Thief of Lives

by J. C.

  Magiere wanted to let go and scrape the taste from her tongue with her fingernails. Its thick warmth trickled to the back of her throat. Her head abruptly ripped back, and Magiere saw the side of the girl's throat open, exposing sinew and bleeding veins. Her hand still clenched around the girl's neck, she shook Chesna until blood soaked the lavender bodice. Her free hand came up, fingers snarling in the front of the lavender dress…

  Chesna's empty eyes rolled.

  "Stop it! Wake up!"

  Magiere jerked away, both hands to her face as she clawed at her own mouth.

  Her foot slipped off the edge of the porch. A hand snatched her upper arm, and she snarled in fear and pulled free, tumbling down the stairs to land facedown on the walkway.

  Magiere lay still, unable to do anything but hold her bare hands across her face. She could still taste blood. Her heart raced so fast that she couldn't separate the pounding beats in her ears.

  Hands grabbed her shoulders from behind, trying to pull her over onto her back. She blindly swung a backhand fist at her attacker. Her wrist was snatched in a grip that pulled her up and around to her knees.

  "Valhachkasej'a! Open your eyes!"

  Magiere obeyed.

  Everything in the pitch dark around her appeared thinly luminous.

  Leesil knelt before her, one hand on her shoulder, the other still gripping her wrist. The door lanterns behind him burned so brightly she couldn't look at them, and yet his face wasn't night-shadowed. She saw his features clearly, from the fine hairs of his slanted eyebrows to the faint scars on his jawline where the small undead, Ratboy, had tried to claw his throat open months ago.

  "What is this?" Lanjov shouted. "What is wrong with her?"

  The councilman stood in the house's entryway back from the door and stared in horrified astonishment at the two of them kneeling on his front walk.

  "Quiet, please," Leesil snapped in annoyance.

  "No!" Lanjov shouted. "Enough of this ridiculous—"

  "I said quiet!" Leesil repeated, and leaned around to face the councilman.

  Magiere couldn't see her companion's face, but Lanjov's reaction was plain. The councilman lost all semblance of anger and took a further step back into his home.

  Leesil turned back to her, and Magiere saw a change pass across his features. His narrow jaw tightened, and large amber eyes flinched and widened, and she felt his sudden twitch through his tightening grip on her wrist. He looked afraid. She shrank back from him, but he held her in place.

  The ache in her jaw began to fade. Leesil slowly released her wrist and tried gently to pull her other hand from covering her mouth. She jerked her head away.

  "Let me see," he whispered.

  This time, she let him push her hand aside. She felt his fingertips gently spread her lips. He frowned and gave a shallow nod.

  "It's all right now," he assured her. "Nothing to hide anymore."

  "She knew him," Magiere choked out, and ran her own fingers over her teeth. There was nothing strange to her touch.

  Leesil took hold of her upper arms and pulled her to her feet.

  "What are you talking about?" Leesil asked.

  "I saw… felt him," Magiere tried to answer. "Chesna. She knew him."

  "How could you see…" Leesil started. "What do you mean, him?"

  She didn't know how to explain that she'd seen through the eyes of the murderer, followed his steps, and lived inside his moment. Tasted his kill.

  "My hands." Magiere shook her head. "They were too wide for a woman. And the gloves I… he was wearing were fine leather. Custom-fitted."

  "All right." Leesil hesitated as he looked her over. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "This ‘seeing' we'll get to later, but the gloves… means maybe he's masquerading as an elite or noble perhaps."

  "He didn't feed," she continued. "This wasn't for blood."

  "No more!" Lanjov shouted harshly through the doorway. "I have answered your questions and let you paw over her dress. You should be out in the streets hunting this creature, not putting on a spectacle for my neighbors."

  Magiere slipped around Leesil and up the steps. "Chesna knew him. Who else comes here? Does anyone else come regularly to the house?"

  Ashen with anger, Lanjov spit his words. "Are you suggesting the murderer is not a vampire?"

  "No—he's an undead." Magiere shook her head, the vision now crystallized in her thoughts. And that one word hung in her mind—murderer. "But he didn't feed on her blood. I think he wanted it all over her. He wanted someone to find her that way."

  "Leave my home at once," Lanjov said. "My daughter did not know this creature. It… he is a fiend, like those of your own town. The guard captain has taken accounts from those who were either attacked or viewed attacks by this thing, and I assure you, it was not a nobleman."

  "There have been other attacks?" Leesil's voiced betrayed an annoyance Magiere could hear growing into open outrage. "With survivors? Why didn't anyone tell us this?"

  Lanjov stared blankly at him, searching for a response to a question that apparently made no sense to him.

  "There was no need. The city guard took the reports, and the victims were—"

  "Common folk," Magiere finished in disgust. "You didn't see a need to call for me until one of your own died. So some survived these attacks to report them, but what about bodies? Besides Chesna, where are the other bodies?"

  "I do not know," Lanjov answered tiredly. "Now, please, leave my home. This is a prowling creature that kills at random. If you wish to be paid, take that dog into the sewers or any other place where such things hide, and do not mention this ridiculous theory of a nobleman again."

  He closed the door, and Magiere heard the bolts inside slide sharply into place.

  "Are you all right?" Leesil asked.

  Magiere ran her hand across her mouth, wiping at the lingering taste and touch.

  "I saw her die," she said. "I saw it through his eyes. I felt it."

  "I know, and I believe you, though…" He paused, and then hesitantly asked, "What did you see when you opened your eyes?"

  "Just your face, the lanterns, the walkway, but… as if everything were touched by a hidden, soft light that let me see it more clearly. Why?"

  Leesil stepped off the porch and looked away from her as he spoke.

  "Your eyes. They were completely black, like their centers opened up and swallowed all the color out of them."

  A thickness settled in Magiere's limbs. She was tired enough to crawl away into a small place, not to emerge for as long as she could remain undiscovered.

  "I thought this was all done with," she said. "How many more twisted parts of me do I have to face?"

  Leesil took her by the arm and pulled her into motion, headed for the front gate.

  "We know the Noble Dead can see in the dark. It makes sense that you'd have some of that as well. It's night sight, Magiere. My mother's people have something akin to it, and I do partly as well. As to what you saw through the killer—"

  "Why now?" she insisted. "Why haven't I had visions before?"

  Leesil shook his head. "Perhaps the dress?"

  "Then why didn't it happen in the bedroom when I first touched it?" Magiere held up the bunched ball of the dress.

  "I don't know. It could be… I just don't know," was all he could say.

  "I want no more of this."

  Magiere looked about the street, its cobblestones illuminated by spaced oil lanterns atop posts or hanging from brackets fixed to the inner ring wall across the way. There was no movement and nothing to see in the empty night. Except for Chap, who had somehow passed them by and sat waiting patiently outside the gate.

  "No more," she added. "I feel tainted all the time as it is."

  "Give me that." Leesil took the dress from her hand. "We won't risk setting it off again, however it happened. We'll walk until we spot a coach to take us to the inn."

  Magiere gripped her falchion's hilt, squeezing it tight like a singl
e handhold over a chasm. Who were they fooling? She was an ex-mountebank and a tavern owner. Leesil was an ex-thief and a gambler who loved his wine too much. Yes, they could fight, even against the undead. They'd proven that much in Miiska, but this was different.

  "They were right about murder," she said, shamed at what she'd seen, her hand— his hand—around Chesna's torn throat. "He slaughtered that girl with barely a swallow and left her there on purpose. What is happening here?"

  "I'll find us a coach," Leesil muttered. "And we'll get you away from here."

  * * * *

  After a light breakfast of porridge and grainy apples the next morning, a hired coach took them back to the inner ring wall and the recently built barracks of the Strazhy-shlyahketne, the royal guard division assigned to the king's city. Magiere noticed that Leesil had mended his shirt sometime in the night. Over breakfast, he'd questioned her about the vision. It was disturbing to remember, let alone ponder why it happened at all.

  They knew the Noble Dead varied some in powers and abilities. Now, Magiere found her dhampir state continuing to mimic them.

  She was changing. She could sense the sun. She'd awoken that morning at almost the moment it arose, though the curtains on her window were closed.

  Even in the upper-class districts, people went about on daily business, though fewer street hawkers and peddlers wandered about. Most shops here served the whims and fancies of the privileged. Next to a clothier selling cloaks and voluminous capes trimmed in satins and rare furs stood a wine house built of dark timbers and white plastered walls.

  They passed by other shops along the way, from a bakery with full tables of glazed goods to a large cartwright station for the sale and repair of carriages and coaches. At first, Magiere was puzzled when they entered this district rather than Lanjov's, but it made sense that even a king's guard division deployed for the city's protection wouldn't be housed among the homes of the elite. No, even the Strazhy-shlyahketne were still common folk, regardless of their standing. After dealing with Lanjov, Magiere hoped this Captain Chetnik might be less deluded and caste-conscious.

  Lost in thought, Magiere was jarred back to awareness as the coach rocked to a halt.

  Stepping into bright daylight, Magiere shielded her eyes and looked inside the purse Karlin had given to her. Their coin was holding, but they would spend quite a bit getting around in a place as large as Bela, and she paid the coachman with reluctance. It was either coaches or buy horses, and that meant stable fees as well. On the Stravinan back roads, they'd walked or paid fare on a barge or ferry traveling the main rivers, but time meant little back then, and horses were an unnecessary extravagance. Now, they couldn't spend half the days getting from one place to another.

  "Can you ride?" she asked Leesil as the coach pulled away.

  "You mean a horse? Only if I have to. I don't care to be at the mercy of a bag of lunacy lunging around on four sticks."

  "Well, you may have to. The price of coaches will drain us soon enough."

  He stopped his apprehensive examination of the barracks' outer stockade and looked at her.

  "You're worried about the price of coaches? Forgetful gods, Magiere, I have never met another spirit as mean with money as you."

  "Well, one of us has to be!"

  Magiere pushed past him, heading for the gate to the barracks' grounds. She wasn't mean with money. She simply planned ahead. That was more than anyone could say of him.

  The barracks' crafted stockade around its grounds was twice a man's height, with a double-wide gate that stood open. Four guards manned the portal, while others inside went about in the cool morning air, drilling at arms. All were similarly outfitted in ring mail beneath white surcoats and armed with sabers. Some, on their way out to posts around the city, carried long, pronged pikes and white shields emblazoned with twin sea hawks. The center ridges of their helms were trimmed in the feathers of these same birds.

  Magiere paused before one gate guard. "Pardon, I'm looking for Captain Chetnik."

  The man appraised her briefly, but spoke politely in turn and gestured toward the building directly ahead. "In the main hall. Ask at the front entry."

  Magiere nodded her thanks and headed across the grounds, with Chap at pace beside her and Leesil following behind.

  The main hall was two stories of masoned stone, the front doors propped open to let in the morning air. The entryway led into a small room, plain and sparse. From down one of the side halls came an angry voice, though Magiere couldn't quite make out what was being said. Behind the front desk was a balding little clerk, clean-shaven and plain-clothed, who raised his head and gave them a brief and polite nod.

  "How may I help you?" he asked.

  "We're here to speak with Captain Chetnik," Magiere replied. "At the request of Councilman Lanjov."

  "And this pertains to?" the clerk asked.

  "The councilman's deceased daughter," she answered. "We were called upon by the city council to look into her death. The captain has reports from citizens that might be of help."

  The clerk seemed momentarily agitated but, with a short sigh, nodded in understanding. "Please wait. I'll see if the captain can meet with you."

  At that, he disappeared down the left hallway toward the voice Magiere had heard, only to return moments later.

  "The captain is currently with someone, but he said you are to come in anyway." He motioned Magiere around the desk and gestured toward the hallway. "Just go down to the end door."

  Chap trotted ahead to the corridor's end. His whole attention focused through the open door at whoever waited inside. Magiere caught up to the hound, wondering what had his interest, when voices inside the room became clear.

  "Are you suggesting my son would just leave the city without a word?"

  The question came from a stout, middle-aged man sitting on the near side of the room in front of a large, dark-wood table. Dressed modestly in a short burgundy cloak with cap to match, he had an ample and sculpted beard dropping to a point from his chin.

  "Captain, my son and his wife have been missing for days," he continued shouting. "Will you do nothing?"

  Behind the table sat a hefty man in ring mail armor with a broad nose. A mass of dark brown curls hung from his head, trimmed off around his face as if his helmet had been used as a shearing guide. Among the table's clutter of scrolls and parchment was a helmet similar to those of the Strazhy but with more ridges and one plume of feathers arcing back over the crests from the noseguard. This, Magiere assumed, would be Captain Chetnik.

  "What else would you have me do?" the captain asked, too quietly for his stature.

  Magiere expected him to be bored by merchant's outburst, or at best, in a hurry to take the man's statement and shove him out the door. That had been her previous experience with constables and guards, but this captain appeared patiently sad.

  "According to your statement," he went on with equal softness, "your son, Simask, and his wife, Luiza, were here with you on business. They went out to seek patronage for your vineyard from local innkeepers but didn't return. Guards have made inquiries, and I've notified the district constables in the area and the two local districts where they'd likely have gone. But there are no witnesses and no evidence of foul play. What more would you have me do?"

  "Look for them!" the merchant answered in frustration.

  "Where? In which part of the city should I search? Where were they last seen? We've had to guess at best."

  The merchant collapsed in his chair under a sudden weight of fatigue.

  "We separated to work different sides of the city," he continued more quietly. "I didn't even realize they were missing for a full day. I don't know where they might have gone, but my son is dependable. He wouldn't have missed our meeting day."

  It was then that the captain noticed Magiere and Leesil standing in the doorway, and he stood up. The girth of his belly was wide, but appeared more muscle than the bulk of a sedentary man.

  "Go back to your inn
and rest," he told the merchant. "We'll do what we can. If there is any news, I'll send word without hesitation. Now you must excuse me, as there is another matter that needs my attention."

  The merchant's face was drawn and hopeless as he stood. Magiere pitied him, but she didn't know what to say. When he turned to leave, he spotted her in the doorway and looked back at the captain.

  "Luiza is fair, almost like that," he said, pointing at Magiere. "And black hair, but she is shorter, smaller."

  The captain nodded. "I will make a note of it."

  With nothing else to say, the merchant shuffled out past Magiere and down the corridor.

  "Can I help you?" the captain asked, looking her up and down. He picked up a leather-bound sheaf of parchment and flipped the loose cover open. "I don't have any other appointments this morning, but I'm due to meet with the local constabulary in a short while."

  "This won't take long," she said. "I'm Magiere. The council hired me to investigate the death of Councilman Lanjov's daughter."

  At her words, Chetnik scowled and shook his head as he dropped the sheaf on the table. He studied her a moment, with only a brief appraisal of Leesil and Chap. A slightly amused smile bent his mouth up as he folded his arms.

  "You're the hunter. Who's he?"

  "My partner, Leesil."

  Chap was sniffing the air about the room, but he looked over at Chetnik intently.

  "That's our tracker," Magiere added. "But the trail is cold, and we need to limit our search. Lanjov said there are reports of attacks by a night assailant. We'd like to talk with some of these people. Can you give us a list of names and where to find them?"

  Chetnik stood there, still smiling faintly. "You aren't what I expected."

  If there was one phrase Magiere was most tired of hearing, this was certainly it.

  "Indeed," she responded.

  Chetnik laughed aloud, and the last of the sad strain vanished from his eyes.

  "No, no," he added. "I expected some pompous mystic or aspiring alchemist throwing potions and powders about. I was none too pleased when the council took this case out of our hands. But our hands are full, and the district constabularies are hired locals not always suited to the task. You at least look like you can handle a fight."