A Murder of Mages: A Novel of the Maradaine Constabulary

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “Jinx and Tricky!” Inspector Mirrell called out when he spotted them. “Heard you got a real crazy one.”

  “Tricky?” Minox asked her.

  Rainey shook her head and whispered, “That didn’t take long.”

  “Usually it takes them a few days to come up with a new nickname for someone,” Welling said.

  “Isn’t new,” Rainey said. She called back to Mirrell, “What did you hear?”

  Mirrell and Kellman both crossed over from their desks. “What did we hear, Kellman?” Mirrell asked.

  Kellman laughed and looked at Minox. “We heard that you finally got someone who’ll play along with your games, Jinx.”

  “They are not games, Inspector Kellman.” Minox tightened his jaw. “They are a valuable tool of analysis.”

  Mirrell gave a mirthless laugh. “Which part of that involves your partner running around in her skivs?”

  “The pages are fast,” Rainey said. “I was counting on getting another hour before that one got out.”

  “Stories of constablewomen in states of undress travel quickly among young boys.” Mirrell didn’t look her in the eye.

  Her face changed. The hints of roiling anger buried, replaced by a sweet smile. It was utter performance, Minox could see, but it was a well-crafted one.

  “Hey, Mirrell, you shouldn’t be jealous of Minox here.” She leaned in close, casting her eyes to the ground. The very picture of appearing demure, submissive. She whispered, “You know why they called me ‘Tricky’?”

  His breath quickened, and his face flushed. The man was actually taken in by her performance. “Why?”

  She smashed her forehead against his nose. As he was dazed from the blow, she grabbed him by the front of his vest. Before he could react, she kicked out his leg and picked him up off his feet, then slammed his body hard on the floor.

  No one else on the inspectors’ floor had moved by the time she had sprung back up onto her feet, wiping his blood from her face. “That’s why.”

  “Blazes,” Kellman whispered.

  Minox didn’t appreciate Kellman’s coarse language, but he agreed with the sentiment behind it.

  “You crazy skirt!” Mirrell shouted, holding one hand over his nose. The other went for his handstick. “I should knock your teeth—”

  “Let’s not knock any teeth in here,” Captain Cinellan said from his office door. “Stand up, Hennie.”

  “Did you see what she did, Captain?” Mirrell said.

  “I see you got your nose cracked, thrown off your feet. Shouldn’t let that happen, hmm?” The captain crossed over to Mirrell’s desk. “Nice moves, Inspector Rainey. Not on the floor again, eh?”

  “As you say, sir,” Rainey said.

  “So,” Cinellan said. “Welling, Rainey. You’ve got a story to tell me?”

  Rainey stepped forward. “Dead body, back in an alley off of Jent and Tannen. Heart cut out, ritual with candles.”

  “That sounds interesting,” Cinellan said.

  “Sounds like a freak case,” Mirrell added. He was rubbing his face. “Pyle, there any ice in the house?”

  “No,” Nyla said, crossing past the desk. “Tea, all around? Just cream, Inspector Rainey?”

  “Right,” Rainey said. “Tattoo on the victim’s body indicates he might be a mage. Otherwise unidentified at the moment.”

  “Real freak case,” Kellman said. “Glad you pulled it.”

  “What’s on your boards, boys?” Cinellan asked.

  “Closed up the two horsemen in Dentonhill,” Mirrell said.

  “Closed it wrong,” Minox muttered.

  “Stow it, Jinx,” Mirrell said. “We’re still working that thing on the docks. Warrant would be nice.”

  “Give the Protector something to base a warrant on, and we’ll get on it. What’s the story on your other case, Welling?”

  “I have twenty-five cases, Captain.”

  “Your actual open case, not the ones you think are—”

  “Unresolved?” Rainey offered.

  “Exactly,” Cinellan said. “As far as I’m concerned, you closed every one of those. And blazing well at that.”

  Minox knew better than to argue with the captain on this point. “Well, I fear I may be at a loss on that one.” The pieces didn’t add up on that particular case.

  “Can you narrow it down at all?” Cinellan asked. “Was she murder or suicide?”

  Minox went with what his instinct told him, even though he couldn’t prove it. “I believe it’s murder. But I can’t prove that.”

  “Well, you’ve got a new partner now,” Cinellan said. “Go over it with her.”

  Nyla came over rolling the teacart. “Word came up from the examinarium. Mister Leppin wants to see the two of you as soon as possible.”

  “Maybe he’s identified the body for you,” Kellman said. He laughed, in the cruel, derisive way he was prone to. “You didn’t figure him out by the dirt of his boots, Jinx?”

  “No boots this time, Inspector Kellman,” Minox said.

  “The man was naked,” Rainey added.

  “You’ve got the extra freak case your first time out, Trick,” Kellman said. “Aren’t you the lucky one?”

  Inspector Rainey stepped up to him, but his height made it impossible for her to glower down on him like she had to Mirrell. “You got something to say to me, Kellman?”

  “Don’t think your head will reach my nose, Tricky.”

  “Leave it, Rainey,” Cinellan said, resigned and tired. “Everyone, get to work. Make the streets a little safer.” He went back to his office.

  Rainey backed away from Kellman. “I’m not out of tricks, you know.”

  “I’m sure you’re not,” Kellman said. Mirrell grumbled something and pulled his partner away to the teacart.

  A page bolted out of the stairwell. “Murder! Two dead workers in the sewers! Silver and Dockview!”

  “Same old Inemar,” Rainey muttered.

  Cinellan waved the boy over. “Mirrell, Kellman. You’ve got this one.”

  “Saints, Captain.” Mirrell still rubbed at his nose. The bleeding had stopped, but it was turning purple. “We shouldn’t have to—”

  “Get on it!” Cinellan barked. “And you two, get back on your case. And try to close up your old business, Welling.”

  “As you say, Captain,” Minox said. Kellman and Mirrell left, both sneering at Rainey as they passed. She held her ground until they were out of sight.

  “So,” she said, turning to Minox, all the confrontation in her face melted away. “Where is the examinarium?”

  The examinarium sat at the bottom floor of the stationhouse, almost as cold as an icehouse. The room was full of tools, instruments, and lenses, not one of which made the slightest bit of sense to Satrine’s eye. Her nose was assaulted with the scent of decay, slightly masked by astringent chemicals. Leppin seemed utterly in his element here, grinning like an excited schoolboy as he stood next to the body laid out on his examination table. Behind Leppin, wearing an oversize apron and carrying tongs in both hands, was an actual excited schoolboy.

  “What have you learned, Leppin?” Welling asked him.

  “About the victim, or the killer?”

  “Killer first, since you’ve got it,” Welling said.

  “Cuts are surgical. Very sharp instruments.”

  “We already knew that,” Satrine said.

  Leppin sneered. “You suspected it. But now you know. The point is, the killer knew exactly what to do, where to cut. Look at that.” He pointed to the hole in the dead man’s chest.

  Satrine moved closer so she could see what Leppin was showing them. “What is it that I should be seeing?” The wound was nothing but a mess of blood and cut flesh to Satrine’s eye.

  “Not a single wasted stroke. It’s clean and per
fect. That said, I think this is the first time he actually did this.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Satrine said.

  “You might think so.” Leppin snapped his fingers, and the boy grabbed a heavy lens and a lamp. He placed it over the wound and waved Welling over. “Look at that, Minox. The beginning stroke of the first cut.” Leppin pointed out the specific location.

  “Indeed,” Welling said, looking through the lens.

  Satrine turned to the other two. “Gentlemen, I haven’t made a practice of studying bodies, so I have no idea the significance of this is.”

  Leppin sighed, giving Satrine the distinct impression he was disappointed in her. “Here. The first incision has more bruising around it, and starts thicker than any other.”

  “Meaning?”

  Welling answered. “Meaning the killer held the blade in place, pressed against the flesh, for a short time before he began the incision.”

  “Hesitation?” Satrine asked.

  “That was my thought,” Leppin said. “So you just have to ask yourself, who would know how to make the precise cuts to remove a heart, and have the steady and practiced hand to do it perfectly . . . but might still hesitate with a live human being? You’re looking for a doctor.”

  Two other answers leaped to Satrine’s mind. “Or a butcher. Or a barber. The very shops on either side of the alley.”

  Welling nodded. “Valid points, but what’s the motive? Who is the victim?”

  “We still don’t know,” Satrine said.

  Leppin coughed to get their attention. “But we have that Circle tattoo. I don’t have a complete listing of all Circles and their marks, but—”

  “You don’t?” Welling asked. “That strikes me as the exact sort of record we should have.”

  “Should, won’t get any argument from me,” Leppin said.

  Satrine couldn’t help herself. “Welling, do you know how many Circles there are in just the city, let alone all of Druthal?”

  Welling shrugged. “I’d imagine twenty, perhaps thirty.”

  So he did have significant holes in his knowledge, especially in this subject. “More like a hundred twenty,” Satrine said. “Am I right, Leppin?”

  “Ayup. And most of those don’t have more than a handful of members.”

  “There are that many mages in the city?” Welling asked, shaking his head. This was information he clearly had never considered.

  Leppin went on. “You got your bigger ones: Lord Preston’s Circle, The Grand Chalice Circle, Brave Sun.”

  “Red Wolf Circle,” Satrine said. Any mage or telepath she had met in Intelligence were Red Wolf, the only Circle she was aware of that worked directly with the government.

  “So those I know, and a few others that have major presence in the city, especially this neighborhood.” He folded back the skin showing what remained of the tattoo. “Flaming eagle, it looks to me. So if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say the Firewings.”

  “Then they’re who we need to look at first,” Satrine said. “They’re our best suspects.”

  “If your theory holds,” Welling said.

  “We have a theory?” Leppin asked.

  “Several at this point,” Welling said. “Inspector Rainey has one that this was a magic ritual performed by the victim’s own Circle.”

  “Do you have a problem with that, Welling?” Satrine asked. “If anything, Leppin’s information supports it. That moment of hesitation may be because the victim was a close friend.”

  Welling gave a slight nod of his head. “I’m skeptical of any theory that has the victim as a willing participant.”

  “Blazes, Welling, if you’re not—”

  He held up his hand. “But I acknowledge that nothing contradicts your theory so far.”

  “Too kind,” Satrine said coldly. But she had to admit, from what she had seen of Welling, this was almost high praise.

  “Of course, without identifying the victim, anything regarding motive is rampant speculation.” He turned to Leppin. “We’re going to need—”

  “Charcoal sketches,” Leppin said. He snapped at his boy again, who ran to a cluttered desk in the corner of the room. “I had them done already.” The boy grabbed a few paper sheets and scurried over to Satrine. Satrine took them.

  “Your work?” she asked the boy. They were all decent representations of the dead man’s face.

  “Yeah,” the boy said. “Is it true you took your clothes off?”

  “That’s enough,” Leppin said, grabbing the boy’s head and shoving him back toward the desk.

  Welling coughed uncomfortably. “Well, plenty of work for us, then. Which first, butcher and barber, or Firewings?”

  “Firewings,” Satrine answered, surprised that it was even a question. “If we can learn who the victim is, then we have a better sense of what we’re looking for in the butcher shop.”

  “Well-reasoned,” Welling said through tight lips.

  “Do they have a house or something in the neighborhood?” Satrine asked.

  “They do,” Welling said. “About five blocks from the crime scene, I believe. Boy, have a clerk pull the Firewing file. They can brief a page and send him to us at Missus Wolman’s stand out front.”

  “Missus who?” Satrine asked.

  “A necessary stop.”

  Leppin spoke up. “Do you still have those spikes used to pin the victim down?”

  “Here,” Satrine said, taking them out of her coat pocket. “You think you might figure something out about them?”

  “Worth looking into. Give me one,” Leppin said. “You might learn something out there with the other one.” Satrine did as he asked, pocketing the one she was keeping.

  “All right, Inspector,” she said to Welling. “Let’s go meet the Firewings.”

  The look on her partner’s face was one of distinct nausea.

  Chapter 5

  SATRINE SIMPLY WASN’T GOING to be able to eat every time Welling did, if this was the way he ate every day. As soon as they walked out of the stationhouse he crossed the street over to the cookstand.

  “Fast wrap if you please, Missus Wolman,” he said to the woman in the stand. He turned to Satrine. “You want one?”

  “Saints, no,” Satrine said. “We just had cresh rolls.”

  “Did we? I’m famished.”

  Satrine watched the woman toss a flat strip of dough on her grill. She reached into a bowl filled with cooked meat, cold with congealed fat, and threw it next to the dough.

  “What is that?” Satrine asked.

  “It’s meat,” the woman said indignantly.

  Satrine wasn’t going to let that suffice. “Lamb? Beef? Pork?”

  “That’s right,” she said, glaring at Satrine. She flipped the dough and stirred the meat around, letting the grease render down. She focused her eye at Welling. “You getting to bad ones today, Inspector?”

  “Trying, Missus Wolman.”

  “That’s one of the bad ones,” Satrine indicated the simmering meat. “You don’t even know what it is.”

  “It’s meat,” Welling said. That seemed to be answer enough for him.

  “Aren’t you curious?” She sniffed at it. “That is rancid. Or kidneys. Or both.”

  “I have enough to think about,” Welling said.

  The woman scooped the pile of meat into the dough—now a finished flatbread—and rolled the whole thing off the grill. “Here you are, Inspector.”

  Welling dropped a few ticks on the counter. “Very obliged. Inspector Rainey, after you.” He bit greedily into the wrap.

  Watching him eat it made Satrine’s stomach turn. “Did you know that in Poasia eating in public is a crime on the same level as murder?”

  “I did,” Welling said. “One of many reasons not to live there.” He took another bite, jui
ce dripping down his chin.

  “Lovely,” Satrine said.

  A page ran over to the cookstand, fortunately not the same one who had counted the time in the alley. This one was tall and muscular; he looked almost ready to become a cadet.

  “Inspectors?” he said, crisp and serious. “Senior Page Henterly reporting.” This boy certainly was running for cadet.

  “Go ahead, Page,” Welling said. “What’s your report?”

  “I’ve been briefed on the contents of the file regarding the Mage Circle dubbed ‘Firewings.’”

  Forget cadet, this one was going for station captain.

  “The Circle is fully acknowledged by the Royal Registry of Guilds and Associations, founded in 1045. Their founding chapter is located in Kyst, but they have chapterhouses of acceptable standing in several cities, including Maradaine—”

  “Henterly,” Welling said curtly, “first, where is their chapterhouse?”

  “They have three within the bounds of the city, but the address of the most local one is Jewel 817. I can provide directions or lead you personally.”

  “I know Jewel Street, Henterly,” Welling said. “Brief us on what we can expect from them. Members, goals, charter, and so forth.”

  Henterly nodded, though he looked slightly uncomfortable. “The Firewings have exercised their various rights of privacy, in full accordance with the rules of the Royal Registry of—”

  “Yes,” Satrine snapped. “What can you actually tell us?”

  Anger flashed in Henterly’s eyes, white hot at Satrine, and he focused back on Welling. “In full accordance with the rules of the Royal Registry. Member names are not disclosed. Charter is not disclosed. We have no record of associations with the Firewing Circle, nor do we have record of arrests or altercations involving a known current member.”

  “That’s a lot not disclosed,” Satrine said.

  “They have a right to privacy,” Welling said. Satrine shrugged, certain that there was a records room over at Druth Intelligence that had a file on every Circle in Druthal with every bit of information not disclosed. Right to privacy was a very different matter over there.

  Welling took another bite of his wrap. “Is that all?”