The Vanity Case (Sondra Blake Book 1)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘You were planning for Clarke to be the last. He saw you. Not a good description, but it cemented everything for me. That and the car. You should’ve dumped the car further away.’

  He gave her a slight smile. ‘Not enough to get a warrant, however.’

  ‘Not enough for that, but enough for me to check your rooms privately. This ends tonight, Dillan.’

  ‘No… I’ll tag you with this.’ He lifted the dagger. ‘Doesn’t take much more than a scratch and then you’ll die. I’ll make sure they never find the body and the FBI will pin it all on Brightman somehow.’

  ‘No murder weapon, and Brightman’s no magician. They’ll never get a charge to stick. You lifted his badge at an interview or something?’

  ‘He deserved it. He got you kicked off my case. When that idiot woman, Issacs, turned up at my hotel room, I was annoyed as Hell. She thought it was just because I was fed up of being interviewed. Ha! I had set it up to be interviewed. By you!’

  Sondra shook her head. ‘So you’ve been implicating the film all the time, linking all this to you, because you’ve got a crush on me?’

  ‘Rather a dismissive term,’ he replied, his tone sulking. ‘Anyway, I’m doing this because I have to.’

  ‘You have to kill people so you can party your life away into your sixties?’

  ‘You don’t understand what it’s like in Orlando. I have a career because I can handle the job and look good into my sixties. I can do my own stunts. I can look good beside some twenty-five-year-old bimbo who thinks she can act.’

  ‘Vanity,’ Sondra said flatly. ‘This is all about vanity. Do you know the history of that box? It belonged to an orc warlord. At least he used it to keep himself alive when half the world wanted him dead. You have killed thirty-four innocent people so you don’t have to dye your hair.’

  ‘Thirty-five,’ he said, stepping forward. ‘You’ll make thirty-five.’

  He jabbed at her with the blade and she danced back away from it. She was not going to have that much room to move in the confined space of the bedroom; she could not back up indefinitely. But then his second thrust was off and she saw her chance as he overextended. Grabbing his arm, she twisted, pushed her hip into his, and tossed him into a wardrobe door. Wood creaked and buckled, but Sondra was not really interested in what the throw had done to Archer. She turned, pulling a small, metal ball from the charm bracelet, and stepped quickly over to the cupboard where the chest was waiting.

  ‘I’ll kill you for that,’ Archer said as he struggled to his feet and lunged toward her.

  ‘Not if I kill you first.’ Sondra slapped the ball against the side of the chest, crushing it. There was a brief pause as though nothing was going to happen, and then the chest exploded into a shower of grey ash.

  ‘What?’ Archer said, stopping in his tracks. ‘What did you–’ He cut off, doubling over in pain before falling to his knees. He screamed as his legs buckled and broke, bone spearing out through his skin, and he fell onto his side, curled into a ball. Splintered bone erupted from his right arm and large, misshapen lumps began to rise up all over his skin. His nose rotted under the effects of years of cocaine use. His skin darkened, reddening at first and then greying as it aged. His fingers began to twist into arthritic claws and the screaming died as he spat blood onto the expensive carpet. In just a few seconds, Dillan Archer had gone from a fit, attractive man to a decrepit, prematurely aged, disease-ridden monster.

  Covered in ash, Sondra sagged onto her butt and leaned back against the cupboard behind her. Archer finally looked like he always had been under a skin of beauty. It was over… bar the shouting anyway.

  Part Six: CYA

  New York, NY, 26th February 2017.

  Clarke had never been so embarrassed at being aroused. Oh, he had been embarrassed by his body before: every teenage boy had, at one time or other, had an inappropriate boner. This was different. This was a situation where the arousal was appropriate and the object of his desire was appropriate, but he had an audience and it just felt wrong to have SetaGan waving her substantial breasts in his face.

  Jefferson had decided that Clarke should be treated to a lap dance, and that SetaGan was the girl to give it. At face value, it was good, sort of. It was clearly a sort of hazing ritual to welcome the new guy into the unit, and it would have been embarrassing whoever the dancer was, but it was SetaGan, and he knew her, and she was good. It was all slow and rhythmic. She was in constant motion, her hips and body rolling as she teased him. Her eyes never left his, though he had a hard time keeping his eyes off her body which she seemed rather pleased about.

  When it was done, and she was strutting away with a substantial tip, Clarke announced that he needed to check out the restrooms – to Jefferson’s amusement – and darted off to catch SetaGan before she could vanish into the back or engage with another customer.

  ‘SetaGan.’ She stopped and turned toward him as he hurried over, hoping he was out of sight of the table the group was on. ‘I, uh, didn’t know you worked here.’

  The tall woman gave a shrug and her breasts bounced a little in the tiny tube top she had pulled back on. ‘It’s better than the orc-only places, and the stage fee isn’t too high.’

  ‘Uh, okay.’ Clarke had no idea what that actually meant, but she did not seem too excited about her job.

  ‘It pays the bills, you know?’

  ‘Yeah. Look, I’m sorry about that. Jefferson’s kind of a tool at times. He’s not bad, but coming here was his idea, and when he noticed me watching you on stage…’

  SetaGan’s brows shifted upward a little; orcs were not good at that kind of expression. ‘You were watching me?’

  ‘Well, sure…’

  ‘But you didn’t like your lap dance.’ That was more of a statement than a question.

  ‘I… I did, it’s just–’

  ‘You were embarrassed.’

  ‘Well, yeah. I’ve never… Uh, you’re really good at it and… I think maybe if I didn’t know you, it would’ve been less embarrassing. I think that’s the idea behind strip clubs, right? You don’t know the women, so you can fantasise about them, objectify them.’

  ‘And you can’t fantasise about me?’

  Clarke tried really hard to keep the grimace off his face; if he kept digging, real soon now he’d have to learn Chinese. ‘I can fant– Uh, that’s not why I came over. Look, Arcane is looking for a translator. Orcish to English. You know the languages pretty well, as far as I can tell, and you write.’

  SetaGan frowned. ‘I am not a professional translator.’

  ‘No, but Sondra’s been pushing to try to get an orc into the position. She’d back you, so long as you can do the job.’ Clarke pulled a card from his jacket pocket and held it out. ‘It’s a regular job. Steady pay, I mean. There’s nothing wrong with what you do now, obviously.’

  Her frown shifted to more of a grin. ‘You should stop digging while your head is above ground.’

  ‘Yeah, I should. Will you call about the job?’

  ‘Do I call you?’

  ‘The general number is on there. They can put you through to the right person.’

  SetaGan reached out and took the card. ‘Okay, Mister Detective. I’ll call about the job.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘What do you get out of this arrangement?’

  ‘Me? Nothing. Maybe you helped us and now I’m helping you.’

  She nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, and then she turned, strutting away. Was there a little extra swing in her hips now?

  27th February.

  Sondra sat on one of the sofas in Archer’s hotel suite in her coat and heels; getting the dress back on before the police and FBI arrived was never going to happen. It was now one in the morning, ninety minutes after the first responders had turned up, and Issacs was still holding her there while the techs worked over the scene.

  The FBI Special Agent had arrived under one of those really towering thunder clouds which threatened to not only blast you in
to atoms, but to really soak you through before and after. She had told Sondra to ‘stay put’ and then marched into the bedroom to survey the scene. As she walked out of the bedroom now, an evidence bag in her hand, it was clear that her temper had not been improved by what she saw.

  ‘So, you’re saying that Archer was the murderer?’ Issacs snapped. Good opening.

  ‘Seems like it,’ Sondra replied. ‘He tried to stab me with that.’ She pointed at the evidence bag, or at the dagger inside it. ‘That matches the weapon used on the other victims.’

  ‘We’ll have that checked. We’ll also be looking for fingerprints.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, but I haven’t touched it, Special Agent.’

  ‘I didn’t say–’

  Sondra gave her a quizzical frown. ‘Oh, come on. You’ve been angling to stick me with this since you walked in and found out I’d nailed the guy you’re hunting. You stole my case, and now you want to cover your ass by turning it around. That’s why you’ve made sure that’s handled by enough people to mess up contagion magic. Or so you think. I’ve never handled that weapon, and the detection spell would still show that. And it’s just going to have Archer’s prints on it.’

  ‘We’ll see. Prints can be wiped. Fingers can be pressed–’

  Sondra got to her feet. ‘Jesus, lady! Are you serious? More importantly, are you arresting me?’

  ‘Not at this time,’ Issacs said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Then I’m going. You’ve had my statement. I’ll present a written one to you tomorrow. I’ve had a crap night, and I’m going to be going now.’

  ‘Don’t leave town,’ Issacs called after her as she reached the door.

  ‘Could you be any more of a cliché?’ Sondra called back.

  ~~~

  Dickerson was not very happy. You could tell from the way the corner of his left eye was twitching. Sondra figured he had spent most of the morning fielding calls and visits from the FBI and the command structure of the NYPD. That would likely have made her eye twitch too.

  ‘This is an unholy mess,’ Dickerson said. ‘You had to kill him?’

  ‘I didn’t. I destroyed the chest and that killed him.’

  ‘But you knew it would.’

  ‘Actually, no. I suspected it would. You’ve seen my report on what Albrechus told me. The original owner died when he failed to make the payments on time. The chest seems to store up the insults its owner has taken, so it seemed likely that those would be returned if it was destroyed, but I didn’t know it would.’

  ‘And you went to his place looking for–’

  ‘You’ve seen my statement about that too. I went there to have sex, and he decided I should be the seventh victim.’ Which was sort of true. Sondra had decided that she would leave out the illegal search. Her story worked, if Archer was the killer, and he had been.

  ‘Huh,’ Dickerson grunted. He clearly did not believe it, but there was no one to say Sondra was lying. Everyone knew lie detection methods were relatively useless against a good magician. No one had even suggested a polygraph. ‘I’m getting a lot of flak about you destroying that chest too.’

  ‘It should have been destroyed back when they found it on Lornaron. No one should have that power. It just ends up killing a lot of innocent people.’

  ‘Maybe, but–’

  ‘Do you want me to resign?’

  Dickerson looked up sharply. ‘What?’

  ‘I can have my resignation letter on your desk before the end of the day. I just need to put in the right date.’

  ‘No. I do not want you to resign. It’s just… This could’ve been handled a lot better, Sondra.’

  ‘Sure it could. The commissioner could have backed me when the FBI wanted to take over the case. The FBI could have assigned less of a backstabbing, grade-A bitch to the case. I could have taken a harder look at Archer when his name first came up. Looking back, and hindsight being perfect, he fitted the profile perfectly. I should have paid him more attention as soon as I found out about the chest. But he’s dead, and it’s over. It’s time to cut the CYA bullshit and move on. And you can tell the commissioner I said that. I’ll be happy to tell him that, but if I have to, it’ll be in my resignation letter, Clem. I’ve put too much of my life into this unit to be treated like this by my own people.’

  Slowly, Dickerson nodded. ‘Yes… Yes, you have. I’ll keep the commissioner off your back. There’s less I can do about the FBI.’

  ‘I’m not worried about them. By now, Issacs is discovering she has no evidence to keep coming at me. If she does… I can play politics too.’

  ~~~

  Clarke was not happy either, but it looked more like he was sulking. ‘You sent me out on that boys’ night so you could go after Archer on your own,’ he accused.

  ‘Hendricks was there,’ Sondra countered.

  ‘That is not the point.’

  ‘I had no evidence solid enough to search his suite. The only way I was going to get in there was alone, with him thinking I just wanted his body. Did you enjoy yourself?’

  ‘Huh? Oh, uh, well…’

  Sondra gave him a quizzical frown. ‘That was… equivocal.’

  ‘We went to the Green Woman. SetaGan works there.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘Jefferson got her to do a lap dance for me.’

  ‘That may actually constitute sexual harassment. She’s a good-looking woman, if you can get past the orcishness.’ She did not say it, but Sondra had already figured out that Clarke could see past the less human aspects of her features.

  ‘She’s a really good dancer too. Uh, I suggested she tried out for the translator position here. She writes. I mean, she has this ambition to be a writer. I figure she knows the languages, and she knows how to write things down. She’s not a professional, but…’

  Sondra gave him a slow nod of approval. ‘Good call, Clarke. Good call. If she applies, I’ll support her.’

  ‘I, uh, said you would.’ He frowned. ‘Next time you have to face a maniac with a magic knife, I want in, okay?’

  ‘Fine. I’ll even let you wear the latex dress.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m willing to go that far…’

  3rd March.

  Sondra took a long pull on her glass of beer. The Heady Brew was not as busy as it was likely to get later in the evening, but after the week they had had, she had figured a drink before heading home would do both her and Clarke good.

  ‘So, Issacs has quit bugging you?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘Yes, but she’s going to be an issue going forward. She didn’t like me stealing her thunder.’

  ‘After she stole our case.’

  ‘I think that makes it worse. She went to all that trouble to get a juicy serial murder case, and then I wrap it up for her. I also got the impression that her superiors wanted the chest taken into evidence rather than reduced to ashes.’

  ‘I don’t think things like that should exist. In anyone’s hands.’

  ‘Same here.’

  ‘But you were taking a risk, weren’t you? Albrechus said it might take you out if it were destroyed.’

  ‘Yeah, he said that.’ Sondra frowned and took another drink. ‘I think they didn’t destroy it because they all wanted it for themselves. Immortality, true immortality, at a cost. You and I might not be willing to pay it, but plenty of people would, especially back then. They made excuses and hid it away, and maybe thought that they could come back later when no one was paying attention. Hell, maybe someone did and they were more circumspect about the murders than Gartrain was. The commissioner’s office bitched about it, but Dickerson shut them up.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Told them he was looking forward to them explaining how their pressure had resulted in their most respected Arcane detective resigning, and all over the desire to keep an artefact powered by murder.’

  ‘Ouch. Even if they didn’t want it for themselves, trying to spin that one and have people believe it would be next to impossible.�
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  Sondra grinned, rather maliciously. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Uh, have you heard anything about KonTash? SetaGan was asking…’

  ‘He’s on North Brother Island. They’ve got him isolated and they’re working with him. He’s going to have to go cold turkey on the magic to get the influence of the demon out of him. Could take months, maybe years, to clear it completely. So, you’ve been talking to SetaGan, have you?’

  ‘Uh, well, she called to thank me for the job thing.’ Sondra watched as Clarke’s cheeks coloured while he spoke. ‘They’re going to interview her and she thinks she’s got a chance. It’ll get her out of that club.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure she’d be happy to give you a private lap dance if you asked nicely.’

  ‘Hey! I’d never– That is just not– I’m not like that.’

  ‘Said the schoolgirl to the bishop.’

  ‘This is sexual harassment,’ Clarke said, stabbing a finger at the bar top.

  ‘Ha!’ Sondra replied, taking a pull on her beer. ‘Men have been harassing women for centuries. It’s about time we got our own back.’

  Clarke took a drink from his own glass and shook his head. ‘I feel so used,’ he said, trying not to laugh.

  ‘You should be so lucky.’

  ###

  About the Author

  I was born in the vicinity of Hadrian's Wall so perhaps a bit of history rubbed off. Ancient history obviously, and border history, right on the edge of the Empire. I always preferred the Dark Ages anyway; there’s so much more room for imagination when people aren’t writing down every last detail. So my idea of a good fantasy novel involved dirt and leather, not shining plate armour and Hollywood-medieval manners. The same applies to my sci-fi, really; I prefer gritty over shiny.

  Oddly, then, one of the first fantasy novels I remember reading was The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper (later made into a terrible juvenile movie). These days we would call Cooper’s series Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy and looking back on it, it influenced me a lot. It has that mix of modern day life, hidden history, and magic which failed to hit popular culture until the early days of Buffy and Anne Rice. Of course, Cooper’s characters spend their time around places I could actually visit in Cornwall, and South East England, and mid-Wales. In fact, when I went to university in Aberystwyth, it was partially because some of Cooper’s books were set a few miles to the north around Tywyn.