Bloodmage

by Stephen Aryan

  As before Byrne came to collect Fray as he was finishing the last mouthful of his lunch. He followed the older man out of the barracks and they walked for a few minutes in silence. Fray could see Byrne was turning things over in his mind, so he left him alone. The cries of seagulls tugged at Fray’s ears and somewhere in the distance he could hear the sound of the waves. They passed along a busy road laden with street merchants offering a range of wares to cool you down in the summer heat. Chunks of fruit chilled on icy stone slabs. Fans and brightly coloured parasols and wide-brimmed hats woven from riverbank reeds. Some people had even adopted a version of Drassi trousers, baggy cotton garments which were much more comfortable and less restrictive. Fray’s uniform chafed a little, but it was nothing in comparison to the aching muscles in his tired legs and arms.

  A hundred conversations flowed around Fray and he picked up a tentative atmosphere of happiness and hope. Recent events were troubling some, and many were still nervous of anything to do with magic, but so far stories about the murderer hadn’t become public knowledge. Many people were still worried, but the city had been without trouble long enough that they were willing to entertain the idea this was the norm again. He hoped he wouldn’t disappoint them.

  Finally Byrne came back to the present. “While you were learning about the Bridge of Tears, I spent the morning speaking to the families of the first two victims. I also called in on Bav, our missing dock worker. Once again he wasn’t at home.”

  They’d visited his house the previous day but no one had been there. Questioning the neighbours had revealed very little, so they’d been forced to leave empty handed.

  “We’ll go back later today.”

  Despite Bav’s continued absence, which played into Byrne’s theory about him being involved in the murders, Byrne didn’t seem pleased. He continually scanned the streets, one hand resting on his sword, and barely acknowledged Fray was even there.

  “Where are we going?” asked Fray, hoping Byrne would at least look at him, but he never made eye contact.

  “I found something the first two victims had in common with both dock workers. They were also regulars at the arena.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  Byrne grunted. “Then you’re an idiot.”

  “What?” said Fray, pausing in the street. Byrne had gone a dozen paces before he noticed Fray was not beside him. Slowly he came back and spoke in a low, harsh voice, glancing suspiciously at people who came too close.

  “This is your first case. Reading about them in your dad’s journals doesn’t make you an expert. Remember that.”

  Fray was stunned. “What are you saying?”

  “You need to prepare yourself for failure. Cases are never straightforward. They twist and turn like a maze before we find the right path. The arena could be a coincidence. Is that understood?”

  Byrne didn’t even wait for him to reply. He turned his back on Fray and set off towards the arena. Fray took a minute to calm himself down and then caught up.

  The Old Man had been right about Byrne. Whether it was the loss of his partner and closest friend, or what had happened during the war, Byrne had become brusque and indifferent to other people. Fray hadn’t wanted to believe it, as the person he remembered had been friendly and generous, but the stone-faced man beside him was starting to feel like a total stranger.

  A few minutes later they arrived at one of the many footbridges that spanned the river. Another Guardian, a tall blonde woman, had just finished speaking to a young couple.

  “Baker. Is everything all right?” asked Byrne, scanning the area for signs of trouble. Baker towered above Fray and he had to crane his neck to look at her face.

  “This must be your novice,” said Baker, offering Fray a hand, which he shook. “I had the pleasure of working with your father. He was a good man.”

  “Thank you,” said Fray, feeling slightly taken aback by Baker’s warmth. He’d known his father had been respected but thought it would have faded in the intervening years.

  “Did you lose something?” asked Byrne, looking past Baker into the churning waters of the River Kalmei.

  “Maybe. I’ve been given a missing persons case. The one you dodged.”

  “It was a waste of my time, and yours,” said Byrne with venom.

  Baker looked surprised at Byrne’s attitude. “The parents of both boys are very worried. They’ve been missing for three days.”

  “They’re dead. It’s that simple. And the only reason we’ve been given the case, instead of the Watch, is because they’re sons of rich nobles.”

  “The Khevassar—”

  “Is a powerful man,” said Byrne, cutting her off, “but even he has masters that must be obeyed. The nobles complained to their powerful friends, who told their friends, and soon they’d created enough noise that someone in the palace heard about it. They bent the Queen’s ear and now she wants it to go away. So she bends the Old Man’s ear and he dumps it on us.”

  Fray had never seen Byrne like this before, agitated and so bitter.

  “So where are they then?” asked Baker, unwilling to be put off from the problem at hand.

  “They drowned. He and a friend were last seen stumbling home late at night. They’d been at a party, they got drunk, they fell in. I’d look at the bottom of the river. Given that it’s been three days, I’d look a mile or so downriver. If the bodies aren’t snagged on anything they will soon bloat and rise to the surface.”

  Baker looked as if she would argue further, but Byrne marched away before she had a chance to reply. Fray raised an eyebrow but Baker just shook her head. From her puzzled expression Fray wasn’t the only one who thought Byrne was acting peculiar. He would have to send a note to the Old Man very soon.

  Fray left the Guardian on the bridge and jogged after Byrne to catch up. The aching muscles in his legs screamed at him as he put them under even more pressure, so he quickly slowed to a fast walk instead.

  “What was all that about?” asked Fray, hoping to see a glimmer of the man he remembered.

  Byrne looked annoyed but he quickly shook it off. His expression became neutral as he ticked items off on the fingers of his right hand. “There’s a magical serial killer in the city, dozens of unsolved murders, a lethal version of venthe on the streets, and rumours of a feud brewing between the crime Families. And that’s just the beginning.”

  “But you’re not tackling all of those cases by yourself,” said Fray.

  “No, I’m not. But do you think I should drop any of them for a pair of drunken teenagers?”

  Fray didn’t have an answer and an uncomfortable silence settled between them. Twenty minutes later they arrived at the arena. Fray was disappointed to see a large poster on the double doors. It was a city proclamation from the Watch about an indefinite closure due to an ongoing investigation. Byrne didn’t look surprised.

  “You knew about this?”

  “I’d heard a rumour so I asked one of the other Guardians. There was an incident,” said Byrne, rather vaguely. “It might have been drugs or something else. They’re still investigating.”

  Staring up at the outside of the building made Fray’s skin prickle and he began to feel uneasy.

  “You’re not telling me something,” said Fray.

  “I need your first impression, untainted by my ideas. Your father and I would do this and then discuss it after.”

  Fray had more questions but decided to play along for now. Byrne knocked loudly on a small side door and a short time later Fray heard bolts being drawn back. A huge bald-headed man with arms as thick as Fray’s legs answered the door. He didn’t look surprised to see two Guardians at the door, merely puzzled.

  “I thought you lot were done for now,” he rumbled.

  “This is about something else. Are you Vinneck?”

  “No, Jakka. Vinny’s in his office,” he said, stepping aside to let them in. The second he stepped over the threshold Fray felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He
stumbled and would have fallen if Byrne hadn’t caught him and kept him upright. All of his skin itched and the air felt tight and dry in his lungs. Every breath brought a wave of pain and sweat burst from his pores.

  His nose filled with the smell of salty old blood, fear, sweat and a rancid stench of decay. Looking around he expected to see a rotting corpse, but there was nothing except bare stone walls. When he tried to swallow it felt as if there was a lump of food stuck in his throat and he started to choke. As his face turned red Fray reached out with his hands in desperation. Byrne and Jakka were trying to help, one slapping him on the back, the other trying to wrestle open his mouth, thinking he’d swallowed his tongue. As Fray fell to his hands and knees he reached out with his other senses, the world rippled and a flood of new feelings rushed in.

  Suddenly he could breathe again, but now he could hear the distant cry of many voices as if the arena were full of people. Behind the chanting and cheering was a loud and steady heartbeat, as if the building itself were the body of a great beast and they were standing inside its chest. The building wasn’t alive, but it had been a focal point for so many strong emotions they had left an indelible mark. An old scar that had never quite healed. But the old emotions were only a background whisper in comparison to what Fray now felt. Something terrible had happened more recently and the wound it had left was still fresh.

  Staring down at the stone and sawdust, Fray could see lines of power running through it, deep beneath the surface, like a hidden river of molten lava. The glowing red and yellow threads coursed with energy. Staring towards the ring at the centre of the arena, he could see a giant network of lines criss-crossing each other like a spider’s web. All of them twisted and angled towards one spot among the seats.

  Slowly Fray became aware of Byrne squatting down beside him, telling him to focus on his voice. Byrne told him to push aside all emotions from the past and concentrate on the present. That was a lot easier said than done, but he desperately clung to the idea that the raw feelings were only a memory of what had happened. Fray held on to another truth. The building was mostly empty, and by extending his senses further he found only four people. After a few minutes he was gradually able to suppress the past and slowly withdraw his magic.

  When Fray’s eyesight returned to normal he still felt a slight catch in his throat, but could breathe normally. He stood up and dusted himself off.

  “Where can we find Vinny?” asked Byrne, as if nothing had happened.

  “Down the corridor, office on the right,” said Jakka, giving Fray a puzzled look. They left the big man behind and Fray followed Byrne down a narrow corridor that ran along the outside wall of the arena.

  Byrne knocked and went inside without waiting for an answer.

  A thin balding man sat behind a battered old desk in a cramped office filled with neat stacks of paper and books. As they entered he was adding to a page of neat tallies and scores which Fray guessed had something to do with gambling. Byrne didn’t introduce himself and Vinny didn’t ask. The uniforms were enough.

  At the edges of his perception Fray could still feel the echo of what he’d experienced. The distant murmur of a monstrous heart. He tried to force it away and focus on the conversation.

  “I wanted to ask you about some of your regulars,” said Byrne, and Vinny raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re not here about the other night?”

  “No,” said Byrne, taking out a notebook and flipping through it. He rattled off the names and descriptions of the three victims, then looked at Vinny expectantly.

  “They don’t sound familiar, but we have a lot of regulars.”

  “Which means what?”

  Vinny mulled it over for a minute. “They never did anything to get themselves noticed, never got into any trouble, and their bets were modest.”

  “Do any of them owe any money?” asked Byrne.

  Vinny twisted around and pulled a slim blue book from the nearest shelf. He flipped to a page halfway through and quickly scanned what looked to Fray like a random list of numbers and initials.

  “Hmm, no. They’re all square with the house.”

  It was just what Byrne had warned him might happen. Although all three victims had attended fights at the arena, there didn’t seem to be anything else that connected them. No reason they had been chosen by the killer. None that they knew of yet.

  “Tell me about the other night,” said Byrne. “I’ve heard about it from others, but not from anyone who was here.”

  Vinny didn’t say anything for a long time and at first Fray thought he wouldn’t answer. Byrne seemed willing to wait and eventually Fray realised Vinny was summoning his courage.

  “There was something in the air,” said Vinny in a quiet voice. “I’ve seen all kind of crowds, but nothing like this before. They were hungry.”

  Fray couldn’t help himself. “Hungry for what?”

  Vinny’s eyes locked onto his but then drifted away into the past. “Blood. When the fight started to go wrong, they revelled in it.”

  “I heard the fighters were on drugs,” said Byrne but Vinny shook his head.

  “No, it was something else. The fighters ripped each other to pieces and every single person enjoyed it. The carnage, the brutality. They loved it. Men and women, young and old, screaming for more.”

  The echo at the edge of Fray’s senses seemed to grow louder in response to his growing sense of unease.

  “You can still feel it, can’t you?” said Vinny, staring at Fray, who could only nod, his throat tight and uncomfortable. “It’s worse near the ring.”

  Byrne seemed calm and unaffected, but Fray noticed he kept smoothing out his moustache, which he only did when anxious.

  “We’d like to speak to someone who was here that night. Do you have a list of names?”

  “Only those who placed bets.”

  Something occurred to Fray. “Did anyone called Bav place a bet that night? He’s a dock worker, so it was probably modest.”

  Vinny consulted his notebook again, running his finger down the list of figures. “Hmm, yes actually. He placed a small wager on an early bout, but hasn’t been to collect his winnings.”

  Byrne and Fray exchanged a knowing glance, which Vinny saw but didn’t ask what it meant.

  “Thank you for your help,” said Byrne, turning towards the door. Fray offered a smile of thanks and together they hurried out of the building. Jakka let them out without asking what had happened earlier but Fray knew he was curious.

  When they were a few streets away from the arena the sound of the monstrous heartbeat faded and Fray started to relax.

  “It was him. The killer. He was at the arena, and did something terrible with his magic,” said Fray before something else occurred to him. “You already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I suspected.”

  “Did you know what it might do to me?” he asked, hoping Byrne would deny it but he didn’t.

  Byrne’s expression turned hard. “I’m not here to be your mother. If you want to be a Guardian then you need to get used to unpleasant situations. They happen every day in this city. People die all the time. Our job is to make sure that justice is served.”

  Fray was speechless, but either Byrne didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  “We need to find the killer, before he strikes again.”

  “How?” Fray managed to ask.

  “We start with finding Bav. He’s involved somehow, I just know it.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Put a watch on his house and hope that we find him before the killer strikes again.”

  It was clear from Byrne’s dour expression he didn’t think they would succeed. Someone else was going to die and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

  CHAPTER 18

  An hour before midday Katja finally managed to drag herself out of bed. When she’d dressed and brushed the knots out of her long dark hair, she found herself staring at the kitchen and back door. The entire area
had been scrubbed clean and she couldn’t see a single drop of blood anywhere.

  “Your clothes couldn’t be salvaged,” said Gankle. “I had to destroy them.”

  The only proof that she’d killed two men last night was in her memories. She made herself a promise not to spend too much time thinking about them. They’d left her with no choice and had not been good men.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Gankle from the doorway, snapping Katja out of her reverie. “Thirsty?”

  Gankle chattered on as he brewed the tea, telling her about recent clients and what had been going on in the city, starting with the Guardians investigating the fighting arena. She’d heard from Roza about a weird event that had closed it, but oddly no one had any details. The fights were very popular and yet no one who’d attended that night was willing to talk. The truth would come out eventually.

  “I have to go out shortly for a visit,” said Gankle, staring out the window at the street with some discomfort. “It’s for a new client. They’ve paid a substantial amount in advance, so we can’t really refuse.”

  It would mean speaking to other people, on purpose, interacting with strangers in an unfamiliar space that hadn’t been properly washed, swept or dusted. Gankle started biting his lip and scrubbing the palms of his hands with his fingernails, no doubt imagining the dirt.

  “I’ll go,” said Katja, since it was her job.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” said Gankle, choosing his words carefully. “We know that people could be watching.”

  “It would be more suspicious if I didn’t go. I have to pretend nothing has changed. Besides, I always visit the clients.”

  Gankle relented and passed her the address. “I’ll stay here and watch the shop, for any drop-ins.”

  The back door opened and Roza came into the kitchen. Her expression was grim and the deep shadows under her eyes suggested she’d not had much sleep.

  “Sit down,” she said to Katja, pulling up a seat.

  “A client is waiting.”