by H J Peterson
Before he could say anything else, an attendant came into the room and said something in Rocheran. Something that didn’t make Dubois very happy.
“What is he saying?” Friedrich asked Katalin, who was concentrating on what the attendant was saying with furrowed brows.
“Two inspectors are here,” Katalin said. “They want to talk to one of Lord Dubois attendants.”
“Which inspectors?”
Katalin paused a little longer.
“Brooks and Ikeda.”
XVI. HIRO
Heaven, was Lord Dubois’ estate different from Jonkers Press. The building was well-kept, didn’t look like it was about to sink right into itself, the neighborhood wasn’t the type where you had to keep your hands on your wallet, was clean; it was like they’d stepped into a whole other world.
They had, in a way, Hiro supposed. Lord Dubois, though he’d emigrated from Rochereux, had never had to endure so much as a day in the Kicks. He’d gotten to just come in the city and establish himself, without anybody so much as batting an eye. No immigration detention, no struggling for every mark, no trying to keep from being taken advantage of by the mob: he’d lived a charmed life, more charmed than even most of the people born in Vorbereich that she knew.
“What are the odds that Lord Dubois knows what his boy has been up to?” Brooks asked as he knocked on the door.
“I doubt it,” Hiro said. “Lord Dubois and Lord Saaltz were business partners: I don’t know that there would’ve been an advantage for him in this.”
“Maybe it was over a woman,” Brooks suggested. “You know what lust can do to a man. Maybe it’s like that penny magazine about that Alvaresan countess.”
Hiro raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you read penny operas?”
Before Brooks could respond, the door opened, revealing an attendant on the other side in simple, blue, silk clothes.
“Lord Dubois is currently at lunch with a potential business partner,” the attendant said stiffly. “I’ve been instructed to not interrupt him. If you would like for me to pass along a message, however, I’d be happy to do so.”
Well, you certainly sound like it.
“I guess it’s a good thing we aren’t here for him, then, isn’t it?” Brooks asked. “We need to talk to Florian Lachance. Is he around?”
The attendant paused. “Wait here.”
He shut the door on them.
“Thank you for allowing us into your home, Lord Dubois,” Brooks muttered under his breath after a few seconds. “Your hospitality is truly unsurpassed.”
“What are the odds that he’s actually going to come back?” Hiro asked.
“I’m going to go ahead and assume that the odds are slim to none,” Brooks said. “The servant housing should be in the back. What do you say to sneaking around the house and heading there?”
“… wouldn’t that be considered breaking and entering?” Hiro asked. “We don’t have permission to be on his property, yet. He might decide to press charges.”
“And here I was, thinking that you’d finally decided to ditch the rulebook,” Brooks said. “You’re that Ikeda that kept trying to take notes at the Überhaus; I need that Ikeda that punched Inspector Dachs.”
Hiro didn’t say anything.
“Fine,” Brooks huffed. “You can stay here, if you want. Wait for Lord Dubois, maybe have tea and crumpets with him. Me, I’m going to go ‘round and find Florian Lachance, myself-“
The door opened, revealing the attendant that had just left.
“Lord Dubois will see you,” the attendant said.
“Will Florian see us?” Brooks asked. “Because it isn’t Lord Dubois we want to see.”
“Lord Dubois insists that you meet with him before you meet with Florian,” the attendant said. “Is that acceptable for you?”
Brooks opened his mouth to speak, but Hiro beat him to the punch. “Of course.” She shot him a glance. “Lord Dubois might be able to answer some of our questions, anyway.”
Brooks seemed to relax some: he must have realized what Hiro was trying to do.
The attendant motioned into the house with one hand. “If you’ll follow me, then.”
They found Lord Dubois in his courtyard, having lunch with a younger noble and a woman. A noble with short blonde hair tied in a tail, pale skin, and-
Hiro stiffened. It was Friedrich and Katalin.
“Lord Dubois, Inspectors Robert Brooks and Hiro Ikeda,” the attendant announced them.
Hiro performed a slight bow, but Brooks didn’t.
“I hope you don’t mind if I get right to the point,” Lord Dubois said. “Why are you here?”
“I’m surprised your attendant didn’t let you know,” Brooks said. “Your man Florian Lachance is wanted for questioning in an investigation regarding the murder of your former business partner.”
“You think Florian is part of the New Dawn?”
Hiro and Brooks looked at each other. They’d never mentioned the New Dawn. Not in the papers, nowhere: Commissioner Buchard thought it would only make things worse. Either someone had leaked information, or Lord Dubois was involved, somehow.
Suddenly, the pieces began to fit together. Lord Saaltz’s death was beneficial to Lord Dubois. It opened him up to make new business partnerships with other houses. More powerful houses. Houses like Eltz.
But, one thing still didn’t make sense: why in the world would he align himself with someone who hated nobles just to get rid of Lord Saaltz?
It was time to find out.
“We never said anything about the New Dawn movement,” Hiro said.
Lord Dubois paled. It seemed that he’d been caught in a lie.
“Lord Eltz, Countess von Thurzó: if you’ll excuse me for a moment.” Lord Dubois said as he stood up from the table.
Friedrich nodded. “O-of course.”
Lord Dubois lead Hiro and Brooks out of the courtyard, back into the hall from where they’d come from.
“What do you know about the New Dawn?” Brooks asked the second they were out of earshot of the lunch party.
“How much is it going to take for you to stop digging into this?” Lord Dubois asked.
Brooks blinked. For the first time since Hiro had met him, he was speechless.
“Lord Dubois, bribing the police is a very serious offense,” Hiro said.
“Are you going to make me keep asking, ‘Jai?” Lord Dubois snapped. “How much is it going to take for you to stop digging into this? I’d much rather bribe you than, say, talk to the commissioner. Have you removed from this case. I can even have both of you demoted to beat cops if I wanted.”
“And now, we’re threatening the police,” Brooks said. “That’s enough for us to bring you in. Is that what you want? Just imagine the scandal: Lord Dubois arrested for threatening the police and in connection with an anarchist. You’ll never be able to show your face in society ever again.”
Lord Dubois looked ready to pass out.
“Or, we can forget all of that, and you can just tell us about what you know about the Archangel,” Brooks said. “You can go back to your dinner party, and we stay discrete about this.”
Lord Dubois didn’t say anything for a few seconds.
“The Archangel isn’t just an anarchist,” he said quietly.
“What is he, then?” Hiro asked.
“… a revolutionary,” Lord Dubois said. “He wants all of us dead.”
“I’m going to guess that by ‘all of us’, you mean the nobility,” Brooks said.
“Not just them: the nobility, the factory owners, the police; everyone who’s been given half a chance in life,” Lord Dubois said. “He wants to change the world in his image. And in that image, my head is on a pike and the two of you are facing a firing squad for treason.”
Hiro’s blood ran cold. The logical part of her mind told her that this was just another political dissident: there’d been quite a few of those over the years, from anarchists to totalitarians and everyt
hing in between. All of them had failed, their founders executed and many of the members rotting in prison. And yet, this one scared her more than any of those other ones. And not just because she would be on the wrong end of it.
Because she knew too many people who would love nothing more than to see the nobility and their cronies-including the police-dead.
“Why did you get involved with him, then?” Brooks asked.
“I thought New Dawn was a gang,” Lord Dubois admitted. “Florian told me that I could… get them to end my contract with Lord Saaltz. Which was something no gang I knew of would ever do. I didn’t realize who they really were until it was too late.”
“Where’s Florian?” Hiro asked.
“He’s in the servant’s quarters,” Lord Dubois said.
“I’ll go get him,” Brooks said. “Ikeda, you stay with Lord Dubois and his guests. Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
Hiro nodded.
“You leave her eyesight for so much as five seconds, we’ll call down the cavalry,” Brooks said to Lord Dubois. “Understand?”
Lord Dubois nodded. He looked faint. “I understand.”
“I’ll be back in a minute. Enjoy your lunch, my lord.”
Brooks left to go around back, where the servants’ quarters were, while Hiro and Lord Dubois went back into the courtyard.
“Can one of my attendants get you anything, inspector?” Lord Dubois asked as he sat back down at the table.
“Thank you, but no: I ate before I came,” Hiro said as she stood to the side of the courtyard with the servants.
“Is everything alright, Inspector Ikeda?” Katalin asked.
“One of Lord Dubois’ attendants is wanted for questioning in connection to a crime in the Kicks, my lady,” Hiro said. “We needed Lord Dubois’ permission before proceeding.”
Lord Dubois nodded, then looked at Friedrich. “Let’s continue our business conversation, Lord Eltz.”
They began to talk about just that: business. Boring, boring business.
After a few seconds of it, Katalin stood up and walked over to Hiro, standing next to her.
Hiro felt herself stiffen.
“Sorry if this isn’t allowed: I just don’t know that I can stand to listen to those two squabble, anymore,” Katalin said.
“It’s fine,” Hiro said.
“I followed your progress at the academy,” Katalin said. “I was quite impressed. I didn’t think they’d ever let you graduate, but I guess you proved me wrong.”
Neither did I. “Thank you, miss.”
They were quiet for a few seconds.
“I was a prostitute who serviced women back in Magyar,” Katalin said.
Hiro turned to Katalin. “Seriously?”
Katalin smiled slightly. Mischievously. “I knew that would get your attention. You don’t have to be so stiff around me, inspector: the courtesies get boring very fast.”
Heavens, did she agree with that.
“If you don’t mind me asking… why come talk to me?” Hiro asked.
Katalin sighed. “Friedrich told me about you and him. After that business at the Überhaus.”
Hiro looked down at her feet and began to shift her weight, uncomfortable. “That’s over, and it’s been over for a long time. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“I didn’t think I needed to,” Katalin said. “Call me odd, but I thought it might be nice to get to know you. I don’t know anyone here who isn’t a noble, and to be frank, it’s driving me insane. I don’t like them, at all. I want more friends who aren’t nobles, like I had back home. People that I can just breathe around.”
“So… you want to be my friend?”
What the hell is happening?
“At the very least, I feel like I should take you out to lunch,” Katalin said. “You know: to celebrate you finally becoming an inspector.”
Hiro didn’t know how to respond. “I… erm…”
Luckily, she was saved from having to come up with something: one of the attendants came into the courtyard.
Hiro recognized him, she realized: she’d seen his picture back at the station, after that whole business at Jonkers’ Press.
It was Florian Lachance.
He just about jumped out of his skin when he saw Hiro standing there.
Hiro turned away from Katalin. “Florian Lachance: I’m going to need you to come with me.”
He didn’t do anything, at first: he just stared at her, a wide-eyed look on his face. He was caught, and it wasn’t hard to see that he knew it.
And then, he pulled a pistol out from his waistband and took aim at her.
Hiro’s instincts took over. She heard shouting, and she was vaguely aware of the nobles huddled at the table, trying to decide what they should do, but all of that was muted background noise to her, right then. Instead, she pulled out her own pistol and aimed at him.
“Drop the gun! Now!” Hiro barked.
“Why should I?” Florian asked. He didn’t sound angry to her: just scared. Really, really scared. “I’m going to die if I go to prison. They’re going to find me there. So just go ahead and kill me!”
“Florian, who’s going to kill you?” Hiro asked.
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Florian said. “It doesn’t matter if I don’t say anything: they’ll think I did, and they’ll kill me!”
“Who’s going to kill you?” Hiro repeated.
“It doesn’t matter,” Florian said. Was he… was he crying? “I’m not going to let them get to me.”
He put the gun up to the side of his head.
Hiro did the only thing she could think of: she tackled him to the ground.
Thank heaven, she was able to get him down before he could shoot himself. He dropped the gun, and it went sliding across the floor.
“No!” He screamed as he writhed in her arms. “No!”
“Florian Lachance, you’re under ar-“
He slammed his elbow into her mouth, hard.
Blood erupted in her mouth as her head went back. In that split second of pain, she let him go, allowing him to reach for his gun-
Just to have it kicked away by a black boot.
“That’s enough, Florian,” Brooks said as he took aim at him with his own gun.
Finally, Florian put his hands in the air in surrender.
Hiro stood up and felt around her mouth with her tongue. It didn’t seem like any of her teeth were gone, thank heaven.
“You alright?” Brooks asked as Hiro cuffed Florian’s hands behind his back.
“Fine,” Hiro said as they pulled Florian to his feet. For the first time, she turned to look at the terrified nobles sitting at the table. Friedrich looked like he was going to be sick. Lord Dubois’ face was as white as a sheet. Katalin, who’d dived to the table when Florian came, looked calm and collected. As if she’d seen something like this, before.
Might want to take her up on that lunch offer.
“Lords, countess: we’re going to need all of you to come down to the station.”
XVII. ADELRIC
“Guess who?”
Adelric rolled his head over to the side to look at Luca, ignoring the pain in his body as he did. Bator had specifically ordered that he not be healed all that fast: they’d put his legs into splints, and every day, Luca came back down the stairs to make sure everything was healing properly. He would help the process along just enough to hurt like hell, but not enough for it to actually do much: Bator’s signature form of torture.
“Has Bator told you to go ahead and fix my legs, already?” Adelric asked as Luca walked down the stairs. Now that he could see him properly, he could see that he had two mugs filled with frothy beer in his hands: poor man’s pain medication.
“No; he’s still angry,” Luca said as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Francesca and Luciana feel sorry for you, though: they sent this beer.”
“And Bator let them?”
“Didn’t say no,” Luca said with a sh
rug. He took a few sips of alcohol, then set down his mug. “How do you feel?”
“Other than the fact that both of my legs are broken, I’m feeling just fine,” Adelric muttered as Luca began to undo the splint on one of his legs. “You know, I really don’t think Klara feels bad about that.”
“No: Klara feels absolutely no sympathy for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bator had to tell her to hold back.”
“Sounds about right.” He didn’t know why, but the thought made Adelric sick: he knew that Klara didn’t like him that much, but he would’ve liked to think that she was at least joking when she said she wanted to kill them.
“How’re my legs looking?” Adelric asked as Luca began to undo the splint on his other leg.
“Not bruised, so they’re healing,” Luca said.
“You paid money for school so you could tell people that?” Adelric asked. “I think you need to get your marks back.”
Luca gave him a look.
Adelric fell silent for a few seconds as Luca continued his inspection.
“Seriously; is there anything wrong with my legs?” Adelric asked. “Am I going to be a cripple?”
“You’re not going to be a cripple,” Luca said. “Your legs are going to be just fine: you just need to rest more.”
“You say that like I have much of a choice,” Adelric muttered.
“You should watch your mouth more,” Luca said. “It’s going to get you into more trouble if you aren’t careful.”
Adelric didn’t say anything else as Luca put his splints back on. He was right, of course: if he didn’t watch it from here on out, a few broken limbs would be the least of his worries.
But… if he was being honest with himself… it probably wouldn’t matter. He’d screwed up at the Überhaus. Big time. The second Bator didn’t think he had much use for him, he was going to kill him, before he could make any more mistakes.
That had led Adelric to one conclusion: he had to get out of there, and fast.
“When do you think I’ll be able to walk, again?” Adelric asked.
“We’ll start in the next few days,” Luca said as he finished up with the splints. “Bator wants you ready to get back to work as soon as possible.”
Adelric sighed, looking up at the ceiling. Of course, he did. That was how Bator was: ready to kill you one second, then asking you when you were going to get back on the wagon the next. It was one of the things about Bator that really scared Adelric, and was probably one of the reasons why he’d stuck around for as long as he had: there was no telling which Bator you would get on any given day.