A Murder of Mages: A Novel of the Maradaine Constabulary

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “Thank you.” The tea helped. She was starting to feel functional. “What’s our next step?”

  “The best lead we really have right now is what Jaelia Tomar told you yesterday about her husband having a rival or enemy in another Circle. We need to pursue that, find out who that rival was, what Circle.”

  “Easy to say,” Satrine said. “How are we going to do that?”

  He pointed to the pile of files on her desk. “Following your rebuke yesterday, I’ve spent a portion of the evening studying the records we have on Mage Circles in the city, which are woefully inadequate.”

  She fingered through the files. “These aren’t all of them.”

  “No, I narrowed it to the ones worth paying attention to. The large, nationwide Circles like Lord Preston’s or Red Wolf, with major presences in every city are far too decentralized to even be a factor. Minuscule ones who don’t even house themselves in this part of Maradaine weren’t worth examining.”

  “But many Circles do have chapterhouses in Inemar.”

  “As near as I can tell, it is the neighborhood with the highest concentration. So I took other factors into consideration, and narrowed down to eight Circles that, as far as I can tell, are similar to the Firewings. They have chapterhouses in this neighborhood, and that chapterhouse appears to represent a significant portion of their membership.”

  “That’s something,” she said, glancing at the names: Four Winds Circle, Circle of Light and Stone, Crimson Crescent Penumbra Circle, and so on. “Is it just me, or do these Circles try really hard for poetical names?”

  “There was one I eliminated whose name actually was a poem.”

  Satrine laughed, despite herself. “So now we have eight Circles to look into. So what’s the next step?”

  “We’re going to have to go back to the Firewings’ chapterhouse.” Welling did not look too pleased about that idea.

  “I don’t see them being too cooperative, especially after we arrested Jaelia. And then she was kidnapped from our custody and is possibly in the hands of a murderer.”

  “I wouldn’t expect much cooperation from them in any event,” Welling said. “Which means we’ll have to take a different approach.”

  Satrine was intrigued. This was starting to sound more like her old work in Intelligence. “I think Captain Cinellan would disapprove of us breaking into the chapterhouse, even with a life on the line.”

  “Breaking in?” Welling looked scandalized. “Not at all, Inspector Rainey. Not at all.”

  “Sorry,” Satrine said, abashed. “I was thinking about—”

  “The methods in Druth Intelligence. Of course, I won’t deny there’s a certain ruthless efficiency to such tactics, but the last thing we would want to do is violate the rights of the Firewings.”

  “If you don’t expect them to cooperate, and you don’t want to violate their privacy, what do you intend to do?”

  Welling gave her a very slight smile, so subtle that she almost didn’t catch it. “I said their rights, Inspector Rainey. I said nothing about their privacy.”

  “Then how do you . . .”

  Pounding footsteps came from the stairs, the fast steps of a young boy running. Welling picked up his coat and belt off the desk. “I didn’t send out only one page in the middle of the night.”

  A page soon came from behind the slateboards, a piece of paper in his hands. “I got the writ, Inspector Welling!”

  “Excellent, son,” Welling said. “How was Protector Hilsom’s spirit at your late night call?”

  “Angry as a kicked cat, sir,” the page said. “But he did it anyway.”

  “Did what?” Satrine asked.

  Welling took the paper from the page. “Wrote out a warrant to search the premises of the Firewings’ chapterhouse. And now that we have it, Inspector Rainey, let’s drum up a few of the footpatrol to join us on this venture. This is the sort of thing that works best with a show of the color.”

  Chapter 15

  A SHOW OF COLOR turned out to be a dozen Constabulary Patrol, most of whom had just reported for duty with the sunrise. They walked the six blocks to the chapterhouse, with Welling and Satrine at the head, looking more like an organized mob than Constabulary on official business. The streets were beginning to buzz with activity, though most anyone walking about made a point of clearing out of the way of the swath of red-and-green coated Constabulary coming up the lane. Satrine found the whole thing strangely thrilling, the blatant display of authority.

  “We should have marched them in formation,” Satrine joked. “Leading them on horseback.”

  “That would have been ostentatious,” Welling said.

  “Like this doesn’t make a statement.”

  “It does,” Welling said. “‘We’re coming.’”

  Welling didn’t hang back on the stairs when they reached the chapterhouse. He bounded up, two steps at a time, and gave a resounding knock on the door. “Maradaine Constabulary! We have a warrant for a search of the premises! Open peacefully or the door will be battered in!”

  “How much time will you give them?” Satrine asked.

  “A count of ten,” Welling said.

  Satrine was starting to think Welling was enjoying this a bit too much. “They could still be asleep.”

  “And Jaelia Tomar could still be alive, so I’m not wasting any more time.” He snapped his fingers and gave a nod to the uniformed patrolmen. Two of them charged up the steps and smashed their shoulders into the door. It only budged a little. They hit it again. A third time yielded no better results.

  “Good door,” Satrine said.

  “Hmm,” Welling said. He pulled his arm back, and his hand shimmered and shone with yellow energy. Satrine grabbed the two patrolmen and pulled them away.

  The door flew open before Welling did anything else. The same old man from the day before, now in a dressing gown, came storming out, eyes on Welling. “Let that go, Inspector!”

  The glow around Welling’s hand dissipated, but Satrine noticed her partner’s muscles tense, the wince of pain in his face. Despite that, Welling reached into his pocket and produced the writ for the old man’s inspection. “We have a warrant. We will search these premises.”

  “What for?”

  “Either for Jaelia Tomar, or evidence about those who may have wished her harm.”

  “Who would—the last I saw Jaelia she was being arrested by you!”

  Satrine stepped forward, touching the man on the arm. She gave a slight nod to Welling and the patrolmen, who filed into the house. “We know that. However, she was broken out of Constabulary custody.”

  “Broken out—”

  Satrine cut the old mage off before he could continue. “You do understand that there are two possible parties we think would do such a thing.”

  “Two parties? What do you mean?”

  Satrine gave a nod, indicating inside the chapterhouse. “Either she was rescued by her allies . . .”

  “You mean us? Preposterous!”

  “Or she was abducted by the same people who murdered her husband.”

  The old man shoved Satrine’s hand away. “This is all some sort of ploy to invade our privacy, discredit our Circle. It won’t work.”

  “Why would we do that, sir?”

  “We’ll have our counselor on the lot of you!” He glared at Satrine, and then stomped down the stoop. After a moment of glancing about, the old man stalked down to the street. “I see you all!” he shouted at the shops and homes across the way. “We will not be bullied!”

  “Bullied?” Satrine asked. She came down the steps. “Who has been bullying you?”

  “You people are all the same,” the old man said, his voice dripping with scorn.

  “Who are ‘you people’? All I know is a member of your Circle is dead, another is missing and likely in danger! Help me!
”

  “You come here, invade our home, and ask me to help you?” The man’s face was full of anger.

  “Your choice,” Satrine said. “You can fight us, or try to save your friend.”

  The old mage snarled, and went back up the steps into the house. Satrine followed after him, but before she got inside, Welling came out with a journal and a handful of papers.

  “I have it, Inspector Rainey,” he said with a manic look of triumph on his face.

  “Those are private papers!” the old man shouted. He lurched toward Welling, his bony hand outstretched.

  Satrine noticed a faint glow forming around his fingers. She grabbed the man’s arm. “Please, sir, don’t give us a reason to arrest you as well.”

  “As if you don’t want to!”

  “We don’t, sir,” Welling said. His voice was full of compassion, the level of which surprised Satrine. “Your house has suffered enough injustice.”

  The old man huffed and went back inside.

  “What did you find?” Satrine asked.

  Welling thumbed through the journal. “The Circle of Light and Stone. That’s who the Tomars—the whole of the Firewings, actually—were having their row with.” He took his whistle out of his pocket and blew hard. One of the patrolmen came out. “Keep the search going. Send someone back to the stationhouse to put in a report. Inspector Rainey and I will go to the chapterhouse of the Circle of Light and Stone. We will likely need a similar complement of patrolmen to meet us, preferably with another writ of warrant, if one can be provided in due haste. Have it done under my authority.” The patrolman saluted and went back inside the house.

  Welling bounded down the steps and marched down the street at double time. Satrine ran to catch up with him.

  “Where is Light and Stone?”

  “Straight shot ahead of us, corner of Jewel and Downing.”

  “You already know that?”

  “I spent the night digging through records. Three years ago there was a feud between several Circles, including Light and Stone. A huge magic-fueled rumble broke out right in front of their chapterhouse.”

  Satrine nodded, vaguely remembering. It had been an enormous tragedy, several civilians killed, many more injured. But in North Maradaine, it was just another horrible story to remind her to stay away from Inemar. She shook off the thought.

  “For someone who hasn’t slept, Welling, you seem full of energy.”

  “I believe I’m about to solve one murder, Inspector Rainey,” he said. “And I have the chance to prevent another. For that, I could run the length of the city and back.”

  Minox was too late. He knew this before he even reached the chapterhouse. Half a block away, a horrified scream pierced the air. His gut churning, Minox broke into a run, hoping that Inspector Rainey would follow his example.

  He ran around the corner to see Jaelia Tomar dead. Dead in a grotesque and perverse spectacle, killed in the same manner as her husband. Stripped naked, spikes through her hands, heart removed. The only difference was her body was splayed out on the front steps of the Light and Stone chapterhouse, obscured only by a slight haze around the steps.

  Pushing the bile back down his throat, he raced over to the gawking and screaming crowd that had already formed. Rainey was at his elbow, shoving people aside to form a path. They blew their whistles and forced their way through to the steps.

  Inspector Rainey tore off her coat and covered the body. Minox turned to the ugly crowd, screaming over their shouts and cries. “Who saw what happened? How did she get here? Anyone? Anyone?”

  Screams and jeers were the only reply. Inspector Rainey came back up to him, standing close to whisper in his ear. “Public street, all but broad daylight? Impossible!”

  “From what you could see, was she killed here?” Minox asked. His eyes stayed on the crowd, scanning it for a face he could connect to the earlier murder.

  “Almost no blood here,” she said. “We need to clear this mob before things get out of hand.”

  The crowd was shouting incoherently, Minox able to pick out only a few choice words about dead mages and serves them all right. “We might have some good witnesses in here. If not the killer.”

  “Not much good if we have a riot,” Rainey said. “Earlier you said something about a show of color?”

  Minox nodded, understanding her meaning. He pulled out his whistle and gave five hard, short trills as loud as he could manage. Inspector Rainey took out her own and did the same. The Riot Call. Not only would every footpatrol Constabulary in earshot come running, they would repeat the signal. Most people on the street knew what the call meant as well.

  Minox drew out his handstick, noting that Inspector Rainey already had hers out. Now that they’d made the Riot Call, they had wide latitude in how they handled the crowd. People knew the call meant get clear or get beaten down and arrested. That didn’t seem to intimidate them: they still shouted and pressed forward.

  “Stand down and step away!” Rainey boomed out. He was impressed she had that much power with her voice. “You have to the count of ten!”

  “Burn out the mages!” someone shouted.

  Inspector Rainey did not count. Instead she drove into the crowd at the direction of that voice. Minox blew the signal again, and he could hear other whistles repeating the call in the distance.

  Inspector Rainey knocked three or four men in the crowd—not too hard, but enough to get them out of her path and think twice about causing more trouble. She grabbed one man by the front of his coat and pulled him out of the crowd to the steps. He struggled with her, but she knocked him with her handstick across the head.

  “Did you yell that?” she asked the man.

  Her approach was direct; Minox respected that.

  “No, I—”

  “You did!” Inspector Rainey snapped at him. She threw the man onto the steps next to the covered body. He scrambled away from the dead woman. “Look at that! You want more of that?”

  “No . . . no . . .” the man gibbered in panic.

  Rainey turned out to the crowd. “Anyone else?”

  The crowd all moved back. Whistles sounded from all directions. Constabulary descended on Downing Street.

  “Round up and question!” Minox yelled out to the approaching patrolmen. “I want to know every witness account!”

  The patrolmen looked confused, and more than a little apprehensive. Minox deduced that they were not sure exactly how to follow his orders. Inspector Rainey, however, had no trouble.

  “You three,” she pointed to a group of patrolmen coming from Dockview. “Set up a perimeter around the square and that teahouse. The rest of you, corral the witnesses into the teahouse. Get names, addresses, and witness accounts. Anyone who doesn’t cooperate gets the lockwagon!”

  The patrolmen got to work herding people into the teahouse. Inspector Rainey released a slow breath and turned to the body. She lifted her coat up off it just enough to look under. “The spikes weren’t driven into the steps,” she said.

  Minox stayed a respectful distance away from Missus Tomar’s body. “But they are completely through her hands?”

  Rainey nodded. She reached under the hands. “Bits of powdered stone. So the killer did his whole ritual somewhere else and then brought her body here.”

  “Why here?” Minox asked, not that he expected an answer from Inspector Rainey beyond supposition. Dead body left here on the steps? How could it be done? There was the haze in the air, the slight sulfurous odor. He glanced at the steps around the body. Fine white powder. Minox dabbed a bit on his finger and tasted it. Sweet, just as he suspected.

  A window opened up on the second floor of the Light and Stone chapterhouse, and an older woman stuck her head out. “Will you please remove that filth from our step!”

  Rainey took the lead in responding, stepping out to the walkway. “W
hat do these vests mean, ma’am?”

  “What?”

  “The vests that we are wearing? What do they mean?”

  “You’re city Constabulary!”

  “Right,” Rainey said. “Not sanitation. We’re here to investigate a murder, not clean up a mess for you.”

  “Get rid of it, like you did the crowd!”

  Minox stepped over so he could address the woman as well. “Ma’am, I don’t think you quite understand the gravity of the situation here.”

  “I understand there’s a corpse on our front step!”

  “And I need to figure out who killed her,” Minox said, straining to keep his voice even and calm. The muscles in his neck were tightening, and his stomach turned in knots. This woman was strangely infuriating, but he could not let that cloud his judgment or impede the investigation. He knew that the fact that he was at his second Mage Circle chapterhouse in as many days was additionally affecting his emotional control.

  “That’s not my problem!”

  “No?” Minox couldn’t believe the woman would have the audacity to say that. “Let me clarify my line of thought for you, then. There is a dead body here, on your steps.” He stepped up to the stairs and lifted up the coat so the woman could see. “The body of a naked woman with her heart cut out. Not exactly something a person can carry around town and escape notice. So the question is, what’s the easiest place one could do that from?”

  The woman looked nauseous, placing a hand over her mouth. Minox noted, however, that she did not pull back through the window despite her obvious discomfort. She was a captive audience now.

  Minox held up two fingers. “Two places, ma’am. One is right out that front door!”

  “You’re disgusting!”

  “Most likely place,” Inspector Rainey said. “We’ll need to question everyone in there.”

  “You can’t do that!” the woman shouted. “This is a private place!”

  “We’ve made the Riot Call, ma’am,” Inspector Rainey said. “That gives us quite a bit of freedom of action, especially when there’s a dead body involved. We will come in there.”