Changeling Justice

by Frank Hurt

  Ember accepted the coaster without looking down. She met Anna’s eyes and saw barely-contained grief. As curious as she was, Ember knew not to make any further inquiries here. She said, “thank you, Anna. I can't pretend to know what's going on, but I promise you I won't stop until justice is served."

  Anna's fierce, dusky raptor eyes met Ember's. "You'd better be telling the truth, mage. Our family's been through enough misery already." Anna turned away, wiped the back of a calloused hand over her cheek and said no more.

  Alarik Schmitt’s small farmstead was about a half-dozen miles north of Plaza, just as Anna’s sketched map promised. Rows of aging elm and pine formed the shelterbelt to the north and west, protecting an old red-and-white gambrel barn from the prairie’s prevailing winds. Gravel crunched in protest beneath Ember’s SUV as she turned into the yard.

  She approached the front door of the farmhouse. Its roof had a steep pitch, clad in modern shingles. The siding and windows looked newer too—a modern facelift over old bones. Aside from the updates, the house looked to be a contemporary to the old barn. Both structures were much older than the other outbuildings. She imagined the early homesteaders working their small patch of land, planting seedlings that would cast shadows for future generations they would never meet.

  Ember curled her hand into a fist and reached for the door. Before she could knock, a man’s voice startled her.

  “Over here.” The voice belonged to a lean figure, tall with broad shoulders. His square jaw was coated with stubble, slightly darker than the shaggy, brown hair on his head. A narrow band across his forehead was the only clean patch on him.

  Ember blinked to reveal the changeling’s subform: a coyote. “I’m Ember Wright. You must be Alarik Schmitt?”

  The man lifted his chin, his nostrils flaring as he smelled the air. He pulled off a pair of leather elbow-length gauntlets that may have once been beige. His grimy sleeves were peppered with tiny burn holes. “Anna called. You want to know about Arnie?”

  As she walked toward him, the acrid scent of burnt flux and smoke wafted off Alarik. The unfamiliar medley tickled her nose. Ember quickly turned away and sneezed.

  It was only a moment, but when she closed her eyes to sneeze, she saw him: a man standing nearby on a narrow fence post, watching her. With her eyes open, a crow took its place. Not just any crow.

  Ember pretended not to notice the spy. She felt sure that she had lost him, but clearly, she hadn’t.

  “Ember?” Alarik’s head was canted, his brow furrowed.

  “Huh? Yeah, sorry.” Ember swept a lock of blonde hair from her face as she shook her head. “I must be allergic to you. Were you playing with fireworks or something?”

  The man grunted. “Or something. My brother and I own a welding truck. We’re doing a lot of oilfield work now that drilling around the Williston Basin is picking back up. Arnie used to run his own truck, but now he just helps me out when he can. He’s not exactly functioning at full capacity anymore since he breathed in…whatever those chemicals were.”

  “I see.” Ember glanced at the crow. That arsehole is listening.

  “I’m sorry,” Alarik said. “I thought you wanted to talk about my brother’s disability?”

  “What? No, no. I’m just here for an audit of the census. You and your brother just came up as part of a random sample. I just need to ask a few questions to verify your place of residence.”

  The man frowned, “That’s not what you told—”

  Ember interrupted. “You know, I’m so sorry, I think I ate something undercooked for breakfast. I’m feeling unwell, like I might have to chunder. Could I use your loo?”

  “My loo?”

  “Your…washroom? Bathroom?”

  “Oh. Right. Uh…yeah, sure. It’s just inside, off the living room to the left.”

  “Brilliant.” Ember turned toward the house, then turned back. “Would you mind terribly if you showed me? I don’t much feel comfortable wandering around your house unattended.”

  Now Alarik seemed annoyed, but he shrugged and held the door open for her. As soon as the front door closed behind him, Ember spun around.

  “Listen, I know this won’t make any sense, but you need to trust me. We’re being watched.”

  The white band of clean skin on Alarik’s forehead formed ridges as he frowned. He sniffed the air and began to glance out the window.

  “No! Don’t look now. It’s a crow on your fence. He’s a changeling, and he has been following me since Minot. He’s spying for someone. Someone bad.”

  “How can you be sure—”

  “I’m sorry, I just don’t have time to explain right now.” Ember looked up at a skeptical Alarik. She knew she had to give him something. I’m asking him to trust me, but how much can I trust him?

  “Okay.” Ember inhaled deeply. She ran her fingers through her hair as she paced down the hallway, away from the window. “What I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room, understand? The census audit is just my cover story. I was sent by a member of the Druw High Council to solve a mystery. In so doing, I’ve stumbled upon some sort of cover-up.”

  She locked eyes with the man. “All I can tell you—all I know right now, really—is that I suspect your brother’s disability is somehow connected to an industrial accident that happened in 2001.”

  “Yeah, and tell me something I don’t know.” Alarik glared and crossed his arms. In that moment, the resemblance to his sister was uncanny.

  “Wait—you’re aware of what caused your brother’s disability?”

  “Somewhat.” Alarik shrugged, his arms still crossed. He glanced up at the ceiling as though he was drawing memories from an invisible shelf. “All we know is that when that whole gas leak happened around Mandaree in late 2000, Arnie was hired along with some other changelings to slip past law enforcement to check it out. He was told that it was important. Vitally important. It was for the sake of the whole Druwish colony, all that bullshit. The only reason I know any of this is because Arnie confided in me before he left. The whole thing was all hush-hush.”

  “Told by who? Who asked him to do all this?” Ember suspected she knew.

  “I don’t know. Some asshole Malvern from the embassy in Minot is my guess. What do they care about changeling lives.” He scowled.

  “So, what happened to Arnie?”

  Alarik’s jaw clenched. His dark umber eyes glared at Ember. “He disappeared for nine months. My brother’s head has been fucking scrambled ever since. Nobody will tell us what happened, or how we can help him. My little brother has a wife, two little kids. He used to be ambitious and happy. But now…he’s practically a zombie now.”

  Ember spoke softly, choosing her words with care. “I’m guessing the Department of Wellness hasn’t been very helpful?”

  Alarik laughed mirthlessly. He hit his fist against the wall with a dull thud. “They tell us that there’s nothing they can do for him. They won’t even give him treatments at the spa anymore. Like giving my brother temporary relief is a big waste of time or precious Leystones.”

  It was Ember’s turn to frown. “They can’t deny Arnie access to treatment. That’s a right of all Druws, to recharge at a Ley Line facility whenever they wish. That’s guaranteed in Druwish Law.”

  “Not around here it isn’t,” he growled. “Not if you’re someone who asks too many questions. Not if you’re a changeling.”

  “That’s wrong of them. I’ll look into that, I promise you. Now I’d really like to meet Arnie, if I may?”

  Alarik slowly tilted his head back, and then forward. His appraising gaze never left her. “Alright, but not today. He and his family are living with my folks. Anna and I are going to be there when you talk to him.”

  “That’s understandable. Thank you, Rik. Can we do this tomorrow afternoon, please? Sooner is better.”

  Alarik agreed. He wrote an address on the back of a Schmitt Brothers Welding business card. He paused before opening the door for her and growled low. “Y
ou’d better not be jerking my family around.”

  The crow was still outside, still watching when Ember returned to her car. She patted her satchel and called out with as much feigned cheer as she could muster. “On behalf of the Viceroyalty, thank you for completing this census survey, Mr. Schmitt.”

  “This is all very troubling,” Wallace murmured on the other end of the telephone line. “Very troubling. So, am I correct in guessing that this means that you’re staying in Minot, after all?”

  Ember held the cheap pay-as-you-go cell phone against her right ear. The cord for the charger was plugged into her Honda’s power port beneath the dash, keeping the fresh battery alive for its maiden use. Along with some groceries in the back seat, these gadgets were among her purchases from the southside Walmart in Minot. She had just finished recapping the day’s events to Wallace as she sat in the car.

  She didn’t hesitate to answer. “I know I made a fuss about wanting to come home, but I need to stay. I need to find out what’s going on. I need to help these people find justice. I’ll admit that I’m still scared, but…I don’t think I could leave even if I was ordered to.”

  Wallace’s words were slow, measured. “You can’t begin to know how grateful I am to hear that, Ember.”

  “It’s just so many coincidences, Wallace.” Ember kept glancing around the Walmart parking lot, expecting at any point to see a crow looking back at her. She could smell her own body odor heating up after the intense day. She didn’t dare crack a window to let in the cool evening air, lest her conversation was overheard. “It’s a coincidence, how I accidentally came across the Incident at Mandaree case file, or how I stumbled across and then remembered Arnold Schmitt’s name before my access to the database was culled. Running into his sister as the very first person I talked to in Plaza. Or, bloody hell, the fact that I was already heading toward Plaza when I came out of his spell; it was like my subconscious was taking over because the rest of me was all loopy.”

  Ember sighed, closing her eyes as she scanned the parking lot again. “I’m just glad Higginbotham was sloppy with his spell, whatever it was. If it would have taken root properly, I probably wouldn’t even be talking with you right now. I’d be another rude drone like Duncan and the others.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Wallace sounded contemplative. “Elton Higginbotham is no novice. He’s a Level Six Healer, one of the few to exist in the world.”

  “So why do you suppose his spell wore off so quickly?”

  “I’m given to suspect that you were the reason it wore off so quickly, Ember.”

  She didn’t know how to respond, so the woman allowed silence to linger.

  “It’s no mere coincidence that you pulled that file, Ember. Nor that some part of you knew to follow that particular lead, even with whatever dark magic you were fighting through. You’ve got Investigator’s Instinct. It’s common among high-level Investigators. How do you think I earned that silly nickname: The Legend? I have a knack for discovering coincidences that become patterns which I’m in turn able to recognize and piece together to solve cases. I don’t always know where a case will take me, but I know when I’m on the right path. It’s an intangible sense.”

  “Yeah, except I’m not high-level; I’m just an Associate. Level Two.”

  “Ember, that’s merely what you’ve tested for. What you’re capable of is far beyond your current rank. You have to know this, don’t you?”

  Some part of her did. Ember knew, after all, that she was able to visualize auras in ways that no other Druw could. Changelings could sense other Druws—the way Anna back at the bar had identified Ember as a Malvern—but they couldn’t outright see auras. Likewise, nobody but her could see the subform of a changeling.

  Wallace continued. “I’m going to tell you something that I’ve known since the day I met you. I think you need to hear this now. Do you recall the day we met, Ember?”

  “Of course I remember, Wallace. I’d just turned 13 all those, what, 21 years ago. My Test Day. You pointed out how terrible I was at all the other tracks but Investigation.”

  Wallace snorted.

  Ember combed her fingers through her hair as she reminisced. “That day changed my life. Your findings gave me a sense of purpose in the world.”

  “Do you remember that I told you how you rated in the other Magic Tracks?

  “Yes. Poorly, as I recall.”

  “When we test young Malverns, the scale we use to measure each level is logarithmic; approximately doubling with each new level. Almost every mage scores at least a couple points in each Track. Level One is one to three points, Level Two is four to nine points, Level Three is nine to eighteen points. That’s where the Investigation Track ends, though the other Mage Tracks continue through Level Six, which tops out at about 150 points.”

  Ember nodded as she quietly listened.

  “Bearing in mind this just measures potential capabilities among candidates, as each Malvern must prove themselves by passing a test to proceed through each level, as you know.”

  Ember wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but she indulged him. “I remember. It’s been twelve years since I became a Novice Investigator, but it was only a few months ago when I was allowed to take the Level Two test to become an Associate Investigator.”

  “Indeed.” Papers rustled on Wallace’s end of the conversation. “And even this was half as many years as usually is allowed for that test to be offered. We have to be careful.”

  Ember smiled. “I know. You remind me of that often.”

  “With good reason. Do you remember on your Test Day when I told you that you had to be careful, that you had to keep your skills secret?”

  “I remember you said that I rated higher than you were officially reporting. Later, you told me that when you had found other children who tested as high as I did, that they disappeared—that you suspected someone was eliminating high-rated Investigators before they could get trained in. That’s why I’ve had to keep my skills a secret even from my parents, to this day.”

  “You’ve got that mostly correct Ember. The part I never told you is that I could never say what your true rating is.” Wallace tapped his fingers against his desk. He murmured, “You’d think that after all these years, I would have thought of the perfect way to tell you this.”

  “As you always tell me,” Ember shifted her voice down to a cartoonishly low octave to mimic his. “Ember, stop chewing and spit it out.”

  Wallace snorted again. “Fair enough. The Investigation Track ends at Level Three. When I tested over a century ago, I rated at the upper end of the scale: something like 18 points, if I recall. I don’t tell people that, because it sounds too much like boasting, as I’m one of the highest-rated Investigators in the world.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. There’s a reason you’re called The Legend.”

  “Yes, that silly nickname. Well, my point here is that whatever my rating is, it pales in comparison to yours.”

  “What do you mean?” Ember’s heart rate suddenly doubled.

  “I mean that I can’t tell you what your true rating is because our scale doesn’t go that high. You literally tested off the charts.”

  12

  Not a Whole Clan

  “’Ello, Guv’ner!” Joy’s wide smile greeted Ember before she even stepped off the elevator. Her chosen dialect this morning was a sordid bastardization of exaggerated Cockney and Pidgin. “I’m a’fearin’ there won’t be time fer wee chit chat, ‘cause you’ll be wantin’ by the boss, see?”

  “Morning, Joy.” Ember shook her head and continued walking to her office. She couldn’t muster an appreciation for the young woman’s antics. Too much was on her mind, and too little time to spare.

  “Um, sorry. You’re wanted by the boss. Duncan. He said to tell you to come to his office right away when I see you.”

  Ember bypassed her office, walking straight to the Senior Investigator’s. She wondered if he was about to deal her in on the game tha
t was being played by Director Higginbotham. For all they knew, after all, she was still under the effects of Elton’s spell. She would act the part, and in so doing become privy to the dark doings. As nervous as she was to see Duncan again, she couldn’t help but feel a hint of excitement. Today is the day I blow this whole cover-up wide open.

  Brown, crew-cut hair capped six-and-a-half feet of muscle standing outside of the Senior Investigator’s office. The changeling man’s full beard was dark but couldn’t hide his grim expression. Ember blinked to reveal his badger subform. His aura was clean, with no hint of shadow.

  “Ah, good. Come in, come in.” Duncan stood up from his desk, pulling a pair of reading glasses off and tossing them onto a calendar pad. “It seems someone had a little oversight that needs fixing. I’ll be needing your car keys.”

  “Oh? Under what grounds?” Ember wasn’t sure she liked where this conversation was heading. I don’t need two guesses as to who ordered this.

  “Yes. So, you know the embassy provided you with a loaner car, but apparently, we failed to realize that you do not have a valid North Dakota driver’s license. Since you won’t be here more than—what, a couple months—it doesn’t make sense to waste time trying to arrange for you to take the necessary test and all that.” Duncan waved his hand dismissively at his desk.

  “As part of my external audit, I was told I would be afforded the means to travel.” She knew she had to moderate her tone. She was, after all, supposedly still under the Director’s dark spell. “How can I get around town, around the countryside to interview citizens if I have no car?”

  “A fine point. Not to worry, as we have you covered.” Duncan snapped his fingers once. The imposing changeling stepped into the office. From her angle, Ember didn’t see much clearance between the door’s head and the man’s. “This is Dennis. He normally works in Security, but he will serve as your driver for the rest of your time here in the Magic City. Anywhere you need to go, Dennis will take you. Service with a smile.”