A Murder of Mages: A Novel of the Maradaine Constabulary

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “Investigating me, you mean.”

  “Not precisely,” Minox said. “Though I was attacked by someone well trained in the fighting arts, who was able to block my magical attacks, and the trail led me to this alley. You have to admit that cast some reasonable suspicion in your direction.”

  Joshea grunted. “But no more?”

  “I don’t think so, no,” Minox said.

  “What sort of trail?”

  “Come over here,” Minox said, leading Joshea down to the end of the alley. The current was weak, but still present. “Can you feel that?”

  Joshea’s eyes went wide. “What is that?” He ran his fingers through the air, as if trying to touch something that wasn’t there.

  “My killer has another victim. Another mage. I believe he grabbed her, took her through the sewers and out the alley. This . . . current is connected to her, I think. But it falls apart before leaving the alley.”

  Joshea walked up the alley. “Right by our door,” he said.

  Minox nodded. “You can see I had a good cause to think you may have been involved.” He followed after Joshea. Then he noticed the current was gone throughout the alley. Right after Joshea had walked through there. “Did you go out in the alley earlier tonight at all?”

  Joshea nodded. “I came out to dump the mop bucket.” He pointed to the puddle of greasy water by the door. “Why?”

  “Blazes,” Minox muttered. “I think—it’s possible you disrupted the current when you came out.”

  “What?” Joshea’s face turned hard. “Are you accusing me—”

  “I don’t think it was intentional, Joshea,” Minox said quickly. He lowered his voice and moved closer. “Neither of us exactly has perfect control over our . . . ability. I don’t fully understand what it was I was following, or what it means, or how delicate it may have been.”

  Joshea cooled. “Fair enough.”

  “You should go back in,” Minox said. “And there is still a life at stake. We’ll talk again later.”

  “Tomorrow night?” Joshea said.

  “Barring my duties compelling me otherwise, I should be at my home,” Minox said. “By all means, come by and we’ll talk.” They shook hands, and Joshea went back inside.

  Minox went out to the street. Somewhere out there, Jaelia Tomar was being held, and it was likely her life was in danger. The last thing Minox could do was go to sleep. There was work to be done.

  Chapter 13

  SATRINE WENT INTO HER BEDROOM. The sickroom. Loren lay on the bed, eyes open. His eyes flashed over to her when she entered. She couldn’t tell if it was recognition, or just reaction.

  “Evening, love,” she said, bending over to kiss his forehead. “You’re awake now.”

  His eyes stayed on her, his mouth opening as if to say something. No words came out.

  “You feel all right? Any pain?” She brushed her hand against his face. No fever. The doctor had told her they had to keep a close eye on that. His head shook—no, she only imagined that. It just lolled to one side. “Warm enough?”

  She knew he wasn’t going to answer. She hadn’t heard a word from him since the attack. She still asked the questions. She still talked to him. She had no intention of stopping doing that.

  Satrine checked under the blankets, rolling his broken body to the side. He moaned with pain. She touched his ribs. They still hadn’t healed. “Today was quite the day, back in Inemar. Hope you were all right with Missus Abernand all day. I know she’s brusque. You never really were fond of her.” The dressings on his wounds were all clean and fresh. Missus Abernand had done good work nursing him.

  “I know you don’t approve, but my plan worked. They made me an inspector. Third class. Money will be tight, but I can make it work.” She pulled the blankets back over him.

  She sat down in her chair next to the bed, pulling off her boots. “So I was given a partner, of course. Quite the inspector, that one. Though no one else likes him, that’s clear. Mostly because he’s smarter than the rest of them. And he’s strange. Like that one I knew back in Intelligence. The one in the map room.” She snapped her fingers at Loren, as if he would be able to jog her memory. “Holsing. Knew every town in Druthal, but didn’t care when he had said something mortally insulting. Welling is like that guy.”

  She took off the blouse and pants, draping them over the back of her chair. Loren’s eyes were still on her. She imagined he was smiling, watching her undress. His lips had moved open. They shut and opened again. His left hand waved over to the bedside table. In a rush, she poured a cup of water from the clay pitcher and put it to his mouth. He drank readily.

  “You were thirsty, I’m so sorry, my love. I should have known.” She put the cup back down on the table.

  “Quite the day, though,” she continued, removing her underthings. She sniffed at them. They still smelled faintly of the sewers. Missus Abernand wouldn’t be happy about laundering them. “A dead body, a mage, killed in a ritual. And I saw Idre Hoffer.” She shuddered involuntarily just saying the woman’s name. “She’s a mother of many children. And about as awful as I imagined she would be. And sad.” She felt her shoulders tense. “It’s not worth talking about. I’ll just get upset. You don’t need that.”

  She put on her nightgown and sat back in the plush chair. She touched his hand, gripping it tightly. She needed to reassure herself that he was physically real and there with her.

  “You know who else I met today? The grandson of Old Man Plum. The bookstore man. I told him the story about the poetry book. I still have that book here. I could read you some poems. Would you like that?”

  She mused to herself. “I remember I used to try and read you poems. You never liked it. You’re a captive audience now, though.” Her eyes were heavy. She leaned her head over in the chair, so she could look him in the eyes.

  His eyes were still bright, and beautifully blue. Still full of life and intelligence. Looking into his eyes, she was sure that the true Loren, the man she loved and married, he was still in there, and he could see her. He could hear her. He could understand her.

  She lost herself looking into those eyes, and in moments she was asleep.

  The night clerk took little notice of Minox as he entered the station. It was highly unlikely that either Leppin or Corrie had told anyone that he shouldn’t be returning this evening. It was not quite after midnight, so he was breaking his promise to Leppin. However, the opportunity to save the life of Jaelia Tomar had to take precedence over that.

  Conventional means of tracking Missus Tomar and her abductor had failed. This was not a surprise, as the trail was quite cold. There had been a handful of boot tracks in the street outside the alley that had the right mix of mud and waste, and those were accompanied with the wheel marks of a handcart. Unfortunately, a few steps into the street, they became completely enmeshed with every other footprint and wheel mark that crossed through Jent and Tannen. Useful for clarifying how the abductor brought Missus Tomar out of the alley without causing a stir—few would bother questioning a tarp-covered handcart—but unhelpful in finding where they had gone.

  He slipped up the back stairs, taking a stop in the commissary for a cup of tea before going to his desk on the inspectors’ floor. He put the tea on the desk and lit a few lamps. A pile of fresh newsprints from Inemar, Dentonhill, Aventil, East Maradaine, and Colton sat on his chair. Nyla had, as always, got her usual supply and left it for him to comb through.

  He was at a loss. There were no reasonable suspects, at least none that he could determine with the information at hand. Research was his only possible ally at this point. There were the newsprints of the day, of course. They might yield an unknown connection that would clear up the entire matter. But that was a long shot. He had to simply go through the information he had again and hope he would gain new insight.

  Jaelia herself, or any of the other Firewings,
seemed unlikely, given the unique nature of the spikes. At least, they would have to have a non-magical accomplice. That was worth considering.

  For that matter, it could involve a rival Circle, also using a non-magical accomplice. Blue Hand Circle had ties to Fenmere’s trafficking operations. It was also worth going down to the file rooms and reading up on the other Circles that had dealings in this and nearby neighborhoods. Especially those involved in the Circle Feuds of 1212. He loathed the idea of reading through all that, but Inspector Rainey was correct on that particular point this morning: he was deliberately trying to avoid the subject of Mage Circles. He couldn’t afford to do that, not anymore.

  A thought crossed his mind. The spikes, and mage shackles. Were they the same thing, or was there more to the spikes? Another point of ignorance he couldn’t afford. There was still a pair of mage shackles somewhere in the stationhouse. He needed to get a hold of them and research them as well. He had known for the past three years that there were two pairs in the stationhouse, but had never investigated what they were, or what they would do to him. He didn’t even know why they had two pairs. Was that typical for every stationhouse in the city? Or were Inemar’s two pairs twice as many as anyone else’s?

  He had already been shown that there were elements of magical understanding that were relevant to the case. He couldn’t ignore them. The various Circles in the city—even just the ones that had chapterhouses in the neighborhood—could provide a wealth of other suspects.

  Other suspects. Neither the Brondars nor the folk in the barbershop were reasonable. The barbers were half-wits and dullards, not one of them had any spark of cleverness. The Brondars had that spark, for certain, but they weren’t the type to do it in such gruesome spectacle. Minox could easily believe that Joshea’s father would murder a mage like Hessen Tomar, but he’d do it in an efficient, straightforward matter. No ritual or candles. He’d more likely just hack his victims up and grind them into sausage.

  Minox shuddered at allowing himself that thought.

  He let it pass. File room first. Then the mage shackles. Research the problem, until Jaelia Tomar was safe. There was no other choice in the matter.

  Chapter 14

  SOMEONE POUNDED ON THE DOOR. Satrine woke, startled. She hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep in the chair, her head tilted to one side. Her neck was stiff with pain. She stretched it to the other side, releasing a series of pops. That gave some relief.

  The lamp had dwindled down to the barest ember. It was enough light to see that Loren was asleep.

  Pounding again.

  It was far too early for anyone to be pounding on her door. Satrine didn’t have a clock in her house, but instinct told her it was around five bells, still twenty minutes or so until sunrise. She stumbled from the chair, grabbing a dressing gown as she passed it hanging on the wall. She wrapped it around herself quickly, hurrying to get to the door before the caller began another round of pounding. The girls, hopefully, were still sleeping, and didn’t need to be roused.

  Her Constabulary belt hung near the door. She took the handstick out of its holder and placed her other hand on the door latch.

  “Oy,” she said. “Who the blazes is pounding at this hour?”

  “Is this Inspector Rainey?” a young voice returned.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “It’s Phillen,” the voice said. “Phillen Hace.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m one of the station pages. I counted the clock for you and Inspector Welling this morning, remember? You know, when you were . . .”

  Satrine rolled her eyes. Was this something she was really going to have to deal with? A lust-struck page pounding on her door in the wee hours because he saw her in her underthings. “Phillen, you shouldn’t be coming here in the middle of the night like this. I’m sure there are better places for you to . . .”

  “But . . . Inspector Welling sent me, ma’am.”

  Despite her better judgment, Satrine unlatched the door. There was the boy, standing respectfully a few steps away from the door, hat in hand. “He . . . Inspector Welling told you to come here?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t rightly know, ma’am,” Phillen said. “He told me that he needed you at the stationhouse as soon as you could arrive properly. Oh, and there was an incident with Missus Tomar’s transfer.”

  “What kind of incident?” Satrine asked.

  “He didn’t tell me, ma’am. Though word among pages is she broke out from her lockwagon.”

  “All right,” Satrine said. She had to trust that Welling wasn’t about to send a page to her house to collect her for spurious reasons. If there was an actual, legitimate issue at hand with their case, she should get on it. “Run back. Tell Inspector Welling that I’ll be ten minutes behind you. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Phillen said. He gave a weak salute to her and ran off. Satrine latched the door shut and went to the water closet.

  Face washed, hair pulled back, dressed in slacks and linen pullover, Satrine made her way into the kitchen by the light of a single candle while carrying her boots in the other hand. She remembered several times Loren had made similar early morning exits. As well as late nights. This was going to have to be a normal part of her life now.

  She cut some bread left over from last night, and took out some soft cheese and salted lamb from the icebox. It wasn’t much of a breakfast, but it would do. She mused to herself as she spread the cheese on the bread, that if there was one thing her day probably would not be lacking, it was food. Partnership with Minox Welling would see that through for certain.

  Had Welling been there all night? Should she have been? What did he have to go home to? She didn’t know. He had no marriage bracelet, nor did he speak of any sort of intended.

  She took a bite of bread, cheese, and lamb, put it down on the table, and pulled on her boots. No time for tea. There would probably be tea at the stationhouse, if Miss Pyle was there. If not, would they expect her to make it?

  “You up already, Mama?” Caribet wandered into the kitchen in her gown, rubbing at her eyes.

  “Back to bed, sweetheart,” Satrine said absently. She took another bite of her breakfast.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t know,” Satrine said. “They sent a page to get me, though. ‘Something’ happened.”

  Caribet nodded. “You need anything, Mama?”

  “No, dear. Get a couple more hours of sleep before you have to go to school.” Satrine went to the door hooks for her belt, vest, and coat. Caribet shuffled back to her bedroom. She stopped at her doorway, looking back at Satrine.

  “Let me see you, Mama.”

  Satrine had the coat half on. “What do you mean?”

  Caribet gestured vaguely at her. “Like that. Coat on.” Satrine finished dressing. “You look like a real inspector, Mama.”

  “I am a real inspector, honey,” Satrine said. She went back to the table to grab her breakfast.

  “I know, Mama,” Caribet said sleepily. “It looks right on you.” She went back into her bedroom.

  Satrine couldn’t help but smile as she took the last couple bites of her breakfast. She checked her crossbow and handstick, and went out the door.

  The streets were nearly empty, the haze of predawn barely lighting Satrine’s way to the bridges, across the river, and back into Inemar.

  A handful of boys were gathered in a cluster near the base of the bridge steps. Satrine heard shouts and jeers coming from their circle. They all had matching caps. Satrine didn’t need to see anymore to guess what was going on.

  “You rats got a flop to race to?” she called out. All heads turned to her, opening up their circle enough to see they had another boy on the ground.

  A boy in a Constabulary page coat.

  One of the gang rats
gave the page another kick. “What’s it to you, dox?”

  “She’s no dox!” another jeered. “She’s too old to charge for it!”

  “She could get a pence or two,” said another. “If I had enough ale in me.”

  “Doubt a sprout like you could hold your ale, rat,” Satrine returned. Her right hand went down to her belt slowly.

  “You want to see what I hold, dox?” he said, walking closer to her with a cocky strut. He stopped cold a few steps in. “Holy saints, she’s a stick!”

  “She’s no stick,” one of the other boys said. He had the bearing of a leader. He kicked the page again, as if to punctuate his point. The page groaned and rolled over. It was Phillen.

  Satrine didn’t hesitate another second. She drew the crossbow and shot the boy who kicked Phillen. Her arrow hit him in the shoulder; he squealed in pain and dropped.

  “Saints!” the one closest to her shouted. That was all he got out before she was on him, handstick drawn. Two hits, chest and head, and he crumpled to the ground.

  “Get the dox!” the one she shot yelled. The other boys—three of them—hesitated for a moment, but then charged at her. As soon as they stepped away, Phillen savagely kicked the leader in the knee.

  Satrine dropped her crossbow, freeing her right hand for a hard punch at the first of the three who reached her. He stumbled at the blow, while the second boy of the trio swung a sloppy punch at her. She blocked it easily with the handstick, spinning it around and under his arm. Before he could react, she had his arm behind his back, and forced him around to block the third boy’s attack. She gave the boy a shove at his friend, sending them tumbling onto the cobblestone.

  She got punched in the side. Two more fast hits on her right arm, which she barely had a chance to react to. The first boy of the trio—a weasel-faced tosser with black teeth—was on her, and he knew how to scrap. She lashed out with her right arm, a wild swing that he easily dodged. He grinned with those nasty teeth. “Stick or dox, don’t matter,” he said.