Mystery!

by Chantelle Aimée Osman

  “I’m in,” I tell Tall the second the door shuts. “Hit it.”

  There’s a high-pitched squeal like a feedback loop, and the apartment lights flicker, dim, and then go out completely. I hear something like a heavy thud from below, and the entire apartment shakes, nearly toppling me. Good thing my feet are practically dinner tray-sized—I’ve basically got my own built-in stabilizers. Then the door bangs open and Satore comes rushing back in, though he’s totally unsteady and nearly wipes out on the glossy hardwood floor.

  “What did you do?” he screams at me. He doesn’t look so neat and tidy now—his hair is all mussed, his face is flushed, and one collar is starting to turn up.

  “We shut you down,” I tell him proudly. “Energy dampener over this whole place. No power in or out. Also plays havoc with the nervous system—unless you’ve got something to block it.” I gesture to the oh-so-stylish metal choker I’m sporting, which is otherwise tough to spot under my bill. “Like this.”

  He glares at me and goes to say something else, probably something unprintable, but can’t seem to get the words out, staggering and stumbling over to the nearest doorway for support instead.

  And the lights flicker back on for a second before cutting out again.

  “Wait a second.” I eye him closely as something occurs to me. “Say that again.”

  He opens his mouth—and there it is again.

  Flicker.

  Stumble, grunt, close eyes.

  Flicker.

  “You don’t manage the apartment,” I say slowly. “You are the apartment! You’re the whole darn floor!”

  “That’s right,” he snarls, finally pulling himself together enough to reply. “And you’re lunch!”

  He lunges for me, and as he does his arms and legs get longer, slimmer, like he’s stretching them out. His torso distends too, narrowing drastically at the middle, and his head changes shape, becoming more triangular, his eyes bigger and a solid glossy black, his jaw elongated, his teeth longer and sharper. He’s like a human praying mantis, only I’ve been cast in the role of his blushing hubby! And we haven’t even had a proper date yet!

  I may not be all that light on my feet, but I’ve got decent reflexes. Years of beer pong’ll do that to you. So when he charges I sidestep, then kick out one of my oversized feet and catch him square in the right knee. He howls and topples, and I throw myself on top of him, rear first. A second later he’s pinned to the ground, and there’s no way he’s getting back up. Good thing I never listened to all Tall’s suggestions that I get in shape!

  Tall bursts in a minute later, two regular MiBs right behind him, all of them with guns drawn—to find me sitting on my nice new floor mat, which is still kicking and cursing. “You okay?” Tall asks.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” I answer. “This guy, not so much.” Even without the bill I’m not exactly a lightweight.

  Tall glances at my seat cushion and does a double-take. “Definitely not human,” he confirms. The MiB on the right looks ready to barf, while the one on the left’s eyes have gone so wide I could probably walk through ’em. Must be newbies.

  “I’ll say,” I agree. “Want to hear something fun?” I wave my phone, which I’ve been browsing on while I waited. “Satore Cosmeah, C-Ten Easy Day Realty, that’s what he said, right? Sounds a lot like—” I read off my screen “—C. torreya, Cyclocosmia, Ctenizidae, huh? Know what that is?” Tall shakes his head. I love it when I know something he doesn’t. “It’s better known as the Torreya trap-door spider. You know, they build a burrow and lurk there, waiting for their food to wander in?” I kick Satore in the head and he howls inarticulately. Can’t say I blame him for that one—I’ve accidentally kicked myself in the head a few times (don’t ask) and it’s not a pleasant experience. “That’s what we got here. A trap-door spider, only this floor is his burrow. And he thought he’d be clever and tweak our noses with the name. Not so clever now, huh?” He just snarls and spits and tries to bite my boot by way of reply.

  “Yeah, got him,” Tall declares. He’s got a tablet out and shows me the image on it. “Neo-arcturan arachnoid, highly dangerous. Builds a structure, then extends feelers into it, links him in directly like a spider in some kind of neural web. Nasty stuff.”

  Just then the door bangs open behind us and two more MiBs enter. “We’ve got the other candidates from that last pass,” one of them reports. “They’re all cocooned, look drugged, but life signs are stable. Extraction team’s on the way.”

  “Good work,” Tall replies. He gestures to the two beside him. “Bind him up. We’ll bring him back to headquarters for sentencing.” There won’t be a trial—the MiBs have full authority to dispense punishment for infractions of the Earth-Alien Treaty. This guy’s gonna be lucky to see daylight again in a hundred years.

  “So what now?” I ask my buddy as I stand and let the agents pick up their slightly squashed and definitely stunned captive. Hey, my high body density is good for something! “I mean, with this place?” I shudder. “After they extract those feelers, of course.”

  Tall frowns. “No idea,” he answers after a second, rubbing his jaw. “Sounds like his type actually builds their structures from available materials, so once he’s cut off it’ll probably just be regular old brick and mortar and so on.” He studies me, his brow lowering. “Wait, you’re not thinking of—”

  “Hey, I’ve got a lease,” I point out, crossing my arms. “And if you take out the ick factor, this is still a pretty amazing place. With an even better location than before.” I meet him glare for glare. “Would it be less mess to rent these rooms as normal or to tear out the whole floor and explain why?” I’ve got him there—the MiBs do their best to stay as inconspicuous as possible, which means they’ll go for the least noticeable cleanup method. In this case, acting like this top floor has always been here.

  Of course, this time the building “Satore” picked was six stories already. And had an elevator. Which now goes all the way to the seventh floor. The apartment numbers changed, too—this one’s now fifty-three, but I’m good with that. It’s even a corner apartment, so bonus.

  All in all, I’d say my little apartment hunt turned out pretty well. But you’d better believe I’m gonna invest in a truckload of Raid, and I’m gonna smoke this entire place out before I start moving in.

  Better safe than sorry.

  Back to TOC

  Lock and Wat

  Gregory A. Wilson

  Lock knew there was trouble the minute he entered the Great Hall. Not because of the three dead bodies—that was just a typical mid-evening during the Revels—but the still living ones. There were still a few inspectors milling about inside the room, mostly looking at the front rows of benches near the large, raised platform intended to serve as a stage, and several guards standing at either side of the platform. But kneeling over one of the bodies, his handsome face contorted into a frown, was the real problem.

  “Strade,” a voice growled from behind Lock. “Gods’ piss, like this day wasn’t bad enough already.”

  Privately, Lock was inclined to agree with the sentiment, but the last thing he needed now was more bellyaching from his companion. “It’s his job, Wat,” he replied, keeping his tone as mild as possible. “Would you rather have him sit in his office collecting a salary for nothing, or out here trying to solve a crime?”

  “Rather have him working at a smith, so he can use his hot air with the bellows instead of us,” the voice replied sourly, and Lock smiled. Whatever else Wat was, he certainly had a way with an expression, and Lock was about to tell him so when a halberd swept down, blocking his path and stopping him short.

  “No one’s allowed here without official leave,” an armored man with a fierce expression barked, “and especially not goblins. Turn around and walk right back out the way you came.”

  “If I did that, I’d be late to a meeting with a friend, Officer,” Lock replied smoothly. “We’re supposed to meet here.”

  “Not no more, you ain’t
,” the guard said. “The Hall’s closed until further notice. No meetings being had here, and no friends neither.” He bent down, staring at Lock. “Goblins don’t come much to the Great Hall anyway.”

  “We do,” Lock said, tone still patient, “when we’re invited.”

  The guard smiled, revealing a row of cracked yellow teeth. “Well, now you’re uninvited. Get out.”

  “And if we don’t?” Wat asked, and a moment later Lock found himself being gently but inexorably pushed to one side by a burly goblin with dark green skin and leather tunic, standing only five or six inches shorter than the guard, whose smile quickly turned to a scowl.

  “Then I’ll throw you out myself, filth,” he said, starting to draw his halberd back. But the tall goblin moved faster, grabbing the shaft of the halberd and yanking it down so the guard’s face was pulled level with his.

  “Good luck with that,” Wat said with a crooked smile.

  “What’s going on?” a deep, rich voice suddenly said, and Lock turned to see a young, fair-haired man dressed in leather armor and a long crimson cloak, his mustache and neatly trimmed beard underlining a set of flashing blue eyes. Lock nudged Wat, and with a snarl the goblin suddenly released the halberd, causing its holder to stagger back several paces.

  “I, uh,” the guard stammered. “I was, uh, just stopping these two goblins, Lord Inspector. They wandered in here without leave, and—”

  “They had leave,” the younger man replied as his glare intensified. “Mine.”

  “Oh, er, well,” the guard stuttered as his face grew red.

  “Back to your post,” the young man said. “The next time you feel like making decisions, kindly consult with me first.”

  The guard nodded, shot a final vicious glance at Wat, and walked away.

  “As for you,” the man said, turning to Wat, “things are difficult enough around here without interspecies conflict. A bit more restraint on your part would be welcome.”

  Wat grinned. “Us goblins don’t understand big words, Strade. Watcha mean?”

  Lock sighed and stepped forward. “What Wat means to say, in the Cannisian language he knows perfectly well instead of using goblin slang, is sorry, Lord Inspector,” he said, shooting a look at the still smiling Wat. “But in fairness, your man challenged us first.”

  “He’s not my man,” Strade replied, glancing at the retreating form of the guard, “or he’d be looking for clues instead of waving around weapons.”

  “Longer the weapon, smaller the man,” Wat observed philosophically. Lock glared at him again.

  “At any rate,” Strade said, “I’m glad to see you, Lock. We have a problem here.”

  “I can tell,” Lock replied, falling into step next to the Lord Inspector as he turned and headed back towards the stage, Wat at his side. “This is an awfully public place for a murder to happen…and at the start of the Revels, no less.”

  Strade shook his head again. “I would take the publicity of it in a heartbeat if I could change the victims,” he said.

  “Prefer goblins?” Wat asked, sounding innocent.

  “No,” Strade replied as the three reached and climbed the flight of stairs to the stage. “I’d prefer not having three of the most important people in Cannis fall dead in full view of most of the other important people in Cannis.”

  “What do you—” Lock began, then stopped as he saw the scene up close.

  There were three bodies lying on the stage, marks in front of them showing where a podium and table had stood before the area had been cleared for inspection. One body, dressed in fine blue-green silks, was face down. The second lay face up: a man wearing red silks and a tiered hat to indicate status. His face was contorted in a now-permanent expression of agony, and his hands were clasped over his ears. The last body was that of an old man, lying on his side, dressed in a dark blue cloak and with a rune-covered hat and long wooden staff tipped with a large metallic sun lying nearby. His hands were wrapped around his own throat.

  “Cor…now that’s a sight,” Wat said in a reverent voice. And it was indeed, for as anyone in Cannis would know, these men—the face down one: Mammerk, the head of the Merchant Guild, the red-robed man: Baron Kraes Addern, one of the few members of the ruling Council of Cannis, and the blue-cloaked man: the Prelate, the head of the religious Order of the Light—were arguably the three most powerful men in the entire city, all now dead.

  “Aye, it’s as bad as it looks,” Strade said with a sigh.

  “What do you know about what happened, then, Lord Inspector?” Lock asked.

  “It happened about four hours ago—the official opening ceremony of the Revels, and invitation only,” Strade said, glancing around the Great Hall again. “Very traditional, very fancy…”

  “Very boring,” Wat mumbled, but Strade continued as if he hadn’t heard him.

  “They were announcing a new compact between three groups which haven’t always been on good terms—to unite the city in common purpose. So the three men walk up to the stage, each one to give a speech, and the baron begins his—but he barely gets halfway through when, according to witnesses, he begins to look uncomfortable, then starts shouting for someone to turn the noise off…though no noise was audible. Finally he collapses to the ground, dead as you can see here. The Prelate soon followed, and finally the merchant—though neither of them seemed to be complaining about noise.”

  “Any guesses?” Lock asked Wat, who had knelt down to examine the baron.

  Wat did not respond for several moments, face grim. “Not poisoned,” he said at last, “unless it’s a poison I never heard of. No stab wounds, no gunshot. No obvious disease, though who knows what sins he committed when he wasn’t giving speeches.” The goblin slang in Wat’s voice was gone, as it usually was when he was engaged as a healer instead of a brawler.

  “So he should still be walking,” Lock said with the hint of a smile.

  Wat did not return it. “Not likely. If I had to guess, I’d say his heart stopped.” He glanced up at Strade. “By force.”

  Strade looked back at Wat, brow furrowed. “And the others?”

  Wat examined Mammerk and the Prelate in the same way. “This one,” he finally said after a few minutes, pointing at the silk-covered man, “was poisoned. You see that white powder? Ellonis, if I had to guess.” He gestured at the fine white grains covering the silk.

  “The powder of silence,” Lock mused. “Easy to administer, about an hour to take effect, difficult to trace…”

  “Practically impossible to obtain and completely illegal,” Strade cut in, his mustache twitching. “What about the Prelate?”

  “Also poison,” Wat replied, looking at the man in the blue cloak, “but a different one—almost definitely graveflower.”

  Strade nodded slowly. “Witnesses said he began to cough uncontrollably shortly after the Baron fell. And there were goblets on the table, though only one of them was actually touched.”

  Lock raised an eyebrow. “All very clever, then. Three murders, largely untraceable, and no one nearby.”

  “Oh, there was someone,” Strade said. “Our prime suspects, in fact.” He looked towards the back of the stage, and for the first time Lock noticed three goblins standing there nervously, two guards next to them. Each looked like a small, goblin version of one of the three dead men, dressed in identical clothes.

  “Their servants?” Lock asked.

  Strade nodded. “The only possible answer. They were the only ones, other than a few guards my men already eliminated as suspects, near the victims—”

  “Victims,” Wat snorted, but Strade again ignored him.

  “—for at least an hour before the ceremony. And unlike them, the guards had no particular motive to do anything to any of these men.”

  “The goblins did?” Lock asked.

  Strade shrugged. “None of these men were known for their…tolerance of their own people, let alone goblins. The word is they were cruel to their servants, and took little trouble to
conceal it. And in Cannis, any goblin might have their own motives to attack the powerful.”

  “Why?” Wat asked, frowning.

  Strade pursed his lips. “You tell me,” he replied. “Or do you think the guard who tried to stop you from entering the Great Hall just now would have reacted the same way to two human strangers?”

  The scowl on Wat’s dark green face deepened, but he said nothing.

  “All right,” Lock replied, looking again at the goblin servants. “So you have your suspects…likely the murderers. Why summon us?”

  Strade’s mustache twitched again. “Because it doesn’t feel right,” he said, turning to look at his inspectors wandering through the Great Hall. “It’s too neat, too obvious. My men picked the goblins up almost an hour after the event, standing more or less right where you see them now, looking at each other and the bodies. They made no attempt to escape or resist.”

  “Resisting don’t end well here, Strade,” Wat said, back still turned to the other two.

  “Could be,” the Lord Inspector admitted. “But escape isn’t impossible in a city of this size, and this whole place was in chaos for a good long while. Who would have noticed three goblins making their way out?”

  “Who indeed,” Lock mused. “You interrogated them?”

  “Of course. They said very little…just repeated that everything seemed fine, then their masters fell, and then it was all confusion. Not much to go on.”

  “Especially when it’s coming from goblins,” Wat said, turning to face them.

  Strade rounded on Wat in evident fury. “Whatever you believe about Cannis or about me, Wat, you wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t in charge of this investigation. And if the Governor hadn’t been delayed getting back from the talks at Anneric, these goblins would already be dead.”

  Lock held up a hand to silence Wat, who was already warming up for his reply. “Then why not free them, if you don’t believe they did it?”

  “Because I’m not sure,” Strade said, somewhat more quietly. “The most powerful people in Cannis were at this ceremony, and they want blood now, before word gets out and unrest spreads. And it’s not just about me. If I execute the goblins, and word of that gets out, Cannis will know that the city officially believes that goblins were responsible for assassinating three of its most prominent figures. There are already some voices on the Council talking about ‘purifying’ Cannis.” Wat rolled his eyes as Strade continued. “If that opinion becomes widely held, it will be dangerous to be a goblin in Cannis.”