Konrad jumped, Ootapi’s voice slicing through the silence like a whipcrack. What?
There is a person.
Sweet Malykt, another body? Konrad did not feel he could face another such torn-up carcass. Where? he replied and straightened up, feeling about three centuries old.
He felt a wordless summons beckoning away to his right. He trudged that way, knife in hand, trying to steel himself for another horrific scene.
It is alive, Eetapi elaborated.
It was indeed. Konrad stopped in shock, for partially concealed behind a thin, pallid tree was a living woman dressed in a long black coat, her dark red hair wind-tossed and crusted with snow. She ought not to have been so difficult to spot, for she was almost as bloodied as the two lifeless corpses he had left behind. He instantly concluded she must be injured, and hastened forward. But no. She sat upon a fallen tree trunk, and her posture was not that of a wounded person in pain. She looked frozen, not just with cold but with shock. Her face was blank, her eyes staring at nothing.
Konrad approached cautiously. ‘Hello?’
The woman did not reply. Nor did she move, or blink, and he began to wonder if she might not be dead after all.
Her heart beats, Eetapi whispered.
Konrad took note of the quantity of blood upon her clothing, and her hands, and his sense of foreboding grew.
He touched her hand, very gently. ‘Hello?’ he repeated. ‘We are here to help.’
Her eyes moved, focused slowly upon his face. It took her some time to realise that a stranger stood before her. When the fact registered with her, she shot upright, shoving Konrad away with startling violence. Her frozen body did not respond well to the sudden movement, and she almost fell into the snow.
‘Stay away!’ She tried to shriek the words but they emerged from her frozen throat as a cracked whisper. She coughed, hard, stumbling backwards in a desperate attempt to put more distance between herself and Konrad.
He held up his hands, stood motionless. ‘I will not harm you.’
But she shook her head, so violently her hair sent up a spray of snow. ‘Shall I not harm you? You cannot be certain I shall not, and neither can I.’
Konrad did not move. ‘Tell me what tortures you.’
She covered her face with hands bleached stark-white by the cold. ‘Have you seen — did you see—’
‘The bodies,’ Konrad supplied, when she did not seem able to finish the sentence. ‘Yes.’
‘I saw them,’ she gasped. ‘I saw them at my own feet. And my coat, my shoes…’ She kept her face averted from the garments in question, unwilling, perhaps, to face again the quantity of blood that stained them.
‘You do not remember committing any violence?’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘They were my travelling companions. We had never before met, but we rode here together upon the stage, and talked a little along the way. I remember getting down, and agreeing to walk into Ekamet together. And then…’ Her voice failed, and she covered her eyes. ‘Then they were dead, and I was standing over them like this, and I knew that somehow I had done that to them.’
Konrad stood in a state of such wretchedness, he hardly knew how to act. The evidence was as clear to him as it was to her. Duty compelled him to extract a bone from each of the two victims and employ them in killing the distraught woman before him. The Malykt’s requirements were clear cut. He had no proof of her innocence, plenty of her guilt, and only an emerging pattern of similarly strange occurrences upon which to base his utter refusal to destroy her.
Refuse he did. He could no more slay her under such circumstances than he could kill Dubin. Kovalev’s bone he had dutifully taken, and it now lay wrapped in cloth in one of his pockets, ready for use. But he could not use it until he had determined the full truth of Dubin’s crime, and he could not kill this poor woman either.
Master, hissed Ootapi. You hesitate.
I am the judge here! he shot back, swift and vicious. You assist me. You decide nothing for me.
He felt Ootapi’s displeasure, but he ignored it.
‘What is your name?’ he said to the woman, still wary of approach.
‘Arina.’ She whispered the word, swallowed, and fell silent without offering a family name.
It was enough for the present. ‘Arina,’ he repeated. ‘Please, calm yourself. I will help you.’
She blinked at him, confused. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Konrad.’ He did not hazard the rest. He felt a brief, fervent gratitude that she had not witnessed him wresting bones from the bodies of her slain travelling companions. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘The police will come. I must remain.’
Konrad had no intention of permitting her to remain. For one thing, she would freeze to death. Her lips were already tinted blue, and she no longer had the energy to shiver. She was visibly weakening.
For another, he could not bear to see a third soul condemned to the confinement of Nuritov’s cells. This matter was under his jurisdiction now; if the police were inclined to resent his decision or his interference, let them resent. He did not care.
‘Come with me,’ he repeated. ‘I will see things set to rights.’
To his relief, she followed. She could barely walk, and he was obliged to support her every step. ‘What have I done?’ she whispered, and she would have wept, had she tears left.
‘Nothing,’ said Konrad, and he believed it to be the truth. ‘You have done nothing.’
He took Arina to Nanda’s house, certain she would receive a welcome there, and all the care she so urgently required. His faith was not disappointed. Nanda was appalled by the story, and eager to assist one thrust into the same nightmarish condition as Dubin. Arina was swiftly plied with every source of warmth Nanda could muster, and fed, and comforted, and Konrad left the house feeling more at peace about her.
He returned immediately to the site just beyond the gates. He still had to collect a bone from each victim, which he did with as much dispatch and efficiency as possible, keeping his mind averted from the task. Then he applied himself to a full examination of the scene.
Arina had spent some hours with the two victims prior to the crime. That fact struck him as significant. Why had she not killed them in the stagecoach? She had not mentioned whether there were other passengers; perhaps there had not been an opportunity. But a theory was taking shape in his mind, and the circumstance coincided with it.
The three crimes had been committed in similar ways, and with similar weapons. Swords and knives, all vanished. Stabbing, and decapitation — or attempted decapitation, in Sokol’s case. By implication, one person was behind all three events; one person with a fondness for blades. Alternatively, two people: one with a preference for swords and decapitation, one who preferred to stab and rend with a knife.
How this person, or persons, had come to dominate Sokol, Dubin and Arina into committing the crimes (and contrived to spirit away the blades afterwards) remained in question, but Konrad was more interested in the why. All murderers wanted to cover their tracks, but this approach was cumbersome in the extreme, and had to be far more difficult to accomplish than many another method of distancing themselves from the scene. If he could learn or guess at the why, Konrad felt he would soon understand the whole.
He bethought himself of one or two questions that remained unanswered. What had Radinka Nartovich seen? Of the four victims, she was the only one who remained alive to give her version of the story.
Konrad resolved upon seeing her as soon as possible.
Chapter Five
The house of Radinka Nartovich was in the city’s old quarter, but it was not among the crumbling, neglected buildings that lined some of the streets there. Hers was of moderate size and well maintained, its facade carved and gilded and gleaming with fresh paint. Miss Nartovich was by no means poorly off.
It also bore an air of vacancy which troubled Konrad immediately. His acute senses detected no sign that anybody had passed that way in a day or
two, and the lingering silence struck him as cause for concern.
He was not surprised when no one answered the door, though he knocked a few times. Glancing around at the empty street, he proceeded quietly to the back of the house. The rear door was locked, but a touch of his Malykant’s fingers soon dispensed with that obstacle, and he went inside.
Serpents, find her for me, he ordered, and Eetapi and Ootapi drifted ahead of him into the house.
Konrad prowled through the ground floor rooms, taking note of the fine furnishings and ornaments that adorned Miss Nartovich’s home. There was no sign of her, but there was also no sign that anything untoward had befallen her.
When his serpents reported a similar state upstairs, Konrad breathed a little easier. Hopefully she was well, then, but where was she? He performed a quick search of the upper floors himself, hopeful of some sign as to her whereabouts, but came up with nothing.
He regained the street in some frustration, irritated with himself for failing to gain access to her before. It was probably irrational of him to imagine that she held some vital piece of information, something which would elucidate everything.
He stood on the street for a few moments, unsure what to do next. He had dispatched a note to Nuritov, requesting more information as to Sokol’s and Nartovich’s whereabouts during his attempt upon her life; an answer had not yet come. What more could he do?
His senses prickled.
A presence, Eetapi announced.
Yes, he snapped back. Thank you.
Better late than never, she hissed primly.
Somebody was watching Konrad, but he did not feel under threat from the waiting presence.
‘Tasha?’ he said aloud. ‘Do come out.’
She did not appear, but her voice spoke from nearby. ‘It is not poison.’
‘What is not poison.’
‘The source of these crimes you are investigating. Dubin’s theory is interesting, but it is wrong.’
Konrad turned in a circle, trying to spot the girl, but flurries of late afternoon snow obscured any glimpse of her. ‘All right. Will you tell me how you know this?’
‘I know where Radinka Nartovich is.’
‘Wonderful.’
‘Some of her, anyway.’
Konrad’s heart sank. ‘She is dead, then.’
‘Not exactly.’ Tasha paused, perhaps thinking. ‘She is sort of alive.’
‘If you could contrive to make better sense, I would appreciate it.’
Tasha appeared at last, her black cap and dark clothes materialising out of the snow a few feet away from Konrad. ‘It’s hard, when I don’t know what’s going on myself. But I saw her leave the house, early this morning.’
‘Tell me everything,’ Konrad ordered.
Tasha nodded. ‘She came out without a coat or anything, and I thought she would come right back. But she didn’t, so I followed a few minutes later. She went into a shop in the Darks and didn’t come out. There’s living quarters up there, so I reckon she’s shacked up on the upper floors.’
Konrad frowned. The Darks was the poorest quarter of Ekamet, a winding maze of shabby streets so-named because the gas-fuelled street lamps which lit most of the city were always broken there, and no one seemed to think it worth mending them. The tall, craggy buildings leaned and loomed over the narrow streets, blocking what little light filtered down during the day. It was filthy and crumbling and rife with crime — an area Konrad avoided, as did all those of Ekamet who had any choice.
Radinka Nartovich certainly had a choice. Why would she abandon her handsome, comfortable house for premises over a shop in the Darks?
‘Why do you say she is “sort of” alive?’ Konrad squinted at Tasha, suspicious. She was by no means telling him everything she knew.
‘Hard to explain.’
‘Please make the attempt.’
Tasha sighed. ‘She doesn’t… feel alive, but she doesn’t feel dead either. I mean, if I wanted to feed from somebody I wouldn’t choose her.’
Meaning Radinka was lacking in the kind of energy a lamaeni would need to siphon off, in order to sustain themselves. Ordinarily that would mean she was dead, for sure, but she was oddly perambulatory for that.
Konrad opened his mouth, on the point of requesting Tasha’s guidance to the shop wherein Radinka had hidden herself. But he hesitated. Something else sprang to his mind, a suggestion that had been made the last time he had encountered lamaeni. A possibility he had been trying not to think about.
He did not want to ask, but he had to.
‘Do I?’ he whispered.
‘Do you what?’
Konrad cleared his throat. ‘If you wanted to feed from someone, would you choose me?’
He meant, did he possess the living energy she would consider as food? For another lamaeni had claimed Konrad was not strictly alive, either; that he was more of a puppet, operated by The Malykt. That when he had died in the line of duty and been revived, he had not been brought back to life precisely but only some semblance of it.
It was horrific thought, and Konrad had been dodging the idea ever since.
‘I wouldn’t think of feeding off my new boss,’ said Tasha, with a grin.
‘Of course not, but… could you? If I were not your boss.’
Tasha tilted her head at him, obviously not following his line of thought. ‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe? What do you mean, maybe?’ Konrad’s heart began to pound with terror, and he broke into a sweat.
But Tasha just shrugged. ‘Hard to explain. Do you want to see Radinka or not?’
Konrad took a slow, deep breath and strove to pull himself together. Maybe. He had hazarded the question in the hope that her cheery yes would satisfy his doubts once and for all. Alas, the courage it had taken to ask had been poorly repaid. ‘Yes,’ he said shortly, and with a ruthless effort put the whole question of his own mortality out of his mind. The question of whether or not Radinka lived was more pressing.
But as he followed Tasha through the streets, the doubt lingered at the back of his mind. By the time they arrived at the shop in question, Konrad’s mood was as dark as the streets around him.
It was a pawn shop, and surprisingly well kept, for the Darks. It had received a new coat of paint somewhere in the past year, and its windows were clean. A narrow alleyway ran alongside, and Tasha led Konrad just inside, and pointed at a red-painted door. ‘She went in there.’
‘Is she still here?’
Tasha shrugged, so Konrad sent Eetapi and Ootapi up to investigate.
One woman present, Eetapi reported. Feels odd. Maybe dangerous.
Konrad unlocked the red door with a touch of his fingers, and started up the narrow, steep wooden staircase that lay behind it. Bind her then, please.
It was one of his serpents’ more terrifying abilities: to bind themselves into the body of a living person (or a recently deceased one), bending that person to their will, albeit in a limited and temporary fashion. They would hold Radinka immobile while Konrad investigated, ensuring that she did not take it into her head to attack him. Tasha’s and Eetapi’s vague sense of disorder left him uneasy.
He heard Tasha’s footsteps behind him upon the stairs, and briefly thought of ordering her to remain behind. But he was forgetting. She was no ordinary fourteen-year-old. She was lamaeni, and as such, dangers that might threaten him could have little effect upon her.
At the top of the steps, he took care to ensure that the serpents had successfully secured Radinka before he ventured into the room beyond.
We have her! Ootapi hissed, and Konrad proceeded.
The quarters over the pawn shop consisted of one room, reasonably spacious, its walls simply white-washed and its floor bare wooden boards. Its furnishings were minimal and much worn. A bed occupied one corner, and in it lay the woman Radinka Nartovich.
Presumably. Konrad did not know her appearance. ‘Is that her?’ he asked of Tasha.
She nodded. ‘Leastwise, that’s the woman I
saw leaving her house.’
Miss Nartovich was prone upon the bed and unmoving, dressed in a fine-quality gown which looked out of place in her shabby surroundings. She did not move as Konrad approached, though her eyes focused upon him. Her expression chilled Konrad to the core, for she glared at him with clear murderous intent.
Then her eyes flicked to Tasha, and if anything her hatred deepened.
Let her speak, Konrad ordered his serpents.
Aloud he said, ‘Miss Nartovich. I am an associate of the Ekamet Police, and I wish to ask you a few questions.’
Radinka’s lip curled. ‘Little spy,’ she spat, her gaze fixing again upon Tasha.
Konrad blinked. Radinka Nartovich appeared to be, perhaps, in her late thirties, and she was a fairly handsome woman. But the voice that emerged from her graceful throat was far deeper than Konrad might have expected, and harsh in character. The contrast was jarring.
‘Boss,’ said Tasha, and he thought he detected a hint of nervousness. ‘Something ain’t right. I would say she’s lamaeni, only she’s… broken.’
‘Broken how?’
Tasha merely shook her head, and backed away. Her composure had deserted her all at once, which prompted a deepening of Konrad’s unease.
He looked more carefully at the prone woman, the beginnings of a theory forming in his mind. She fought the grip of his serpents, and she was strong; he would have to move quickly. ‘I have already addressed you as Miss Nartovich. What is your first name?’
The woman snarled something incomprehensible.
‘Try again,’ Konrad ordered.
She did not try to speak further, but strained against the paralysing influence of Eetapi and Ootapi. Futilely, for the present, but Konrad feared they could not hold much longer.
‘You do not know, do you?’ he said. ‘And I do not think it is because you have forgotten. It is because this body does not belong to you.’
The body of Radinka Nartovich thrashed upon the bed, but Konrad was now certain that somebody else looked out through her stolen eyes. ‘Tasha,’ he barked. ‘What becomes of a lamaeni whose body is destroyed while their spirit is elsewhere?’
Death's Avenger- The Malykant Mysteries, Volume 2 Page 5