CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The stall holder, Margo Corris, was a middle-aged woman with a long, thin face and eyes that did not seem able to stay still.
The Watchmen who had brought her to the station had put her in one of the unused offices on the upper floor. According to the low-voiced briefing Sutter had given Thea on their way to the room, Margo Corris had loudly resisted the Watchmen’s attempts to bring her in peacefully. In contrast, she had been quiet and sullen since they had brought her in.
When Thea, Sutter and Niath entered the room, Margo was sitting on a bench, her back against the wall. The room had another pair of benches but no other furniture. The woman scrambled to her feet and backed away into the corner of the room as soon as they came in, her breathing harsh and fast, her gaze flickering over all of them, and then around the room, and then back. It was making Thea dizzy just to watch her.
Thea exchanged glances with Sutter, both of them grim-faced. It would not be the first time that someone they tried to question had been on some kind of narcotic.
“Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m Senior Sergeant Sutter. This is Officer March, and Mage Niath. We’d like to ask you some questions.” Sutter’s tone was even and pleasant, non-threatening. Thea had the impression it was a tone he had used before.
“Don’t know nothing,” Margo said. Her voice was high, words tumbling out one after the other.
“Ma’am, can we get you some water?” Thea asked, trying to match Sutter’s tone.
“No no no.”
“Won’t you sit down?” Thea suggested, and took a seat on the bench opposite the one the woman had been resting on.
Sutter settled a short distance from Thea, at the other end of the bench. Niath remained standing near the wall, hands tucked behind him.
Margo stayed where she was.
“Do you know why you are here?” Thea asked.
“No. Watchman said I did a crime. Didn’t do nothing. Don’t know nothing.”
“You were attacked a few days ago,” Thea said. “At Wheatcroft market. Do you remember?”
“No. Not attacked. Not me. Someone else.”
“Ma’am, you’re not in trouble. We just want to know what happened,” Sutter said.
The stall holder didn’t answer, her head twitching as she pressed herself back into the corner.
“Ma’am, are you quite well?” Thea asked, concerned. She had seen quite a lot of people either drunk or under the influence of narcotics over her service in the Watch. But this woman’s behaviour was odd, even by those standards.
“Can’t tell you. Can’t tell you,” Margo said, sliding down the wall. Her whole body was beginning to tremble.
“Do you have any healing spells, mage?” Thea asked, looking over her shoulder.
“Just a mild calming spell,” Niath said, and raised a hand. Thea felt his magic gather in the room before he spoke a word and a wash of magic coursed over the woman.
“We need a physician,” Thea said to Sutter. He was already moving, heading for the door.
The woman was crumpled in the corner of the room, knees drawn up to her chest, her eyes moving a little more slowly than before.
Thea left her seat on the bench, making sure that every movement was slow and calm, and settled on the floor a short distance from Margo, ignoring the protest of the muscles across her back.
“Ma’am. Margo. What can’t you tell us?” she asked.
The woman stared at Thea for a long moment, expression slack as if she wasn’t really seeing anything in the room.
“They told me to do it,” Margo said, her voice the barest whisper, the tone of it sending shivers down Thea’s spine. There was something unnatural about the way she was sitting, body twitching, and speaking quietly, with no inflection to her voice.
“Who did?” Thea asked. She could sense Niath behind her. The mage had not moved from his position near the opposite wall, letting Thea talk.
“Them. They.”
“Who are they?” Thea asked, striving for patience. The woman’s trembling was getting worse again. Whatever calming effect Niath’s spell had, it was wearing off.
“The Hand,” the woman said, and blinked slowly, staring at Thea, her eyes blank. “The Hand of the goddess.”
“The Hand of the goddess asked you to give a false coin to one of the Ageless?” Thea asked. It made no sense at all.
“Can’t tell. No no no.” Margo’s voice changed, rising in pitch, and she began rocking back and forth where she sat. Her lips quivered, and a pale froth formed at her mouth.
“Come away. Now,” Niath said, his tone making it an order.
Thea glanced over her shoulder to find him staring at the woman with a hard expression on his face. He met her eyes.
“Now,” he repeated.
He was deadly serious. Thea got up and backed away from the woman, heading for the door. Niath was already there. He opened the door and waved her out, sending another pulse of magic into the room before he followed her into the corridor. They almost bumped into Sutter, who was coming towards them. The Senior Sergeant frowned at the shut door and the pair of them.
“What?” Thea asked Niath.
“She’s been poisoned,” Niath said.
“I guessed that. But why did you want us out of the room?” Thea asked.
“There was a faint smell. A bit like the one around Edmund Anderson,” Niath said. Thea’s brows lifted. He must have a far sharper sense of smell than she had. And she was Ageless-born, with all the advantages that brought.
“But he ingested the poison. And his lover wasn’t affected at all,” Thea pointed out.
“But we don’t know anything about this poison,” Sutter said, nodding. “Best to be safe. Physician Pallas will be here as soon as he can,” he told them.
“She’ll be dead in a moment,” Niath said.
“What did you do?” Thea asked.
“Nothing to her. I simply added some cleansing to the room. So it should be safe for us to go back in soon,” the mage said.
“Did she say anything?” Sutter asked.
“She said that the Hand of the goddess made her do it,” Thea told him. She shook her head in response to Sutter’s startled expression. “No, I haven’t heard of it either. But she seemed honest when she said it.”
“The Hand of the goddess?” Sutter repeated. “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.”
“The dead man also mentioned the goddess,” Thea pointed out. “So at least there’s a common theme.”
“And the same poison as killed Edmund Anderson,” Niath added, apparently trying to be helpful.
“Except that there’s nothing to suggest that a woodworker had any part in the forgery,” Thea said, setting her shoulders against the wall and heaving a sigh. Then wishing she hadn’t as the old bruises across her back woke up. She would almost be glad of another of her mother’s pain-killing potions just now. Even with the foul taste.
Movement along the corridor drew her attention. Iason was coming up the stairs at a rapid pace, his physician’s bag in hand. He paused when he saw them, then came forward more slowly.
“Is she dead?” he asked.
“Probably by now,” Niath answered, and opened the door, looking inside. “Yes,” he added, pushing the door wider.
Margo Corris was still huddled in the corner of the room, foam at her mouth, sightless eyes staring at nothing.
“What happened?” Iason asked.
“She was behaving strangely. As if she was on some kind of narcotic. Then she began to tremble. The mage caught the same smell as had been around Edmund Anderson and we left the room when she started foaming at the mouth,” Thea said.
“I’ve added a cleansing spell to the room,” Niath added. “It’s safe to go inside.”
“The same poison as the woodworker?” Iason’s brows lifted, but he went into the room, kneeling a short distance from the woman’s body. “I don’t smell anything.”
“The cleansing sp
ell might have taken the scent away.” Niath had moved, standing just inside the room, hands folded behind his back. Apart from the scorch mark across his chest, he looked exactly what he was. A Citadel Mage. Confident and self-assured.
“Did I see Iason?” Ware’s voice sounded in the corridor. “What’s happened?”
“The stall holder, Margo Corris, is dead, sir,” Sutter answered. “Poisoned, we think.”
Ware swore. With a fluency and creativity that made Thea bite her lip against an inappropriate smile.
“Did you get … no, no time for that now. Commander Reardon is on his way,” Ware said, scowling into the room. “This is the last thing we need. Iason, do you need us?”
“No,” the physician answered, without looking up. “I will test the foam, of course, but I think the mage, Sutter and Thea are right. She was poisoned with the same thing that was in the bliss ingested by Edmund Anderson.”
“If it was a corrupt batch of bliss, we’d have a lot more dead.” Ware was still scowling.
He was right. Bliss was not found on every street, but it was common enough. And she should have thought of that, Thea realised.
“Does the same hold true for the soap?” she wondered aloud. “If there was something wrong with the ingredients, then there should be more people trying to find Delilah Soames complaining about their skin turning blue.”
“That’s true,” Iason said, straightening from his examination of the body. “I wonder why we haven’t found more dead, or had more complaints?”
“I’ll ask the other Watch stations.” Sutter had his notebook out, pencil moving quickly across the page. “For reports of unusual deaths and, what was it you called it, Officer March? Product complaints. Good.”
“We should have seen any unusual deaths at the mortuary.” Iason had crouched back near the body, but was still paying attention to the conversation.
“Yes, you should have. But we know some deaths don’t get reported.” Sutter was frowning at his notebook. “So, unusual deaths, product complaints. I might as well ask about the Hand as well.”
“Any luck with the men from the market?” Thea asked.
“The stall holders definitely know them, but they aren’t talking.” Sutter closed his notebook with a snap and glanced at Margo’s body. “I wonder if they are connected with this.”
Thea glanced at the dead woman and shivered slightly. She could not blame stall holders for not wanting to talk, if they thought they were in danger.
But then she remembered Matthew Shand, turning up to draw her away from the gang of men.
“I have someone else I can ask,” she said, taking a step along the corridor.
“Later. We need to speak to the Commander first,” Ware said, his tone making it an order.
Thea opened her mouth to protest. She did not want to speak to Reardon.
But the Ageless was already coming up the stairs, a scowl on his face that suggested he was in a foul mood. He saw the group standing at the open doorway of the office, his eyes travelling over them until they stopped at Niath and the mage’s charred robes.
The Ageless’ human aspect faded, the bones of his face sharpening, and the air was filled with the static crackle of Ageless power. His wings, vivid white in the dim light of the corridor, snapped into being at his back, spreading out to fill the entire space, feathers brushing the ceiling, the walls and the floor before he exerted some control and they folded at his back, white peaks a sharp contrast to the black of his uniform.
There was a knot in Thea’s stomach. Reardon had recognised the weapon’s signature. He knew what it meant. Any hope she had of keeping the Ageless and the Archon’s soldiers out of the city faded. The Ageless would want the magic-users found and would not care who they hurt. There would be more bodies before the night was over.
~
“I see why your message was so urgent,” Reardon said, coming to a halt a few paces away.
Thea blinked, astonished.
Despite the temper showing on his face, and the loss of control evident by the appearance of his wings and aspect, Reardon had sounded almost reasonable. His voice was even. A sort of forced calm.
“Thank you for responding so quickly, Commander,” Ware said. He glanced back at Iason. “We’ll be in my office if you need anything, physician.”
Iason simply waved a hand, focused on the body in front of him.
The skin across Thea’s shoulders prickled with a warning. She turned her head a fraction, finding that Reardon had approached to within arm’s length, so that he could see inside the room.
“Do you have bodies in all your rooms?” the Ageless asked.
For the second time in moments, Thea was taken aback. If she had not known better, she would have thought that was a poor attempt at humour. But, as far as she had observed, the Ageless had little use for humour.
“No, not all of them,” Ware said. “This woman was the stall holder that passed the first forged coin to the Ageless at Wheatcroft market. We were trying to question her. She had been poisoned before she got here.”
“Interesting,” Reardon said.
“Why don’t we go to my office. I am sure the physician would be happier working without us standing here,” Ware suggested.
The Ageless said nothing, just followed Ware into his office, a few doors away.
The room was crowded with Ware, Sutter, Reardon, Niath and Thea. More so when Thea closed the door behind them. She found a spot standing against the wall, as far away from Reardon as possible in the confines of the room, and tried to ignore the sensation of the walls closing in on her.
“What happened?” Reardon asked. The question reminded Thea of Ware. A superior demanding a report from his junior.
“Thea?” Ware lifted a brow at her.
“Sir. We believe we have found the furnace where the fake currency was being made,” Thea began, and gave a very brief summary of what had happened with the metal worker leaving and the two armed men arriving.
“They used the fyr na dathan?” Reardon asked. Even though his voice was calm, he was still wearing his Ageless aspect, eyes bright with power, his wings still visible.
It was difficult to hold the gaze of an Ageless in their aspect. They were so unlike a human, with the sharper planes of their face, and the air around them weighted with their age and power.
And Reardon was powerful enough that the air of the room was almost vibrating with his presence.
Thea forced herself to look at him, to hold his eyes for a moment, before she answered his question. She would not back down from him. “Yes. I am not sure if both of them used it, or just one,” she added, anticipating his next question.
“And you examined the scene?” Reardon asked Niath.
The mage was a short distance from Thea, in his customary pose, hands folded behind his back, the scorch marks on his chest evident.
“I did. I had not seen the weapon used before, but I remember its description from text in the Citadel.”
“Yes.” Reardon’s jaw tightened and another wave of power slid into the room. “We did not think anyone still living had that knowledge.”
Thea clamped her jaw shut against exclamations or questions. Or both. An Ageless had just admitted he did not know something.
“I wanted to inform you of this development,” Ware said, catching Reardon’s attention. “And something else which has come to light. Mage?”
“The pony that was tied up outside the furnace. I’ve seen it before. A few days ago. Outside the kitchens in the lower level of the Citadel,” Niath said.
Reardon’s jaw tightened again. So much so that Thea wondered if it might break.
“You are sure?” the Ageless asked.
“There aren’t that many ponies in the city.” Niath did not seem to have any difficulty in holding Reardon’s gaze. Perhaps he was used to it, having spent more time in the Citadel. Or perhaps he was confident in his own power.
“Do you remember anything else?” Re
ardon might be forcing himself to sound calm. But he was still in his aspect, and his wings were still visible. Thea kept a wary eye on him. She did not trust his stillness.
“No. I don’t remember there being any people around the pony. It was just there. I assumed it was making a delivery of some kind.” The mage was doing a better job than Reardon of seeming calm, Thea noticed. She did not believe that anyone could be so calm when faced with an angry Ageless.
“A few days. Can you be more specific?” Reardon asked.
“There had been a concert the night before, as I recall. Stringed instruments. If that helps.” Niath lifted his brows.
“Yes. That helps.” Reardon’s wings twitched. A sign of some disturbance.
“Commander, we cannot ask questions at the Citadel,” Ware began.
“No. But I can. And I will.” Reardon cast a glance around the room. “I assume you have other enquiries to make?”
“Yes,” Ware confirmed.
Thea had an impulse to ask the Ageless about the Hand of the goddess, but held the words in. Ware had not mentioned it. And if Reardon was kept busy tearing apart the Citadel’s kitchens, it would give them a little more time to seek the truth.
“Very well. I will let you know what I find.” Reardon stalked to the door, his wings twitching, and left.
Anyone in the main Watch room, or outside the building, would be treated to the sight of an angry Ageless taking off and heading for the Citadel. The Ageless in their full aspect were a rare sight in the city, and news of the Commander’s presence would be all round the district in a very short period of time.
Sutter closed the door after Reardon and blew out a long breath, heading for one of the chairs in front of Ware’s desk, sinking into it as if he was not sure his legs would hold him much longer.
“Sometimes you forget they aren’t like us. And then you get a reminder,” the Senior Sergeant said, pulling out his notebook. He opened it and stared at a page. A random gesture for some kind of comfort, Thea guessed. She understood the impulse. And his words. The idea of the Ageless was far different to the reality.
False Dawn: Ageless Mysteries - Book 2 Page 19