
He blinked, then his lips parted in a grin. “That’s why you’re the brains of the operation.”
He was selling himself short; Tempest was one of the smartest people she knew. He was also twenty years her senior, so some of that wisdom could have something to do with experience.
“I’m the looks of the operation, Tempest. That’s different.” She winked at him. “Behold, the mistress of information gathering at work.”
She spotted one of the priests beside one of the candle racks and made her way over. The man was in his late forties, a little pudgy, and with a kind smile.
She smiled back. “Excuse me? English? German?”
“German.” He inclined his head. “I’m not very good with the language, but better than with English.”
Viktoria inclined her head. “Of course. Thank you. I’m sorry, I don’t speak Polish.”
“It’s all right. What can I do for you, ma’am? Did you want to burn a candle?”
“Well, sort of. I am looking for someone. My niece died recently, I—”
He crossed himself. “I am so sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you.” She put on her best sad-but-brave smile. “I came to visit the shop she worked at. The tourist shop across the square?” She pointed back at the door and the shop beyond. “Her name was Ania.”
The priest’s face fell. “Oh, she was your niece? I am very sorry for your loss. I do not know her personally, but Mrs. Pietrzyk, who is her boss, comes here often. She’s crushed by what happened.”
Viktoria struggled to keep the thrill of victory off her features. She tipped her head down just in case. “That is why I came inside. The shop was closed. I’d hoped…I’d hoped maybe to find her here, to talk about Ania and about what happened?”
When she looked up, he nodded. His eyes were filled with sympathy and he
took her hand. “I’ve prayed for Ania’s soul. The explosion was terrible—terrible!” He turned to the side, still holding her hand between his soft, warm ones. “She is over there, praying at the foot of the statue of Maria. She’s been here since I opened this morning, and she was praying on the steps when I arrived.”
A pang if genuine empathy squeezed Viktoria’s heart. “Oh…that’s…that’s more than I could have hoped for from her employer.”
The priest shook his head. “Mrs. Pietrzyk doesn’t have many people in her life. She’s…well, as they say, she’s not easy to be around. Ania got along with her very well. We’ve spoken about her often. Mrs. Pietrzyk considered her family and Ania’s death has hit her hard. She is in much pain.” He let go of her hand. “Go to her. Any words of comfort would be appreciated. The Lord will heal all, in time, but Mrs. Pietrzyk is kindhearted underneath it all. She lost her husband and son, you know? Fifteen years ago, in a car crash. Since then, well, since then, she’s been struggling.”
Viktoria focused on the priest again. He had his jaw clenched now, and his eyes were moist. “I’m so sorry for her loss. You obviously care.”
He nodded. “She’s been coming here a long time. We held the funeral service in a side room of the basilica, and I performed final rites for the both of them. I know Mrs. Pietrzyk well, and this is a tragedy that shouldn’t have befallen her. It brings back all the memories, you understand?”
She couldn’t relate, but she understood. “I’ll go to her. Thank you for your help.”
“Any time. I am sorry for your loss.”
For a second, she didn’t know what he was talking about, then her lie pushed back into the forefront of her brain. “Right.” She sent him another sad-but-brave smile. “I appreciate it.”
Mrs. Pietrzyk had put a pillow under her knees—a luxury Viktoria had never been granted when she’d been forced to pray to God in front of the paintings of the witch hunts—and swayed back and forth ever so slightly at the foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary. She’d folded her hands around a chain of rosary beads and ran them through her fingers as she mumbled the words to a prayer Viktoria couldn’t hear.
