A Murder of Mages: A Novel of the Maradaine Constabulary

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “Everything has a reason.”

  “Is it because you’re a mage?”

  Welling dropped his pen. He looked at Satrine with an expression of both surprise and admiration. “That isn’t why, no. What gave it away?”

  “You winced when they called you ‘Jinx,’ ever so slightly. Little more than a tick of the cheek and eye. You did the same when they groused about mages. Plus your thin build.”

  “The facts were plain to the trained eye, if said eye was connected to a functioning brain.” He pursed his lips. “You may have the skills of an inspector.”

  “I did say so,” Satrine said. “But what Circle do you belong to? I didn’t think any of them cooperated with the Constabulary.”

  “I’m not,” Welling said quietly.

  “But that would mean you’re . . .” She let the sentence hang.

  “You can say it,” he said. “The word is Uncircled.”

  “But—”

  Miss Pyle came around the slateboards before Satrine had a chance to finish her thought. She was a bright smile of energy, carrying a small wooden crate that she placed on the empty space Satrine had cleared on the desk.

  “Sorry it took me a while to bring you this, Miss—I’m sorry, Inspector Rainey,” she said. “The matron in the supply room wouldn’t believe me when I told her I needed a woman’s inspector uniform. She said they didn’t exist!”

  Didn’t exist. Like Uncircled Mages in Constabulary didn’t exist.

  Satrine removed her coat and draped it over her chair, then put the crate on the desk. She pulled out the vest, a rich, deep green accented with the dignified dark red, the same as Loren had worn for years. She held it reverently for a moment before putting it on. It fit loosely, but that could be fixed.

  She next took out the belt, like the one Welling had carelessly left on his desk, and strapped it around her waist. It was far too big, so the crossbow holster hung down at her hip. She took it back off and put it on her desk.

  The last item in the crate, a skirt like the one Miss Pyle wore, she pointedly ignored. Miss Pyle seemed expectant, however, so she took the crate off the desk and put it on the floor.

  Miss Pyle turned to Inspector Welling. “Minox, you cannot keep used teacups piled up on your desk. I have told you this before, and I will not come back here twice a day to clean up after you.”

  Welling gave her a glance, which Satrine noted as having a hint of genuine warmth buried under it. “You know better than trying to clean this desk.”

  “Which means you need to take care of your own—”

  A boy, one of the Constabulary pages from his coat, ran in. “Murder!” he shouted. “Over at Jent and Tannen!”

  The familiar names of streets from Satrine’s childhood jarred her senses. Her gut twisted. She knew she’d have to go back there, but she didn’t think it would be right away.

  Welling was on his feet, grabbing his belt off the desk and strapping it around his waist as he charged out. Satrine threw her own belt over her shoulder, grabbed her coat, and followed.

  It was time to start earning those nineteen crowns five.

  Chapter 2

  SATRINE HADN’T BEEN ON the corner of Jent and Tannen in twenty years. That had been a different time; the city emaciated by a distant war, teetering on the edge of famine. Scores of fatherless children scraped and scrounged their way through, living in solitary squalor or rough clades. Satrine had been one for most of her young life. That corner had been her home, her family, her nightmare.

  The corner of Jent and Tannen clashed with her memories. The bones of it were the same—the shape of the buildings, the cut of the alleys, the way the morning sun hung across the street. But where she recalled gray and drab, there was a vibrant, bustling commerce square. Fresh paint on the bakery sign on the southwest corner. The windows of the tenement she had flopped in were now intact. The cobblestone road no longer in a state of pitiful disrepair. The streets were still far too narrow, of course, as dozens of carriages and pedalcarts choked their way through.

  Satrine surprised herself with the warm fondness she felt at seeing something familiar: Ushman’s Hot Pot, where she had gotten the potatoes, butter, and salted pork that kept her marginally fed in those years, with the dented ironwork grate that Heckie Moss smashed with a stolen milk cart.

  She refused to let her thoughts get mired in nostalgia. A crowd surrounded the mouth of the alley between a butcher shop—had that been the Empty Can Pub?—and a barber. Three patrolmen—young regulars in shabby coats of Green and Red—guarded the entrance, keeping people from getting in.

  “That where our body is?” Satrine asked Welling, who had been focused in determined silence during his quick-paced walk to the scene.

  “The level of coincidence otherwise would be staggering,” Welling replied.

  “I would have just said ‘probably.’”

  “Most people would.” Welling pulled a whistle out of his coat pocket. He gave a shrill blast, and the crowd jumped and made a hole for them to pass. Obedience to a stick’s whistle was definitely a new trait in this neighborhood. The three men at the mouth of the alley stood their ground, reminding Satrine of the giant bronze sculpture in front of the stationhouse in North Maradaine: standing vigilant, one with a crossbow, one with a lantern, one with a handstick. The only part missing was the dog.

  “Patrolmen,” Welling said with a nod as he and Satrine approached them. “You have something for us?”

  The three patrolmen, almost in unison, gave an uneasy glance to Satrine before the one in the center focused his attention back on Welling. “Yeah, there’s a, uh . . . Inspector, who is this?”

  “This is Inspector Rainey, Patrolman,” Welling said flatly.

  “She’s an—” The patrolman looked confused, even more so when Satrine flashed open her coat to show her vest.

  “There’s been a murder, we understand,” Satrine said.

  “Well, yes, there has been, it’s just . . .” He glanced back into the alley, and then back at Welling. “This one, sir. It’s, if you pardon me saying so, particularly gruesome.”

  Satrine was not in the mood for this, and took the lantern from the patrolman. “You think your stomach can handle gruesome, Inspector Welling?”

  “I haven’t had lunch yet.” He brushed the patrolman with the back of his hand, and the man got out of the way. He took the lead; Satrine held up the lantern as she entered behind him.

  The patrolman had been accurate. The sight was particularly gruesome.

  The body—a man—was missing its heart. That was the most prominent feature of the grotesque display, which was notable, given that there were several features that on their own would have stood out. But Satrine’s eye unconsciously went to the most shocking element: the cavity in the man’s chest where a heart should be.

  The man had been stripped naked, all four limbs spread out. His hands had been nailed into the ground. Two extinguished candles, melted down to the base, on either side of the body’s head. Blood pooled underneath, filling the cracks in the cobblestone, but the body itself was relatively neat.

  “Tell me what you notice,” Welling said.

  “He was killed here, obviously,” Satrine said, noting the blood. She crouched down, looking closely at the hands. “The spikes were driven in while he was still alive.” She pointed to the blood underneath the wounds.

  Welling nodded. “What else?”

  “Ritual,” she said. “The candles. The precise method of removing the heart.” She pointed to the cuts in the chest: clean lines, sharp blade.

  “Meticulous,” Welling said. “Not a crime of passion or opportunity.” He stood back up, looking around the rest of the alley. “So, Inspector Rainey, what questions does this raise?”

  “Are you testing me, Welling?”

  “Yes,” he said plainly. “Same way I test
every partner I have.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. It was—he had known her for less than an hour. “Why kill him in the alley? It seems an unnecessary risk.”

  Welling glanced about the alley, barely more than eight feet wide. “Out of sight, but hardly private. One could easily be interrupted. He must have had a specific reason. Excellent question. What advantage is there in committing a ritual murder here?”

  Satrine recognized this was a legitimate question from Welling, not a rhetorical exercise or test. “There’s the advantage of being between a butcher and a barber. If blood seeps out to the street, no one will think too much. Blazes, you could walk out of here in a blood-covered smock, and no one would give you a second glance.”

  “Presuming legitimate purpose,” Welling said, nodding. “What about the other end?”

  “It dead-ends on the other side,” she said, pointing off into the darkness. “At least, it used to.”

  “You know the alley?”

  “Knew it,” she said absently. She ventured deeper into the alley, where little direct sunlight reached.

  Welling kept talking, “Even given that the killer could walk out of here, carrying a bloody heart, without drawing much notice, how did they arrive? Or the victim? Did the victim walk in, or was he forced?”

  “Unconscious?” Satrine asked. “Drugged?” The alley still came to a dead end, the back of a brick tenement on the other side of the street. The windows on the building were all covered in iron grates and high off the ground.

  “Carrying this man unconscious would have taken considerable strength.”

  “So would driving these spikes into the cobblestone.”

  “Fair enough,” Welling said. “There are no bruises or injuries on the victim’s head. What does that tell you?”

  “He wasn’t knocked out. So drugged. Poisoned, perhaps. Or . . .” The idea was silly, and she shook it off.

  “Or—ah!” He cried out in shock.

  “What is it?” Satrine hurried back to her partner. He was kneeling next to the body, but his attention was on his hand, which he was flexing open and shut slowly.

  “I touched the spike and it . . . I’m not sure.” He looked up at her. “It was like I lost all feeling and strength in my hand.”

  “Magic?” she asked. Cautiously she touched one of the spikes with her bare finger, and then grasped it fully. “I’m not feeling anything.”

  Welling raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps it was just a coincidence.” He touched the spike again, and pulled his hand away. “No, definitely not. I don’t think we need another test to establish a pattern.”

  “So it is magic,” Satrine said. “Or it involves it.”

  “Probable,” Welling said. “My knowledge on the subject is quite inadequate.”

  “But how can you—”

  “As I told you, Inspector Rainey,” he said testily, “I am Uncircled. Untrained. Ability but no skill or discipline.”

  “But even still—”

  “Whatever you are about to say may be true in the general sense, but not in my specific case. And the details of my specific case are not up for discussion at this time.” Welling lost his detached affectation. He didn’t shout or rave, but filled each word with a deep ocean of longstanding, embittered anger.

  “Very well.” Satrine let it drop, despite the incredulity of Welling’s claim. Even without training, it didn’t make sense that someone with Welling’s deductive powers would be ignorant of his own abilities. However, since Welling was already willfully ignoring her secrets, it was wise for her to do the same.

  She turned back to the body. “You will agree, whatever the spikes are, they are uncommon.”

  “Certainly,” Welling said. “To the point that they clearly have specific purpose.”

  Satrine, fighting back any urge to wince, touched the skin that had been folded back to remove the heart. “Very specific,” she said, lifting the fold of skin. It revealed the remnants of a bright tattoo. Only a small piece was left, a flash of orange and yellow. “If I’m not mistaken, that is the mark of a Circle.”

  “That settles that point,” Welling said. “The victim was a mage.”

  Chapter 3

  MINOX EMERGED FROM THE ALLEY, the bright sunlight forcing him to blink. This wasn’t the first time he had come across a dead mage in the course of his duties—there were the three found dumped on a trash barge just a few days before. Something about this one unsettled him, beyond the presence of a new partner.

  Inspector Rainey came out into the street and stood uncomfortably close. “This was specifically about killing a mage, wasn’t it?” she said in a low whisper. She had homed in on exactly the key point that was troubling him. His instinct told him that the specific identity of the victim mattered less to the murderer than what the victim represented.

  There wasn’t enough empirical information to match to that feeling, only the removal of the victim’s clothing. There could be a host of reasons for a killer to do that.

  “Indeed,” he told her. He addressed the patrolmen, still waiting at the entrance. “One of you, return to the stationhouse, have them send the bodywagon. The rest, keep the alley clear until it’s here.” The patrolmen had a brief, unspoken moment of glances, where the implicit pecking order of rank, size, and seniority singled out one to run back to the stationhouse.

  “We’ll be across there at the teashop,” he told the remaining patrolmen. “When the cart gets here, come fetch us.” He left them and crossed to the shop—Madam Rosemont’s Steeping Pot.

  Inspector Rainey was again at his elbow. “Why are we going to the teashop?”

  “Two reasons,” he explained, though he wished he didn’t need to. Nevertheless, Inspector Rainey was proving herself to be adequately capable, even pleasingly inquisitive in the proper ways. That was definitely an improvement over Inspector Kellman, who only wanted a quick resolution to any case that crossed his desk, and thus despised anything complicated, or Inspector Mirrell, who rarely let actual facts penetrate his skull if they didn’t fit his initial notion. “The first is I want some literal distance from the scene of the crime from which we can observe the surrounding area with a small amount of discretion.”

  “And the second?” She asked an obvious question, but that still put her three rungs up from all the sods who never think to ask.

  “I need to eat something.”

  Madam Rosemont’s—a cramped wood and iron shack inartfully wedged between two brick tenements—served both reasons, though far from perfect in terms of the second. He found the fare tolerable at best, but the requirements of the first need had to take precedent over the preferences of the second. Minox took a seat at one of the iron tables that pushed outside the boundaries of the teashop proper and into the walkway. Inspector Rainey, looking less than pleased with his decision, took the opposite chair.

  “What are we observing, exactly?”

  “We are taking a chance on a quirk of human reaction,” Minox offered. “Whoever committed the crime has a high degree of emotional connection to it, don’t you agree?”

  “A ritualized murder where they removed the victim’s heart? Do you think?” She said this as if she were making a joke, and indeed the look in her eye was one of bemusement.

  Minox failed to see what was funny, exactly. Though that was often the case.

  He must have let his irritation show, as her expression sobered. “Sorry, yes, I see your point. You think they’ll return now?”

  “I think the crowd before was little more than common rabble turning their neck for the spectacle, though the killer may have been in there. But if my suspicions are correct, now that we have given the body its official due—the inspectors have inspected, if you will—now the real nibbles will be placed on the line cast.”

  “You’re talking fishing, yes?”

  “Fishing, yes,�
�� Minox said. Fish sounded good, though he recalled it rarely being an option at Madam Rosemont’s, which was odd, given how they were a scant two blocks from the river. Not a matter of import. A young man, who Minox was reasonably certain was the nephew of the eponymous Madam Rosemont—herself a lifelong spinster—approached their table.

  “What can I bring you both?”

  “Tea and cresh rolls,” Minox said.

  “Same,” Inspector Rainey told the young man. When he walked away, she shook her head with wry amusement. “I haven’t had cresh rolls in a very long time.”

  “Since you lived in this neighborhood?” She hadn’t specifically told him, but her knowledge of the alley, and the regular looks she would give to elements of the area—looks that marked they held deeply entrenched significance to her—gave her away.

  “There’s no keeping secrets around you, is there?”

  “I’m sure some people succeed,” he said. “By doing it so well I don’t notice.”

  “You were talking about fishing.”

  “I was. The crime scene was filled with reverence and meticulous care, but it had another quality that stood out just as strongly.”

  Inspector Rainey nodded. “Daring.”

  That was the exact word. Her assessment of her own skills was well founded. “For whatever reason, our killer has chosen to commit a murder that is audacious, even foolhardy.”

  “Elaborate setup, no easy escape.”

  “I hypothesize that the reason for that was to prove that they could.”

  “Just to prove it to themselves? Or do you think it was aimed at the Constabulary?”

  “Possibly. Following my theory, our killer wanted us baffled. There’s no point in doing that unless you get to see it.”

  “But now they’ve seen it.”

  “At a distance! I would believe that such a person, having now baffled the inspectors, would take the next logical step.”

  “To observe the inspection closely to see how baffled we are.”

  Minox couldn’t hide his own excitement. Previous partners would not have followed this conversation, nor have cared. Inspector Satrine Rainey possessed a unique mind. Minox dismissed that thought as meaningless—every person had a unique mind. But hers was one of outstanding clarity and character. “Yes, precisely. And what better way than at this moment, after the crowd has dispersed, for someone to show a casual interest in the affair?”