The Red King: Wilde Justice, Book 1

by Jenn Stark

  “I’m not sure, to tell you the truth,” she said, picking up a wedge of bread laden with figs and honey and some kind of cheese. She aimed the wedge at me and poked the air with it. “If they know who you are, then they should’ve known random Capper Ken wouldn’t get it done. But if they didn’t know who you were, why bother with the attempt?”

  “They could’ve been set to tag whoever showed up for Gioia? So maybe they knew I was coming but not anything about me?”

  “Other than your name, of course, since it was on the sign.”

  “But even that—could be they didn’t know it before, but were simply looking for whoever Valetti sent. Remember, Valetti said the sign had his signature on it.” I pulled out the photo again, eyeing it. Still no signature.

  “Insignia,” Nikki corrected me. “Maybe how he forms letters? Sort of a calligraphic secret code with his I’s and L’s?”

  “Really? Something that obvious?” I made a face. “That seems…kind of pointless.”

  “Think about it from their perspective. These guys used to be able to go around half the year in masks, seen but not seen. Maybe the lettering thing gave them a way to make their mark stylishly, in a way that only the few who mattered would notice. Having a super specific lettering style probably made them feel all special—at least until, you know, texting happened.”

  I snorted as Nikki leaned back, thinking it over. “So let’s recap. Luca Stone got word from his buddies in Venice that the Red King was chafing their chaps, not to mention some five-hundred-year-old butcher with questionable recipes, and caught wind of your interest in the Red King as well. Knowing you’d also recently become Justice, he figured he’d kill two birds with one stone and brought you in.”

  “Which begs the question, how’d he know I’d ascended to the Council?”

  She shrugged. “I get the feeling you’re more of an open secret than you used to be.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” I frowned. “But that brings us back to the problem with today’s attacker. If he knew who I was, do you really think they’d mess with me?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not you they were taunting, Signorina Wilde.”

  We turned to see Valetti at the door. He was white as a ghost.

  I half stood, but he waved me down, walking out onto the terrace. He paused at the head of the table and reached for the bottle of wine there. With a trembling hand, he poured himself a glass as Nikki and I exchanged looks.

  Right as I was about to press, he spoke again. “My man was found by the main canal a few minutes ago. I apologize for not returning to you sooner, but—there were questions I needed to ask, and those I needed to answer.”

  “Found,” I repeated. That didn’t sound good.

  “He had been decapitated, with his hands cut off, and his torso had been marked with a heavy ink, his naked body diagrammed with…” Valetti took a longer drink. “Meat sections. Like you would see on a cow or a pig that was being made ready for rendering.”

  I stared at him. “The butcher of Venice.”

  He winced. “It would appear I am too late in sounding the alarm. Carnevale begins in earnest tomorrow night. The magicians are all in place. There will be two weeks of balls large and small, and the streets will be filled with revelers, tourists and residents alike. Unlike many cities whose natives flee during their key events, Venice is different.” He took a deep sigh. “In so many ways.”

  “We’re here to help,” I said, taking in Valetti’s bleak expression. “I’m very sorry about your man.”

  “He’d served me since he was a boy.” Now Valetti was speaking more quietly, almost ruminative. “He didn’t know—any of this.” He waved his hand, though I wasn’t sure exactly what the gesture was supposed to encompass. “Venice today is different.”

  “Ah…true. Maybe you could start by explaining what you want us to do.”

  Valetti breathed out a long sigh. “It is not entirely my story to tell, but I can say this much—and tomorrow, you will learn more. The butcher of Venice wasn’t a mere psychotic, knife-wielding maniac. He was a dark practitioner of the Connected community, and his recipes were the stuff of legends. No one knew his secret ingredients—and he was very careful. It’s rumored that the finger might have been a plant by a rival who suspected the butcher’s methods, but that was never proven. To say he was outraged at his arrest was beyond an understatement, but even he could not overcome the will of the people. The manner of his death was uniquely brutal, by design. That, of course, was nearly five hundred years ago.”

  “And now?”

  “And now he’s back.”

  I held up a hand. “You mean, he’s back, back? Or someone is impersonating him? Like maybe this Red King person?”

  “Please.” Valetti waved the question off as if it was inconsequential. “That is a rumor not worth your time, an old title of importance to no one. The butcher is what’s gripped our beautiful city in a fist of terror. Whether he has returned in the flesh, possessed a mortal soul, or another has taken up his mantle, the result is the same. A slim bound packet of medieval recipes was delivered to my door two weeks ago, clearly some sort of spell book. In all the recipes but one, key ingredients were stricken out with a heavy pen. In the last…” He swallowed. “It was a healing tea. And it required the ground finger bones of a child—a strange child, was the actual term. By the terms of the day, the inference was a psychic child.”

  Nikki muttered something under her breath as nausea rolled through me. “That’s…super gross.”

  “It’s more than that,” Valetti said. “I wasn’t the only one who received the book.”

  Chapter Nine

  Valetti’s phone rang. He answered and turned away, speaking in low tones that began with urgency and ended in resignation. When he hung up, he poured himself another glass of wine. By unspoken accord, the three of us took our drinks and moved a few steps down the terraced balcony, closer to the water. I looked over the edge and gave an experimental sniff. No rats, despite what Brody had warned. Maybe this part of Venice had better exterminators.

  Certainly they had an army of gardeners at their beck and call. Surrounding Valetti’s palazzo were dozens of other townhomes that marched up alongside their neighbors, cheek to jowl. It would’ve been claustrophobic except for the cascades of greenery that spilled over nearly every deck—bougainvilleas to ferns to oleanders to a dozen more flowering somethings I had no hope of identifying. And, I suspected that Venetians, like the rich in many great cities, mostly avoided the proximity of their neighbors by training themselves not to look.

  I wasn’t Venetian, however. And my training was in finding things, not ignoring them. So my biggest takeaway from Valetti’s palatial spread was how easy it would be to travel from one overdecorated palazzo to the next without ever setting foot on the ground, let alone having to deal with a gondola.

  Valetti cleared his throat, drawing my attention back. “I’m by no means an expert on Venetian history, I’m afraid,” he said, with the false modesty of someone who’d made their village’s history their life’s work. “But I am justifiably proud of the magic of this city and the great sorcerers who have traveled to its shores, filling its streets with mystery.”

  “It seems like an ideal place for them to meet. It’s very beautiful,” I offered, watching him.

  “It is that.” He nodded. Valetti wore his grief about his houseman like an uncomfortable suit, shifting this way and that beneath its weight. I recalled what I’d learned about Valetti’s background from Stone—a widower whose wife had died years earlier, leaving behind three children, none of whom lived in Venice. This palazzo was his second home and had served as his exclusive retreat during the marriage. Valetti had apparently needed a good deal of retreat too; he’d lived here almost full-time since his wife’s death.

  Nikki had later looked up the specific details of the wife’s death as well. Cancer, with a family history of the same. So Valetti was technically not responsible for that. Always good to star
t off a relationship with a new client without any obvious murders on the table.

  “How many recipe booklets were distributed?” I asked when Valetti appeared content to sip his wine and watch the sun edge closer toward the horizon. “Did everyone in this senate of yours get one?”

  “Not everyone,” the count said. “A dozen have come forward, but not all of them have produced their books, though they’ll be expected to eventually. Still others seem unhappy that they weren’t chosen to be terrorized.” He chuckled ruefully at my expression. “It’s the way of magicians, I’m afraid. To us, everything is power of some measure or another.”

  “And you haven’t called in the police.” It wasn’t a question.

  Valetti shook his head. “No. We could not risk their involvement. Some things have not changed for magicians, no matter how many centuries have passed. Plus, all our members are accounted for, so far.” I heard the unspoken distinction in his words. Someone had been hurt, but not one of their own.

  Nikki heard the same thing I had.

  “What about the magicians who’re in town but aren’t members?” Nikki asked. “Have you kept track of them?”

  “Of course. But not all of them know about this…concern, shall we say. Our top priority is to contain the fear that’s growing, not add to it. We have a long and honored history of serving as sanctuary to magicians. That the butcher is undermining that…” He set his jaw, his jovial attitude flashing to one of outrage. “It is not to be borne. We have been too weak for too long.”

  The edge to his voice made me straighten carefully. This man was a magician, I reminded myself. Even if he was merely a gentleman conjurer, I needed to respect that. To him, this affront to his senate and his city was very real. “You have the book now?” I asked. “The one you received.”

  “I do not.” Valetti pressed his fingers to the table, as if forcing himself to regain his equilibrium. “I gave it to the head of our order, as I was asked.” He lifted his gaze to mine, his eyes once again steady. “You’ll meet him tomorrow. I hope… It’s my hope that he will have learned more by then so we can track down the imposter who’s trifling with us.”

  “Fair enough.” I turned my questions to what I hoped was less troubling territory. I needed to know as much as possible about the senate and its history with Carnevale. “How long have magicians been meeting here, exactly?” I was pretty sure Armaeus had never come to this little Magic: The Gathering experience, but then again, I hadn’t asked him specifically.

  Valetti visibly relaxed, clearly eager to play the part of Venetian docent. “Unofficially? Since the city’s earliest beginnings. Venice has always been, at its heart, a refuge from the world around it. It was a collection of small islands separated from the mainland by two miles of murky water, water far too shallow for any serious boats to attempt the crossing, yet deep enough that you needed some knowledge of seafaring to navigate its channels correctly. But still people came—first for protection from looting barbarians, and eventually simply because it was an island unto itself.”

  He smiled fondly, as if talking about an old, licentious friend. “Oh, there were the rich and foolish, the lusty and bold, and the corresponding religious ascetics bent on saving them all from certain doom. There were the breathless artists and the sharp-eyed merchants who built this city brick by brick. But that was merely Venice at first glance. It was the second and third glances that revealed the mysterious allure of the city, and that’s what drew the Connecteds—still in secret, of course, but they came. They assembled. In between the shadows and the lamplight, down all the strange little alleys of this city and over its canals.”

  “And that assembly kept growing?” Nikki asked. “Or did the magicians also decide to stay here full-time?”

  “Some did, of course. Most did not. There is a far cry from a safe haven for a retreat or a creative rejuvenation and a place you want to live. Venice is crowded and swimming with people, vermin, disease—and it has its share of crime. The butcher made his terrible sausage stew in the 1500s, but though he was by far one of the most notorious of our criminals, he was not alone. And our collection of low-lying islands mired in a salt marsh has made it easy for both airborne and waterborne illness to find us. Even before the bubonic plague swept through and nearly knocked Venice off the map, there were other outbreaks, other great ills to combat. The smart sorcerer made his money and connections in Venice but his home elsewhere. And by the late 1600s, after the plague, there was a time when only the hardiest souls would venture here. That marked a turning point.”

  “A new elite,” I murmured. As I stared over the terrace wall, I picked out a couple walking down the narrow alleyway. Even at this distance, I could see they were dressed for a party—what I assumed was a party—in feathered robes and white masks that gleamed when they caught the sun. “Venice became the symbol of the strongest magicians anywhere.”

  The couple turned into a home several houses down from Valetti’s palazzo, disappearing into a doorway to enter a space that I could see was some sort of spacious courtyard filled with trees. An indoor, outdoor party?

  “Exactly so. Which is why we must keep it that way.”

  I glanced back to him, once more picking up on the edge to his words. “And you really think your little recipe booklet of doom is an indication that the magicians are in danger?”

  “I do, and perhaps more importantly, so do certain members of the senate, for whom I serve as head of security.” Valetti grimaced, looking uncharacteristically abashed. “I confess, when the booklets first appeared, I attempted to solve the issue myself. In Venice, we value our privacy very highly. We are loath to bring in the outside world unless we have to. But my attempts met with no success.”

  “People died,” Nikki guessed.

  I could tell from Valetti’s face she was right, even before he spoke. “People died. No one close to me, not then. These were magician assassins hired for the job, who knew the risks. They were well compensated, and their families well compensated after their passing, as per protocol.”

  Magician assassins? That was a thing?

  Then again, Luca Stone was involved. If anyone knew about magician assassins he did.

  Still, I kept my expression neutral. Policing or protecting the Connected underground had always been a dangerous game. One that paid well, but one that played for keeps. “And you think this butcher was behind their killings?”

  “That’s where it gets a little trickier.” Valetti pursed his lips as if considering his words. “They died by poison. And the booklet I received contained recipes specifically intended to poison Connecteds, with the clear directive that with each death, the poisoner would grow in power.”

  “And so if you’re the bad guy and you’ve got assassin Connecteds running around, who better to practice your poisoning skills on?” Nikki mused. “But that means anyone who got the books could be the killer—or the guy who distributed them could. That gets us nowhere.”

  “Precisely the problem, though I would like to believe no one among our ranks of magicians would stoop to murder.”

  From Nikki’s face, she wasn’t willing to extend that courtesy so easily. Came from being a cop for so many years, I suspected. Either way, I was right there with her. At this point, anyone in the city could be a suspect.

  Valetti continued. “Nevertheless, do I honestly believe that the butcher himself walks these streets once more, resurrected from the dead? I, personally, do not. For one, even if he was a great magician, he was killed by great magicians who knew what they were doing. The removal of his hands, the specific torture Cargnio endured, the quartering of his body, and the baking of his ashes into earthenware that was then smashed was all quite deliberate. It seemed like a spectacle to appease a horrified public, and it was that too, I suppose. But it was specially designed to ensure that never again would magic reside in the host of that body.”

  “Which means that someone else has assumed that magic, either legitimately or solely fo
r appearance’s sake.” I tapped my chin. “Did Cargnio have any children?”

  “If he did, they were lost to history. More than likely, they were lost almost immediately, in the waking hours after Cargnio himself met his grim end. However, magicians are not known for their familial ties. It’s my personal belief that if he had any of his own issue, they quickly found their way into his stews.”

  “That is still completely gross,” Nikki muttered.

  “He didn’t have to kill his own flesh and blood,” I said. “He may have considered them entirely separate of his potions.”

  Valetti shrugged. “Perhaps. Yet there is no mention of his own children even in the most thorough annals of Venetian history. Which, by the way, brings me to the next part of the story. As I said, I do not have any claim on the history of the city, but there are those who do. Especially those steeped in its darker lore. I have arranged an audience with the prelate tomorrow. He will give you more of the answers you seek.”

  “The prelate?” I frowned. The sun was now edging perilously close to the horizon, and a movement down the alleyway caught my attention again. Another knot of feathered and masked individuals made their way down the passage, more unsteadily than the first. They stopped in front of the door to the party house’s courtyard and paused, appearing to argue among themselves. Then one turned and lifted his arm, knocking smartly on the door. It opened, and the three seemed to fall inside the space, the door once more shutting behind them. That must be some party down there.

  But Valetti was talking again. “—Casino of Spirits,” he said, and I blinked as Nikki sat up.

  “I’ve heard about that place,” she said. “It’s owned by a couple of different churches now, right on the water, part of a larger compound of old buildings. Pretty gardens, manicured walkways, the whole thing. And, it’s haunted.”

  Valetti smiled. “In the beginning, its name was merely tribute to the raucous parties that were held on its grounds. It’s only in more recent times that its reputation has turned dire. Still, it serves as a fitting location for the arcane library of Venice, which I presume you will want to explore. Alfonse is the titular head of our order, whereas I serve as head of security.”