An Import of Intrigue

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “Blazes was that?” he said, but he could barely hear his own voice.

  The sergeant closest to him seemed to say something, but Mirrell couldn’t hear a bit of it.

  “No good,” Mirrell said, raising his voice.

  The sergeant made a sign like he couldn’t hear either.

  Mirrell got back on his feet and made hand signals to the men around him. He raised up his crossbow, and let them know to fall in on him.

  He took a few steps toward the ward room. Whatever had happened, now there was just a thick haze. No more flashes or thunder.

  In the back of his mind, he threw out a prayer to Saint Alexis, and moved in.

  “Everyone on the ground now!” he shouted. Still couldn’t hear his own voice, and anyone who had been in here wouldn’t be able to either. There didn’t seem to be any immediate argument or attack, though.

  The haze was dissipating. There was a row of high windows along the top of the walls, and the glass had been shattered. Now Mirrell could see what was happening.

  Everyone was on the ground—Imachs, patients, a nurse. They weren’t out cold, but they all looked dazed and stunned.

  “The blazes happened in here?” he asked. He could hear himself now—but the ringing in his ears was murder.

  “Inspector Welling was in here!” the sergeant shouted. No one’s ears were any good. But that explained a lot—if Jinx was in here, he must have done some magical whatever to send everyone down. And blown out the windows and saints knew what else.

  “Iron every one of the Machies before they get up!” Mirrell said. “I don’t care about if they’re injured or not. We’ll sort that out later.”

  One of the others stirred—a young woman in patient robes, but Mirrell knew who she was. Corrie Welling, night shift horse. Jinx’s sister. “Minox?” she muttered. She looked horrible—her right eye a swollen mass of blackened blood and pus, her hair chopped to shreds.

  “You all right, Welling?” Mirrell asked. “Can you hear me?”

  “Rutting barely. Blazes going on?” She pulled herself up onto her elbows, looking around.

  “Hoping you could tell me.”

  “I was tussling with this bastard,” she said, giving a hard kick to Jabiudal’s inert form. “Minox had just fallen over, and . . . where is he?”

  Mirrell looked around. “Jinx! Where are you?”

  Now Corrie was on her feet, looking around frantically. She pointed to the nurse, lying on the ground. “That’s my aunt. She . . . rutting take care of her, someone.” The room secure, Mirrell waved in the Ironheart staff to bring the patients out, including Corrie’s aunt.

  “Welling!” Mirrell called out. “Did someone already pull him out or something?” Several of the regulars shook their heads.

  “He was in a bad way,” Corrie said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Mirrell said. He was in a state in the stationhouse; everyone saw it. Captain said he went home, and that was for the best. What did he even come here for?

  Stupid question. Jinx was annoying as all blazes, but he was a dog with a bone when it came to his cases, and this mess was tied right to his case. Add in his own sister and aunt in the mix, Mirrell doubted if any power in the city could have kept him away.

  “Saints,” Mirrell muttered. “Where the blazes did he go?”

  “Joshea is gone too,” Corrie said.

  “Who the blazes is Joshea?”

  One of the sergeants offered the answer, as the regulars hauled off the Machies. “When the perpetrators insisted that the food be delivered by someone who wasn’t a constable, we had a volunteer. Patient, former soldier.”

  “He’s Minox’s friend,” Corrie said.

  “Specs!” a regular shouted. “You got to see this!”

  By one of the ward cots, there was a hole in the floor—a rutting stone floor. The hole was a perfect circle, clean all the way through to the floor below. There was no way this was cut by Imachs with a few weapons. “Where the blazes did this come from?”

  “Rutting saints and sinners,” Corrie said, looking down the hole. The ward room below it had a matching hole in the floor straight beneath it, and beyond that, darkness.

  “You got that right,” Mirrell said. This had to be more rutting magic. “Must be where Jinx went.”

  “Where he went?” Corrie snarled at him. “What the blazes do you rutting mean by that?”

  “Mind your tongue, Officer,” Mirrell snapped back. “You want to be slapped back to lamplighting?”

  “No, sir,” Corrie said. “But my brother—”

  “Is sick,” Mirrell said. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “I don’t know,” Corrie said.

  “I do. Don’t think I don’t know all about your family. I know what happened to Fenner Welling. And your cousin.”

  “Don’t you rutting dare—”

  “And did you see what he did in here? We all saw it, Welling. Magic, exploding through the room, nearly killing everyone in here.”

  Corrie went quiet. Clearly didn’t have a response to that.

  “Then he blasted a hole through the floor, all the way to the sewers, by the looks of it, and ran away!”

  “He wasn’t in a state to—”

  “Then maybe his ‘friend’ got him out. Who is this guy?” He shouted to all the regulars. “Did anyone get a blasted name off the guy who Jinx let dance into this?”

  “It’s Joshea Brondar,” Corrie said. “Served in army. Family runs a butcher shop in the neighborhood.”

  “All right,” Mirrell said, coming back out into the hallway. The Machies were ironed and taken off. The patients were getting help. Time to move forward. “We’ve got a new situation. Two men are missing; we don’t know what their state or frame of mind is.” The assembled regulars and sergeants all looked a mess—injuries, covered in soot and dirt, saints even knew what else. But they also looked like none of them were ready to sign out at this point.

  “Maybe they need help, maybe we need to iron them and bring them down, we don’t know. I need two footpatrol.”

  Hands went up. Good lads, all of these.

  He pointed out two. “Run to this Brondar butcher shop. Find out who this Joshea fellow is. Maybe they went to hide there.”

  Those two ran off.

  “The rest of you, get out there and spread the word. I’m putting an All-Eyes out for Inspector Minox Welling.”

  “Specs!” Corrie shouted. “That ain’t—”

  “You want to sign out for the day, Welling, feel free. You’ve done your duty.”

  “No, sir,” Corrie said. “You’re calling an All-Eyes? I still got one good one.” She strode off. The rest of the regulars dispersed.

  Mirrell fumbled in his coat pocket for his pipe. This blasted day was already one of the worst he had seen in twenty years in the Green and Red, and it wasn’t even twelve bells yet.

  And it was likely to get a lot blazing worse.

  “It didn’t make any sense, the Lyranans in the station,” Satrine said as she hurried back to the stationhouse with Kellman. A wagon crew were already at the warehouse, fully cataloging and impounding its contents. It all was evidence, as far as Satrine was concerned.

  “They got in the scrum last night, got pinched as well. We probably have folks from every corner of the East in there.”

  “Maybe, but I mostly saw Fuergans, Imachs, and Lyranans. Quite a few. Why?”

  “I can’t even tell the different tyzos apart,” Kellman said.

  “Saints, Kellman, I know you’re smarter than this.”

  “Nah, I really ain’t.” He thickened up his West Maradaine with that.

  “Tsouljans and Lyranans look completely different from each other, and that’s not even taking into account the hair coloring or dress.”

  “If you say so.”

&n
bsp; “Regardless, Kellman—what time is it?”

  “Noon bells went a few minutes ago.”

  “I just realized we hadn’t stopped for food today.”

  “I could eat,” Kellman said. “Though I figured we were in a hurry. And I wasn’t too keen on eating in the East again.”

  “I hear that,” Satrine said. “We had lunch with the Lyranans. Do not recommend.” That reminded her of her point. “But the Lyranans in the riot, why were they there?”

  “Got in the mix because why not? Some people want a fight sometimes. Or they just were in the wrong place.”

  “Doesn’t make sense, though. Lyranan enclave of the Little East isn’t close. Fuergans went after the Imachs, and the Imachs hit back. Lyranans would have to go through Kieran and Tsouljan districts to get there.”

  Kellman seemed to get it. “So they made a point of getting involved. Fine, so then what?”

  “Why? And did they have a stake in the goods being held by the Fuergans?”

  “Still think this is an empty hunt.”

  “Humor me, for the rest of the day.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  The stationhouse didn’t have the usual group of patrolmen out front, though between the prisoner duty and the situation at Ironheart, the force was pretty thinly spread.

  “So what’s the plan?” Kellman said as they went in.

  “Lyranans are obsessed with status and rank. Of all the people we’re holding, someone is the queen of the cats. I’m going to find me the ranking Lyranan and have some words with them.”

  The main station floor was abandoned when they came in. Not only were the detainees from the riot gone, but so was the usual bustle of clerks and desk officers.

  “Blazes is this?” Kellman asked.

  Satrine jumped over the front desk. On the floor, several of the clerks were laid out, maybe dead.

  “Call for . . . blazes, anyone,” Satrine said.

  Kellman went for one of the many ropes on the wall to ring the house alarm. “How the blazes could this happen?” he asked as he rang it out.

  Satrine turned over one of the clerks, noting a dart in her neck, with black-and-purple-colored veins surrounding the wound. She pulled it out, her brain firing up with recognition. A henzh. “Lyranan,” she said. “Still think this is an empty hunt?”

  “Holding cells,” Kellman said, drawing his handstick out. “Probably a breakout of some sort.”

  “I’m on it,” Satrine said. “Get to the stable doors, secure that exit.”

  A few pages came running in, looking shocked and confused. “Latch down the main doors,” Satrine ordered them. “Find the captain, and anyone else who’s still standing.”

  She dashed through the desk floor, down the back hallway to the drop pole leading to the holding cells. She leaped onto the pole, her knee protesting as she wrapped her legs around it. She slid down, taking her crossbow out as she dropped.

  The guards at the holding cells were all down, the same darts having felled them. The main door into the cells was ajar. Satrine didn’t waste a moment going through, weapon high, finger on the trigger.

  Someone was in the hallway, unlocking one of the cell doors—a Lyranan woman covered in gray from head to toe, including a hood and mask. Not that Satrine had any doubt who this was: Pra Yikenj.

  She took the shot.

  The bolt struck true, hitting the Lyranan woman in the head. Of course, Satrine was only loaded with blunt tips, so she didn’t have the pleasure of burying a bolt into her brain. Yikenj didn’t even flinch, but pulled two darts off her bandolier and threw them at Satrine, her movements so fast they were almost invisible.

  Satrine flattened against the wall, feeling the darts brush past. She raced down the hall as soon as they cleared, closing the distance between her and Yikenj, drawing out her handstick. The woman was still working on opening the cell door—thank the saints for old rusty locks—and Satrine brought the stick down on her arm.

  Yikenj went for another dart, but Satrine jammed the end of the handstick under the bandolier and tore it off before she could get one.

  “I wanted to talk to the ranking Lyranan,” Satrine said, feeling a wicked grin pull on her lips. “Looks like I found her.”

  Chapter 18

  SATRINE IMMEDIATELY REGRETTED THAT GRIN, as it was greeted by Pra Yikenj’s fist. A hard shot, drawing blood on her lip, though her teeth stayed intact. She stumbled back, forced to release any hold she had on Yikenj.

  Yikenj launched a flurry of attacks, hands and feet, but Satrine was ready for them, using the handstick to block. No fancy attempts to grapple her this time. She didn’t need to win, she just needed to buy time until backup came.

  “You’re not as fast as I remember,” Satrine said, striking back with the stick.

  “You should have let this be,” Yikenj said. “We are not your concern.”

  Satrine took an opening for a jab, feinting toward Yikenj’s chin. She dodged, and then effortlessly blocked the real blow aimed at her chest.

  “This is my stationhouse,” Satrine said. She couldn’t land another hit now that Yikenj was fully engaged. She was managing to keep Yikenj’s attacks from being devastating, but a few blows were getting through.

  Fifteen years later, she was still incredibly outmatched. The fact that she was still on her feet was pure luck. Satrine needed to change tactics. Yikenj might be faster and more skilled, but that didn’t mean her bones weren’t breakable. Especially at her age.

  Satrine let herself take a punch that gave her a bit of purchase on Yikenj’s arm. Taking the opportunity, despite the pulsing pain in her chest from the blow, she hammered the handstick on Yikenj’s arm; three hits as hard as she could until she heard a snap.

  Yikenj was not impeded. Her other hand shot out at Satrine’s neck. “There is little reason to show you mercy now.”

  Then she cried out, a cry so savage it surprised Satrine. She was certain Yikenj was about to kill her, but instead she bashed Satrine against the wall and let her drop to the ground. She strode toward the door, pulling a pointed crossbow bolt out of her broken arm.

  “On your knees, hands behind your head,” Kellman said, his huge frame filling the doorway. He was reloading his weapon, while Satrine struggled to find her feet. Yikenj charged at him.

  “Don’t speak Trade, tyzo?” he said, raising up his loaded weapon. He fired again, and his shot would have been true, but Yikenj plucked the bolt out of the air, throwing it right back at Kellman. He was struck in the chest.

  Satrine gasped, surprised to see Kellman wasn’t felled by the shot. “She’s dangerous!” she shouted to Kellman.

  “And I ain’t?” he said with a smirk, pulling the bolt out of his chest. He swung a meaty fist at Yikenj, but she dodged and grabbed his arm. She used the force of his punch to flip him onto his back.

  Kellman coughed sharply as he hit the ground, and then had her foot come down on his chest, then his stomach, then his groin. He groaned in pain as she spun around and delivered another kick to his head.

  Satrine was finally up as Yikenj walked back toward her, calm as anything, despite the fact that one arm was twisted at an impossible angle. Satrine raised up her handstick, ready for another bout with the Lyranan woman.

  Without missing a step, Yikenj kicked up her bandolier from the floor, caught it over her broken arm, and drew two darts out, swift as a hummingbird.

  Satrine didn’t even have time to realize that the darts had hit her square in the chest before she dropped back down to the ground, unable to move a muscle.

  As she drifted into a gray haze, she heard Yikenj whisper in her ear, “You are fortunate I was instructed not to kill any constables. You have earned no mercy from me today.”

  Clouded fire. Falling, burning. Words whispered in his ear.

  Walking.

 
Minox realized he was walking, but he didn’t know where. Or for how long. Or why.

  “Jabi—” he said. He wasn’t sure why. Words—thoughts—didn’t hold in his brain. Some went to his mouth. Everything was so hot.

  Burning.

  Minox tried to lift his hands in front of his face, so he could see them on fire. Eyes couldn’t focus. Hands and feet didn’t obey.

  But he was walking.

  “The purchase,” he said. It made sense a moment ago, but then it was gone.

  “Shush,” a voice said. “Let’s just—” The voice continued, but it sounded so far away. Minox couldn’t hear the words. Or he heard them but they didn’t make sense as words.

  “Wait,” Minox said. He was walking, but he could decide not to. Or his legs decided not to. He wasn’t in his body. He was a passenger.

  He was on the stone. Wet. Cool on his burning flesh. He was sitting now. When had he sat down? He remembered walking. He remembered a room, an Imach man.

  Corrie.

  “Where’s Corrie?” he said. Words lost their purpose from mind to mouth. But he knew that he said things for a reason, and that reason mattered. He held on to that like an anchor. “Corrie?”

  “I think she’s fine.”

  The voice was familiar. Minox couldn’t figure out why, but it was known. Trusted. Moving in and out of hearing.

  Hands were on his face. “You’re burning up.”

  “Put it out,” Minox said. He was clearly on fire. Why didn’t this friendly voice with cool hands understand that? Why didn’t Joshea do something?

  Joshea. That was who it was.

  “Josh,” Minox said. “I . . . I . . .” Thoughts to words still were hard.

  “I got you, Brother,” Joshea said. “What do you remember?”

  Minox wasn’t sure what he even knew right now. “Where? Where are we?” Through the haze of fire and darkness, his friend’s face came into focus. No, there was light, light from Joshea’s hand. Bright and soft magic, Joshea in command of it, illuminating the brickface tunnel they were in.