4 The Infernal Detective

by Kirsten Weiss

  Gently, Riga lay her hand on the spring that would open the door, closed her eyes. She waited, her breath light and quick.

  More rustling sounds, drawers opening, closing.

  And then silence, and the soft thud of a broken door swinging shut.

  She slipped from her hiding place, gun arm extended. The bedroom appeared undisturbed, the light from the fire in the reading area glowing low and warm, casting shadows across the couch and chairs, the king-sized bed, the polished wooden floor, denuded of its carpet.

  Moving swiftly, Riga went to the bedroom door, edged it open with her foot.

  The hall was empty.

  Gun gripped at her side, she ran lightly down the stairs and into the living room. Pen sat curled on a leather couch before the fireplace, reading a book. Ash, tall and dark and dangerous, gazed out the picture window. The deck lights illuminated fat, wet flakes of falling snow.

  “Someone was in my room,” Riga said.

  Ash turned to her in a fluid movement, his coffee-colored face hardening. He drew back his green bomber jacket and pulled a Glock from a holster at his back. “No one came past me.”

  Pen laid her book on the side table, eyes widening at the sight of the guns. “I didn’t see anyone either.”

  “No one came past,” Ash repeated.

  “Then whoever it was is still upstairs.”

  The bodyguard nodded. “You and Pen go to the guardroom. Stay there. I’ll check it out.”

  Reluctantly, Pen stood. “Maybe we should go with you.”

  “No,” Ash said. “Get to the guardroom.”

  “Come on, Pen.” Riga held out her free hand.

  Feet dragging, Pen joined her.

  “Let him do his job,” Riga said, guiding her through the high-ceilinged foyer and down the short hallway to the guardroom. She rapped on the door and it sprang open.

  Ash watched from the foot of the stairs. He nodded to her, and ascended.

  Thomas, the guard from last night, lumbered from his chair. He rubbed a hand over his curly hair. It was thinning at the top, would soon become a tonsure. And then he noticed the gun at her side, and he straightened. “What—?”

  “Someone was in my room. Ash is checking it out. He wants Pen to stay with you.”

  Pen’s mouth fell open. “But Riga—”

  She clapped Pen on the shoulder, pushed, and Pen stumbled into the guard’s arms.

  “Keep her safe. Keep her here.”

  He nodded, pulled Pen into the room and shut the door.

  Riga crept through the foyer, past the open living room, past the stairs. The house had been built for live-in servants – servants neither Riga nor Donovan wanted. Ahead was a second staircase at the end of the hall, tucked around a corner. Whoever had been in her room might come down it. Might have already come down it.

  Gun gripped in both hands and pointed at the floor, Riga walked slowly, tried to quiet her breathing. The wooden floors creaked and groaned beneath her foot. She winced, froze, heard nothing, moved on.

  On her left was a door to a storage closet. She flattened herself against the wall, slowly turned the knob, shoved the door open and stepped back, gun forward. Stacks of chairs and battered tables stood mute and critical.

  She left the door open, continued to the next, pushed it open. Another closet, this one littered with saw horses and paint cans.

  Muscles tightening, Riga moved on. One more door to go, near the stairs. She edged forward.

  Around the corner, the stairs creaked.

  Riga pressed against the wall, elbows tight at her sides. Her gun was steady. Good.

  “Ash,” she hissed. “Ash, is that you?”

  A footfall.

  “Yeah,” Ash said in a low voice. “I’m coming down.”

  She breathed normally, relaxing.

  He rounded the corner, gun held in both hands, aimed at the floor. The bodyguard shook his head.

  She jerked her chin toward the closed door opposite, narrow, unvarnished wood. Behind it was an unused servant’s quarters.

  Ash nodded, moved silently to the wall beside the door, gripped the knob. In one swift motion, he threw it inward, and stepped inside, gun extended. “Don’t move!”

  “Drop it,” a man commanded.

  “Shit,” Riga said. “Mr. Smith? Is that you?”

  “Tell your man to lower his weapon,” Smith growled.

  “You first,” Ash said, unmoving.

  Cursing beneath her breath, Riga walked to the door, tucking her gun in the rear waistband of her khakis.

  John Smith stood inside, legs in a wide stance, a Glock in his hands aimed at Ash. His normally bland face had a grim set to it, jaw tight, eyes narrowed.

  “It’s just a misunderstanding,” Riga said. “Everyone can put their guns down.”

  The two men didn’t budge.

  “Seriously. Now,” she said.

  Slowly, Ash pointed his weapon toward the floor. Smith followed suit.

  Riga edged past Ash into the Spartan room – a twin bed, plain wooden cabinet, one window high in the wall. “How did you get in here?”

  “Same way I always do – the front door.”

  “And the guards just let you in,” Ash said flatly.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Smith holstered the Glock. “Mosse said I could stay here, save the government some money. The guards know to let me in. Didn’t he tell you?”

  “No,” Riga said, jaw tight. But surely he would have. “When was this?”

  “This morning.”

  Damn. It must have been Donovan’s father who’d told him he could stay… which was why she hadn’t known about it. But why punish the man with this room when there were much nicer rooms upstairs? On the verge of suggesting a room change, she remembered she didn’t like Smith, and said nothing.

  Smith sat upon the bed. Its springs groaned. “Why’d you bust in here? I could have shot you.”

  “Someone was searching my room,” she said. “You?”

  Smith’s lips twisted. “Come on.”

  “You see or hear anyone?” Ash said.

  “No.”

  “Never mind then.” Riga backed from the room. “Sorry about the mistake.”

  She waited outside. Ash joined her, shutting the door, and they walked back down the hall.

  Riga stopped beside the Christmas tree in the foyer. “Did you see signs of anyone upstairs?”

  “No,” Ash said. “Though your bedroom door is broken.”

  “Donovan did that the other night.”

  “Why hasn’t it been repaired?”

  “We’ve been busy,” she said.

  “Think Smith is lying?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s a fed doing here?”

  “He’s with Treasury – some clean up after that money laundering incident last month. No big deal.” But not even Riga believed it.

  Chapter 13

  Riga drew the bedroom curtains and turned off the bedside lamp, the light from the fireplace a soothing flicker across the walls. Sleep was futile but she went through the motions, changing into silky pajamas, sliding beneath the down coverlet, knees pulled to her chest.

  The bedroom door gnawed at her. Which was stupid. If she wasn’t safe in her own home with a bodyguard downstairs and a gun under her pillow…

  She’d get the door fixed tomorrow.

  She rolled to her side, watched the firelight paint moving figures on the wall.

  What if her aunts were right? What if the reason her magic wasn’t working was because it was the wrong sort of magic? What if necromancy was the only sort of higher magic she could work?

  She tossed in bed, sickened at the thought. The light from the fire dimmed.

  Something clunked upon the balcony outside, and her head jerked up. A scrabbling sound, and then another thunk that shook the wood and glass door.

  Riga threw the covers off and strode to the door, pulling the curtains aside.

  The gargoyle glared up at her.<
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  Riga unlocked the door, opened it.

  Brigitte hopped past, her stone feathers twitching, spraying Riga with snow.

  “Yow! That’s cold.” Riga leapt backwards, kicking the snow off her bare feet.

  “Phbt!”

  “Did you sneeze?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Gargoyles cannot sneeze.” Brigitte leapt to the footboard, wobbled, and steadied herself.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Avoiding your horrible aunts. They turned me to stone!”

  Riga went to sit on one of the wide, stuffed chairs by the fire. “You are stone.”

  “They turned me into a… paperweight! And they did not apologize!”

  “No,” Riga agreed, tucking her feet beneath her. “And they should. I’ll ask them to.”

  Brigitte tossed her head. “Hmph!”

  “I want your advice. Someone left a poppet under my bed.”

  Brigitte shuffled sideways on the footboard, talons clenching and unclenching. “Who? A guest? A servant?”

  “I don’t know.” Riga rubbed her hands over the arms of the chair, its cream-colored fabric soft against her palms. “For now, I’ve got the poppet packed in salt.”

  “You could scry for its creator with a pendulum.”

  “And there’s something else – in the auras of several of my guests I noticed a sort of dark cord extending from their center.”

  “An attachment? And you say it is on more than one of your guests?”

  Riga nodded unhappily.

  “That is bad,” Brigitte said. “Very bad. Such dark attachments are rare, Riga. If more than one of your guests has been attacked in this way, then it is you and your wedding party that is ze target.”

  “Coincidence that two necromancers are here?”

  “You think your aunts are ze target.”

  “It makes sense. I haven’t pissed any magicians off lately.”

  “No, you have been positively boring in that respect.”

  “I need to find out who’s behind this.”

  “You will scry the poppet?”

  “My more immediate concern is my guests, those attachments.”

  A chip of wood fell to the floor beneath the gargoyle’s claws. “And who shall you start with?”

  Riga stood and took a candlestick from the mantel, lighting it in the fire. She placed it firmly in its pewter holder and set it on the coffee table. “Pregnant ladies first. The writer, Terry.” She remembered that tiny, stringy substance extending from Terry’s heart and belly, and shuddered.

  The gargoyle watched as Riga walked around the room, conducting her banishing and cloaking rituals. She’d been careless last time, and something had pushed back. Tonight she needed stealth, secrecy.

  Riga lay down on the bed and the gargoyle turned in place, following her movement.

  The gargoyle cleared her throat. “Did you remember—?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about—?”

  “Brigitte,” Riga said in a warning tone. But who was she kidding? After her latest performance, she deserved to be second-guessed.

  The gargoyle rustled her stony feathers.

  Riga closed her eyes, and drew in the energies from above and below. Her muscles relaxed, and she focused on her breath, felt it fill her body, escape. She imagined Terry, coloring in the details: her long brown hair, softly rounded face, the competent set to her full lips, the strange black cords emanating from her heart and stomach.

  The footboard creaked.

  Riga observed the blackness of her eyelids. Sparks of light came and went. Shadows, faces, appeared. She sank deeper into relaxation, the down comforter a billowy cloud. Her hands tingled.

  She imagined herself flying out the window, over the trees, the falling snow cold upon her skin. And then she was at the casino, descending through the floors, stopping at Terry’s. She walked down the hall, through the closed door to Terry’s room.

  The writer lay in bed, snoring lightly, face tranquil in sleep, the edge of the covers bunched around her chin. Twin cords rose from the figure on the bed, dark, twisted, frayed.

  Riga grabbed them and they stretched around her hands, sticky. Her gorge rose. In a violent motion she turned her hands, wrenched away, snapping the connections. Snakelike, the cords twined around Riga’s arms. She wanted to claw at them, to run, to scream. Her limbs shook. She clamped her jaw shut and closed her eyes, concentrating on her breath. But she could still feel the stuff crawling, attaching itself to her heart.

  Riga’s eyes flashed open. Terry was weak minded, that was why these dark cables had tethered themselves to her. They’d influenced her somehow, and Terry had let them attack her – her and her baby. Disgust welled up in Riga for the sleeping woman. Fool. But Riga could control her now, perhaps ease the pain of Cam’s loss.

  Riga shook her head, and her breathing quickened. These thoughts weren’t her own. Whatever had attached to Terry was influencing her now.

  She sent her awareness up the black string, passing through the floors of the hotel, through the clouds, gray and cold and heavy. And then she was above them, flying, the stars blazing overhead, the moon turning the tops of the clouds to molten silver. She was light, buoyant, and laughed with delight.

  Beneath her, a winged shadow flew against the clouds, startling her. Then her pounding heart slowed. The shadow was her own, dim in the waning moonlight.

  The clouds began to glow, burnt orange and ochre by city lights. She descended into it, flew down long corridors of skyscrapers and cement.

  The city changed, its buildings growing older and smaller. She passed through the window of a soot-colored brick building and into a room filled with books: books in cases, books on tabletops, books stacked on a worn Persian rug. The old man from her visions stood before a fireplace, unlit and radiating cold. A door was open on the far wall. Light and a murmur of voices streamed through it. Beside the door was a desk, its brass reading lamp casting a cone of light upon books and papers. Riga drifted to it, was rewarded with a stack of mail, face up upon a pile of leather-bound books.

  A name: Rupert Howell. An address.

  Riga smiled. It was enough.

  A sword flamed in her hand and she raised it to free herself, slice the dark attachment. And was knocked sideways into the fireplace.

  She lay limp, watched particles of soot rain lazily down. Then the pain came, a cascade of ice spreading from her gut, and she struggled off the bent fire screen and into a crouch. The old man stood in the doorway, muttering. His hands were twisted claws and raised, palm up. From one hand extended that dark attachment. A figure, there and not there, ghostlike, stood before her. Rotting flesh. Skeletal hands. Tattered clothing.

  It moved like the wind. Another chilling blow, but this time she was ready for it, warded it with a quick motion of her hands, and kept her footing.

  “Sorry, wrong room,” Riga said.

  The old man hurled a curse. The ghoul pounced. She leapt to the side, skidding into a pile of books. If she could knock them over… She reached for one, and her hand passed through it. Unfair!

  The ghoul grabbed her hair, swung her backwards, spun her.

  She staggered into a bookshelf. It wobbled, didn’t fall.

  The ghoul lunged and she kicked it in the groin. It doubled over, kept coming.

  Hands clenched together, she hammer-fisted its neck as it rushed her, stepped to the side, watched it fly past. Ice spread up her arm, and she roared with pain.

  Bent double, it turned, swept at her, grabbing her around the waist and taking her to the ground. Its maw opened, gaping, teeth folding outward.

  She grunted. “Not again.” She jammed her elbow into its neck and kneed its stomach. It jerked but held on, a stream of saliva dripping from its mouth. The stench made her stomach roil. Riga grasped its elbow and yanked it to her. The ghoul lost balance, fell forward to her side. She rolled and suddenly she was on top, and the sword she’d dropped was by her knee.

&nbs
p; Grasping it, she drove it into the thing’s chest. It grabbed the hilt and pulled itself along the blade. Wouldn’t anything kill this thing? It grabbed her throat. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream. The cold spread up her neck and speared her brain. Dark spots swam before her.

  The ghoul’s jaws snapped, its breath cold on her neck.

  She grasped the attachment at her heart and severed it against the upright sword.

  A blast of heat and flame.

  Riga gasped, rolled off the bed, rubbing her neck. She was in her bedroom again, and she swayed on her feet.

  “What?” Brigitte fluttered to the mattress. “What happened?”

  Riga sucked in her breath, chest heaving. “I got the name of the guy at the other end of the attachment.”

  “And? You were choking and thrashing about. It was very disturbing.”

  “He was controlling some sort of ghost or ghoul. It attacked me.”

  “Which was it? A ghost or a ghoul?”

  “How the hell should I know? I’m no necromancer.”

  “This is very important, Riga.”

  Riga coughed, walked to the bathroom and poured a glass of water from the tap. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It wasn’t a ghost. I’ve never seen a ghost behave like that. And I’ve never been attacked like that either.”

  “How did you defeat it?”

  Riga’s cheeks warmed. “I didn’t.” She took a gulp of water, spilling some down her chin. She wiped it with the back of her hand. “I cut the cord and ran.” She hated ground fighting. And she’d been in two wrestling matches in twenty-four hours. She’d have to practice more. “I got my astral ass kicked.”

  “Ah, well.” The gargoyle sighed. “Better to run away and live to get your ass kicked another day.”

  Riga picked up a notepad and pen from the end table beside the bed. “Yeah. I think I heard that somewhere. Voltaire, right?”

  “You were attacked by something undead, and ze undead is not… How do you say? Your thing.”

  Riga wrote down the name and address of the old man.

  “I have no doubt,” the gargoyle said, “your wicked aunts would have been able to dispatch this creature. But you are not like them. You understand that necromancy is ze path to madness.”

  “Right.” She put the notepad back in the drawer, slid it shut.