by Rik Hunik
"I hear you're dating a police inspector," Zena said.
My mother smiled warmly. "Yes, he's wonderful. We've been together for weeks now."
"What does Berk think? He never told me."
"That's because he just found out a couple of days ago and I think he's still stunned. He hasn't yet told me what he thinks either." They both looked at me with raised eyebrows. I just shrugged and gave them a dumb smile but they kept staring.
I gave up. "Alright, he's a great guy. I'm glad you're happy with him."
The two women did most of the talking after that, so I was glad when the food arrived, giving me something to do besides pretend I wasn't listening. I didn't like the way my mother was talking about me to Zena. Nothing bad, just more than I wanted her to know. As soon as I finished eating I got up. "I'm going back to the office, if you two can handle discussing me without me present. Zena, you can take the afternoon off if you want to."
# # #
The morning after that I headed downstairs when I heard Zena unlocking the street door, and I got to my office in time to see her pick up an envelope from the floor below the mail slot. "Here's an important message for you," she said, handing it to me.
My name, and my agency name, were written in fancy script on the front, and the wax on the back, looking very official and impressive, was stamped with the seal of the mayor's office. I tore it open before I sat down. It contained an urgent request that I see the mayor as soon as possible about a very important job. I tucked the letter into a pocket and said, "I gotta go see the mayor about an important job."
"Good luck." Zena gave me a peck on the cheek as I went out.
I have to admit I don't look like the type of person who normally deals with the mayor, but attitudes in the outer office changed as soon as I showed my letter and I was ushered right in. The mayor bounced out of his plush seat and scurried around his big shiny desk with his hand out. "Berk. Nice of you to come. We are so fortunate to have somebody with your talents in our city." My hand engulfed his. He gave a quick pump and released it, then turned away and started pacing instead of returning to his own chair. "Did anyone tell you why I called you here?"
"No. The message just said it was important."
"Well it is. Last night a gang broke into my daughter's house. It was a brutal invasion, no finesse at all, some of her staff were badly hurt, and the gang disappeared with my daughter." He stopped in front of me. "The police are in a city-wide scramble to find her, but I know that it was you who found all those missing women, so I asked Inspector Quintus how to contact you. Can you help me?"
This is different, I thought, a man with lots of money hiring me instead of a woman who is nearly broke, but he had the same underlying desperation in his eyes. I nodded. "I certainly hope so. Do you have an item of clothing or jewelry that she wore recently?"
He nodded rapidly as he went behind his desk. "Quintus told me how you operated so I got this." Without sitting down he reached into a drawer and handed me an earring.
As soon as it touched my hand I felt an immediate connection and pointed southwest. "She's that way, on a small boat with one mast, bound and gagged in a sail bag so no one will see her."
The mayor stood frozen, staring at me for several seconds. Apparently he hadn't expected that much from me so fast, and after taking so long to find the kidnapped women I hadn't either, but he didn't need to know that. It was easy for me this time because these kidnappers didn't have a dark practitioner of magic covering their tracks.
The mayor snapped out of his daze and called in his secretary to get the police. I went along to guide them.
# # #
When we got to the docks I could tell she was not in any boat here. The officer in charge looked at me and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. I concentrated and rubbed the earring to get a better impression, then pointed. "They're that way, but I can't tell how far. Can you get a fast boat?"
"I sure can."
Half an hour later we were on a fast police boat. The brisk onshore wind meant the kidnappers, with a head start of at least a couple of hours, were miles away, but we had more sail and a bank of oars on each side. I took a couple of spells on an oar, pulling my weight, which earned me some respect, but I couldn't match the oarsmen for stamina, which prompted some ribbing.
As I lounged against the railing, watching the waves while the breeze dried my sweat, a cop approached and leaned on the rail beside me. "Aren't you the guy who helped us catch the Skinner?"
I nodded and waited for him to get to the point, if he had one.
"You remember that weird knife he used?"
I nodded again.
"Yesterday when I was taking some evidence into the locker I saw that the knife was gone. Somebody went through all the effort of breaking into the police station and the only thing they took was that knife. What do you think of that?"
"Somebody wants it badly. The killer is already dead so it must be the dark Wizard who wants it back."
"Hey, yeah, that's a scary thought. Who else could get into the evidence locker without being detected? But what does it really matter? We already caught the killer, that's the most important thing."
"I hope you're right about that, but there's still a dark Wizard at large in the city somewhere, and that can't be good." Maybe two of them; one had been involved in the cult's kidnappings too.
"You got a point there. The matter is under investigation but I'm not involved. I hope they catch him soon."
It took us about three hours to overtake the kidnappers. The four men thought they were home free until our boat cut across their bow and they were ordered to heave to. I recognized one of them because it was the same surprised face I had flashed in the alley three weeks ago. They gave up without a fight, though one man did plead for us to let them go.
"What we're doing is important. It is for the benefit of everybody. You must let us sacrifice this girl to the earth gods or suffer the consequences when the volcano erupts, and that will only be the beginning of the destruction. There will be earthquakes and eruptions where there never were before. The whole world will shake."
The police officer said, "Ooooo ooooo, see us all quivering in our boots. But why did you take the mayor's daughter? Did you think no one would notice?"
"We knew there would be a big stink but we had to do it. There wasn't time to gather a whole lot of lesser women again, and we couldn't find a princess or get to the senator's daughter, so we took the most important woman we could get our hands on, hoping she would be enough."
"Well you can't have her. You're all under arrest."
Even though I was back on shore in the middle of the afternoon the mayor insisted on paying me for the whole day, and then he doubled it, as a bonus. When I told Zena she said, "Wow, that was some easy money."
"You said it. This makes up for some of the time I spent without being paid on all those missing women. What do you say we quit early and you let me take you somewhere special for dinner?"
She looked out the window and smiled. "I don't see your mother so that's an offer I can't refuse."
Chapter 43
A couple of days later I was still eating breakfast upstairs when someone started pounding on the door of my office. I continued eating. If it was really important they could wait until I got there, or come back later.
It must have been extremely important because the pounding didn't stop, it just changed as the person pounded on different parts of the door with different parts of his fist, so I picked up my plate and went downstairs. As soon as I unlocked the door it pushed open so fast I had to jump back to avoid getting hit. A huge black man filled the doorway, paused for a second while he looked me over, then addressed me in a deep, rumbling voice, "You are Berk?"
The way he said it was as much a statement as a question, and he wasn't as big as he first appeared, but his bulging muscles looked solid, so I swallowed and answered anyway. "Yes I am. How can I help you?" I glanced at the food still on my
plate as I set it down on Zena's table.
"I am Zareb, an emissary from King Ajani of Zenobia." He sat down without being asked. Before I got to my seat behind my desk he was already talking. "I am part of a delegation that has come to your fair city to negotiate trade deals." I leaned back, put on my polite listening face, and waited for him to get to the point, which he did, faster than most clients. "The young princess Nyanza accompanied us."
"How young?" I interrupted.
"Sixteen next month." I nodded and he continued. "She disappeared from her hotel room last night."
"Hotel Room?"
"Yes, at Caesar's Palace. We're a small nation, not yet officially recognized by Rome, so we handle our own accommodations." His eyes bored into me for a second before he continued. "The police were called immediately but they found nothing useful. Inspector Quintus assured me the police are doing all they can and suggested I call on you if I wanted more. He said you are a Magician."
I nodded. "I'm certified, which means I graduated from the Roman Institute Of Magic, but I wasn't elevated. I do have a natural talent for finding things, though, including people."
If he was impressed it didn't show on his face, but apparently he understood. "We need more foreign markets so our economy will grow. Some factions would use the disappearance of the princess as an excuse to return to the old ways of isolation, but my father and I do not want that to happen, so it is essential that we find Nyanza quickly."
His father? Oh, of course. He didn't want me to know he was a prince, the sister of the princess. I nodded again. "I understand your urgency. I'll do what I can."
He counted out several large gold coins and set them in a precise stack six inches on his side of the center line of my desk. "I don't know what other cases you have ongoing at this time but I will pay you enough to set them aside and concentrate solely on finding Princess Nyanza."
It so happened that I didn't have any other cases, but the stack of gleaming gold coins was big enough that I would have set any other case aside without a second thought. Resisting the impulse to snatch them up and hold them, I tore my eyes away and looked up at his face, which was calm and patient, and his gaze was steady. I took a deep breath, reached out deliberately and slid the coins a foot closer to myself, then let go of them and leaned back in my chair. "I'll need to see her hotel room first, exactly as it was."
"The police disturbed some things."
"That shouldn't matter much, as long as no one took anything away. Take me there." I left a brief note for Zena, who would be in late because she was at class this morning, then followed the African prince outside.
Waiting for us was an elegant coach pulled by four white horses. I sank into the plush cushions and marvelled at the smoothness of the suspension as compared to an ordinary cab. When we were well on our way to the hotel I asked, "What have the police figured out so far?"
"The guards were drugged and there was no sign of forced entry. Two of the hotel staff have disappeared, so the police are sure they were involved, but haven't been able to find them. The princess's servants were also drugged. They're awake now but none of them remember anything from last night."
The hotel was extravagant, so upscale they probably wouldn't have let me in at all if I wasn't with Prince Zareb. How they got the princess out past all the security was beyond me, but I only had to find her, not figure out every step of how she got wherever she was. My talent was certainly useful in circumventing conventional investigative techniques, but I had learned that it had limits, so sometimes I had to use conventional methods to get the job done.
The air in her room still held the lingering fragrance of a desert flower. I felt Zareb's eyes on me as I looked around, overwhelmed by all the gold and silk. Feeling like an invader, I oriented on a dressing table and found a gold comb with a few curly black hairs stuck in it. When I picked it up I got a flash of a beautiful, young black woman sitting in front of a mirror while her hair was being combed, but I felt no connection to the owner.
I did my trance thing and tried harder. Still nothing. When I looked up Zareb was staring intently at me. I shrugged. His features hardened and he said, "The mayor told me you knew where his daughter was the instant you touched her earring. Why can't you tell me where Nyanza is?"
"Those punks were amateurs. I'm being blocked now, so whoever took the princess has a Magician or a Wizard working with them. Their magic is blocking mine."
"So you're useless to us."
"Hey, settle down, I'm just starting. Give me a chance and I might be able to find a way to get around the block." I opened myself to what I normally considered a dangerous level and circled the room, touching everything. Because of my sensitivity I was bombarded with irrelevant images, many of them rather disturbing, but I didn't want to miss anything that might be relevant so I had to be thorough. Zareb stood in one spot, with his bulging arms folded across his chest, turning to watch my every move. By now I was getting used to tuning out my clients while I was working my talent, but he was hard to ignore.
On the carpet, about ten feet from the bed, I spotted a single slipper that looked like it had fallen there. When I picked it up I knew two things; it had recently been worn by the princess and the other slipper was less than twenty feet away, below me.
I asked Zareb, "Who's in the room below us?"
He shrugged. "It could be anybody. Why?"
"Let's get down there and see." His eyes narrowed but he didn't ask any more questions and he didn't dawdle.
Downstairs the maid cleaning the room freaked when Zareb walked into the room flanked by two sword-wielding warriors. Zareb explained why we were here. Even though our presence wasn't really legitimate she didn't seem inclined to argue. In fact, she seemed glad to leave.
I went straight to the bed and found the companion to the slipper tangled up in the bedclothes the maid had been about to remove.
Zareb took it from me, studied it for a few seconds, then looked around the room. "So she was here. But where did they take her from here?" He folded his arms and directed his stare at me.
His skepticism was beginning to irk me, so I decided it was time to annoy him back. "I don't know," I said, giving him an exaggerated shrug with a stupid expression on my face. His stare turned into a glare and his brow furrowed into a frown. I smiled and held up a finger, which irritated him more, and said, "But I'm not finished yet. Remember, I am a Certified Magician, and now it's time for some magic."
Zareb's glare faded but his skepticism still showed.
I got the staff to bring me a candle, some salt, a silver spoon, a bowl of water, and a wooden spoon. I set up the items and performed the ritual, then repeated the incantation over and over while I sank into a trance, gathering energy in the center of my mind, compressing it until I was ready.
I released the ball of energy and it expanded rapidly, leaving me a mental picture of what had happened in this room and in the room upstairs, as well as every other room within forty feet in every direction, but I let that fade, concentrating only on the relevant images. Trying to ignore the building headache, I summed it up for Zareb.
"Something woke her up and she put on her slippers."
Zareb frowned at me like I was crazy. "Why would she do that?"
I shrugged. "Because of something they told her, or maybe she was already under a spell. It doesn't matter. They drugged her, or used magic to put her to sleep along with the guards and her staff, wrapped her in bedclothes, and lowered her over the balcony. In this room they disguised her as an elderly white woman, kept her drugged until morning, then walked out with her, just a normal couple helping their senile mother."
Zareb exploded. "You mean they were right here in this room the whole time the police were searching the hotel?"
"I guess so. The police must have questioned them and let them go early this morning. You can bet they gave false names, lied about where they were going, and left at the first opportunity."
"So why didn't Nyanza say anyt
hing to the police, or at least draw attention to herself?"
"Because their Wizard didn't give her a chance."
"Can you tell who they were or what they looked like?"
I shook my head. "I had no connection with them, and they were using some kind of protective magic. I think the police can follow that lead better than me."
"So what can you do?" He had unfolded his arms and moved closer to me, and now he leaned forward in anticipation of my answer, but ironically, now that he was beginning to believe in me, I felt like I was at a dead end.
"I'm not sure." I rubbed my temples and sent one of Zareb's tag-alongs to get me some red wine for my headache, then wandered around the room, searching for inspiration, but the kidnappers had removed all trace of themselves from the room, so everything I saw belonged to the hotel.
I remembered what Acastus had told me about identifying a person from a single hair and got down on my hands and knees to scrutinize the carpet around the bed, but there were so many hairs most of them had to be irrelevant. Let the police sort through them, I didn't have the spell anyway.
When the wine arrived I downed two glasses before continuing my scrutiny. Under a dresser, in the shadow behind a leg, I found an ivory button. When I showed it to Zareb and asked if Nyanza had anything like it on any of her clothes he thought for a bit and said, "I don't think so. I'll ask her servants."
He returned a few minutes later shaking his head. "As far as anybody knows, it's not hers."
"That's what I thought, so it must be from one of the kidnappers." I felt nothing when I took it back.
I stared at it. What could I do with a lost button? But I had the button so it wasn't lost. It was the garment the button came from that was lost. With that frame of reference I concentrated on the button-garment connection and opened myself to impressions. The connection was strong because both items were aspects of wood energy, which is my strongest, the button had been attached to the garment for a long time, and the blocking spell was applied to the princess and the kidnappers, so the button-to-garment connection was not hindered by it. I smiled at Zareb. "I can't locate the princess, but I can take you to the garment this button came from."