I nearly fell off my broom. Midnight leaped to safety onto David's besom. Sweet Goddess, I save the man only for him to die immediately after? “That's tragic. He was a good man, by all accounts. Do you have any idea how it happened?”
“Not just yet,” David confessed. “His son Orville found him in his private laboratory this morning. Thankfully, no hazardous chemicals were being mixed at the time, or it could have been more than just Aurel who died.”
“Did Orville notice anything that could point us to what happened?”
“That’s actually why I thought of you for this. According to Orville, Aurel’s last word was a name. Guess whose?”
"Portia Fearwyn," I groaned. Not again.
David made a point of including Portia on his suspect list for every murder in Glessie. But, this marked the first time that there was an upfront clue that linked her back to a victim.
“You don’t really think she did this, do you?” I asked, knowing better.
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out,” David said and promptly cut the connection.
It never gets any easier. Aurel Nugget's corpse marked the fifth I'd seen in as many months. The cadaver of the Golden Chair of the alchemical society was one of the more distressing images of body's I'd seen. Aurel's mouth was contorted into a hideous, almost comical grimace. My stomach lurched and tumbled at the sight of what was probably a very painful end if the alchemist's death rictus was anything to go by. His gruesome leer was a window into the poor man's death throes. He'd met a very uncomfortable end, that much was evident. Midnight peered at the body in respectful silence, gave me a solemn nod and trotted off. Likely to see if there were any mystical beasties who could tell him anything about what had transpired here.
“David, I’m not sure how I can better inform you about this, " I said waving my hand over Aurel's tumbled form. "Your CSI's will know more than I ever possibly could." I exhaled through my face mask, peering around Aurel's study.
“Don’t short yourself, Hattie." The chief put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You have a knack for finding the most unlikely clues. Stuff often overlooked by the CSI's. I have a hunch that you'll spot something that none of my crew would even think to investigate. Just take your time, okay?"
Seriously, I never really fall prey to flattery, but there are certain times when it could give me enough of a boost to want to do someone else's bidding. In this case, it happened to be the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. You'd do the same, right? Besides, the strange hot/cold charge that just surged through my body when David's hand made contact? I'd experienced it before. The first time it was shocking, I'll admit. But this time it sent a ripple of thrilling vibration through my nerve endings.
Resuming my all-but-forgotten crime scene professionalism, I dropped my shoulders a little and continued to observe the lifeless figure on the floor.
Aurel's skin was still slightly warm to the touch, meaning he likely hadn’t been dead long. That was assuming that whatever chemical reaction had killed him -- because it was clear that that was what we were dealing with here -- hadn’t artificially heated the body up. I noticed then a barely visible dusting of light gray powder under Aurel's nostrils. It made me think of Mainland accounts of cocaine abuse. David handed me some gloves, smiling quizzically as he did so.
"You know, you're a natural at this, Hat."
Another thrill-wave galloped its way to my heart this time.
I swabbed my finger over the powder. It was as fine as ash, and I could detect a certain warmth to it as I carefully rubbed the substance between my gloved fingers.
I looked around the floor to see if there was anything that would match the strange powder. Right next to the corpse’s head was an open iron jar marked “Snake-Iron.” My stomach somersaulted again.
"Oh, no," I whispered.
David noticed my reaction. “Snake-Iron. Is that the stuff on his —“
“Yeah, no question about it,” I confirmed, picking up the jar. I tilted it in his direction to show that the fine substance was an exact match with that dusting Aurel’s septum.
“This is really nasty stuff, David,” I said, gently putting the jar back in its exact previous location. “Inhale this too deeply, and you’ve got thirty minutes to live. Snake-Iron is almost exactly as it sounds. It's half living, organic material and half metallic. There are two ways you can make this powder 'come alive.' One: by just adding some molten bronze in a controlled lab environment such as this." I fell silent then, hanging my head.
"Wow, fast acting then?" David knelt down to take a look at the remnants of the substance on Aurel's corpse.
"And the other way?" David enquired.
I swallowed.
"By inhaling the stuff until it reaches your stomach and makes contact with the acids therein. Winds up sprouting as a half organic, half inorganic type of parasitic snake in your gut. Once it's reached maturity, it slithers to your heart and loosely coils around it. Then, with no warning, it just squeezes the heart out of existence."
I motor-boated my lips thinking of poor Aurel's probable surprise at death by a sniper serpent invasion.
“Gods." The chief muttered, sliding a tanned hand through his white-streaked mane. David had mysteriously acquired this bleached-out lock of hair just before the investigation into Millicent Pond's death on Cathedral Isle. I confess I loved the way it looked on him, but there was something unsettling about it too. David had inferred that it was the work of hair artiste, Violet Mulberry, but I knew that wasn't the truth. Whatever had caused it, David, for some reason, had decided not to share it with me yet.
"Any known cures?”
"A little late for that, no?" I pointed to Aurel's hideous death grin.
"Very funny. You know what I mean."
“No. No cure that I've heard of anyway. It's too fast-acting. You'd have to be pretty quick in delivering the anti-parasitic. The longest I've heard someone lasting is forty-five minutes after ingestion." I remembered handling the stuff in first-year alchemy class. Mrs. Brassnips shrill voice echoing in my head "'If you want to live until the lunchtime bell, I suggest you don your masks, metal workers.'"
I allowed a smile to touch my lips at the memory.
"But, even every first-year student in alchemy knows better than to be too close to this stuff without a breathing mask. It's a controlled substance and is always handled with the utmost care. Seems unlikely that Mr. Nugget here would go snorting the stuff. Unless he was suicidal, of course." We both knew the latter to be untrue. Aurel had just been promoted to Golden Chair only months ago. He was a good natured, well received and liked man by all who knew him. On the outside of things, it looked as if his life was one of satisfaction and ease.
Realization bloomed in the Chief Para Inspector’s eyes as we stood up. “So you think this was staged.”
“Did you find a breathing mask of any kind or evidence that one was even here?”
David shook his head. “Aurel's son, Orville, found the body. But, he's a smart kid, he didn't so much as disturb a single speck of dust." The chief put his hands on his hips and let out a loud sigh. "But, when I gave the site the initial inspection. I just felt that it looked pretty much like an orgy of evidence. I dunno, it just doesn't look right, Hat. Which is why I brought you along."
I shook my head. “This all still seems like something your CSIs would have figured out eventually.”
“Well, let’s give the rest of the place another look. My guys are knowledgeable, but not necessarily clued in on what makes up an alchemical lab.”
If this were anyone else, I might have thought that he wanted me around for reasons other than what he was spouting here. Because this was David, I KNEW that he wanted me around for something other than the logic he was suggesting. My heart tripped, but this was something to puzzle in my own time later.
The rest of the laboratory was in a state of severe disarray, mostly by design, by the look of it. Orville had already advised David's cre
w that Aurel was a man of fastidious tidiness and organization. Going by the bookshelves that lined the walls, it had once been an orderly place of work. A kind of study and lab combo. But, now? Either Aurel had lost his mind, or someone had been in here, mixing things up, jumbling potential evidence, as it were. The books that remained on the shelves seemed to have very little rhyme or reason to their ordering. Ancient folios competed with the more contemporary tomes. Slim scientific journals from the Mainland science community nestled alongside moldy grimoires, whose spines seemed to bulge with magical secrets.
Nor were all the books even on the shelves. True, three of the four tables in the room were dominated by state-of-the-art apparatus. But there was a fourth desk which had a pile of books and papers stacked so haphazardly; they resembled a frenzied Jenga game. Tug slightly at just one corner, and it would no doubt send the whole stack crashing to the floor. Game over.
I noticed some brightly colored sticky-notes clinging to several of the scattered papers and books around the room. Each had an overly-dramatic, olde-worlde sounding slogan. They looked a lot like the kind of dialogue you'd hear in the hit show 'Shame of Bones.'
'We ride at dawn!' 'It is your heart that guides the realms of men.' 'The silent sentinel is heard the loudest.' 'Old egg, new beginnings.'
Phrases used by 'House Shamdaryan,' kinda thing.
“Any of this makes sense to you?” David asked as he read a few of the handwritten sentiments.
“They don't seem to be related to alchemy,” I offered sheepishly. "Perhaps they're ciphers of some kind?" I suggested, brightening at my new idea. “There were plenty of medieval traditions of word-games and codes. It became an art form in some magical disciplines, I hear. If you wanted to stay clear of the Inquisition’s human barbecues and keep your secrets safe from power-hungry outsiders, this is the kind of language you'd need to adopt.”
“But that was centuries ago. I hardly see the point of—“
“I’m sorry, did somebody forget about the Warlock Wars which happened to be waged by power-crazed maniacs?”
David grunted. “True. I guess you don’t have to be a Talisman suit to bury secrets you'd rather keep hidden.”
My eyes caught sight of a steel cabinet on the far wall. The metal doors were slightly ajar, showing two shelves of labeled iron jars within. More sticky notes dotted the insides of the doors: 'Sir Mogdavin hath the heart of a dragon-slayer,' 'To hook a Serpent, one must use the right bait,' 'Walk the earth, ride the wind' and so on.
I focused on the substances inside the metal cupboard instead: Hellebore, hydrochloric acid, phosphorous, magnesium and Minotaur’s Punch, to name but a few.
Noticing the lock on the inside of the door, I pushed it closed slightly. The key was still sticking out of the barrel. Looking at the shelves again, I noticed a partial dust ring in the back that was roughly the size of the Snake-Iron jar. It had a pot of Hellebore in front of it, but there was no denying the ring’s existence when I pulled the Hellebore aside for a closer look.
“The Snake-Iron came from here,” I said, pointing at the ring. “But, going by the dust, it’s been a really long time since anyone’s even touched it.”
David looked at the cabinet and then Aurel’s body. “Whoever set this scene up did a very clumsy job. If Aurel was the exacting laboratory professional Orville's account leads us to believe, then would he really leave a cabinet of dangerous substances open?” David glanced at the written notes stuck to the inner doors. "I mean, Hat, he's mixing some potentially hazardous stuff. Surely he'd keep all other risky ingredients under lock and key while he was experimenting?"
I shook my head. “Yeah, no alchemist I ever heard of would leave a cabinet like this wide open.”
“Well, let’s play devil’s advocate for a second. Maybe he was trying to get into the cabinet for a Snake-Iron cure that only he knew about?”
I gestured towards Aurel. “That doesn’t explain how he wound up all the way over there with nothing but the Snake-Iron jar for company. Besides, the stuff in here would only add to his malaise. There's nothing even close to a remedy on these shelves.”
David suddenly smiled, clasped my shoulders and gave me a kiss, albeit brief, on the lips. I was too stunned to do anything other than gawk for a few seconds. He dropped his hands and looked away, a flush of crimson creeping over his cheekbones. “Um, Orville is still around for some follow-up questions. Maybe we should—“
“Wait.”
“Really, Hattie, I’m sorry. I don't even know what I was thinking just then —“
“No, look,” I said, pointing towards Aurel’s clenched left hand. A tiny edge of yellow paper protruded between his clenched knuckles. A sticky note. David just looked relieved that my spotting this clue took the heat of his actions away from him.
Kneeling, I carefully pried the closed hand open. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in too deeply yet, so I was able to open it enough to pull out the colored slip. The epitaph on this one was much like the others, and yet something about it stirred an uncomfortable feeling inside me. 'One by one, The Custodians will fall.' David raised a questioning brow.
“I don't know what it means any more than you do,” I told him. “But I get the feeling that this isn’t quite as metaphorical as the other notes.”
The chief said nothing, only handed me an evidence bag to contain the puzzling words.
The last time I’d seen Orville Nugget, he’d been blitzed out of his mind on Strands at Midnight Hill Asylum. I wasn’t sure his current state was much of an improvement from then. True, he was now lucid and able to talk, thanks to my finding the Strands cure. But it took everything he had just to hold back the tide of his grief. The awkwardly gawky teen looked spent. Like he perhaps didn't even have the energy for a loss such as this.
Still, he attempted a smile as David and I approached.
“Miss Jenkins,” he said. “I know that we’ve never 'officially' met. But, I'm well aware you saved my life. Dad hasn't stopped singing your --"
He stopped mid sentence, realizing he had mentioned his father in the present tense.
It was too much for him then. He buckled, and he sobbed. His thin shoulders rising and falling with the effort of flushing out bitter tears. My heart went out to the boy. I knew what it was like to lose a parent. Or, rather, parents. I gave him a hug and held him as his tears ran their shellshocked course.
“Sorry,” Orville said as he pulled away from me.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” I said, looking him straight in the eye as I held his shoulders. “This is a dreadful day for you. You're allowed to process your grief. I encourage it, in fact.” I smoothed some of his coppery hair from his forehead.
Orville nodded, blew his nose and wiped his eyes.
“I know that you’ve already talked to my constables, Orville,” David said, his voice every bit as gentle as I hoped my touch was to this boy. “But we have a few more questions that we’re hoping you could help us answer.”
Orville cleared his throat.
“For sure. I want to know what happened to my father. I just wish I could hold it together for a second.”
“A day like this, nobody would fault you for your grief.” David backed up my earlier sentiment.
Orville frowned. “My mom might.”
“Did she make the trip to Bonemark Isle?” I asked.
Orville looked startled. I shrugged. “I ran into her at Celestial Cakes earlier today.”
“Yeah, I’d say she’s probably about half way there now,” Orville said. “She visiting my Aunt Lavinia.”
“We’ve actually been unable to get in touch with her,” David admitted. “The ferry crosses through a pretty wide cell tower dead zone. Magic doesn’t work in that area either, which rules out portals, broom flight, or any form of magical communication.”
“There’s an old telegraph station at the port,” Orville mentioned. “You could send word there. They keep in contact with the boats there. It's a bit dated, but as
you just mentioned, it's what's available.”
“And I have telegraphed," David confirmed. "But we all know it’s a sixteen-hour ferry ride to Bonemark. And that's from Talisman, not Glessie. The soonest we'll likely hear from your mother is the day after tomorrow."
Orville gave a hitching sigh but nodded. “I just wish she was here right now. I don’t know what to do about all this. None of it makes sense.”
“How so?” I encouraged.
“Dad dabbled with Snake-Iron when he was still in university. I think it’s almost an alchemist’s rite of passage to play around with the stuff. But none of his current experiments called for it. I mean, Bast, the substance doesn't have any real application in this day and age. If someone has it in their inventory, then it's really just a throwback to the past."
Orville paused thoughtfully. "And I double-checked his logs just before the constables came to be sure. No mention of the stuff.”
“Anything else seem strange to you?”
Orville ticked off the problems by counting them with his fingers, anger straining at his vocal chords as he did so.
“No breathing mask, an unlocked cabinet, half of the Snake-Iron jar’s contents smeared all over his workstation. The list goes on and on. My father would never—“
“I was thinking the same thing,” David said, defusing Orville’s anger and confusion before it set him off again. “Miss. Jenkins here pointed out many of the details you just mentioned when she examined the scene herself. We have reason to believe that this might be a classic orgy of evidence designed for the purpose of misdirection.”
A small but genuine smile of relief threaded into Orville’s lips. “So it’s not just me.”
“Not even close,” I assured him, giving him a smile of my own for emotional ballast. Goddess, I really liked this kid. “Can you tell us anything about all the sticky notes we saw? They seemed connected to each other.” Orville smiled genuinely and fully then.
The Infiniti Investigates: Hattie Jenkins & the Infiniti Chronicles Books 1 to 5 Page 80