The Conspiracy of Unicorns

by Michael Angel

  This poison was a regular witches’ brew. The chemical analysis listed more than sixty complex, exotic proteins. They included toxic compounds that were cytolytic, dermonecrotic, or nociceptive. In other words, there was stuff in here that would burst cells open, cause the skin to die and slough off, and open the throttle on the pain receptors.

  I’d never seen anything like this. Neither had the analysis program in the computer.

  But at least they had something in common. Everything listed here was organically derived. This wasn’t some nightmare substance dreamed up in a drug lab. This came from somewhere in nature, and it was even worse than wyvern venom.

  It took me a couple more minutes to select the deadliest items listed and feed them into the online O-Chem database. I let things crunch away there while Shelly continued explaining the virtues of ultrahigh vacuum in the background.

  “See, if y’all needed to isolate something out of a suspension,” she went on, “Then you’d just put the sample here to get it done.”

  A horsey snort came in reply. “That does sound like it makes things très facile.”

  I decided to go through the remaining, relatively benign items listed in the report.

  One line jumped out at me: the presence of a suite of organic proteins called bromophenols. At the elemental level, these were phenols which had swapped out a hydrogen atom for a bromine one. Above that level, I mostly knew that they threw off specific aromas. Bromophenols were released from drying seaweed and algae, which gave the seashore its distinctive salt-and-decaying-plant smell.

  I cast my mind back to the crime scene. Was this even relevant? I hadn’t smelled anything like that.

  But Liam had. He’d said that something had smelled both salty and grassy, but he’d misattributed it to the crushed grass around the body. The grass that Master Dekanos had torn to ribbons in his death convulsions.

  I chewed on that for a bit more. Even if bromophenols had been present, they weren’t the least bit toxic. I even used them in the lab, in a dye called ‘bromophenol blue’. That was because the one thing that this type of substance did best was fix blue, green, or violet colors to any surface. I’d ruined more than one lab coat that way. A whole application of bleach wouldn’t get the stain off plastic, leather, fabric…

  That made me sit up straighter. A horrible suspicion began to bubble up in the back of my mind. I tried my best to douse it, but I didn’t yet have anything more to go on than a vague hunch.

  The screen next to me flashed as the online database finally pulled up its results. Three of the proteins I’d plugged in were present in the skin secretions of the poison dart frog. Half could be found in pit viper venom. But every single one of the items on that horrible list were present in a sting from the irukandji jellyfish.

  That name wasn’t familiar to me. I pulled up a web browser and did a search. In a blink, the information came back. The irukandji also went under the names ‘box jellyfish’ or ‘sea wasp’. They killed five times more people every year than sharks, and that was in their primary range from the Philippines into the South and Central Pacific.

  “Now, some people prefer gas-spectrum,” Shelly droned on behind me. “That’s just foolishness.”

  My stomach took a dip as I read and re-read the information. I felt my heartbeat speeding up, the pounding starting to echo in my ears. The Pacific was a big place, but I didn’t know anyone who’d been there recently.

  No one human, anyway.

  And that someone had a pair of hand-crafted saddlebags. Bags that had been stained bright purple by local villagers. What were the odds that they had a chemical dye plant somewhere in the archipelago? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to squeeze the dye out of locally available sources of bromophenols, like shellfish?

  A French-accented voice kept popping into my head, and after a moment I remembered Shelly’s dinner party.

  They were farmers, for the most part…They could make fine jewelry from what they harvested there. Or even more interesting things.

  What other ‘interesting things’ could the islanders make? Especially when the ocean surrounding them was smack in the middle of irukandji territory?

  I did learn much from them while I was there.

  What did he learn?

  I’ve been collecting things both strange and useful.

  Strange. And useful.

  My head began to pound. I put my hands to my cheeks, felt them burn hot. An awful feeling rose inside of me, building like a wave. This was crazy! I couldn’t suspect another one of my friends. Not after Holly. Not again.

  There was no way I could. The timeline didn’t add up. The rigor said ‘death’ from hours before, when you knew were everyone was. You couldn’t argue with rigor mortis.

  I managed to grab the edge of the counter as the awful feeling hit full force, right along with one of my head’s odd clicks.

  Of course. I’d almost missed it. I’d flubbed both basic chemistry and elemental forensic science, the stuff they taught in the first year of graduate school. I could’ve kicked myself.

  Take the forensics part first. Dekanos had died and fallen on his right side. When Galen and I had rolled him over, all I’d seen was pale skin and flesh. It had bothered me, because I’d missed the purplish signs of postmortem lividity. Had the unicorn been there for hours, I’d have seen the classic purple markings as the blood pooled into the interstitial tissues of the body.

  Then take the chemistry part next. You could meddle with the onset of rigor mortis. One way was to release massive amounts of potassium into the bloodstream. That would lock the muscles up in minutes, not hours.

  Master Dekanos had been dead no more than ten or twenty minutes by the time we’d arrived. The pooka could have easily slipped away. In fact, he’d been gone for several minutes between his examination by Master Summoner and Enchanter and his return to the Tree of Thaumata. More than enough time to slip in and poison the Senior Archmage.

  In the clean room, Shelly had moved on to extoling the virtues of her next new toy. She still sounded as bubbly as a little girl with a brand-new set of dolls. Only, something strange occurred to me.

  I hadn’t heard Destry’s voice in a while.

  The springs in the seat of my chair made a creak as I slowly turned around.

  The pooka stood right behind me, reading over my shoulder.

  I felt the blood drain out of my face.

  A deep, horsey snort echoed in the room. Inside my head, I heard Destry’s voice. Only this time, it held the unmistakable hint of menace.

  “Looks like you have a bad case of the frights, ma chére.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The pooka’s tail flicked back and forth, as if trying to gauge something unknown.

  So was I. In fact, I was abruptly aware that I had no weapons on me. And there wasn’t much I could do to harm an ethereal creature should he suddenly turn hostile.

  A block of ice formed in my stomach at that thought.

  “Destry,” I said, trying my best to sound casual, “how did the people from the pearling village fix that color to the bags they gave you?”

  He made the tiniest of shrugs. “I told you, the islanders farmed mollusques. All kinds of sea creatures with shells. Some, when crushed, make this marvelous dye.”

  “It was a nice gesture,” I said, as I slowly got to my feet. Destry took a couple of steps back as I did so. “You know, it was interesting seeing what you’d been collecting in one of your saddlebags.”

  “You mean my spoons. Yes, I knew you’d like them.”

  “Yes, I did. And that made me want to ask you something.”

  “What is that?”

  “Can I see what you’ve been collecting in your other saddlebag?”

  He turned his body away from me, blocking access to that flank. He stepped back again even as I moved towards him. His tail flicked again, this time more abruptly.

  “I do not think so. There is nothing of interest to you there.”


  “Destry,” I said, hating myself a little even as I spoke, “we’re supposed to be friends, right? What could the harm be?”

  “We are supposed to be, yes,” he said, though his voice caught on the words. “But you have a very firm hand with your friends. I have seen it before.”

  “Yes, you have. When you first phased into my bedroom. I had you turn around, so I could get dressed. That’s the trademark move of the pooka, isn’t it? The ability to move through solid walls? And in your case, you can even manipulate small objects with your magic. Very small objects. Say, like…an eyedropper? A syringe, maybe?”

  His nicker came from deep in his throat. “Say what you wish, Dayna. I know what you are thinking. Are you an accusateur, doubting my loyalty?”

  I moved forward another step. In unison, he moved back again. I didn’t dare push any further, otherwise I’d back him into one of the room’s corners. I wasn’t sure what he’d do then. No matter, I had to play this through. The pretense that we were speaking truth to each other was rapidly breaking down.

  And yet, all I wanted to do was cry. Unlike Holly, I’d never suspected Destry of any wrongdoing. My friends and I had helped him, and we’d never had so much as a cross word. None of it made any sense.

  But I had to finish this.

  “It’s not in my nature,” I admitted. “I can’t accuse you of anything. Not unless I understand all the pieces of the puzzle. And right now, I can’t figure out two of them.”

  “Quelle? Which ones?”

  “Method. And motive.”

  “Ah, that is true. Then perhaps we should let dead unicorns lie, no?”

  That was so tempting. Destry came across as a warm, good person. I desperately wanted to believe that. I’d liked him from the start, but the stakes were too high now. I wouldn’t let someone near me who held such dark secrets.

  “Maybe we should,” I agreed. “When it comes to Master Dekanos’ murder, there’s plenty of motive to go around. The problem is, they all belong to unicorns. And there’s no telling which one took the next logical step. As I said before, they each have their field of study, and Dekanos didn’t seem to keep them from it…”

  My voice trailed off as my mind went around the exact same track as before.

  Only this time, it made the connection. The connection I’d missed back in the Everwinter Glade, back when I thought I had the solution right in front of me, and it slipped away.

  With a click that rattled the teeth in my jaw, I saw what I’d missed.

  “Each of the unicorns have a field of magic to study all to themselves,” I breathed. “All except one. Master Wayfarer. He’s in charge of security, not a type of magic.”

  Destry said nothing, but his tail whipped back and forth in agitation. But now that I’d started, I couldn’t stop. The rest of the connections fell right into place.

  “Wayfarer had the same murderous thoughts as the rest of his ilk,” I went on. “But like the others, he had a problem: how to get rid of the long-lived Dekanos? A murderer would have to get past both magical and physical barriers. As the head of security, he could disable magical barriers at will, but he couldn’t get past physical ones. Not until he just happened to strike up a conversation with a friendly pooka.”

  Destry snorted, but he still said nothing. I continued, the words falling from my lips like hot tar.

  “Of course, if Master Wayfarer took down the magical barrier into the Glade, everyone would have noticed right away. But what if he was ordered to take it down? What if he could get his pooka friend inside without arousing anyone’s suspicions? How lucky it must have been for all concerned, then, that the pooka just happened to know a group of people who were fighting against the Creatures of the Dark. A group that would need to speak to the most powerful wizards in Andeluvia sooner or later.

  “So, they talked, and they planned it out. Wayfarer would’ve told the pooka where in the Glade to find Dekanos. The Senior Archmage would’ve been an easy target, since he was alone and in meditative isolation. All that the pooka had to do was wait for the right moment to leave the group, phase through the walls of Dekanos’ house, and drop the poison on the right branchlet. He’d be back amongst the guests and beyond suspicion before anyone noticed.”

  Destry let out a sigh, and his voice sounded anguished.

  “If only you were not so intelligent. That your mind was not so disciplined.”

  Shelly finally looked up from her workstation. She’d heard the tone in the pooka’s voice and came towards us. Her brow was furrowed.

  “What’s goin’ on?” she asked. “What’s the matter with–”

  Destry’s citrine eyes blazed. Shelly flew backwards as if someone had shoved her. She spun completely around and fell on her backside, letting out a pained ‘UFF!’.

  The pooka’s eyes lit up again. With a red flash, the sensor light winked back on. The door to the clean room snapped shut.

  Destry shifted his stance. He dropped his head as he kicked back with both rear legs. His hooves connected with the clean room’s door with a BANG. The heavy safety glass spiderwebbed into a crazy quilt of fractures.

  “Stop it!” I shouted. “Destry, you don’t need to do this!”

  “That is where you are wrong, chére. I have to do this. I have not one, but deux offres that I need to fulfill. You saw me make one of them yourself, didn’t you?”

  Instantly, I realized that I had. The story about Destry helping a pair of tourists was fake. What I’d seen in my dream hadn’t matched. The pooka had talked with someone in the dark. They’d used the words safety, darkness, and turned.

  But there wasn’t anyone Destry could deal with if he wanted to betray me, was there? Unless it was that strange, shadowy him. The one who’d spoken with Hollyhock and Raisah, sealing their fates for good.

  “You sold us out to the Darkness, didn’t you?” I said, and my voice came out in a harsh whisper. “And then you sold us out to Master Wayfarer.”

  Destry’s nostrils flared. He charged, a half ton of horseflesh ready to crush me underfoot. I scrambled out of the way, but he shifted to ethereal form with a whoosh, passing through me, making my skin tingle, as he headed straight for the exit door.

  I got my breath back and ran after him, but I was laughably slow compared to the pooka. Destry phased through the closed exit door and spun around. His eyes flared once more, the door sensor flashing red for a fraction of a second before shorting out with a spark and a puff of smoke.

  Hands shaking, I grabbed the door handle. A couple of quick pulls confirmed that it wasn’t going to budge an inch.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I raged, slamming my fist against the window. “Why? Tell me that, at least!”

  “Oui,” he husked. “You are right. You deserve to know.”

  The pooka looked off to one side, as if making sure that no one was coming down the corridor. Then he exhaled, letting out a sad, exhausted nicker in the process.

  “I met Master Wayfarer early in my travels. He’d been forced to do the job of, as you put it, security, for longer than you can imagine. But he knows more magic than many of his compatriots. He taught me much. He taught me the ways of prophecy. How to see it in everything from dreams to darkness. How to see it change. even as people’s choices bend and shape it like so much clay.”

  Great, I thought. More prophecy. That’s all I needed now.

  “Dayna,” he said, almost pleading. “I’m sorry. But I looked into the future. In a very short time, the final battle between you and the Creatures of the Dark shall take place. I looked at this battle so many different ways. Watched while you made choices, for good or for bad. And in every single one, at the end, I see it is the même chose. The same thing.”

  My brain jumped to what the unicorns had called me. The Dame who is destined to fail at the end.

  I swallowed hard. “What did you see?”

  “Ma chére, I see you lying broken on the ground, with the Darkness pinning you in place, like
an insect to a board. And there is something else I saw…”

  “Destry, this is crazy! These are just visions, just dreams–”

  “Oui, c’est vrai. But that is what my people traffic in. I met with those who speak for the Dark. I turned, for a price. They shall leave my people untouched in the conflict to come. None of my kind shall die because of the defect I was born with. The defect that you could not cure for me.”

  “Maybe I can!” I pleaded. “Destry, give me time!”

  He snorted once again. “Time has fled. There is nothing else. The unicorns could not be allowed to ally themselves with you, or tell you anything you might need to know. As part of my deal, I was to help Wayfarer slay Dekanos. Which I did, as you puzzled out so brilliantly.”

  My fear slipped away into fury. I wanted nothing more than to hurl myself against the door until it broke.

  “Spare me the compliments, you damned traitor!”

  “Very well. Then I shall tell you the last thing I saw about your future.”

  That got me to stop and listen. Curiosity overrode even the worst of my anger.

  “What was it?”

  “The last Ultari, the one you banished? He was correct. The thing that sleeps in the Scarlet Crypt…will end you.”

  I snarled at him and slammed the door with my fist. I didn’t even make the window quiver. And all I could think about was how Destry would take all we had told him back to the creatures that served the Dark.

  “You’ve ruined us!” I raged at him. “Get the hell out of here!”

  “Not yet,” Destry said quietly. “There is still one last ‘loose end’ that needs to be tied up before all is fini.”

  And with a whoosh, the pooka vanished into thin air.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I banged on the window with my fist as hard as I could.

  “HELP!” I cried. “WE’RE TRAPPED IN HERE! ANYBODY!”

  But no one heard. The new pressure doors that had been installed as part of the remodeling job were thick. So was the safety glass. The entire lab was, for all intents and purposes, a soundproof room.