A Murder of Mages: A Novel of the Maradaine Constabulary

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “This way,” she said, following the trail to the back room.

  The back room was a cramped office, with a tiny desk and a hole torn into the floor. A rope was tied around the desk that led down the hole. On the desk was a pile of clothes: Constabulary coat and vest, and a belt with crossbow and handstick.

  “Blazes,” Kellman said. “Jinx really is in trouble.”

  For once, Satrine wished she hadn’t been right.

  “Look at all this,” Mirrell said, pointing at the wall. Satrine had been so focused on Minox’s situation she hadn’t even noticed. The wall was covered in papers, small notes and diagrams, maps of the city and the underground tunnels, charcoal sketches of the Tomars, Harleydale, and Welling, other notes in characters Satrine couldn’t recognize.

  “Blazes,” Kellman said. “And I thought Jinx’s slateboards were crazy.”

  Mirrell went over to the rope, drawing his crossbow. “Come on, Darreck. Let’s go save our guy.”

  “Your guy?” Satrine said. “You don’t even like him.”

  “I don’t,” Mirrell said. “But his heart’s Green and Red, and that’s all that matters today.”

  Kellman pulled out his own weapon. “I’ll take point.”

  “I should do that,” Satrine said.

  Mirrell shook his head. “As you already pointed out, you’re not a stick. We can’t let you go with us.”

  “Don’t you dare—”

  “I’m serious, Rainey. We can’t let you go down there with us.”

  Kellman took the rope and dropped down.

  “This isn’t right,” Satrine said.

  “A lot of things aren’t,” Mirrell said, and he followed after his partner.

  Satrine heard them go down, reach the bottom, and walk off. After she couldn’t hear them anymore, she decided enough time had passed that she wouldn’t be going down with them. She grabbed Welling’s belt off the desk, drew his crossbow, and went down after them.

  Chapter 30

  “LIFE EVERLASTING, LOVE EVERLIVING. It took me so long to understand exactly what the words really were. What had been mistaken as flowery poetry for centuries!” Plum cackled. Minox had never seen someone in such an obvious maniacal state.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Plum, but you can’t think that the dead can be brought back.”

  Plum scrambled over to the metal table, his eyes boring into Minox. “Why not, Inspector?”

  “Magic doesn’t work that way.”

  “How do you know that, Inspector? Do you really understand magic, uneducated as you are?”

  “If it did, people would bring back the dead all the time.”

  “All the time?” Plum scoffed. “Because what I’m doing here is just so easy?” A solid punch cracked into Minox’s ribs. “Do you have any idea, Inspector, of the amount of work I’ve done here? The research? The attention to detail? I alone had the awareness to see the power in those words! Words written with divine inspiration. Ritual magic to bring back a lost love!”

  Minox struggled to catch his breath. Talking out the lunacy of Plum’s intentions was not going to get him anywhere. He had to try a different tactic. He had to do something to escape. At the angle his body was bound, his head hanging down, he couldn’t get a good look at how he was held. Getting himself free would prove impossible without knowing the details of his bondage. Even with the knowledge, it might prove he lacked the strength or means to liberate himself. He still felt weakened.

  A different tactic. Appeal to the man’s pride. “Finding those spikes must have proven quite difficult. And they clearly were necessary to fulfill your plan.”

  “Spikes?” Plum’s voice and demeanor returned to that of a man having a civilized conversation. “Ah, you mean my pins.” He chuckled lightly. “My eight fallen pins.”

  “So there are eight.” Minox focused on the number, ignoring the strange bowlpin game reference that Plum made. “You used two of them on each of your other victims, but left them behind.”

  “No need to be greedy, all things considered. I wasn’t going to need each pair after I had used them, and trying to retrieve them would have just put me at risk. Put my plan at risk.” He paced away from the table, moving through the beam of diminishing sunlight. “And this was my plan. My knowledge. My research. I took the pins and did what I needed with them.”

  “Took them?” Minox pressed. “From whom?”

  Plum looked at the beam. “I’m afraid some questions must remain unanswered, Inspector Welling. It’s just about time for you.”

  He came over to the table and did something out of Minox’s vision. There was a momentary release of the weak feeling running through Minox’s body. Plum crouched down in front of Minox’s face. He was holding one of the spikes and a hammer. “I really am sorry, Inspector. But I do need your precious blood.”

  “Wait, Plum. Wait!”

  Plum set the spike at Minox’s left arm, on the muscle right above the wrist. “Please, Inspector, I need to concentrate. Shallow cut.”

  He slammed the hammer on the head of the spike. Minox screamed as he felt the bone crack, though the spike only sliced through the side of it.

  “And that’s one,” Plum said.

  A hard snap cracked in the distance, followed by the jangling of a bell.

  “Company,” Plum said dryly. “Possibly the former Inspector Rainey, if she’s clever.” He leaned down, cheerily smiling in Minox’s face. “I did hate to hand her such vital evidence, but I couldn’t afford to pass up a sale. After all, I’ll have a wife to support soon.”

  Struggling, frustrated voices shouted in the distance—male voices. Two of them. Missus Rainey was not present, then. Despite facing his imminent demise, Minox felt some relief. He would hate for Missus Rainey to risk her life, especially as a civilian, in a vain effort to rescue him.

  “Not Missus Rainey,” Plum mused. His face went pale. “The Brotherhood couldn’t possibly have found me, not so soon.” He frowned. “It’s no matter. Whoever was coming is now trapped.”

  The voices yelled some more, but not with enough clarity for Minox to make out what they were saying. But he was able to recognize the pitch and timber of the voices: Inspectors Mirrell and Kellman.

  Minox would have to reassess his opinion of their investigative skills, even if he was unlikely to survive the next few moments.

  Satrine had been expecting sewer, but she had climbed down nearly twenty feet to a clean, dry tunnel that smelled more of lime and chalk than filth and waste. It was also dark as all blazes, save the thin trickle of flickering light from above. Two pitch-black passages were her only options; from one direction she thought she could hear hushed voices. It might have been Kellman and Mirrell, or something more, or only her imagination. She had Minox’s crossbow cocked and loaded, and ventured down the passage.

  She had only taken five steps when she heard a horrific snapping sound ahead. The jangling of a bell. Then shouts. Kellman and Mirrell, most definitely this time.

  More cries from the two inspectors. Not pain. Not fighting. Annoyance.

  That would confirm she was on the right path, then. If they set off some sort of trap or alarm, it would stand to reason Plum would have been the one to set it. It also stood to reason there would be more than one.

  More annoyed yells from the inspectors. She could make out a few words from Mirrell. They were definitely trapped somehow.

  Each step became cautious and deliberate, every sense open for the brush of a tripwire or slightest shift in the stones. She couldn’t afford to get stuck. Not if Welling was still alive.

  She let the shouts lead her. The blackness lightened slightly up ahead. She hadn’t triggered anything.

  Mirrell was still shouting, making demands to be released. Satrine thought this was futile until she was close enough to see the situation. The two of th
em had been pinned into an alcove by a large spring-loaded grate. Neither of them had much mobility, but Kellman was trying to crack the wooden edge of the grate. Mirrell shouted to cover the sound of Kellman’s kicks.

  Satrine came into the light, putting a finger to her lips. Kellman pointed to the grate, signaling her to try to find a release of some sort.

  “I have to finish this,” Plum shouted from the lit chamber nearby. “If you stop me, you’ll never get the list. You understand?”

  Satrine glanced around the mechanism of the grate. There wasn’t enough light to see a way to release it, and she didn’t dare start poking things, lest it trigger another trap.

  “List?” Mirrell shouted back. On Kellman’s confused look, he shrugged. “I’m going to list every bone in your body I’m going to break!” Kellman brought his massive leg down on the wooden frame, but he couldn’t move enough to make much use of his strength.

  Satrine kicked the frame in the same place, splintering the wood some. It didn’t make much difference.

  “No, Plum, please.”

  Minox’s voice.

  Kellman and Mirrell would have to wait.

  Gingerly, she stepped to the edge of the passage before it opened up to the lit chamber. Crossbow up, she reflexively checked it one more time. She peeked her head around the edge of the wall.

  Minox was bound, naked, to some strange table, hanging upside-down. One of those blasted spikes had been driven into his arm, and his blood was dripping onto a pile of bones and other human parts. Quite a lot of blood already.

  Plum had his back to her, but he was about to drive another spike into Welling’s other arm.

  No time, she spun out and took the shot. She hit Plum in the upper shoulder, forcing him to drop his hammer. Satrine charged at him as he cried out. He turned toward her, snarling. She hurled the crossbow at him as she closed the distance, drawing the handstick.

  “No!” Plum shouted, dodging the crossbow. He quickly turned back to Welling, placing the spike in position as he crouched to pick up the hammer.

  Satrine crashed into him, battering his side with the handstick as they fell to the floor, sliding in blood and bones.

  “You can’t . . .” Plum wheezed. She grabbed his bad arm and tried to force it behind his back, get her weight on top of him. He was too strong, too wiry, and he flipped around to face her.

  She drove her stick into his chin. “Stay.” Again. “Down.”

  “Please.” Plum’s tone mixed desperation with rage. “Don’t.”

  Too late, Satrine saw he still had the spike in his hand. She tried to grab it, but he wrenched free and stabbed it into her leg. She lost her grip on his other arm, and he pushed her off of him.

  He tried to take the spike back, but she pulled her leg away from him, rolling away from Welling. Despite the pain, she yanked it out of her leg.

  “Give me that,” Plum snapped, coming closer.

  Impulsively, she threw the spike down to the passage she had come from. Plum lashed out, striking her across the chin, and ran after it.

  He had gone into the passage. “You’ve ruined it! You’ve ruined everything!”

  “Sorry,” Satrine said, grabbing him by the back of his coat. She yanked him off his feet and threw him onto his back. He swept his leg out, knocking her right where he had stabbed her before. She fell back against the wall.

  “You’ve lost this fight before,” Plum said.

  “Still breathing,” Satrine said, throwing a feinted punch to his right side, making him dodge to the left. “Still here.”

  Another feinted punch, but he grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her. “Not much longer, Missus Rainey.”

  She kicked her feet up off the ground, gaining purchase on the wall. With everything she had in her good leg, she pushed back, slamming Plum up against the grate.

  Kellman’s arm shot out, wrapping around Plum’s neck, holding him fast to the grate. Mirrell, from his vantage, was able to grab one of Plum’s arms. In a moment, he had his irons out, one shackled on Plum’s wrists.

  “You got him?” Satrine asked.

  “Get to Minox,” Mirrell said. “Go!”

  Satrine wasted no time, limping back to the strange table. More blood had pooled up under the table. Minox looked pale and drawn. Satrine fumbled at the straps, unbuckling Welling until he was loose. “I’ve got you, Minox,” she said. “I’m getting you out of here.”

  “Spike,” Minox whispered.

  Satrine grabbed hold of the head of the spike and tore it out, fresh blood coming with it, and threw it to the other side of the room. She helped him onto the ground.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “You look . . .”

  “Horrible, I’m certain,” he said. “Is Plum dead?”

  “Kellman and Mirrell have him,” she said. “Look at me, Minox. I’m going to get you out of here.” She tore off a strip from her slacks, already ripped from being stabbed, and wrapped it around his arm. She glanced back at her leg. Blood was flowing from her own wound. She’d need to bandage that as well soon.

  His eyes focused on her. “You aren’t wearing a vest, Missus Rainey,” he said woozily.

  “No, I’m . . .” She wrapped her leg. “I’m not an inspector anymore.”

  “The facts do not agree,” Minox said, glancing around the room. He looked back at her. “You found Plum.”

  “Just in time, too,” she said. She stood up. She could put weight on it, but it hurt like blazes. “Can you walk?”

  “Give me your coat,” he said weakly. “Allow me some small degree of dignity here, Missus Rainey.”

  She gave it to him, and he wrapped himself in it as best as he could. He glanced at her again. “You’re not wearing a vest, Missus Rainey.”

  “You said that already,” she said. “We need to get you to a doctor.”

  “Yes, I believe that’s right,” he said. He shook his head slightly as they both stumbled down to the passage. “Quite extraordinary, indeed.”

  Chapter 31

  ONCE OUT OF THE BOOKSHOP and in the street, Kellman and Mirrell didn’t even bother calling the lockwagon for Plum. Keeping him ironed by wrists and feet, they half dragged him to the stationhouse, making a shameless public spectacle of the event. Satrine fashioned a sling for Welling’s arm out of his vest and helped him walk a few paces behind them. Satrine suspected he did not wish to be assisted in any such way, but he voiced no objections. Given the condition of her leg, she needed his assistance as much as he needed hers.

  “Call the Yellowshields,” Minox said. “For both our sakes.”

  Mirrell blew the call on his whistle, but their march to the station continued. A small crowd formed around the parade, people shouting and calling out. One man stepped out from the crowd. “Inspector Welling! Inspector Welling!”

  Welling whispered low in Satrine’s ear. “Mister Rencir from the South Maradaine Gazette.”

  “Nothing right now,” Satrine said, holding up a hand to the man.

  “But what’s happening, who have you arrested here?”

  “This is not a matter for the press yet,” Satrine said.

  “You’re Satrine Rainey. Tricky!” Rencir said, pointing an accusing finger. “The woman who faked her way into being an inspector!”

  “Word gets around,” Satrine muttered.

  “Surprisingly fast,” Welling responded.

  “If you’re a fraud, why are you helping the Constabulary with—”

  “She’s not a fraud.”

  Satrine had expected that Welling would say something along those lines. Which was why she was so surprised that Inspector Mirrell was the one saying it. He had left the escorting of Plum in Kellman’s hands and crossed back to confront Rencir.

  “Three murders were solved, and the life of an inspector was saved, thanks to Missus Rainey. She�
�s blazing well a model citizen is what she is.” He poked two fingers into Rencir’s chest. “And I blazing well better not see anything different in your newssheet.”

  Rencir nodded and slunk away, and Mirrell grabbed Welling’s arm. As they continued, Satrine noticed another face in the crowd, hanging back from the action but far more intense in gaze. It was the youngest of the Brondar sons from the butcher shop. Joshea. He was entirely focused on Welling. Satrine glanced back to her former partner and saw that he was giving Joshea the same degree of attention. There seemed to be an unspoken moment between the two, and then Joshea nodded and slipped off into the crowd.

  He didn’t figure into the case anymore. If he and Welling were friends, that was their business.

  Yellowshields finally arrived. They went to work laying Satrine and Welling out on the shields. There was a brief argument between the Yellowshields and Mirrell over where to take them, which Mirrell won out, insisting that Satrine and Welling be brought to the stationhouse’s infirmary ward.

  Once in the stationhouse, there was a whirlwind of clamor and action, shouts from the desk clerks and floor sergeants and all three inspectors, everything happening in such rapid succession that Satrine didn’t entirely realize when Plum had been taken off to the holding cell, or when she and Welling had been escorted to the infirmary ward. She had barely been aware of the cup of Fuergan whiskey that had been shoved into her hand before the dour ward matron started sewing up the gash in her leg. She glanced over to the cot next to her, where a surgeon was hard at work setting Welling’s arm. They had already stitched the gash in his head, but the bruise surrounding it was ugly. The ward nurse muttered something about how Welling must have a thick skull.

  “Lucky the break was clean,” the surgeon grunted. “Else we’d have to cut it off.”

  “Let’s avoid that if we can, Doctor,” Captain Cinellan said, approaching their two cots with Protector Hilsom right behind him. Mirrell and Kellman hung back by the doorframe, both waving off the attempts by the other matrons to tend to their scrapes.