Changeling Justice

by Frank Hurt

  “You will settle down now, Barnaby Harrison, and you will entertain my questions with honest answers. Do this, and I may release you. Fail, and I will keep you here, locked away from your eternal rest.”

  The ghost withdrew then with a shriek. “You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t curse one of your own to such a fate.”

  Ember canted her head. A resilient last tear dropped from her jaw when she said, “So we are peers now, is that right?”

  The ghost’s expression didn’t change, but she was sure it scowled. “We are both Inquisitors, that much is undeniable.”

  “Good. That leads to my first question: why were Investigators called Inquisitors during your time.”

  The ghost canted his head and studied her. “You jest with the dead?”

  “I won’t jest with you, Barnaby. Serious inquiries only.”

  “There have always been Inquisitors. Three levels of Investigator, followed by Inquisitor, Grand Inquisitor, and Supreme Inquisitor. Only a Grand or higher can wake the dead.” He peered at Ember and crossed his arms. “Especially one who has been dead for as long as I.”

  She combed her fingers through her hair, tugging twigs, needles, and juniper berries from her golden scalp. “There are only three ranks for Investigator, Barnaby.”

  The ghost scoffed. “Hogwash. You are beyond ill-informed, little girl.”

  “You’re a very rude spirit.” Ember flicked a juniper berry at the ghost. It sailed through the transparent form and ricocheted off his headstone. “Were you this rude when you were alive?”

  “You call me rude? You, who breaks my eternal slumber, then threatens to imprison me?”

  “Brilliant. Fair enough.” Ember bit her lip and shrugged. “Moving right along. So, let’s say there are six levels in the Investigator Track—”

  “There are, little girl.”

  “If that were so, why has nobody heard of this?”

  “Nobody living, perhaps,” Barnaby growled. “In my time and back through history—back when the Druws descended from Celtic Druids in ancient times—always, all Mage Tracks had six levels. Tell me, little girl, why would it make more sense for the Investigator Track to have only three when all others have six?”

  “I asked that of course when I was young. The answer is simple: Investigators work for the Druw High Council, serving the Council’s Justice. The Investigator Track is not a fully-formed Mage Track as the Council collectively fills those roles.”

  The ghost laughed loudly. She knew only she could hear it, but that didn’t stop her from looking around the cemetery, to be sure nobody else was listening.

  “Lies. Whoever filled your pretty little skull with such lies is a buffoon.” Barnaby walked through his headstone, waving his hands on either side, seemingly for his own amusement. “The Investigator Track is equal to all of the other Mage Tracks, combined. Inquisitors though…ah, Inquisitors serve nobody. We keep the balance of power, serving only justice. We seek out corruption and snuff it out before it takes root like a cancer.”

  Barnaby’s empty eyes looked over to stare straight at Ember. “The Supreme Inquisitor sits at the head of the Druw High Council, keeping their power in check.”

  “No.” Ember shook her head. “No, that can’t be true. Investigators serve the High Council, enforcing its law for the good of Druwish people.” Even as she uttered the common rationale, the words sounded hollow in her head. Why haven’t I questioned this with more insistence? Why hasn’t anyone else?

  Night was settling in. Ember heard the songs of distant coyotes. Coyotes. Alarik. Shite, he is still waiting for me!

  “I can’t stay longer, Barnaby. I’m sorry that I will have to call upon you again soon. I have so many questions. More questions now than I had before.”

  Barnaby’s growl was the sound of one piece of sandpaper slowly massaged against another.

  “I know, I know,” Ember sighed. “I will let you rest for now, but I will have to call you again. I’m sorry that you died in that construction accident. I wish you could somehow still be alive. I think things somehow might be different.”

  “Accident?” Barnaby leaned over Ember. “I died of no accident, little girl. I was pushed from a tall building. I know who pushed me, too.”

  15

  It was Supposed to be Me

  “Ember, what the hell?” Alarik jumped out of his pickup to meet her as she approached. “Are you okay? Did your contact beat you up?”

  “I’m fine. Just…tired. Sorry it took so long.” She could hear the weariness in her own voice. She was spent from the lengthy conversation with Barnaby. Calling on a spirit which had been at rest for 112 years took more mana than she had expected.

  “Let’s get you home.” He didn’t sound convinced by her explanation, but he didn’t press, either.

  Standing up to the ghost of a combative Inquisitor took everything Ember had. Her energy—both mana and physical—was drained. She laid her head against the tan leather headrest and stared out the side window.

  “I suppose you won’t tell me how it went?” Alarik drove west on Highway 2, his headlights illuminating the way. “Did you learn anything that can help my brother?”

  Ember lolled her head lazily. “I’m sorry…I can’t say. I’ll have to meet with him again.” She mentally went over the conversation with Barnaby, his declaration that he had been murdered. He couldn’t remember the name of the man who killed him, but he remembered the man’s face. It would come back to him, now that he was awakened. Barnaby declined to return his spirit to rest so that he could coalesce further and remember. Even in death, the Inquisitor was driven by the quest for justice.

  It was just as well, as she would have needed to wake him when she visited him next. The act of calling upon a century-old spirit wasn’t something she wanted to engage in any more than necessary. She hoped she would not need to speak with the ghost of Barnaby Harrison more than twice. Rude old misogynistic bugger, that’s what he is.

  “You’re trembling, Ember.” The concern in Alarik’s observation was undeniable. “Let’s stop to get something to eat before I take you home. Would that help?”

  “I could eat,” Ember admitted. “But I’ve got food at home.”

  He laughed. “Junk food, maybe. I saw your apartment, remember? Come on, my treat. Schatz’s Crossroads is just up ahead to the left. It’s a truck stop with a twenty-four-hour diner. It’s rib-sticking good food.”

  “Something must be lost in translation, because rib-sticking doesn’t sound terribly palatable, Rik.”

  She was hungrier than she thought, and the plate of hot food disappeared quickly. “Chicken fried steak” Alarik called it. Whatever you want to call it, it made the trembling stop.

  Alarik sipped a ceramic mug of black coffee and watched her work on the mashed potatoes and gravy. “So, you can’t tell me anything, huh? I’m just a chauffeur to you?”

  Ember looked up, her mouth half stuffed. She shrugged apologetically and talked around her food. “Wish I could.”

  “So, why don’t you? Don’t you trust me?”

  She swallowed. “I do. Sure. A little at a time. I trust you more today than I did yesterday. That’s something, yeah?”

  He shook his head and looked out at the brightly-lit parking lot, where semi-trucks lined up at the diesel fuel islands. “Unbelievable.”

  “Hey, you need to know that this thing…whatever it is…the less you know, the better. For you and for me.”

  “I want to help, Ember. I can do more than just drive you around.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward the center of the table. “I know the other guys who were hired to go to Mandaree with Arnie.”

  “You do?”

  He nodded once. “They know me, they trust me. A whole lot more than they would trust a cute Malvern stranger who wants to interrogate them with a bearded prick.”

  “Dennis was not my choice, you know that.” Ember scraped the last of the mashed potatoes with the edge of her fork, blading them into a neat furro
w. “But he truly is a bearded prick, you’ve got that part right.”

  Alarik continued his lobbying when they were back in his Ford. “All I’m saying is that you’d have a lot more luck getting face-to-face with these guys if I’m the one introducing you. He looked square at her before he started the vehicle. “I want to help.”

  Ember narrowed her gaze as she studied the man’s aura. “Tell me why. Why do you want to help?”

  “For my brother, of course.” Alarik looked away from Ember’s penetrating gaze and glanced at his dash as it lit up. The engine rumbled to life and the air conditioner kicked in with a soft hiss. “For Arnie.”

  Ember touched the back of his hand, stopping him as he prepared to pull the transmission out of Park. She said it quietly, hoping to reassure him. “Please tell me the truth, Rik.”

  He looked down at her hand, so small and soft against the back of his tanned, rough skin. “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Not all of it. Or did you forget that I’m an Investigator?” She spoke so quietly, she wondered if he would even be able to hear her over the din of the beefy engine.

  Alarik looked out his passenger window, opened his mouth, closed it. When he looked back at her, his eyes were wet. “Can we…can we just not right now? I’ll get you home.”

  She briefly squeezed her hand around his wrist. “I need your help, Rik. But we need to trust one another if there’s any chance of us helping Arnie.”

  He withdrew his hand from her grip and ran his fingers through his thick, shaggy hair. He said nothing for a full minute, but Ember knew to be patient. Finally, he said, “I’ve never told anyone this. The only one who knows is Arnie, and I don’t even know that he remembers it.”

  Cool air blew softly from the pickup’s round, silver-grey vents. It was fresh air chasing the cabin’s trapped heat away.

  Alarik breathed in deeply, held the air in his lungs, and then exhaled. He looked up at the headliner of his pickup’s cabin, evidently unwilling to look at his confessor. “When the whole Mandaree Incident happened, it was all over the news. ‘A toxic gas cloud,’ they said. It made headlines all over the country throughout 2001. Nobody seemed to know what caused it, or if anyone was still alive beneath the cloud, or hell, whether it would spread. The whole area was quarantined off because anyone who tried to go in didn’t come back out. Didn’t matter if they wore hazmat suits or not. They just disappeared in the fog. This went on for a month or so.”

  “Then, sometime in February, someone from the Viceroyalty called me. Said they were looking for volunteers—changelings who were willing to earn some fast cash in service of the Druwish people. He rattled off some patriotic cheerleading speech, but wouldn’t tell me anything more than that.”

  Alarik shook his head, remembering. “I was busy and wasn’t interested, but I knew Arnie would be. He had two babies and a wife, and he was always short of cash. So, I gave the guy my brother’s phone number.”

  “Who?” Ember felt goosebumps forming. “Who offered you this job?”

  “I don’t know,” Alarik shook his head in frustration as he finally looked at her. His face was painted with grief. “I don’t know, just some guy from the embassy I guess. But don’t you get it? I need to help you, ‘cause I need to make things right. I was the one who he called, but I didn’t go. I sent my brother instead.”

  “Arnie never should’ve gone.” The man looked out the driver’s side window, his focus lost in the beyond darkness. “It was supposed to be me.”

  16

  Woke Up in September

  Droplets splashed on the window’s sill. Ember opened all the windows in her apartment to invite the fresh scent and sounds of the gentle spring storm into her living quarters. The overcast weather reminded her of home, and she was taking full advantage of the setting to decompress from a rough first week. God, could it really have only been a week since I arrived here? So much has happened, it’s small wonder I’m so exhausted.

  On the coffee table, a mug steamed with freshly-brewed coffee flavored with a splash of cream. A packaged sampling of pastries from the Sweet and Flour were nibbled on, as though there was a curious rodent in the apartment eagerly consuming them. The young Malvern woman lounged on the couch, Kindle suspended in one hand and a warm almond bear claw in the other.

  She was midway through one of her favorite novels—The Lonesome Gods—when the phone rang. It was the embassy-provided cell phone. She stared at it for three rings, trying to will it to cease, to leave her alone with Louis L’Amour so she could enjoy her relaxing, rainy Saturday morning. When that didn’t work, she flipped the phone open and answered.

  “Ember Wright? This is Bartholomew Samson with the Department of External Investigations.”

  “What can I do for you, Bartholomew?” Ember swallowed a sip of coffee and tried to sound calm, though her mind raced. Why would they be calling me? On a Saturday, no less.

  “I need you to come down to the Parker at once, please. I have some questions we need to ask you.”

  She felt the blood drain from her face and her head felt light. If she wasn’t sitting down, Ember might have fainted right then. She cleared her throat. “Questions? That…well that sounds serious. You can’t ask me questions over the phone?”

  “No, ma’am. I need you to come to my office right now. We’re located on the Seventh Floor of the embassy. Unless you are refusing to comply?” The voice on the other end nearly sounded hopeful that Ember would refuse.

  “This is just unusual, that’s all.” Ember rubbed her cheek with an open palm but feigned a confident tone. “Of course, I’ll comply. I will be right there once I get changed.”

  There was little use stressing, but she stressed anyway. She was sure that she and Alarik had been careful when they slipped away to Surrey yesterday. Apparently, the little spies were more effective than she had given them credit.

  Her Saturday relaxation plans were obliterated. Ember dressed, pulled on her jacket, and walked the four blocks to the embassy in the rain. She was thoroughly soaked when she arrived at The Parker Suites. She wished that she would have had enough foresight to buy an umbrella since it wasn’t practical to bring one of hers from Great Malvern. Honestly, Ember, you’re an Englishwoman who doesn’t own an umbrella. Have you no shame?

  Director Samson at least had the decency to offer her a towel to dry her matted hair. She hung her saturated jacket on the back of the chair next to her, letting it drip onto the Berber carpet in his office.

  “As according to Druwish Law, it is requisite that you report any external relations with NonDruw people when they become or have the potential to become intimate.” The man sniffed as he looked at his computer screen. He wore glasses on the tip of his nose, but he never seemed to look through the lenses. His gaze flitted between his monitor to Ember, always looking just above the rim of his wire spectacles.

  Ember was studying the man right back. He was a mage, perhaps 120-140 years old. His aura looked clean and healthy—no sign of any shadow, no smudge. She wasn’t sure if this meant he was working with Director Higginbotham, or if he was a completely innocent—if irritating—man just doing his job.

  “I’m an Associate Investigator, Director Samson. I know Druwish Law as well as anybody, so you don’t need to recite it line and section.” Ember tried to keep her annoyance in check. Her clothes were sticking to her skin, soaked through as she was. “We’re not intimate, not that it’s any of your concern. Rik’s a changeling, and last I checked I am under no obligation to report such a relationship.”

  The man furrowed his brow. He had a tuft of hair above the bridge of his nose, between his eyebrows, which Ember couldn’t help but stare at. The ridges that formed on his forehead when he frowned elevated the furry copse. Bartholomew read from his computer monitor. “This inquiry concerns one NonDruw male, by the name of Cooper Severson. Do you deny knowing him?”

  Ember silently cursed herself for volunteering information. She blamed her uncomfortable drench
ed state, but it was an amateur mistake to mention Alarik without his name being brought up by her interrogator.

  “No, I admit to knowing Cooper, sure.” Ember ran her fingers through matted hair, trying to untangle it. “We are simply casual friends, what of it?”

  “If there is a potential for this relationship to…develop into intimacy, you need to file a report with this office, Miss Wright.” The director gave her a judgmental look. “If you do elect to have an intimate relationship with a NonDruw, you will be obligated by law to have your mana suppressed. Failure to do so voluntarily will result in forcible—”

  “As I said, I know Druwish Law well.” Ember glared at the director as she interrupted. Was he threatening me? Is this Director Higginbotham’s doing, trying to intimidate me?

  “Very well.” Director Samson and his proto-unibrow peered at her above his glasses. “Then tell me about this changeling, Rik. You are aware that procreating with a changeling would result in offspring with…diminished capacity. A coupling between Malvern and changeling can only produce changeling children.”

  Ember stood up abruptly, almost knocking her chair over. She placed her hands on the edge of the man’s desk and leaned forward, letting wet tendrils of hair drip onto the assembled papers. She fixed her glare and said, “You judgmental, little man. How dare you suggest that a changeling child is somehow diminished when compared to a mage.”

  “Miss Wright! I never—”

  “And furthermore, even if I am dating a changeling it’s absolutely no business of the Department of External Relations. Last time I checked, changelings are Druws, ergo such relationships do not fall under the definition of ‘external.’ So, unless you have any further questions, I am going to leave you and your petty bigotry while I go out and enjoy what’s left of my weekend.”

  Ember didn’t wait for permission. She grabbed her jacket and marched out of his office, leaving a flabbergasted Bartholomew to salvage what he could of the papers soaking in the puddle on his desk.