Staying on Top

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  Kadin did her best to keep her face neutral in the face of Olivan’s lie.

  Dove sniffed, but he stepped back. “Not sure I appreciate you using my stepdaughter’s murder as a training exercise.”

  “Now, now, dear,” said Mrs. Dove. “I’m sure she’s perfectly competent.” She gave Kadin a reassuring smile. “Go ahead and ask your questions, dear.”

  Kadin gave Mrs. Dove a genuine smile. “I first wanted to say—”

  “Too late,” muttered Dove.

  “That I am sorry for your loss. Coelis was a very special girl to a lot of people, but nowhere near as special as she was to you. I know this cannot be easy for you.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Dove. “She is—was—always my baby. But I have to admit that we hadn’t seen her for some time before her death. After she moved into the city and became famous, she never had time for her poor parents.”

  Tears formed in the corners of Mrs. Dove’s eyes, and Kadin found herself wanting to respond in kind. Her own parents had died when she was six years old, and she would do anything to see them again. It always pained her to hear about people ignoring their parents.

  “Do you know anything about her current friends? Did she have any enemies?” asked Kadin.

  Mrs. Dove deflated. “Nothing other than what’s been in the papers and the glossies. I read everything I could about Coelis’s life. There was a woman who lost out on a part to Coelis, but all her interviews seemed good natured about it.”

  “Tell me her name, anyway,” said Kadin. “It might lead to something.”

  “Of course. Dominga Easter was the name.”

  “Did Coelis have any problems at home before she left?” asked Kadin. “I know it’s painful to talk about, but if there was a reason she stopped coming home, it might relate to her death.” Kadin shifted her eyes to Dove for a moment. He glowered at her but did not say anything.

  “Not that I know of,” said Mrs. Dove. “She always promised me she’d come home soon, and then something would come up. She was very dedicated to her work.”

  “I understand,” said Kadin.

  “May I ask you a question?” asked Mrs. Dove.

  “Of course.”

  “The other detective, he wouldn’t say. The papers said nothing, either. But I wanted to know. How did Coelis die? Did she suffer?”

  Kadin had heard this question any number of times in her six months as a detective’s aide, so she had a ready answer waiting. “I can’t give out the details of an ongoing investigation, but I can say that she didn’t seem to suffer.” Kadin didn’t always offer that last bit, but in this case, she believed it was true. Coelis had looked remarkably peaceful in death, and if her heart had given out, either by magic or other means, her death was likely quick and painless.

  “I think that’s all the questions I have for you right now,” said Kadin. “Please call Valeriel Investigations if you think of anything else that could help us.”

  “Absolutely, we will. Thank you so much.”

  As they headed out of the house and back to the car, Ollie said, “Well, that wasn’t particularly helpful, was it?”

  “It didn’t seem to be. But you never do know.”

  Chapter 8

  That evening, Kadin stopped off at the bookstore to pick up a birthday present for Octavira, confident that, for once, she had purchased something her sister-in-law would like better than a scarf. As she stepped out of the bookstore, she couldn’t help thinking of another building a few blocks over, one whose proprietor could help her in her investigation. The shop, if it could be called that, was in a bad part of town but just a block over. She would probably be safe. She found her feet walking in that direction.

  She walked up to the purple, dirt-covered building with the words Magick Shoppe etched in the window. There was one magic expert in Valeriel City, and he lived and worked here. Kadin took a deep breath and opened the door. Dust-covered shelves of curios and knick-knacks filled the room. Daimon Gates told the average passerby these were magic items, but he had revealed to Kadin that none of them were. He kept his real magic collection in the back, believing it to be too dangerous for the average consumer.

  “Mr. Gates?” Kadin stepped into the shop. “Are you here?” Silence met her ears—or not quite silence. She thought she could hear the sound of voices coming from the back.

  She crept slowly among the shelves, trying not to feel like a damsel who was about to have a monster jump out at her. Honestly, why doesn’t Mr. Gates dust these shelves? Unless he likes living in the setting of a horror film? From what she knew of the man, he just might.

  As Kadin approached the back room, she was surprised to see the door open. Gates usually kept the door closed to keep the magic items inactive. She heard a female voice coming from inside the room.

  “—didn’t get dug up after a hundred years to sit around in a dusty shop doing nothing!”

  “And I have not been hiding from the Society of Mages for the past twenty years to suddenly go on a killing spree!” Kadin recognized that voice as Gates’s. “Besides which, I don’t trust you.”

  “Because you think I’m a mage or because I’m red?” The woman’s voice was strident and insistent. Kadin had rarely heard a woman talk back to a man that way.

  “Because you’re a homicidal psycho.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t kill anyone without someone else pulling the trigger.”

  “You can be either very annoying or very persuasive, as evidenced by the fact that I am still listening to you instead of shutting that door.”

  At that point, Kadin had approached the room enough to see inside. She saw Daimon Gates, a tall, thin man with graying dark hair, standing over the much cleaner row of lighted curio cabinets in his magical back room and rubbing the bridge of his nose. There was no woman in the room.

  Kadin cleared her throat, and Daimon looked up at her. He seemed relieved to see her, though she wondered if that was more to do with the conversation he appeared to be having with… himself?

  “Kadin Stone.” Gates stood up straighter as he said her name. “It’s been awhile.”

  Kadin felt heat rise to her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Don’t be. I don’t want you here.” He sighed and dropped his shoulders some. “Shut the door.”

  Kadin obeyed then glanced about the room, partly from curiosity about whether any new magic items had arrived since she had been there but mostly to try to identify the source of the female voice. Could mages become invisible? The woman had identified herself as a red mage, whose specialty was destroying things. Kadin didn’t see how destroying anything could make one invisible.

  The only noteworthy thing she noticed in the room was a new item on display: an antique pearl-handled revolver put on a prominent pedestal in the middle of the room. The silver of the gun looked clean and polished for something over a century out of date, but Kadin supposed it was magic. The metal tag labeling the item simply said “Xanidova.”

  “Were you here for a reason?” Gates asked Kadin.

  She realized she had been rude again, this time in a probably less welcome way. She made herself meet his brown eyes. “I’m here because I have questions about magic.”

  Gates snorted. “I’m not going to answer them. I told you to stay away from magic, and I meant it.”

  “I did!”

  Gates crossed his arms.

  “I tried. But this latest case I’m working on seems to involve magic again, and I need to know more about it.”

  Daimon grunted. “Let someone else solve it.”

  Kadin let out a humorless laugh. “I tried that too. Unfortunately, when the duke of the city thinks you’re the only person who can solve his crimes, it’s difficult to say no.”

  “Duke Baurus DeValeriel? You should stay away from him too.”

  Now
it was Kadin’s turn to cross her arms. “I’m sorry. Are you my father now, to tell me what to do?”

  Gates raised a finger. “I’m—” He cut himself off and dropped his hand. “Never mind. You’re right. Ask your questions. I don’t promise answers.”

  Kadin considered him for a moment, wanting to ask more questions about that near outburst, but she decided to continue with the task at hand. “Last time I was here, you said there were three different types of mages: red, blue, and green. Red magic, the kind Herrick Strand had, destroys things. But what about blue magic? You said it was stopping magic. You said it could stop someone’s heart. Were you telling the truth?”

  Gates collapsed into a nearby chair and motioned that Kadin should do the same. “I’m not answering yes or no, but presumably, if one had the power to stop things, hearts would be included. But I might also add that any number of drugs—and natural causes—can have the same result.”

  Kadin sat down in the plush purple chair opposite Gates. “I know. I might be jumping to conclusions. I just—”

  “Someone in the investigation?” asked Gates. “Have they seemed especially blue to you?”

  Kadin frowned. “No? I mean, Philindra Dixie was sad, but I wouldn’t say that grief is the same as being blue.”

  A look that was equal parts disappointment and relief flashed across Gate’s face. “Then perhaps you have not yet found your killer. Or perhaps you are simply unable to see them.”

  “How does one see magic? For that matter, how does one become a mage?”

  “It is worth more than my life to give you that information, Kadin Stone. And it is better for you that you do not know. The Society of Mages likes to make examples of those who interfere with their business.”

  “People are dying, Mr. Gates. I can’t let that go.”

  Gates closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I know that, Miss Stone. I am doing my best to answer your questions in a way that does not put either of our lives in jeopardy.”

  Kadin frowned. “That’s not particularly helpful.”

  “The best advice I can give you is to stay out of the Society’s way. They’ll come, and they’ll go, and everything will be as it should.”

  “And how many people will die before that happens?”

  “Not as many as you might think. But probably more than you’re comfortable with.” Gates got up and walked over to the door.

  Kadin stood. “Even one is too many.”

  Gates inclined his head. “As I said, I know you won’t stay out of it.” He opened the door. “I want you to take Xanidova.”

  “What?” the female voice rose in the room again, and this time, Kadin was able to identify the source as the antique revolver she’d admired a few minutes previously. “I’m not going with her.”

  Gates walked over to the case and lifted the ject. “You wanted to fight mages. Miss Stone is fighting mages, and I would feel better if she had some measure of protection.”

  “Is that… does that ject talk?” asked Kadin.

  “Yes,” said Gates, at the same time that Xanidova said, “No.”

  Gates shook his head. “I dug Xanidova up on my last trip to find magic items. She’s been itching to get outside ever since, and I think going with you is the perfect solution. I can trust her not to tell you too much.”

  “I can’t walk around with a talking gun,” said Kadin. “What are people going to say?”

  “Nothing,” said Xanidova, “because I’m not going with you.”

  “Nothing,” said Gates, “because you’re going to keep her in your purse and not tell anyone you don’t trust completely about her.”

  “I cannot go with her,” said Xanidova. “She’s—”

  “Silence!” Gates roared. “You will go with her. She wants the same thing you do. If you don’t believe me, ask her.”

  “Fine. Point me at her.”

  Gates obliged, and Kadin found herself looking down the barrel of a ject.

  “Do you want to destroy mages?” asked Xanidova.

  Kadin shuddered. And Gates thinks we want the same things? “No. I just want to stop them from killing anyone else.”

  No one said anything for the longest moment, and Kadin had the impression she was being considered very carefully. She wondered if her lack of bloodthirstiness would make Xanidova order her trigger fired. She wondered if Gates would oblige.

  “Okay,” said Xanidova eventually. “I’ll go with you. But I will tell you nothing. And don’t think for one second that I trust you. One wrong move, and I’ll find someone willing to put a bullet in your brain.”

  Chapter 9

  Kadin spent a good hour that night trying to get Xanidova to talk to her, but either the revolver didn’t want to talk with anyone else in the house, or she didn’t want to talk to Kadin. Nevertheless, Kadin found herself putting the ject in her bag the next morning. She told herself it was because she didn’t want to see the look on Octavira’s face if her sister-in-law found it, but the truth was that Kadin felt safer having a weapon on her person.

  When she arrived at the office, Trinithy waited in her office, her eyes lit up like the endless row of clubs in the Nighttime District. “Kadin! You will not believe the news!”

  Kadin placed her bag in her lower desk drawer, conscious of the weapon housed within. She wondered how detectives dealt with carrying jects around all the time. Of course, they don’t have to worry about their ject suddenly talking to everyone in the room.

  “Probably not,” she said to Trinithy. “What’s the big news?”

  Trinithy leaned forward, the glint in her eyes turning malicious. “Leslina failed her blood test.”

  All thoughts of Xanidova fled Kadin’s mind as she stared at Trinithy. “Leslina what? Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope. Positive for birth control pills.” Trinithy’s voice was somehow dramatic and singsongy at the same time. “She is now officially Class D and barred from ever working again.”

  Kadin hung up her coat on the rack next to her desk. “How is that possible? Leslina’s wanted to be a detective’s aide for as long as I’ve known her. Why would she mess up something like that?”

  “Apparently, she was having an affair with one of the higher-ups here. I guess she thought he would cover for her, but he didn’t!”

  Kadin realized she was chewing on her lip and stopped. She didn’t want to mess up her lipstick this early in the day. “Maybe he really wanted to marry her and thought this was the best way to get her to give up her dreams?” Kadin wasn’t sure whether she found the notion romantic or repugnant.

  “Nope!” The light in Trinithy’s eyes sharpened to a razor point. “He’s already married. She was his little trollop on the side, and now she’s absolutely nothing.”

  Kadin’s phone rang, and she breathed a sigh of gratitude. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could listen to Trinithy’s glee at another human being’s suffering, even one as difficult as Leslina.

  Kadin reached across the desk to grab the phone. “Valeriel Investigations. Detective Fellows’s office. Kadin Stone speaking.”

  “Kay!” The voice, as it had the day before, made the hairs on her arm stand up.

  “Baurus!” Kadin made an apologetic face at Trinithy and mouthed, I have to take this. Trinithy held her hands up in an I understand gesture and exited the office. “I take it this is about the case.”

  “Right, the case.” Baurus snapped his fingers on the other end of the line, and Kadin wondered what he had been calling about if not the case. “How’s it coming?”

  “Well, I have some desk-side detecting to do this morning, but I should be out conducting interviews in the afternoon. Just need to figure out how to get to Dr. Isidri Tell’s office.” In his research the day before, Olivan had turned up the name of Coelis Crest’s doctor, and Kadin planned to investigate whether Coelis C
rest had been paying him to hide any birth control usage.

  “That’s great, Kay. I know you’ll solve this thing in no time! So I wanted to ask you—”

  Kadin never found out what Baurus wanted to ask her because her boss’s tuneless whistling sounded down the hallway, and she interrupted. “I’m really sorry, but I need to go now. Fellows is on his way.”

  “Aw, did you forget to bring him his java?”

  Actually, yes, now that you mention it. “A java girl’s work is never done.”

  “You’re not a java girl,” said Baurus. “And you should never let anyone treat you like one.” He hung up.

  Kadin hurried out of the office so that Fellows wouldn’t have to ask for his java. He was never happy with her on mornings when she forgot.

  “Ah, Miss Stone,” he said to her as she brought the piping-hot java into his office. “Where are you on the Mook and Tiara cases?”

  “I should have both of them to you tomorrow.” She actually planned to finish both cases this morning, but she needed the extra time to work on Baurus’s case. “May I ask where we are on the Cr—”

  “You may not.” Fellows gave her a stern look. “I told you to stay off that case, and I meant it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kadin meandered back out to her desk and tried to focus on the Tiara case, but her mind kept wandering. She couldn’t stop thinking about the ject in her bottom drawer, the lies she told Fellows, and the agony Leslina must be in. She told herself she was going to take a bathroom break, but she found herself continuing toward the elevator and heading to the Robbery department. From there, it wasn’t difficult to locate the dark-haired young woman putting the last of her personal effects into a box.

  “Leslina.”

  “Come to gloat?” Leslina dropped a picture frame into the box with a clank. “You’re a little late. Trinithy already had her little call center friends up here laughing in my face.”

  “No, I—” Why am I here? “I guess I’m here to see if you need any help.”