Wicked Women

by Gaie Sebold

  ‘Fourteen days ago.’

  ‘And you haven’t been back, to visit?’

  ‘No!’ He leaned forward. ‘Look, promotion cycle’s coming up, I have to be discreet.’

  ‘I thought whoring was legal here?’

  ‘It is. But if anyone knew about…’ he glanced down. ‘The thing. With the fruit. Or the… People wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Sounds like a good reason to want someone out of the way,’ I said.

  ‘No! I just…I have to be careful, I was planning to go back. Do you really think something’s happened to her?’

  ‘You are aware that five amourettes have been found with their hearts cut out?’

  ‘But they’re street girls,’ he said. ‘Not like Deralis.’

  I had a blade to his throat before either of us could think about it. I managed, just, to keep from cutting him. ‘They’re women,’ I said. ‘People. They matter. It would do you good not to forget that, Councillor.’

  He swallowed, his throat bobbing against the blade.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘You’re a man of influence. I want to see the bodies. Get me that, and I’ll take you at your word that you don’t know anything more about it.’ I took the blade away.

  ‘You have no authority here,’ he said.

  I smiled at him, and said, ‘juko fruit.’

  ‘I’ll make arrangements.’

  Liva had told me where to find her shop. The look of mingled hope and dread on her face when I walked in was hard to take.

  ‘Have you…’

  ‘I went to see the bodies – well, the one that’s left. Two have been claimed by family and two are burned already. I was only just in time, they’re burning the last one tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, it’s the custom here. Those poor women. And the last was Jathis… she has a little boy…’

  ‘You saw the bodies?’

  ‘After Deralis disappeared, I had to check… I saw the last two.’

  I debated whether to tell her I’d seen… well, not worse, but as bad, on the battlefield. Except this was different. This wasn’t the result of someone trying to kill someone else any way they could – there was no other wound anywhere, and the hearts had been extracted neatly, not simply hacked at. There was no sign the victims had fought against a blade; no cuts to the hands. Unconscious? Drugged? And there hadn’t been much blood where each body was found. Which either meant something magic was going on, or they were killed somewhere else, then dumped. ‘Whoever did this, I think they just wanted the heart. Nothing else.’

  ‘What are they doing with them?’ She looked at me, horrified. ‘They couldn’t be, I don’t know, eating… oh, gods.’

  ‘I don’t know. Some places when they hunt a big predator, they believe that whoever gets to eat its heart will get its power. But why these women?’

  ‘They were all amourettes.’

  ‘Yes…’ I tried to think. Would someone think that taking a whore’s heart would give them some sort of sexual power? The story about Meriasen of Kyr drifted through my mind. Hearts, and power. It felt as though it should mean something but what, I had no idea.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ I said, ‘did you and Deralis argue, over anything? Other than you wanting her to take a break, I mean.’

  ‘We didn’t… don’t, argue.’

  ‘Even silly things? Festival decorations for example?’

  ‘Festival decorations? Why would we argue over something like that?’

  My turn to shrug. It probably meant nothing. Maybe Deralis had put them up and then decided they didn’t go with the décor.

  ‘I need to talk to these necromancers you mentioned,’ I said. ‘They might know about hearts, mightn’t they? If they’re used in a ritual or something.’

  ‘What is it?’ Liva said.

  ‘Revive,’ I said. ‘Sound like a necromancer’s nickname to you?’

  ‘You think…’

  ‘I don’t know. Where’s the nearest?’

  ‘The young one, Tarek.’

  I don’t know what I expected from a necromancer, but it wasn’t the flushed, round-faced young man with a small green furry beast attached to his robe who opened the door. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m looking for Tarek.’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘You got a minute? I need to ask some questions.’

  ‘You’re interested in the Art?’ Tarek smiled. ‘Come in.’ He unhooked the small beast from his robe. ‘You’ve been fed,’ he told it. It made squeaky protests as he carried it through into a room that was furnished mainly with books. A string of shabby paper skeletons was draped across the mantel, and a few mouse-nibbled candles in the shape of skulls lay here and there. The room smelled of dusty paper and something faintly acrid.

  ‘So many people just make assumptions,’ he said. ‘All skeletal armies and forcing spirits to do one’s evil bidding. I’m interested in the practical applications.’

  ‘In some circumstances a skeletal army might be quite a practical application.’

  ‘But it would give such a bad impression. I’m trying to get people to understand necromancy differently.’

  ‘So what are those?’ I pointed at one of the paper skeletons. ‘That’s the sort of thing that’s going to give people the wrong impression, surely?’

  ‘Oh, they’re just Festival decorations. I forgot to take them down. It’s… Well, I believe in paying respect to the traditions, you know, even if one is trying to modernise, we need to acknowledge what’s gone before. Here.’ He picked up a book with the hand not holding the small creature, and thrust it at me. ‘It’s a good basic text, for beginners. Oh, and maybe Nuthrin, and Bofredik, and… Where’s that copy of the Modern Necronomicon…’

  ‘I don’t actually want to study necromancy,’ I said, backing away slightly. ‘I just want to know if it involves body parts. Hearts, particularly.’

  ‘Well, it can do, of course. That’s what I’m trying to tell people. It’s a healing art, applied correctly.’

  ‘How would taking someone’s heart be healing?’

  ‘It wouldn’t, unless you had another one to put in its place. That’s what the revivification process is for. The body’s like a cart,’ Tarek said.

  ‘A cart.’

  ‘If a wheel comes off, you fit another one. Well, if someone’s heart stopped working, and you could find one that did, replace it, revive the body’.’

  ‘You’ve done this?’

  ‘It worked on the dog,’ Tarek said. Then his round face went mournful. ‘Well, briefly.’

  ‘So what about humans?’

  ‘Oh, that’s much more complicated.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, it isn’t.’ I’d had a long morning and a bad night and my temper was getting the better of me. ‘Have you tried it on humans. Specifically, amourettes. Amourettes who are now dead due to someone thinking they had a better use for their hearts.’ I had him backed against a pile of books by this time.

  ‘No! What? What amourettes? Don’t hurt Smoffy!’ He held the small beast as far away from me as he could. It meeped. Books were beginning to cascade from the pile behind him.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt… Whatever that is. However I would like an answer. Now.’

  ‘No!’ He glanced down at the blade and swallowed. ‘I mean, yes, you can have an answer, but it’s no, I’ve never tried it on a human.’

  ‘And you don’t know anything about the amourettes.’

  ‘No. I don’t. I’ve never… my studies keep me very busy!’ he said.

  ‘Do you know a woman called Deralis?’ I was fairly sure that ‘I’ve never’ was indicative, but…

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A courtesan. A friend.’

  ‘No. Was she one of the ones who got killed? That’s… Look, I don’t know. I haven’t been out of here for days. I’ve been... I can show you more easily. An experiment. My landlady’s been bringing my meals. Could you move the sword, please?’

  I sheathed. ‘All right.’ Tarek ha
d gone very pale. ‘Show me this experiment.’

  It was in the next room, and proved to involve a frog. Which looked quite cheerful considering it only had a head, connected by wires to a bottle with some stuff inside I didn’t want to look at too closely. It blinked at me. This was where the acrid smell had come from.

  ‘I’ve kept it alive for twelve days!’ he said. ‘This is cutting-edge stuff, you know. But it’s why I haven’t been out. I have to renew the wards every hour.’

  ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ Tarek said. ‘I… The amourettes talk to me sometimes. They seem nice. I hope your friend’s alright.’

  ‘Where does the other necromancer keep himself?’

  ‘Sulvan? Fringal Street, the other side of town. He’s very old fashioned, though. I mean, you want a skeletal army, he’s probably your man. I tried to talk to him about moving with the times, I even lent him some books, but he just didn’t seem to want to know.’

  On my way over, I talked to some of the freelance amourettes. The usual run of clients, the usual occasional one who gave them the creeps. But Deralis’ clients were mostly upper-end, the kind who preferred, and could afford, a discreet arrangement and a comfortable house instead of a doorway or a single grubby room where the sheets hadn’t been changed.

  ‘One of her clients did come around, though,’ one said, a little whip of a thing, who barely came to my shoulder, standing outside a neat friendly-looking inn. ‘Sulvan, the necromancer.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ she said. ‘He said did I know where Deralis had got to. I was a bit short with him. I mean, it’s not very flattering, is it.’

  ‘He didn’t…’

  ‘No, he just said he’d made a mistake and walked off.’

  ‘All right, thank you.’

  Well, that was Sulvan off my list. If he’d been asking after Deralis, several days after she disappeared, he obviously didn’t know where she was.

  ‘If you hear or think of anything? I’m staying at her place,’ I said. I felt thoroughly fed up, and more and more certain I’d arrived too late to be any use to poor Deralis. ‘Meanwhile… Is this inn any good? All right, for the next hour I’m going to be in there with a big drink.’

  I got wine, and sat at a table and brooded. I’d run out of ideas. All that was left was Mr Fancy Pants, and the idea of going through the whole town checking out male underwear had a lot less appeal than usual.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said a voice. ‘I understand you’re a friend of Deralis. Could I speak with you?’

  I looked up.

  He was a quietly dressed, clean-shaven young man, a little pale, not bad-looking. I gestured him to sit down. ‘I’m trying to find her,’ I said, ‘or at least, what might have happened to her. Can you help?’

  ‘I wish I could.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve been so worried about her.’

  ‘You know her?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas, then?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s a mystery. I don’t understand it.’ He leaned forward. ‘You know her well?’

  ‘I knew her back in Thrallick,’ I said.

  ‘You remember Thrallick? That’s splendid. Could I buy you a drink?’ he said.

  Something about that struck me a little odd. What was splendid about remembering Thrallick? ‘That’s kind,’ I said. ‘But I have one. Thank you.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I see you do,’ he said.

  That was the last thing I remembered.

  I woke up somewhere chilly, with the sound of water dripping, and a candle-flame flickering at the edge of my vision.

  It stayed there, because I couldn’t move.

  I was lying on my back, arms at my sides, on something flat and hard. Above me was a rock ceiling. It didn’t have the reek of a prison cell. It smelled quite clean; just odd. There was a tickling, acrid scent, faintly familiar and… Meat.

  And breathing. Deep, regular breathing.

  I was not feeling very good about this.

  Approaching footsteps.

  A pale face appeared in my vision. The man from the tavern. ‘Is it you?’ he said. ‘It is, isn’t it? When you mentioned Thrallick… see, I knew you couldn’t resist giving yourself away, eventually. It’s meant. We’ll soon have you back where you belong.’

  Feeling, along with a really serious case of pins and needles, was coming back into my hands and feet. I realised I was tied up; hands and feet both bound to some sort of fastening at the side of whatever it was I was lying on. My chest was cold.

  My shirt was open to the waist.

  He hadn’t been looking at my breasts. It wasn’t those he was interested in.

  I remembered the body, the gaping bloody cavity where a heart should have been.

  Well, now I knew who I was in a room with, and getting the arse out of there was becoming pretty bloody urgent. Obviously I’d been drugged. How the hells had he got me out of the tavern without anyone noticing? The pins and needles suggested the drug was beginning to leave me; but the ropes were tight and tough. I wriggled my hands, turned my wrists. Not completely tight, not loose enough to get out of without help.

  I could see my weapons lying a few feet away, just chucked in a pile.

  Well, most of ‘em. He hadn’t taken my boots off.

  With both hands and feet tied, reaching my boot-knife was going to be tricky. I couldn’t reach my hair ornaments either.

  I turned my head to one side, and started rubbing it against the slab. If I could work one or both of the ornaments out of my hair I could, maybe, use my face and body to shuffle it down as far as my hand, and cut the rope.

  I kept glancing at my captor. He was bending over another slab – no, not a slab, a bed; satin sheets and plump pillows. And ropes. Whoever was on that one might be getting more comfort, but they were still tied up.

  I heard him tutting. ‘You’re getting bruised. If only you’d been sensible. All this nonsense, darling. You’re just running away. What’s the point of running?’

  He moved, and I saw.

  It was Deralis. She was alive; it was her breathing I could hear. She was surrounded by symbols, stands of burning herbs, unpleasant-looking dried things.

  She was naked to the waist. There was a great ragged scar down the centre of her chest, rising and falling as she breathed.

  He moved over to the pile of my things he’d put on a chair, and picked up Deralis’ client book. He flicked through it, shaking his head. ‘Why did you let them do these things? Once you had me…’ the book fell open at the last page, the one with the three final clients. He looked down at it, and his mouth twisted horribly. His hands clenched, tearing the book’s pages. ‘Too much? Too much? My love, my wealth, my eternal devotion. Too much?’ He made a visible effort to calm himself, and smiled, shaking his head. ‘Silly darling,’ he said. ‘Nothing I could give you could be too much. Well, you won’t need this anymore.’ He threw the book on the fire.

  Then he turned, and came over to where I was lying. I hadn’t quite managed to work the ornament down towards my hand yet. ‘I know you’re in there,’ he said.

  ‘You’re Sulvan,’ I said. ‘The necromancer.’

  ‘Well who else would I be, my dear?’

  ‘Who do you think’s in here?’

  ‘You, Deralis.’ He looked towards the still, slow-breathing form on the other bed. ‘Or at least, your heart, my silly darling. Trying to hide it from me, pretending it had changed, and you didn’t love me any more. I knew. I knew you’d just hidden it.’

  Things suddenly became horribly clear.

  ‘She didn’t want your contract,’ I said. He turned away. He wasn’t listening to me. He hadn’t listened to Deralis either.

  Some people can’t hear ‘no’. Slides right off ‘em.

  ‘I thought you must have put it in one of the street girls,’ he said. He moved away, out of range of my vision, and something clinked. ‘Some of them w
ere kind to me, the way you always were, and so I thought… But then when she woke up, after, she just cried and was silly, so I knew I hadn’t found it.’

  The first hair ornament slid out, I could feel it hard and cold under my cheek. I shuffled, trying to push it towards my hand.

  It slid into the hollow between my neck and shoulder and disappeared. I couldn’t feel the damn thing anymore.

  One left. Careful, Babylon. Ear. Cheek. Chin, scraping against metal and stone. Not good for the complexion, this.

  Under the shoulder. Careful.

  ‘It’s that girl Liva’s fault,’ Sulvan said. Good, keep chattering, you bloody madman, hide the sound of metal moving over stone. ‘She turned you against me. Maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe she hid your heart away, is that it? I’ll have to deal with her. She can’t be allowed to come between us again.’

  In all my career I don’t think I’ve never put so much effort into a bit of a wriggle. Under my upper arm. Lower arm.

  The hair ornament slid into my palm. I managed to free the blade, bent my hand as far as it would turn, sawing at the rope, couldn’t see what I was doing, hoped I wasn’t going to accidentally open a vein.

  Sulvan turned around. He had a vial in one hand. The other was holding a big, serrated blade.

  ‘I don’t know why you’d do this to yourself,’ he said, coming towards me.

  I slashed out. The blade was only a couple of inches long, but it caught him across the fingers. The vial dropped to the floor. Pungent fumes wafted up. I held my breath, not quite fast enough. My vision began to waver.

  But he was closer to the fumes, and smaller than me. He staggered. I grabbed the boot-knife, slashed at the rest of the ropes. He came again. ‘You’re only hurting yourself,’ he said.

  I got him in the side, not deep enough, my aim was all messed up. He looked shocked, then resentful. ‘I’m doing this because I love you!’

  ‘That’s not love,’ I said.

  There was a crash. I wasn’t sure if it was real, or the drug, but then Liva and Tarek burst into the room. Liva leaped on Sulvan’s back and Tarek took a wild swing with his staff, and, amazingly, caught Sulvan a cracker across the knees, felling him like a tree. I’m not sure which of them was more taken by surprise.