“And does your inspector see this . . . constellation?”
“I haven’t discussed it with him, but I’m sure he will, once I connect the dots for him.”
“Very well. That’s all I need to know.”
“I . . . pardon?”
“Kody—”
“Just a minute, Hardin. What do you mean, that’s all you need to know? I’m the one asking the—”
“Kody!”
Pain exploded at the back of his head, so sudden and sickening that he nearly toppled out of his chair. He fumbled clumsily for his sword, but his movements were sluggish. Hardin cried out again, wordlessly this time.
Kody blinked furiously, trying to banish the dancing specks of light from his vision. He couldn’t see his attackers clearly, but he could tell that there were three of them, all of them armed.
He never stood a chance.
CHAPTER 17
The shop was improbably located between a butcher and a tailor, though Lenoir would not have known it if Cale had not told him what to look for. The storefront was utterly anonymous, a blank door beneath a blank set of windows shrouded in curtains. There was no signage, nothing even to indicate the presence of a place of business. If Lenoir had not been seeking it out, his eye would have passed over the shop entirely, without even registering its existence. Obviously, Merden was not relying on spontaneous passersby for patronage.
Lenoir hesitated at the door, feeling a strange mixture of dread and embarrassment. He did not really believe this man could help him. Did he perhaps have something to lose after all, some remaining scrap of dignity that he would forfeit in this pathetic attempt? He hovered there for long moments, uncertain. What ultimately prompted him to knock was not hope—for he had none—but the undeniable hunger to know.
“It is open,” came a muffled voice. Lenoir recognized the lilting Adali accent even through the door.
The shop was surprisingly bright inside, lit by dozens of wax tapers in neat rows on either side of the room. Lenoir’s first impression was that of a church. Then his eyes adjusted to the light, and he found himself enclosed in a cave of the macabre. The shop was crowded with . . . wares? Spell components? Lenoir could not guess at the purpose of the items around him. Horns from all manner of beasts dangled from the ceiling like stalactites. Jars filled with mysterious dark shapes lined the walls like veins of ore, warping and bending the candlelight. Bushels of dried matter were clustered about the counter, behind which a tall, gaunt-faced man watched Lenoir with flickering eyes. He said nothing, seemingly waiting for the visitor to announce his purpose.
“You are Merden?” Lenoir called from the door. He had taken only a single step into the shop.
“Plainly.”
“I am Inspector Nicolas Lenoir of the Kennian Metropolitan Police.” The introduction sounded needlessly formal, even to his own ears.
Merden said nothing, waiting for Lenoir to continue. His silence was profoundly unnerving.
“You are a soothsayer?” Lenoir was still hovering in the doorway like a nervous child.
A look of irritation passed over Merden’s face. “Is it your custom to pose questions to which you already know the answers?”
“Yes, actually,” Lenoir sighed, stepping into the shop and closing the door. “I apologize, sir, if I am awkward. Matters of the occult are . . . unfamiliar . . . to me. To be frank, only the greatest necessity compels me to be here.”
Merden regarded him dispassionately. “And what necessity is that?”
Lenoir cast about for words. Even though he had related this tale once already, it still sounded ridiculous, even to him. “I am haunted by some sort of malign spirit,” he said, choosing simplicity. “It seeks my death, and it has nearly succeeded. I need to know what it is, and whether I can be rid of it.”
“Interesting.” Merden spoke with the detached curiosity of a philosopher examining an intriguing specimen. He gestured to a small table. “Have a seat, Inspector, and tell me more.”
Lenoir repeated much of what he had told Zera, though he spared the soothsayer the sight of his wounds. Strangely, he felt more emotion in the telling than he had at Zera’s, as though he were confessing to a priest. Could this be hope after all, or was he merely relieved to tell someone who could truly understand?
When he had finished, Merden remained silent, considering him. The soothsayer’s golden eyes were slightly narrowed, his lips pursed behind a steeple of long fingers. The prominent points of his cheekbones were brushed in candlelight, casting his angular features in stark relief. There was something strangely comforting about that face, calm and exotic and profoundly wise.
Merden stood. “This tale of yours sounds familiar,” he said, returning to the counter to search for something.
Lenoir felt his mouth drop open in surprise. “You know of this creature?” He leaned forward eagerly, his skepticism temporarily forgotten.
“Perhaps. There are many spirits who have the power to haunt us from beyond the veil, and vengeance is a common motive for them to do so. No doubt a man in your profession has many enemies in the spirit world. Cases unsolved, perhaps, or justice undelivered.”
Lenoir winced inwardly. It was painfully near the mark.
“I will prepare a tea for you. It should help us to see the truth of things.”
“A tea?”
“You will sleep,” the soothsayer explained, “and you will dream. When you are in the proper state, I can direct your inner eye. Together, we shall see who, or what, this spirit really is.”
Merden put a pot of water on the hearth to boil. Then he made a brief tour of the shop, fetching various jars from the shelves and pinching off bits of dried . . . things. It reminded Lenoir that there was another purpose to this visit, a distraction for which he was profoundly grateful.
“I am told you are also skilled in khekra,” Lenoir said in what he hoped was an offhanded way.
There was the faintest pause in Merden’s movements. A less perceptive man than Lenoir would have missed it altogether. “I thought you were unfamiliar in the ways of the occult.”
“As you see, I have been forced to learn quickly.”
“And what have you learned, Inspector?” Merden fetched a mortar and pestle and began grinding something that looked like horn. Lenoir tried not to watch, but there was nowhere comforting to rest his gaze; everything his eye fell upon invited morbid speculation as to its origin and purpose. At one point he found himself staring at the stuffed corpse of a monkey. Decoration or ingredient? He supposed he did not want to know.
“Not much,” he admitted. “I am investigating a series of crimes that I have come to believe involve khekra, but beyond that I have few leads. Whoever is behind these acts is using children, but I do not know for what purpose.”
“How are they using children?” Merden’s tone was businesslike, that of a physician diagnosing an ailment.
“I have no idea. We recovered one of the children that had been taken, and he was whole, but quite mad.”
Merden paused in his work, his brow furrowing. “Odd. And disturbing. You say he was taken?”
“Kidnapped.”
“What makes you think khekra is involved? I have never heard of it being associated with kidnapping. Why would anyone go to such extremes? Making medicine need not cause harm. Often as not, the child is a loved one. I helped my father make medicine as a boy. I was proud to serve my clan.”
“At the outset, they were using dead bodies. But now they have progressed to kidnapping children.”
Merden’s frown deepened as he tipped the crushed horn onto a growing pile of ingredients. “That does not make sense. Children are used because they are pure, the dead because they are impure. You would not use them both; one cancels out the other.”
This was better information than they had gotten from the apothecary. Lenoir sensed that
so long as he did not imply Merden was a suspect, or press him into admitting outright that he practiced dark magic, the soothsayer would answer his questions. “Perhaps they are inexperienced?” he suggested.
“That is likely, for using the dead is deeply unwise. It invites retribution from beyond. Every Adal knows this.” Merden glanced up and looked as though he might say more, but instead he pressed on with his work. He was chasing the pile of ingredients onto a small square of cheesecloth, which he tied into a bundle. The tea was nearly prepared.
“For what purpose might one use the dead?”
Merden fetched the boiling kettle. “Although dead flesh is a powerful ingredient, there are very few spells that are worth the risk, and all of them are difficult to accomplish. My guess is that your kidnappers began with one spell and have now moved on to another. Perhaps they failed in their first attempt. The madness of the child you recovered is an important clue, Inspector. I am not sure what to make of it, but all the signs point to some sort of necromancy.”
“Necromancy? What does it mean?”
“Broadly speaking, it means meddling with the souls of the dead.” Merden set a steaming mug in front of Lenoir and sat down. “Don’t touch it yet, Inspector. It is steeping. Most necromancy is fairly innocuous—communing with spirits, and so forth. It is a staple of what I do here, for example, and can be accomplished with or without magical means, depending on one’s gifts. But more powerful spells are rumored to exist, including those that can animate the dead for a brief period, or even restore someone to life. I have never heard of anyone succeeding at such things, but the world is full of people foolhardy enough to try.”
“I am not sure I follow. If someone were trying to restore the dead to life, what would he need a live child for?”
“That I cannot tell you,” said Merden, indicating that Lenoir should take the mug, “and so it is time to drink, Inspector.”
The odor emanating from the mug was so putrid that Lenoir’s stomach turned over, but he did as he was told. He tried to ignore the grit in his teeth as he swallowed, and could only be thankful that the bulk of the ingredients had been strained through the cheesecloth. He would not have been able to swallow anything solid without vomiting. He emptied the mug, gratefully accepting a swallow of water afterward. It did little to cleanse his traumatized palate, but at least it chased away the grit.
While he waited for the tea to take effect, he thought aloud. “Let us assume that you have failed in your attempt to restore a dead child to life. You must now accomplish the same aim using different means. Your new strategy involves using a live child.”
“You left out an important detail in your account,” Merden chided. “You did not say the corpses were also children. Is it not obvious? Having failed in their attempt to resurrect dead children, your kidnappers are attempting to channel the departed souls into live hosts. That explains the madness of the child you found. The poor boy probably has a second soul, or a fragment of one, competing with his own for control of his body.”
Lenoir stared, speechless with horror. It was easy enough to imagine someone attempting dark magic. Lenoir had encountered plenty of religious fanatics and superstitious fools in his day. It was another thing entirely to witness actual evidence of the magic working, albeit imperfectly. There could be some other explanation for the boy Mika’s condition, of course—something infinitely more plausible—but Lenoir could not deny that Merden’s speculation made sense. Nor could he deny the evidence of his own scars: some of the supernatural world, at least, was terribly real.
“Presumably it was not their design to crowd two souls into one body,” Merden said reflectively. “That would achieve nothing. One assumes they were trying to resurrect a dead child entirely, and suppress the soul of the host. I have never heard of such a thing, but it is theoretically possible. If they were to succeed . . .” He shook his head. “Appalling and unethical, but impressive, in its way. Perhaps they are not so inexperienced after all.”
Lenoir shuddered. “It does not make sense. As far as we know, the kidnappers are not known to the children. They took three corpses, all unrelated, and the parents knew nothing of it. Why resurrect a stranger’s child?”
“That is curious,” Merden agreed. His face turned watery, and he had two heads.
The room tilted.
The floor gave way.
Lenoir slept.
• • •
Velvet. Rich and sumptuous and shining in the shifting firelight. Velvet and satin, porcelain and swirling dark ebony. Everything glitters, sight and sound colliding together in a dazzle of flashing jewels and tinkling laughter. Shadows dance on the wall, beautiful and vaguely threatening. The images flicker past too quickly to understand. They bleed together like dyes in a washbasin.
Where are we?
Confusion. Lenoir’s thoughts trickle through his fingers. He is unable to grasp them.
I don’t know.
Yes, you do. The voice is thick and warm, like honey. It fills Lenoir’s mind. He feels its gentle pressure against the inside of his skull. Concentrate, it commands.
Blades of light ricochet off the facets of cut crystal glasses. Fragments of faces reflected in a shattered rainbow. Her eyes, golden, luminous.
Lady Zera’s.
She hands him something. Absinthe. It glows in the bottom of the glass, the violent green of poison. Confusion gives way to fear.
Good. Focus on your fear. What is it?
Absinthe eyes. Porcelain skin. Ebony hair. The youth is standing in the street, the night amassed behind him like an army. He is emotionless. Pitiless. Streetlamps throw shadows on the cobblestones. They coil and twist and resolve into a snake with many tongues, twining around the arm of the beautiful youth with the absinthe eyes.
Somewhere in the vast hollow of the sky, a voice is screaming.
• • •
When he woke, Lenoir found himself slumped against the wall near the hearth, shivering. Or was it shaking? He could not be sure. There was a foul taste in his mouth, and his head throbbed horribly.
Merden appeared with a mug in his hand. “Drink this.” Lenoir hesitated, his blurred vision trying to make out the liquid inside. “It is only water,” Merden assured him, and Lenoir took it.
Merden occupied himself in a back room somewhere while Lenoir recuperated. He had no idea how long he had been out, or whether Merden’s efforts to see into his dreams had been successful. The last thing he remembered was discussing the case, and the details of that conversation were vague. They would return in time, he supposed, but right now his thoughts were jumbled and thick.
When Merden reappeared, he continued going about his business as though Lenoir were not there. Perhaps Lenoir should have been grateful to be given all the time he needed to recover, but instead he was irritated at the soothsayer’s mysterious silence.
“Well?” he growled. “Did you succeed?”
“Yes.” Merden did not elaborate.
Back to this, Lenoir thought sourly. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me what happened?”
Merden regarded him impassively. “Are you much practiced at sarcasm? It is a most unbecoming habit.”
“I have many unbecoming habits, sir, but it is the habit of being stalked by a spirit that concerns me most.”
Merden’s sigh was so grave that it struck fear into Lenoir’s heart. “It is as I thought. The spirit that hunts you is familiar to me. He figures prominently in many Adali legends. He is the Darkwalker, the champion of the dead, and if he counts you among his prey, your time is short.”
Lenoir huddled closer to the hearth, pressing his back against the warm stones. “I already knew that I was marked for death. The spirit made his intent perfectly clear.”
“Most likely you also know why you are so marked.” There was no judgment in Merden’s tone; it was simply a statement of
fact. “The spirit exacts vengeance for sins committed against the dead. That is why the Adali treat their departed with such respect, for to defile the dead is to invite the wrath of the spirit. He has been known to my people for as long as our traditions record.”
“What can you tell me about him?” Lenoir spoke mechanically, guided more by habit than conscious thought. He did not really expect to learn anything useful, but he had come here to try.
“Very little, beyond what you have already seen for yourself. He abides in shadows, and is able to move almost instantaneously between them, provided the dark is deep enough. Sunlight is his enemy, but it cannot destroy him completely. He is immortal, though he was once a man.”
That statement pierced the haze of numbness; Lenoir blinked in surprise. “What, an ordinary man?”
“Yes, though he died young. He was called Vincent. Legend tells us little else, except that his immortality is a curse, punishment for some terrible act he committed in life. It must have been terrible indeed, for he was damned to an eternity of slavery, sent forth to visit vengeance upon those who do wrong by the dead. It is said that he has no will of his own, at least none he can exert. He is controlled by an unknown force, compelled to go where he is sent, to kill those who have been marked.”
“Perhaps it is God who compels him,” Lenoir said, turning his gaze to the fire. His thoughts writhed like the flames.
“Would your God show such wrath? What manner of sin would merit such punishment, I wonder?”
“You sound as though you pity him.”
Merden considered this. “Perhaps I do. Enslaved for all eternity, your only purpose to murder and terrorize? Is that not the foulest torture conceivable?”
Lenoir looked at him askance. “You will forgive me, sir, if I have difficulty summoning much sympathy. He has shown little enough for me.”
“Do you deserve sympathy?” Merden asked bluntly.
Lenoir had a brief but vivid memory: a rain-slick street, a body, a shabby transaction of whispers and gold. Lenoir could feel the shape of the coins in his hand, cold as death, heavy as guilt. He had weighed them gently, thinking, So this is the price of silence. The price of murder unanswered, of justice denied. No, he did not deserve sympathy. “Can I be rid of him?” He knew the answer already, but he had to ask.
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