"Have a good evening, Potentia." The man gave us a nod.
"I'm thinking this will still be a dead end. We'll find Veer curled up under his sheets fighting the flu," Fallon said as soon as we exited the nest.
"Two weeks is a long time to be sick with the flu," I replied with a sigh. I almost expected Fallon to tell me I was an idiot, but the woman only nodded at me, and I couldn't read her expression.
We launched into the air, and our Alula wings opened to embrace the blue sky. Fallon was much faster than me, but I saw her glance over her shoulder, realize that I was trailing behind her significantly, and slow her climb.
"Make your wings fan out less on the upswing, and you need to angle the front edges down more on the downswing," Fallon yelled at me.
I tried to follow her instructions and found that my rise doubled in speed almost instantly. I quickly reached her position in the air, and she nodded toward our destination before her wings angled her there in an elegant glide. My own wings matched Fallon's movement, and I found a spot a few feet to her rear that protected me from the headwind.
Veer's home was somehow larger than I expected. It was three stories, blue-painted brick, and in a prime spot near a gathering of restaurants. My suspicions grew as Fallon and I circled it from above. I didn't understand how anyone who worked as a guard could afford the Priestess' rent on a place like this, let alone when he was a mere apprentice. It didn't mean that the man was our murderer, but something strange was transpiring with his finances. The home must have cost twenty silver a month.
"Get your feathers ready, pigeon," Fallon said as she stepped to the dark-blue door. Her knuckles pounded on the wood with a thunderous knock.
We waited for half a minute, but there was no answer, and Fallon knocked again. I wouldn't have believed that she could make the knocking sound louder, but I imagined that people in the restaurant across the road heard her fist banging on the wood.
"Fontyane Veer! This is Potentia Fallon and Potentia Anelia. Open the door!" my wingmate shouted while her knuckles hit the door again.
"Perhaps he is at a tavern?" I shrugged.
"Or he's inside sick. Or he is our murderer." Fallon nodded to my sword and then took a step away from the door.
Her right leg thrust out and hit the blue door right below the handle. The door made a snapping sound as soon as her foot connected, and the wood splintered at the jam as it cracked free of the locks. I drew my sword at the same time as Fallon, and I followed her into the large house.
The stench of rotting food, feces, and urine assaulted my nose as soon as I entered the home. The main living room was a mess, and even though the windows were all shuttered closed, stray beams of dark orange light peeked through the holes like spider webbing. I could see piles of dirty dishes, spilt beer bottles, clothes, and empty glass vials. The vials looked familiar in size, and I reached down to pick one up.
"These look like the same glassware that I found in the crates in the shipyard," I whispered to Fallon, and I thought about Ash asking me if I knew what was inside them. My wingmate nodded at my words and then gestured with the hilt of her rapier toward the entrance to the kitchen.
We moved into the next room and found more discarded beer bottles, hovering flies, stacked plates, and piles of churning maggots. It didn't look like the home had been cleaned in months, and I saw strange brown smears of dried paint on the cupboard. I pointed at the weird markings to get Fallon's attention, and then I leaned my face in close to look at the brown paint.
"Smells like feces," I winced as I pulled away from the cupboard and exhaled. The whole house smelled disgusting, but sticking my nose a few inches from a smear of poop almost made me want to vomit.
A thud sounded upstairs, and we spun toward the doorway to the living room. Fallon moved to the base of the circular staircase and gestured for me to step behind her. The blonde woman transferred her sword to her left hand and then leaned toward me.
"Stab past me if you need to, but get ready to fall back down the stairs if he is armed. I don't want to fight uphill in tight spaces."
"Got it," I whispered to her, and my heart thumped into my chest like her fist had pounded the door earlier.
We moved up the stairs together at a natural pace, but when we reached the second floor, my wingmate raised her right fist into the air, and I stood still behind her. There was a long hallway ahead of us, and I could see two doors on each side. The stairs climbed up to the next floor, but the thump sounded again from down the hall, and it was apparent that someone else was on this floor.
There were no uncovered windows in the hallway, so the only light came from the dim glow downstairs. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness though, and Fallon moved to the first door and leaned against the wall by the side on which it opened. She drew her knife with her right hand, so that she carried both the long rapier and the shorter blade. I went to do the same, but she shook her head and then nodded at me to open the door and pull away. I followed her instructions, and the woman darted into the door as silently as a mouse.
This room was empty; with no furniture, rugs, or other decorations to cover the dusty floor. Fallon backed out of the room and moved to the other side of the hallway. The thump sounded again from further down the hall, but our clearing procedure instructed that we ensure that all the rooms behind us were safe when we moved through a home or building. The blonde woman nodded at the door again, and I pushed it open as she darted inside. Fallon moved in quickly, but this room only had a bed. Fallon took a step out of the room, but then turned and crouched near the mattress. The woman lifted the skirt of the sheet with the tip of her rapier and I saw a shriveled hand that connected to a skeletal arm.
"Been dead a while," my wingmate whispered, and I had to strain to hear her over the terrified pounding of my heart.
Fallon rose from her crouch and moved out into the hallway. I couldn't smell any death in the room, and it confirmed the guess about the age of the body under the bed. It must have been there for years. What in the name of the Priestesses was going on with this man?
We moved deeper into the hallway toward the last pair of doors. The thumping noise came from the one to the right, and Fallon gestured for me to keep eyes on it while she turned to the left-hand door. I pushed it open, and my wingmate rushed through. I took a quick glance to check her surroundings. The room was filled with tables, apothecary equipment in various stages of use, open-flame oil lamps that had long since ran dry, more beer bottles, and empty vials.
A lot of empty vials.
I didn't see any bodies, and the blonde woman stepped silently back into the hallway and readied herself by the final door. Our eyes met in the near darkness, and she gave me a slight nod. I pushed open the door, and Fallon darted inside. I slid in through the doorway behind her, and we fanned out in the room so that each of our flanks was protected.
It was a large bedroom some twenty feet broad by thirty feet long. Thin shards of light leaked in past the shutters and revealed several cots stacked up against one of the walls. Empty vials were scattered like cobblestones across the floor, and my eyes fell to the far corner of the room.
There was a pile of bodies.
They were twisted, half corpse and half skeleton. My mind reeled as I tried to count them, and my vision started to blur. My stomach tried to heave, but I forced the disgust back down with a fierce swallow.
"Priestess..." Fallon's voice trailed off into a gasp.
"How many?" I said as a body from the top of the pile slid from its place and descended the five-foot stack of limbs. The head of the corpse hit the wooden floor and made the knocking sound that we had heard earlier.
"More than twenty," Fallon shook her head.
"There is another floor above," I said. I wanted to ask her if she thought Veer had killed all these people, but we'd be able to figure out their cause of death once we examined them.
"Let's go," my partner said, and we made our way out of the room and back to the staircase.
Fallon took the lead again, and we scaled the wooden steps cautiously. The top floor was more of a loft, with a large open space at the top of the stairs. There was a closed door on the other side, against the far roofline, and the color of the wood made me think that the walls were a recent addition. There were more cots up here, and more empty vials.
"Last room," I whispered as we walked toward the door.
This door opened outward, into the loft area, and I stood by the side of it so that Fallon could run in after I had pulled it open. She gave me a nod when she was ready, and I opened it quickly.
A click sounded past the doorway, and I saw a light flash behind the edge of the wood that hung on the hinges.
"No!" I shouted as black powder filled my nose.
Fallon was already moving toward the door, and I tried to kick it closed as I dove across toward the charging blonde woman. I hit her on the side, wrapped my arms around her waist, and commanded my wings to push away from the room.
Everything turned orange.
Then red.
Then the world was brighter than the suns.
Chapter 16
"You carried Fallon out of the window?" Captain Ocellina asked me while the doctor dabbed medicine across the cut on my arm.
"Yes," I sighed and looked across the street at the charred remains of Fontyane Veer's large home.
The place had burned quickly, and most of the wooden parts had turned to flaming charcoal by the time I'd escaped from the home with Fallon's unconscious body over my shoulder, set her down across the street, and returned with the guards and fire militia. Only a few of the brick walls still stood, and any evidence of what my wingmate and I had seen inside the sickening place was now being spread across Petrasada on the early morning wind.
"I'm grateful for the pigeon. If she hadn't grabbed me, I would be a roasted duck," Fallon said as she stepped toward us. A doctor had wrapped most of her face in tan gauze, and she waved him away from doing the same to her bloody arm.
"You need to be resting," Ocellina said to my wingmate.
"I'm fine. My eye wasn't damaged, and the skin will heal. I overheard what the pigeon said. It is the truth. Shame we won't be able to dig into it more." Her uncovered blue eye focused on the smoldering ruin behind me.
"I'll have a sketch of Fontyane posted in every nest within an hour. We will catch him swiftly," Ocellina said. The woman ran her hand through her long dark hair and then glanced over at what was left of the home. "Why don't you both go home, take a shower, and get some rest. I'll send a guard to get you once we have him in custody."
"I feel as if there is more we can do," I said.
"More?" The captain raised a pretty eyebrow. "You discovered one of the largest moonshine rackets and tax evasion schemes, and then you found the identity of the man who killed six people in this city. You've done plenty since you took up the Alula."
"Agreed. Let's go, pigeon. I'll buy you breakfast and thank you a few times for saving my life." Fallon grabbed onto my arm and gently tugged me away from the captain. Ocellina gave me a beautiful smile and gestured farewell. Then I saw her address one of our guard sergeants. I needed to tell her about the monsters I had found deep in the caves under the city. I needed to tell her about Dust trying to kill me, and how I got the leads from Ash. It wasn't a good time though. There were too many people about, and I wanted to have the conversation with the captain alone in her office so that Fallon didn't get angry at me for withholding information.
"There is a place I like to eat by the nest. Dove Tail is the name. Have you eaten there?" Fallon asked.
"No, I really couldn't afford to eat anywhere above the twentieth level before I was selected as a Potentia, and I haven't gotten my first week's pay yet," I felt a smile come to my face as I spoke to Fallon.
"Ahh, then you'll love this place. They give us a discount also, but I'm buying. It is the least I can do."
"Thanks, Fallon." I smiled at the woman, but the bandage on the left side of her face kept me from seeing if she smiled in return. "Should we fly there?"
"Maybe in a few minutes. I want to stretch my legs. Feels good to be alive."
"I agree," I said with a sigh.
"Upset that we didn't catch him?" Fallon turned her face fully toward me, and I could see the smirk on her wide mouth.
"I would be lying if I denied that. I wonder if he was one of the bodies in the home," I said.
"I doubt that. The corpses looked as if they had all been dead for a long time. I don't know what Veer's purpose was in collecting them, but none of them looked as if they had died in the last two weeks."
"Did you think there was something strange about the bodies?" I asked the blonde woman.
"What do you mean?"
"I haven't seen that many corpses, but they seemed very dry, as if there was no blood in them. Like they had been embalmed and preserved somehow. What do you think?" I asked her.
"That is a good observation. Huh." Fallon nodded and seemed to be lost in thought for a few moments.
"There isn't an embalmer anywhere near our territory," she finally said.
"And I don't know anyone besides the Priestesses who consider that practice useful. There isn't enough space to entomb the deceased. We just cremate them," I told Fallon the obvious. After I finished speaking, I winced and thought she would yell at me.
"Some of the wealthy families living in the top thirty have started to adopt the practice. I don't believe it is widespread though. As soon as the guards catch Fontyane, we'll be able to ask him about the bodies." She stretched her arms behind her back with a groan. "Let's fly the rest of the way. My stomach wants to eat more than my legs want to walk."
We took to the air, and I followed the bandaged woman up three levels and then down to the doorstep of a small restaurant that was a few hundred yards down the street from our nest. The staff knew Fallon by name, and we were soon sitting at a secluded corner table and sipping on hot mugs of tea.
"Look, pigeon. Anelia. I wanted to say I was sorry for the last few days." The waiters delivered various potatoes, eggs, and cuts of pork to our table, and the woman paused while they put our napkins on our laps. I'd never been to a restaurant where the staff put napkins on us, and I tried to keep my lips firm despite my pleasure. Vibus, Juliana, and Severa were going to be happy for me. I couldn't wait to tell them about the last day.
"That is okay, I understand that you are supposed to haze pigeons," I said.
As I lifted the cup of tea to take a sip, something fell into my lap, and I looked down to the spread napkin. There was a folded piece of paper there, and I glanced up to see Fallon still looking at her full plate of food.
"It's more than that," Fallon said with a sigh. "See… Shit, this is hard to talk about."
"What is wrong?" I looked at her face while I grabbed the paper in my lap.
"Ahhh, well. I've had six wingmates in the last sixteen years. Besides Belinna, they have all requested to transfer away from me."
"Oh," I said.
Belinna was one of the Potentias killed on the last Moon Night.
"We'd been together for five years. We got along great. Before her, I was worried they were going to force me into retirement."
"Oh," I repeated as I opened the paper in my hands. I was starting to put the pieces together.
"Then Ocellina transfers, makes changes, Belinna was killed by the mob, and I get you as my replacement wingmate. I thought she'd set me up to fail. Maybe I walked right into it by not supporting you as I should have."
"But we haven't failed. I doubt that the captain wants you to fail," I said.
"My old partners always told me that I relied on my gut too much when making decisions. They were always about the information and process. But whenever I had a gut feeling about the suspect, I always ended up being correct. Perhaps I rubbed it in a little too much with them, and that was why they always wanted to transfer. I know you like the captain, and I know she likes you too, but I'm ha
ving problem ignoring my gut." Fallon laughed and then nodded at my plate of food.
"All is forgiven, Fallon. I really want to learn from you," I said with a smile, and my wingmate grunted before she picked up her fork.
We both ate for a few moments, and I glanced down at the paper I had just unfolded.
Do you really believe they will let him live if they find him first? -A
My heart hammered in my chest, and I glanced around the restaurant. The place was half full, and no one was looking in our direction. I didn't see Ash anywhere, but it had been a minute since the paper must have been dropped onto my napkin. Maybe it was attached to the bottom of my teacup and the handsome man had set the note in place five minutes ago when we first arrived.
"Something wrong?" Fallon asked.
"No, sorry. I was just thinking about the last few days." I smiled at the woman and reached my hand across the table. "I'm honored that you are my wingmate. I will do my best to learn from your experience. Thank you for breakfast. It is excellent."
"You're welcome, Anelia." She smiled at me and then dug back into her food.
I wasn't really tasting the breakfast anymore, but I occupied myself with eating so that I could study the note more. Who did Ash mean when he wrote they and him? He had to have been referring to Fontyane Veer, and the guards, but only sixty, maybe seventy minutes had passed since Veer's house burnt. How did Ash know that the guards were looking for Fontyane?
Did Ash already know what I would find at Fontyane's house? Did he give me the list of four to make me work before I found the real murderer? Why did he think that the guards would kill Fontyane when they caught him?
"Thinking about the case?" Fallon's question pulled me from my puzzle.
"Yes, I wish we could have found Veer."
"He might be anywhere in the city. Guards will find him eventually. I wish we could have arrested him too. Would have been a good finish to the investigation, but we'll have plenty of time to question him once he is in his cell."
"You are right," I took another bite of my breakfast and looked down at the plate. It was only half cleared, and I didn't feel like eating anything else.
Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) Page 15