by Lisa Shearin
To put it simply, Phaelan could shovel bullshit with the best of them.
Lady Kaharit’s ring was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean Lord Mortsani didn’t have it with him.
I left the bar, found myself a nice vacant spot near a wall, and stilled my thoughts. I wasn’t trying to speak or hear past Nathrach’s wards, I was counting on being able to sense the ring or at least a few of the jewels; that is, if Lord Mortsani had them on him. I took a deep breath and let it out.
“What a pleasurable surprise to see you here this evening, Mistress Benares.”
I jumped and my body had itself a full-length shiver. The comment came from behind me, but the dark velvety voice came from the hot dream I’d probably be having later.
Most people would’ve said “pleasant,” but not the goblin who had enthralled Mermeia’s gambling-loving female population.
I slowly turned and looked up—and up. “You know my name.” I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.
I’d been to Sirens before—and I’d seen its owner. You know the saying that the most dangerous predators are the most beautiful? Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s true. Tamnais Nathrach was all long limbs and lean muscle. His eyes were large and dark, his black hair fell to the middle of his back like a sheet of silk, and his skin was silvery gray.
He was dressed all in black, from the shirt that exposed enough of his sculpted chest to be intriguing, down to seriously fitted trousers and the tips of his highly polished boots.
Tamnais Nathrach’s dark eyes glittered in the dim light. “Could I interest you in a game of chance?” His smile—with a bit of fang peeking into view—said he wasn’t talking about dice.
“I’m taking a chance every time I walk through those doors, and it doesn’t cost me a thing.” He could interpret that any way he wanted to.
“Your cousin is among my regular clientele, so while it is not unusual to see a beautiful woman accompanying him, this is the first time his arm has been adorned with a relative—and a professional seeker. Unfortunately, you have never come into my establishment for pleasure. I assume you are looking for someone.”
I saw no reason to lie. I knew his coming up behind me just as I was about to look for the ring couldn’t have been a coincidence. “I’ve found the someone; now I need the something.”
He looked where I’d been looking. “You’d be wise to stay away from Sethis Mortsani.”
“I don’t do wise.”
His lips curled with the faintest of smiles. “So I’ve heard.”
Lord Mortsani’s chips meant he’d come in here with enough coin of the realm to buy them. Maybe. Was there any other way he could have gotten them? Tamnais Nathrach seemed to enjoy making small talk with me. I shrugged to myself. Go big or go home.
“Does your cashier accept anything other than coin of the realm?” I asked bluntly.
“Never.”
“Do you?”
“I have been known to assist guests who suddenly find themselves financially disadvantaged.”
“Has Lord Mortsani ever been financially disadvantaged?”
“The arrangements made between the house and our guests are strictly confidential.”
“Of course they are.”
“If I like the guest.”
Now that was interesting. I stifled a smile.
“Do you like Lord Mortsani?” I asked.
“I never have, and I never will.”
Tamnais Nathrach went up a couple of notches in my estimation, dark mage or not. Or at the very least he had good taste. But then there were those doors downstairs. . .
“Then I’ll refer to my question regarding Lord Mortsani’s funding sources,” I continued.
“He has not tried to use any of his wife’s jewelry, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I am. So you know about that.”
The goblin inclined his head. “I make it a point to know much about those who place large wagers in my casino.”
I’ll bet he did. Tamnais Nathrach had spent five years as the magical power behind the goblin throne. A man like that didn’t do anything halfway. In his previous profession, halfway done could easily mean all the way dead. As the owner of Mermeia’s finest casino, knowingly accepting stolen goods would damage his reputation, to say the least. As a businessman or a pirate—or seafaring businessman—your reputation was everything. Nathrach would know everything about the men and women who brought the most money through his pornographic doors.
“Nor do I believe any other casino that Lord Mortsani frequents would knowingly accept stolen jewelry as payment,” he continued. “However, if he sold any pieces prior to crossing my threshold, I would be none the wiser.”
“And if he asks for the help of the house?”
“I will politely refuse.”
“That won’t make him happy.”
“I am not in the business of making those who are irresponsible with their money happy. Lord Mortsani—or any of my clientele—would be wise to acknowledge the possibility of financial loss before they enter my establishment.”
I had a feeling that as the ex-enforcer of the goblin queen, Tamnais Nathrach would have an appropriate response to any fit of pique Sethis Mortsani might suffer from being embarrassed at one of Sirens’ high-stakes tables.
If a man’s gonna gamble big, he’d better be prepared to lose the same way.
I turned back toward the card table, my attention on Sethis Mortsani. His stack of chips wasn’t getting any smaller, but Phaelan’s was. Dammit.
“I don’t like trouble in my casino,” Nathrach said quietly from where he stood directly behind me.
No one beyond the two of us heard his words, but the goblins who made up casino security and were stationed unobtrusively at regular intervals along the wall like so many statues stood just a little straighter. Either Nathrach had given them the subtlest of signals, or they were highly attuned to their boss. Considering the goblin’s rumored abilities, either or both were possible.
“I don’t like making trouble.” Again, not a lie.
Nathrach gave me a soft chuckle. “That is not what I have heard.”
“I’d like to say you’ve heard wrong, but I can’t. My job is to stop trouble someone else made the poor choice of starting, not make more of my own. If everyone played nice and didn’t take things and people that didn’t belong to them, there wouldn’t be any trouble.”
“And you wouldn’t have most of your clients,” Nathrach noted smoothly. “People misbehaving are what keep you in business. The same might be said of me.”
“Of your business, or you?”
His lips twitched at the corners. “Yes.”
I thought about that and shrugged. “You’re right, but that doesn’t mean I like causing it.”
“Oh, I think you like it very much, Mistress Benares.” He leaned forward, his breath warm against the sensitive tip of my ear. “But be warned that if you misbehave, you must be prepared to accept your punishment.”
The warmth of his breath—and his all-too-there presence—vanished.
I turned.
Gone.
As if he’d never been there.
Though my entire body, with every nerve now standing at quivering attention, knew otherwise.
The guards were back at their earlier stances. I hadn’t seen them move, either.
I took my first decent breath in five minutes and forced my attention back where it belonged—on the table where my cousin sat next to Lord Mortsani. I had no way of knowing if on some level he could sense me or what I was about to do. Nathrach’s wards distorted sight from the inside, blocked sound from both directions, and made telepathic communication impossible. Unless he’d packed any little surprises in there, his wards shouldn’t affect the type of seeking I was about to do, which was through inanimate objects. I’d forged a connection with the bracelet, and the bracelet had a preexisting bond with the ring. I would merely be sensing the jewelry’s reaction to eac
h other.
I stood perfectly still, blocked out the noise around me, and opened my senses. As close as I was to Lord Mortsani, if he had the ring or any of the jewels on him, the bracelet would let me know with a slight tingle against my wrist.
Almost as if on cue, the fine hairs on my wrist stood up.
Yes.
Then I heard crying. From somewhere on Sethis Mortsani.
What the hell?
A child’s cry, a little boy. Scared. No. . . terrified. But muffled by distance or through some kind of barrier.
No one around me, including Nathrach’s security, gave any sign they’d heard anything. Then I realized that I didn’t hear the crying with my ears. It was in my mind. I’d never experienced anything like that before.
There was no doubt that it was coming from Sethis Mortsani. Not him personally, but from something he carried.
The goblin nachtmagus turned and looked directly at me. He turned back to those at the table with him, said something I couldn’t hear, and scooped his chips into a pouch at his robe’s belt with one smooth move. He stood and left. The two goblins guarding the entrance to the card tables stood aside for him, as did the crowd gathered around the ropes. Even if they didn’t know who or what he was, their primitive self-preservation instincts told them he was to be avoided.
The cries coming from somewhere on him grew louder once he’d cleared the wards.
I swore and followed him—at least I tried. No one got out of my way. Apparently I didn’t activate anyone’s survival instincts. I went around them, pushing my way past the bar to where Mortsani would have emerged from the crowd.
Nothing.
He was gone, vanished. So were the cries, or any sense I had of the nachtmagus’s presence.
The bastard had cloaked.
Mortsani wasn’t at a gaming table, so he could use all the magic he wanted. An invisibility cloak would certainly be within his skill range.
A hand gripped my upper arm. I tensed, my hands closing into fists, expecting Nathrach or one of his bouncers.
It was Phaelan.
“You don’t follow a goblin in the dark,” he told me, “and you sure as hell don’t tail a nachtmagus at night. Who told me that? Not that I’d ever be stupid enough to do either one.”
I unclenched my fists and blew out my breath. “I did.”
A mage of Mortsani’s skill could stay cloaked for over an hour without taxing his power. If he didn’t want me to follow him, he was more than capable of evading me. The doors to the stairs were open and had been all evening. Even if they hadn’t been, Mortsani could have followed someone going out and I’d never know.
I’d lost him.
More importantly, I’d lost the terrified source of those cries.
*
The next morning I vowed not to go without coffee or sugar knots. Maybe if I had both, today would go better than yesterday—and especially better than last night.
I stopped by Maira Takis’s bakery and got both. The place was full and Maira was busy in the back, but she saw me and gave me a smile and a wave, which I returned. The sun rising woke me up, but the promise of Maira’s pastries was what got me on my feet. And this morning I needed help. Just because I hadn’t chased after Sethis Mortsani last night didn’t mean I’d gotten any sleep. Every time I was on the verge of dozing off, I’d heard that little boy crying.
Soon after sunrise, I’d gone to Lady Kaharit’s home to collect Sethis Mortsani’s logbook and give her my report. I’d also hoped to return her ring. Lord Mortsani hadn’t come home last night, and if he tried it now, he was in for an unpleasant surprise. His wife had had a lock mage come and do the magical equivalent of changing the locks. Apparently the house was in her name and had been bought with her money. She also had a high-powered friend or two judging from the armed guards around her home who looked nothing like the elderly retainer who’d accompanied her to my office yesterday morning. I’d felt guilty taking the book since I didn’t have a ring to give her in return. She’d done her part; I hadn’t done mine. When I’d told her what I’d heard last night, she was just as baffled and disturbed as I was.
I was taking the book to Chief Watcher Janek Tawl. He was human, Brenirian by birth, and a watcher by natural talent. People trusted Janek, even if they weren’t particularly trustworthy themselves.
Janek was good people and an even better watcher. We trusted each other. I guess that made us friends, or at least close colleagues. The city watch had seekers on staff, but Janek said I was better. He still tried to recruit me from time to time, but I’d always turned him down. Being a Benares and working in law enforcement just didn’t feel as though they went together. I wasn’t a criminal by any stretch of the imagination, but my contacts and investigative methods wouldn’t endear me to the higher-ups at watcher headquarters, so I kept turning Janek down to save both of us from being in a situation that’d be awkward to say the least.
That and I’d been told I had a problem with authority. I didn’t take orders very well, especially those I didn’t agree with—which were most of them.
I hadn’t gotten much sleep, but apparently I’d had more than Janek.
The chief watcher was lean and all ropy muscle, the build of a man who was constantly on the move. From the dark circles under his eyes, it looked like Janek and his muscles needed to stop moving for a couple of hours.
I showed him the book and gave him the essentials of my case. “Essentials” meaning things I didn’t mind sharing with law enforcement. The things involving me circumventing the law that might get me put in one of Janek’s jail cells, I kept to myself.
“We’ve had complaints from families who’ve been swindled by this guy’s resurrections,” Janek said. “Any attempts to prosecute have always run up on a dead end—no pun intended. People want justice; they just don’t want to testify against him to get it.” He flipped through the book, his smile growing with each page. “Looks like Lord Mortsani could have had a secondary career as a bookkeeper. He recorded each resurrection and how much he made. You said this is written in his own hand?”
I nodded. “Lady Kaharit said she’s seen him writing in it on more than one occasion.”
Janek chuckled. “Dumbass. This is just the ammunition those families need.” He put the book on the desk, and his smile vanished as he sat in the desk chair and ran his hands over his face.
“You know why I’ve been awake; what’s been keeping you up?” I asked.
“Kidnappings.” A muscle in his jaw clenched. “Children.”
In my opinion, if heated spikes didn’t cover the floors in the part of the Lower Hells where they put people who took and abused children, there should be.
“How many?” I asked.
“Eight.”
I gaped. “Eight? But I haven’t heard—”
“Because we’re just now confirming that they were kidnapped.”
“Uh, either they’re gone or they’re not.”
“Souls, Raine. The kidnappers left the bodies. They took the souls.”
There were acts too horrifying to contemplate. Stealing the souls of anyone, let alone children, was one of them.
The cries I’d heard last night coming from Sethis Mortsani immediately came to mind. Nachtmagi communicated with souls and helped them get to where they were going. I’d never heard of one being able to actually imprison one. That was an activity left to dark mages of the highest level.
“At first, parents thought it was some kind of illness when they couldn’t wake their children up,” Janek told me. “A lot of healers haven’t had any experience with missing souls. Two of them knew the signs and reported it to the watch. And we figured if two had been taken. . .”
“There were more,” I said.
Janek nodded. “We hoped we were wrong, but weren’t going to put out too much hope. We immediately got the word out to the healer community of what signs to look for.” He paused. “As of this morning, we have eight kids missing.”
&nb
sp; “Did anyone see a cat sith lurking around?”
“This wasn’t your usual cat sith wandering over from the Daith Swamp looking for a late-night soul snack. The kids went to bed, and their parents couldn’t wake them the next morning. The doors and windows of the houses were locked; no one came in or out. The healers who’ve seen this before got together some clued-in colleagues. They’ve made the rounds to the affected children and put them in stasis.”
I knew what that meant. In cases of poisoning when an antidote isn’t immediately available, or medicine in the case of an illness, an experienced healer can put a patient under the effects of a temporary stasis spell to keep the poison or illness from progressing further. The process takes a hell of a lot of effort and stamina. The longest I’d ever heard of a stasis spell lasting was three days. After that you’d have two dead bodies on your hands—the patient and their dead-from-exhaustion healer.
“How long ago?” I asked.
“Two days.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. Our only break is a cloaked and hooded man was seen near three of the houses where a soul abduction took place.”
“It’s cold at night; everyone’s wrapped up.”
“Traveling with a knee-high friend stinking of sulfur?”
“Sounds like a dark mage with a demon familiar.”
“That’s what we’re going with.”
“Janek, you can’t swing a dead swamp rat without hitting a dark mage in this town. Even the Conclave produces more than their fair share.”
The Conclave was the governing body for all magic users in the seven kingdoms. They were based on the Isle of Mid where they also had a college for students with exceptional magical talent. Most of those kids turned out just fine. Some didn’t. The Conclave prosecuted those who practiced black magic to the fullest extent of their laws. Speaking as a magic user who knew plenty of folks straddling the line between white and black magic, I’d seen the ugly results firsthand.
The Conclave laws saw everything—especially magic and its practitioners—in black and white, light or dark. But life and the people who lived it were mostly shades of gray. Just because you practiced white magic didn’t mean you were an angel, and occasional black magic usage didn’t mean you were evil incarnate.