Wicked Ways: An Iron Kingdoms Chronicles Anthology

by Douglas Seacat

  “Yes, yes I did. I’m sorry he’s gone.” Midwinter seemed genuinely taken aback. “He was the only member of the Strangelight I knew. He helped me once, when he had no reason to do so, taking quite a risk. We’d fallen out of touch. It was remembering my conversations with him about his work that made me think of contacting your organization when our troubles began.”

  “We will soldier on without him,” Abigail said. Mel put a hand on Grimes’ arm, and he gave her a world-weary smile.

  Midwinter turned to address Lestingway. “I know you hadn’t planned to stay. But if I could impose on you, might you be willing to lend your expertise to our investigation? I will reimburse you.”

  “Well,” Lestingway said, looking at Abigail, who had visibly stiffened. He shifted uneasily. “This is Mistress Thorpe’s operation, not mine. She is an extremely capable investigator and is more versed than I in the latest techniques and apparatus.”

  “Of course, I did not mean to imply otherwise,” Midwinter said. “I am sure you are all very good at what you do. Still, it would be reassuring if a more experienced hand were present. The stakes are very high, and it is vital we resolve this situation expeditiously.”

  His smile to Abigail did not mitigate the indignation in her eyes. Still, she recovered smoothly, though her cheeks had reddened and her hand on her bag clenched. She said, “For my part, it would be an honor if Investigator Lestingway would assist. I would be glad to learn from his wisdom and experience.”

  “In that case, of course I’ll help.” Lestingway offered a slight bow. “I am at your disposal.”

  He said this last to Abigail. It was clear from his expression that he understood the awkward position she was in. Despite being stuffy, Lestingway seemed a good egg. Grimes knew he had handled some tricky cases back in his prime.

  “Then it’s decided,” Midwinter said with apparent relief. “I would like you to begin as soon as possible.”

  Abigail asked, “I was led to believe there were special instructions?”

  “Yes. There will be places that are off-limits or that require you to coordinate with the castle staff. I would ask that you make yourselves as… inconspicuous as possible, though I realize some of your equipment may make this difficult. Please be circumspect. You can identify yourselves as my guests if pressed. I’ll be leaving Sergeant Webster with you.”

  He indicated one of the guardsmen behind him, who stepped forward. A nondescript man of average height and thin build, Webster’s brown hair was pulled back into a knot behind his head. Midwinter said, “Webster knows where you can and can’t go. He can also track me down. I will aid you directly as I can, though I have an unavoidable meeting with the king’s council and other matters may demand my attention. I’ll check on you periodically.”

  With that Midwinter took his leave, turning to sweep out of the chamber.

  Abigail turned to Webster and asked, “Do we have access to the battlements? Specifically, an area near the southeast tower? I’m sure you know the one I mean.”

  Midwinter’s man stood at ease, his hands folded behind his back. He said, “Absolutely, ma’am. We anticipated you’d need to go there. We’ve cleared that area and no one has been allowed near it since the incident. We also removed the bodies.”

  “That’s a relief,” Elliot said.

  Abigail frowned, no doubt weighing the usefulness of a proper forensic investigation against the disgusting mess that such a scene would have been. Then she turned to the group and said with enthusiasm, “Okay, everyone, gear up. Who wants to visit a murder site?”

  • • •

  GETTING READY WAS MORE INVOLVED for Grimes than for the other members of the team, but he was still glad to suit up, as he felt itchy being on the job in civilian clothes. He didn’t feel any modesty as he partially disrobed, taking off his coat, slacks, and outer shirt and shoes. Abigail and Mel had their attention on their own preparations, giving him the semblance of privacy, but they had all been in enough compromising situations that he felt no concerns about decorum.

  He pulled on his leg warmers and then the bulky trousers and upper portion of the Deflective Encounter Suit, more often referred to as “the suit,” “the gas bag,” “the balloon,” or other even less flattering terms. It was made of thick, layered fabrics pleated to allow it to expand and was set with numerous small button-like pressure release valves. The trousers clasped tightly at his knees, with wrapped cloth covering his ankles down to his boots and similar wraps along his forearms and into the heavy gauntlets he pulled on. The arms sealed just past the elbows. A broad and high collar surrounded his neck, over which he donned a close-fitting leather hood with protective cups over his ears. He also had a pair of thick alchemically treated goggles serving both as eye protection but, more important, as filters to augment his ability to see the unseen in conjunction with the Strangelight lanterns and projectors they employed. It was heavy and a bit claustrophobic, though once they cranked it full of properly agitated air, it would feel better.

  Mel and Elliot assisted him into the rest of his rig, which relied on a chest harness to which the central machinery for his suit was attached. This included a series of flexible pipes connected to a mechanikal air compressor and regulation rig. These pipes ran under his arms and along the back of his arms, where they connected with his suit at multiple points and also fed energy by conduits into his charged gauntlets. Once the compression device was triggered, augmented air was piped into his suit, which then inflated, expanding from his knees to his upper torso. Walking around in the fully inflated suit looked slightly ridiculous, but Grimes had come to rely on its protection. The air circulating inside the suit was warm but not uncomfortably so, and the apparatus injected a fine-grained alchemical powder that was reactive to the energies his dynamic capacitor could produce. Some jammers didn’t like to wear their suit very long at one stretch, but he had always felt most comfortable when he was inside with its engine humming—the baddies had to work extra hard to get to him now.

  The agitated air inside his suit created a protective buffer surrounding most of his body that spirits and other unnatural things couldn’t easily get past. The regular operation of the suit produced a noticeable rumble and hum but one that was easily eclipsed by other ambient noises.

  “How are you feeling in there?” Mel asked. He gave a thumbs-up, and she affectionately patted the gauge-filled machinery on his chest before turning to help Elliot. Grimes did not mistake this gesture for anything more than her attachment to the machinery he wore that she helped to maintain. That said, he felt a special bond with Mel as the two senior veterans of the group.

  The rest of the team got into their gear more quickly, though Elliot didn’t put on his Sensory Augmentation Hood yet, keeping it clipped to his belt for now. Sometimes it was referred to as a “ghost mask” or more commonly just “the hood.” It resembled the heaviest gas masks employed by alchemists for working with particularly caustic chemicals. When worn, it enclosed the caller’s entire head in black leather broken up by brass fittings enclosing the dark smoky glass of its thick lenses. The small mouth aperture enabled him to talk but with some difficulty. He preferred to put it on just before trying to reach an elusive spirit. The hood let him filter out the environment and facilitated entering the trance-like mental state he needed to open his mind and become receptive to voices no one else could hear. There were special aptitudes preferred for every role in a good Strangelight team, but the ones that made for a skilled caller were the most elusive. Though young, Elliot was the best natural talent Grimes had ever worked with.

  Mel and Kincaid weren’t wearing outfits as specialized, but they brought everything else the team might require for their work. Mel’s mechanik’s rig featured myriad pouches of various sizes and a variety of straps and cords from which she could string her most important tools and which aided her in operating heavier gear without straining her back. Kincaid was pushing a small-wheeled wagon bearing, among other things, the largest of th
e Strangelight projectors and lumitype devices necessary to create spectragraph exposures, which documented their findings. Mel spent several minutes fretting about what she was leaving behind in the sleeping area.

  The other members of the team were quickly ready to go. Abigail had her own smaller, sleek portable lumitype and otherwise carried only her satchel filled with notebooks and her other investigative gear. Lestingway and Dungot were essentially empty handed, expected to contribute through observation. The burden of Dungot’s gear was on Takal, who was loaded down with everything the dwarf might need, including as much as two hundred pounds of books or more.

  Sergeant Webster led the way, taking them on a varied route through back hallways and servants’ corridors up into the castle proper, past several heavy, closed doors with guard checkpoints, ultimately taking a lengthy ride up a steam-powered lift before disembarking out onto the lower battlements. Grimes realized they still hadn’t seen much of the castle’s interior yet and not a single room the blue-bloods liked to occupy. No arched ceilings, fancy paintings, or lush carpets for them.

  They were an admittedly peculiar-looking group, and while they always felt out of place wherever their investigations might take them, it was especially true here. They drew more than a few curious looks—even the disciplined castle guards weren’t above whispering behind their backs after they passed. This wasn’t anything they weren’t used to, and Lestingway and Dungot chatted as they went, pondering the possibility of grymkin involvement, given one of the encounter sites had involved a mirror. Grymkin loved mirrors—or at least some of them apparently did. Abigail was listening with interest. The talk made the hairs on the back of Grimes’ neck stand on end. One shouldn’t talk about grymkin so loosely, he thought, remembering some of his grandmother’s old superstitions about them.

  The sergeant pointed up a set of stairs climbing to a higher portion of the battlements. “We’re almost there. Just up past that curve.”

  Mel stared at the stairs and then looked back to the wagon and Kincaid, who gave an uncertain shrug. He said, “Things are strapped down tight. We can lift it, between Grimes, Takal, and I. Or we can offload the crates.”

  Abigail said, “Just leave the wagon here. We can come back for anything we need. Let’s just inspect the site and take some preliminary exposures first. See what we’re dealing with.”

  “If we need something, we won’t have time to come back. I don’t want to leave it.” Mel had her hands on her wide hips in an attempt to look stern, but she seemed more hurt than angry. It was an effort for her to be confrontational, especially with Abigail staring back at her, unmoved. Though Mel was almost a foot taller than the investigator and at least ten years older, she was not an intimidating person; her enthusiasm and quirkiness undermined any attempt at being serious. Artis was perched on one of the crates on the wagon, cleaning one of her front paws and looking up at the argument.

  “I agree with Mel,” Grimes said. “Keep the gear close. Better to be safe.”

  Lestingway cleared his throat and said, “Hauling it across the rough battlement stones might put the most delicate instruments at risk. And if something happens, the crates might get in the way.”

  “Fine,” Mel said irritably after a considered pause. Lestingway had clearly picked the right argument. Mel waved to Kincaid, and he pulled it out off the main path, locked the wheels, then followed as they climbed to the next level.

  The castle was a convoluted complex and the battlements looked to be a maze with multiple layers and numerous towers connected by walkways, not all of them as wide as the one they had just left. At the top of these stairs a brisk wind hit them, though Grimes felt the chill only on the exposed lower part of his face. The sun was past its zenith, but it was a relatively clear and bright autumn day.

  Elliot made the mistake of looking down toward a section of courtyard far below them. He wavered on his feet. Grimes grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to the crenellations on the outer side, though he hadn’t honestly been in any danger of falling since the inner side had a wooden railing.

  “Easy there, lad,” he said gently. “This walkway’s plenty wide.”

  “Thanks,” Elliot said. “I hate heights.”

  Grimes had heard it before. Each had their issues. He despised trains, Elliot feared heights, Kincaid didn’t like small spaces, and Mel got tipsy from a single glass of wine. He hadn’t figured out Abigail’s vulnerabilities, though she was as curious as her cat. And that was always said to end badly.

  Simple wooden barricades painted with words of warning blocked the way ahead, but the sergeant moved them aside. They reached a broad area of the walkway close to the nearest tower door. Other than the alarming stains across the stones—clearly dried blood—the area didn’t look special or unusual. Still, the prickling sensation along the back of Grimes’ neck hadn’t gone away, and he felt his pulse accelerating. He checked the gauges on his suit, ensuring everything was in the black.

  “I’m getting something,” Kincaid said, looking down at a spirit compass in his hand. The needle was moving rapidly back and forth.

  Mel glanced at it and said, “Inconclusive. Put it away for now. We know the hot spot.”

  Sergeant Webster pointed to one of the largest stained areas and said, “One of the bodies was there, a giant hole in his chest. He was practically torn in two. The other one was even messier. His body was over here. I think he had been trying to run. Left arm was torn off, and his head and face were badly mangled. All but unrecognizable.”

  “Just lovely,” Mel said, making a face.

  “Ok, Sergeant,” Abigail said, “can you move back, please? By the lift? We’ll be fine. Thank you.”

  Lestingway opened his mouth to suggest something, and she cut him off, taking charge and telling each of them where to be. Grimes smiled behind his glove while the older investigator scowled, though Lestingway did as she’d asked. Abigail instructed Mel where she wanted her Strangelight projectors and the larger, slow-exposure, fixed lumitypes. She had her portable one ready, preparing to take hand-held exposures. It was often a good idea to get multiple angles. There were times when the smaller camera might catch something the larger ones missed, especially if it was something that appeared and quickly vanished.

  “There are a number of small holes between some of these stones,” Abigail said, squinting at the ground. “They seem limited to this area.”

  “Interesting,” said Lestingway. “I don’t see anything special about their pattern. Might be unrelated.”

  Elliot pulled on his hood while Mel and Kincaid extended several folding and collapsible poles to create tripods for their projectors and lumitypes. Abigail clicked a switch activating the lens carousel on her lumitype up to speed. A familiar radiance poured forth, a violet hue that was more or less washed out and lost in the bright sunlight. She found the angle she wanted and stood as still as possible as she opened the primary aperture on the device to take an exposure.

  Grimes looked moodily at the stains, clicking through three different sets of lenses set into his own goggles. He went back to the second one, frowning. He was certain he had seen something, a telltale shiver in the air like the heat haze over a hot stove. He stood near to Elliot, both of them the only ones near the fore other than Abigail. Grimes blinked as, amid the bloodstains, there appeared a gleam of spectral lines and curves, like flowing script. Then it was gone. He blinked and realized Abigail had turned off the projector on her lumitype, her exposure done. Mel’s larger projectors weren’t in place yet, and the script was only visible in the Strangelight.

  “I saw something,” Grimes said. “Some kind of spectral script, maybe. Put the light back on. Abigail, point it over there.”

  “I didn’t see it,” she said, adjusting her spectacles and taking a single step back before crouching down slightly to peer at the stained and worn stones. “Goggles on, people. Mel, fire up another projector. Hurry.”

  Mel activated one of the larger projectors as Ab
igail turned hers on again, though it took several long seconds for each to spin up to speed. Soon enough they had three projectors sending Strangelight across the bloodstained stones, enough to tint the area in its bruised hue even in daylight.

  Abigail had removed her glasses and put Strangelight goggles on, and clicked through the different lenses. Her glasses were also treated to react to Strangelight, but lacked the variant filtered tinting that the goggles possessed. “I still don’t see anything.”

  Grimes didn’t either. “It’s gone now.”

  He felt decidedly uneasy; something was going on. He thought he could smell something in the air. A sharp but not unpleasant smell, a bit like the scent after a storm but with something astringent mixed in. Even as he adjusted his own lenses again, he realized it was getting darker and not just from the tint on his goggles.

  He looked up to see dark clouds rolling in. He frowned. They were moving fast, faster than the wind could account for. He shook off the thought. Ghosts couldn’t make clouds happen. Likely there were military stormsmiths nearby in the castle, brewing up some weather, as they liked to do.

  Abigail said, “Start the long exposures.”

  Mel grunted in affirmation. She was operating one of the fixed lumitypes perched atop its tripod while Kincaid activated the other. Long exposures weren’t good at catching anything that was moving, but they might reveal subtle energies that would otherwise be missed. Getting good spectragraphs was more art than science, however.

  Abigail mused, “It might be too faint for us to see with our eyes. Elliot, do you hear anything?”

  “Yes, there’s something faint, I think,” he said, his voice partially muffled by the hood. “Give me a moment. I’m going to turn up my filters.” This meant he’d hear supernatural things more clearly but would be deaf to the team. Grimes stayed close by and chewed his lip. It was getting darker by the second. He checked the gauges on his suit again. Goosebumps were running down his arms and neck. No surefire indicator, but he couldn’t escape the certainty that a manifestation was at hand. In theory that was their goal, and most spirits were elusive and shy. But the bloodstains here confirmed they were dealing with something nasty. He’d prefer to analyze a few spectragraph exposures before confronting whatever it was responsible for the murders.