by Carol A Park
“I’m assuming they believe I have special insight into the mind of a murderer.”
Far-fetched as it was, she tested her second theory by choosing her next words carefully, infusing a touch of personal offense, only partially feigned. “I am a professional, not some crazed killer beset with untamed bloodlust.”
It didn’t faze him in the least. “Be that as it may…” He nodded toward the paper. “Our handler wants a meeting tomorrow night to go over the details.”
Actual face-to-face meetings to discuss the details of a job were reserved for only the most complicated of cases—those requiring additional guidelines or setup. If it were a fast hit, it was a name on a slip of paper to start and the payment placed in a discreet location when it was done.
“And I want you to go in my stead,” he continued.
She started. “Me? What would I know about catching a murderer?”
“No less than me, I’m certain.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “It drains me to have to keep up a constant public façade, and I am certain this job will require more interaction with others. You have always excelled in that area more than me.”
Was he admitting that she was better at something than him?
But he was right. He could act less anti-social, if need be. Over the course of her apprenticeship with him, she had seen that more and more. But she had also seen how, when having to do those jobs that called upon his ability to interact normally with people, he returned home more irritable and more withdrawn.
He hated those jobs; he gave almost all of them to her unless they required extensive travel.
“Be that as it may,” she said. “I am more inexperienced than you as a whole.”
He waved a hand, as if unconcerned, for once, by her lack of experience. “I’m certain you can handle whoever is behind this.”
She met his eyes. He met them back. Cool. Calm. Collected.
Nothing other than what she expected from him.
She wrestled with her earlier thoughts. Would he really ask her to take a job to catch him? That made no sense. While much about the man was still a mystery to her, she knew self-preservation was top on his list of values, in addition to self-control.
Maybe he assumed she would fail, and sending her to fail was less complicated than having to pretend to catch himself.
The silence stretched out. Still, he didn’t break the gaze.
Was he waiting for a response? An affirmation? Or was he taunting her?
She still couldn’t shake the feeling he knew more than he was telling her, even if it wasn’t her far-flung imaginings.
Well. Plying him about it would get her nowhere. If she wanted to find out what he was hiding, she’d have to do it in less obvious ways.
She inclined her head. “I will, of course, do as you command.”
He gave her one of his cold, mirthless smiles. “I know.”
Ivana knelt on a prayer mat to the side of one of the many shrines dedicated to Rhianah scattered around the city. Unlike the stone sanctuaries of Yathyn, the head god and Rhianah’s husband, Rhianah’s sanctuary was simple and unadorned.
It didn’t need to be anything more. The walls were made of dark and luscious wood from the rysta trees native to Cadmyr, a statement of warm, common simplicity; the moonlight that shone through either one of the large, open windows to the east or west was the only light. A low-lying, wooden altar graced the front, on which a single wide-mouthed bowl had been set. The bowl was full to the brim with clear water: a place for worshippers to wash their hands in ritual cleansing before coming to the table of the matronly goddess of home and harvest in supplication.
Ivana, of course, had done no such thing. And all she did now was to bow her head in feigned prayer, waiting for their handler, Llyr, to show up.
She was early, as usual, and he was punctual, as usual.
Thankfully, she had only had to meet with Llyr a handful of times in the past few years by herself. She and Elidor had come together a few times. Most of the time, Elidor met with him and passed the job off to her if he wanted to.
Someone slipped onto a mat next to hers. She turned her head to the side enough to see the body of a man, hunched over hands clasped in prayer.
“Where is your master?” Llyr said to the floor.
“He sent me in his stead.”
He shifted. “We were hoping for his assistance in particular.”
“He felt I was more suited to the job,” she said. Llyr could press it, of course, if he wanted. Insist Elidor take this job personally. Ivana almost hoped he would, just so she could bring that message back to Elidor and see his reaction.
After another long silence during which he was no doubt weighing Elidor’s request, Llyr finally spoke. “Walk with me then.”
The inside of the shrine was simple, but the outside was not. A well-tended garden sprinkled with fountains surrounded the shrine on three sides. Worshippers were encouraged to make their supplications and then meander along the path through the garden before leaving. It just so happened that the pervasive sound of running water made a pleasant mask for murmured conversation.
The two of them rose and left the sanctuary through the side door into the gardens. The garden was usually empty at night; even so, they walked close together, as though lovers taking a turn. Llyr even went as far as to put an arm around Ivana’s waist to enhance the fiction—an unnecessary move, in Ivana’s opinion. Another way in which Llyr would take any opportunity given to him.
“We need your assistance in finding and capturing a criminal,” Llyr said once they had settled into a comfortable pace.
“So the note said.”
He turned close toward her, and between their bodies he produced a tied and rolled sheath of paper. She took it and slipped it into her cloak pocket.
“This is a copy of the Watch file on the case. Study it, memorize it, and be prepared to assist the Watch.”
“Assist?” She couldn’t help it. Incredulity bled into her tone. They were assassins. They didn’t assist anyone, except, perhaps, in their unique case, each other.
“Yes. You will work with the team of official law enforcement that has been assigned to this case. They will be told that you are an investigator who specializes in criminal apprehension.”
“Official law enforcement? You say that as if I am some other sort of less official law enforcement.”
“From a certain perspective.”
Ivana snorted.
“When you’re ready to catch the killer, we will assist in the actual arrest.”
“You’re going to send priests to arrest the killer?”
Llyr’s jaw jumped. “Obviously not. The Conclave is involved in this merely as an intermediary between yourselves and those in the government who wish to see this resolved.”
Elidor had been right on all counts then. This wasn’t the Conclave’s request, and he was not at all suited to this work. The idea of having to work with someone the entire time would have galled him.
“Any questions?” Llyr pressed, no doubt at her silence.
“Synonyms for apprehension seem to be key here,” Ivana replied. “I’m not a bounty hunter.”
“We don’t have bounty hunters on retainer.”
“So you’re saying I’m cheaper.”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
Ivana pulled away from him. He had a suggestive grin on his face. “Would you say that to my master? If not, I would advise you to keep it to yourself.”
He snorted, as though he didn’t believe her implicit threat. “It’s more that they would prefer to use a network we already have in place.” He paused. “If you’re concerned about payment, rest assured they are prepared to make this one especially generous.”
“Very well,” she said. As an apprentice, she received little of that money, so she didn’t care. “I’ll study the file, but the next time you have a body, let me know.”
“The point is to catch the killer before—”
Ivana turned and gave him a piercing glare.
For once, he gave in. “We’ll let you know.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The next morning, Ivana made herself breakfast and settled down at the dining room table to eat while she read the file Llyr had given her.
There was nothing unusual about that. She often sat at the dining room table to work out the details of a job—after all, she didn’t have a private study like Elidor.
All the better that there was nothing unusual about it, in this case. She continued to have the feeling that Elidor knew more about this job than he let on, so she was curious to see if he would take an interest in her work, and if so, what he would say or do about it.
And so she stayed there in her normal spot—her back to the door—long after she had finished her slice of cold ham and slab of buttered bread. Having pushed her plate to one side, she spread the pages of the file out in front of her chronologically.
The most surprising bit was that, in fact, there had been six murders, not three. The first had been the “suicide” Ivana had run across over a month ago, which the authorities now considered the first of the murders. Then there had been two more murders passed over in silence. Then there was the murder that she had seen the first notice about—the tradesman’s daughter—and then the final two that the last notice had been posted about. Six murders over the course of about six weeks.
She had read the reports at least five times already. Frankly, there wasn’t much there.
They really were desperate.
The Watch had considered multiple options. The first they had discarded: a series of hits by what passed for the underground crime scene in Carradon. If that had been the case, the murders would have taken place mostly in districts where those elements of society were most prominent. As it was—she checked the map they had provided with the locations of the bodies marked to confirm—they were spread out across multiple city districts.
The second theory was that it was someone out for revenge. But the apparent lack of connection between the victims made that a questionable theory, especially as the murders multiplied.
They had finally decided it had to be a single killer targeting partially random victims—perhaps someone with a grudge against Fereharians—and had thrown up their hands in despair at ever being able to solve such a crime or find such a criminal.
That, apparently, wasn’t good enough for local authorities, who were starting to feel some public pressure.
She slid aside one of the sheets to uncover a related report.
It was at that point that a Watchman from outside Cadmyr had been brought in to organize the haphazard investigation—one Ruios Xathal from Fuilyn. Ruios was an honorary title, not a promotion, given to a soldier or member of the Watch when they had performed some exceptional service to Setana, above and beyond duty. The report did not state, however, what Xathal’s “exceptional service” had been.
Whatever it was, someone must have thought it qualified him to head up this investigation.
She set that report aside and turned back to the matter at hand.
Despite the seemingly random nature of the murders, there were commonalities. For one, the timing was consistent. Apparently, the murders had all taken place exactly one week apart from each other.
In addition, the victims were all women, they were all Fereharian, and none of them, save the fourth, had family or friends in Carradon. Xathal had noted in his initial report that the last wasn’t unusual for this sort of criminal—nor was targeting women, nor even women of a particular look.
According to him, it was the method of murder that was the most infuriating and problematic part of the case because there were too many differences.
The first victim had initially been ruled a suicide. She had been found with wrists slit, blood on her hands and on the knife, and on the floor near her bed. But she had been a boarder. No one knew her. It had been quickly forgotten.
The second victim was similar. She, too, had been a nobody—a beggar off the streets. Her wrists had been slit, but instead of having died on the ground in a pool of blood, it appeared that her body had been moved from elsewhere in the area to the pile of rags that sufficed as her bed and then arranged as if sleeping. Too little blood stained the rags for her to have been killed there.
That was, of course, the clue to the Watch that this had been murder. But, this one, also, had been filed away. The beggar had received hardly more than a footnote.
The third victim, best they knew, had been an independent prostitute. She had had more than slit wrists. Her body showed some signs of assault before death, according to the medical examiner—though, interestingly, given her occupation, not sexual. Bruising on the arms, as if grabbed and shaken. A broken jaw, as if hit. The watchman who had written that report had surmised that she had resisted and the injuries were the sign of the struggle. But once again, she had died of blood loss through her wrists, and had been arranged on her bed in her tiny apartment after being murdered in the only other room. Once again, she had no connections. Once again, the case was barely glanced at. Sometimes things went bad for whores, after all—especially those with no connections to a larger organization.
The fourth victim had the only common factor in all the murders beyond gender and home region: slit wrists. She was also arranged on her bed, which was, the report said, becoming a common factor. It didn’t appear, however, that she had fought back as the third. In fact, in this case, it almost looked like the woman had been restrained and tortured prior to being killed. She had slashes all over her body, as if her murderer had been determined to bleed her to death from a thousand cuts before finally giving up and making short work of it.
This victim had something else not in common with the other three: she was not an unknown. The notice had been correct; she had been the daughter of a respected tradesman in the district.
It was at that point that they revisited the first cases in earnest, including the supposed suicide, and linked them to the fourth.
And then the spree had continued. The fifth and sixth victims had been from the poorer parts of their respective districts. They, too, had the commonality of slit wrists and the arrangement of the bodies. They, too, would have been overlooked had the fourth victim not been murdered first. Now, the Watch couldn’t deny that they had a bigger problem on their hands.
That had been the end of the reports. They had no other evidence, no eyewitness accounts, and not a single person had stepped forward to offer information.
It was so clean. So tidy. No loose ends.
Ivana’s eyes flicked up to Elidor’s empty chair on the other side of the table.
Impossible. That made absolutely no sense. These were crimes of, as she had once put it, untamed bloodlust. It did not fit Elidor’s personality at all. Nothing about him was untamed, and he had no lusts that she knew of…
Or didn’t he?
She splayed her hand on the final sheet of paper. She had thought he had no lusts until she discovered he had been spying on her for who-knew-how-long.
And all of the victims were not only women, but Fereharian. Like her.
Still, not a single victim had displayed evidence of sexual assault. So if that were it…
She shook her head and looked down at the report under her hand.
It was a single brief included by the chief Watchman for their district in which he noted his opinion that people were getting both nervous and irate; they demanded justice for the tradesman’s daughter. They demanded answers before more of their own daughters were killed. The report had been submitted to the city administration, probably along with like reports from other districts.
Hence where Xathal came in.
And apparently, Ivana.
She flipped the last sheet of paper over onto the stack, straightened it, and pushed it away.
She hadn’t the faintest idea why the “government” thought assassins would be the people to put on this case. How
should she know what would drive someone to kill like this? She might be a professional killer, but that didn’t mean she had the urge to go around offing people for no good reason.
Granted, she might not be the best standard to judge by. She had met one other assassin in her time with Elidor, about a year ago, a freelancer. He had been beyond strange to the point of downright unhinged. What was it he had said, as she and Elidor had been leaving the dive they had met him in? “Got a sweet one there, Elidor. Bet she tastes nice.” And then he had licked his dagger and winked at her.
Burning skies, that one, she’d have believed the murders of in a heartbeat, but he didn’t work in Carradon. The look even Elidor had given him before whisking her out of the back room of the inn had been unmistakably one of disapproval. No, Elidor was peculiar, but not deranged.
Right?
She leaned forward, cupping her chin in one hand, and stared at the top report, unseeing. Then again, what if his disapproval had been of the other assassin’s lack of restraint, rather than of his intent?
Elidor was nothing if not restrained. But who knew what that restraint hid underneath?
She flipped absently through the stack again. She had counted herself lucky at the time, that if she had been fated to be plucked off the street by an assassin, it had been Elidor, and not someone like the other.
“Is that your copy of the file?”
Her hand jerked and scattered a few of the papers across the table. She turned to see Elidor standing behind her. “Must you do that?” she asked, masking her nerves with annoyance.
He said nothing, so she gathered the wayward papers and spread the file out again. “Yes. Would you like to see it?”
By way of answer, he moved one step to the side so he could look over her shoulder.
And look over her shoulder he did. Silently. For several minutes.
She pretended to look over it again with him. She thought she had lost her gift for youthful imagination back when she had first speculated what sort of torture devices he might keep in his study, but apparently it had merely been waiting for the right opportunity to rear its head. Was he grasping his dagger in anticipation of what he might do next at that very moment?
