A Murder of Mages (6 page)

“I heard some stories.” She stood back up.

“That might be all they are,” Minox conceded.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure. I want to do an experiment. Are you willing?”

They came out into the street.

Inspector Rainey looked wary. “What do we need to do?”

“Make a call, first,” Minox said. He pulled out his whistle again, and gave it four short, shrill blasts. People on the street glanced their way, then went back to their business. The two footpatrol gave him annoyed glances.

A moment later, a Constabulary page came running up. An older one, with blond hair that was a bit longer than preferred. This one would have a hard time making senior page. “What’s the word, specs?”

“The word is, we need some eyes, boy,” Welling said. He led them over to the mouth of the alley. “Can you see the clock tower of Saint Limarre’s from outside this alley?”

“Sure can!” the page said.

“I mean, really see it. See it to the minute.”

“You bet!”

Minox was too familiar with overeager pages exaggerating their abilities. “What’s the time?”

“Ten bells nineteen.”

“Very good.” He tapped the shoulder of one of the footpatrols. “I would prefer we not be disturbed. Eyes front, and if the wagon arrives, hold it here until we are finished. Now, if you will be so kind, Inspector Rainey, to join me in re-creating the event.”

Rainey had the grace to look intrigued. Even excited. “Fair enough. But are we presuming the victim is grabbed here in the street, or brought in from the sewer, already incapacitated?”

“The latter,” Welling said. “That strikes me as the more likely scenario, and what I want to know is how fast, under ideal circumstances, the killer could have done everything he needed to do.”

Rainey nodded. “Then we should go to the end of the alley, and you carry me from there.”

Minox couldn’t hide his smile. Inspector Rainey could definitely be the most useful partner he had been assigned. “Boy, when you hear the whistle, I want you to start marking time. When I blow it again, then stop. If we’re all clear, let’s begin.”

Minox went down to the end of the alley, Inspector Rainey right with him. “I’m working on the theory that the killer entered the alley from here, with the victim, carried him out to the mouth of the alley, performed the ritual killing, and exited again from here. Is this reasonable?”

Inspector Rainey nodded. “Reasonable enough.”

“So we’re clear, you will be playing the victim while I will be acting out the killer’s part, save causing you actual harm.” On a rough estimate of height and weight, Inspector Rainey was almost the same as the victim. For the purpose of this experiment, she was within acceptable tolerances.

“And your theory is that the victim was, at this stage, incapacitated somehow?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“So I should be dead weight.” Promptly she dropped to the ground in a heap.

Minox was quite pleased that she had reached this conclusion on her own. None of his previous partners had ever understood what he was doing when he tried to work through the physical reality of committing such a complicated crime.

“Wait,” Rainey said from her collapsed position. “This isn’t right.”

“How so?”

“We need to start inside the sewer. The act of pulling an incapacitated body from there would take a significant amount of time.”

Minox nodded, impressed. “Excellent point.”

“Open the grate.” Rainey got back on her feet. Minox had to admit, he was finding this early partnership far more satisfactory than he had imagined would have been possible. Rare was the officer who would willingly go into the sewer system even for the sake of pursuit, let alone for a mere deductive experiment. He pulled open the grate, revealing the dank, fetid tunnel beneath the street.

Inspector Rainey shucked off her boots, coat, and vest, putting them in a neat pile on an abandoned crate. Without any trace of hesitation she removed her blouse and slacks and placed them on her pile.

Minox turned to one side. “That is sufficient, Inspector,” Minox said. Her linen underthings were sufficiently modest to maintain some propriety.

“I want to minimize what I ruin here,” she said. She peered down the hole. “Once more in.” She sat down and lowered herself underground.

Minox paused only briefly to remove his own coat and vest before dropping in after her.

“This is interesting,” Rainey said mildly, pointing to the knotted rope that hung from the top of the tunnel. “Fairly sure that isn’t typically installed here.”

“You spend a lot of time inside the sewers?” Minox asked her.

“In my youth, Inspector,” she muttered. “Come on.” She went limp, and Minox had to rush to catch her before she fell into the fetid water at their feet.

“You could have given a little warning, Inspector.”

“Keeping you on your toes,” she whispered, not moving in any other way. “Give the signal.”

Minox put the whistle in his mouth and blew. As soon as he did, he hiked Rainey’s limp body over his shoulder. He grabbed the knotted rope and struggled to climb.

“Not . . . easy . . .” he choked out.

“I wouldn’t imagine.”

After a hard slog, he managed to get one hand over the lip of the sewer hole.

“This may be impossible,” he said.

“What, exactly?”

“The aperture is too small for me to get out with you over my shoulder, but there’s no way to get the necessary leverage to push you through ahead of me. Not with one hand. And I can’t imagine a man being strong enough to be able to do so.” Unable to hold himself up on the rope any longer, he dropped back to the bottom of the sewer. Rainey coughed hard at the impact, and he put her back on her feet.

“You could have warned me,” she said.

“My apologies,” he said.

“All right, then.” She rubbed at her chest and looked back to the hole to the street. “Our killer could have attached the body to the rope, climbed up, and then pulled up the victim.”

Minox agreed with that idea, and, after giving her a nod, quickly climbed the rope. The timing aspect of this experiment had been thrown off, but not so badly that he couldn’t glean something useful out of the exercise. Trying to start everything over would just confuse the matter. Press forward when in doubt, that’s what Fenner used to say.

Minox surprised himself so much with that thought he almost lost balance at the top of the hole. He hadn’t thought about Fenner in some time. A gnawing twist hit him in the gut. He shouldn’t be forgetting the old man. He should go see him when he had the chance.

This was not the time. Idle thoughts did nothing but delay what he needed to accomplish. He planted his feet over the hole, and grabbed on to the rope. Hauling up Inspector Rainey was significantly easier this way. In moments he had her at the top, and pulled her out onto the cobblestone.

“You all right?”

“Fine,” she said. “Shall we?”

Minox threw her over his shoulder—the stench of the sewer was all over her feet—and hurried down to the mouth of the alley. He laid her down on the ground near the body.

“Next?” she asked.

“Driving the spikes into the hands,” Minox said. “Which we will only mime.”

“Thank you,” she said with a slight smile.

Pretending to hold a spike and hammer in his hands, he played out the actions of striking the spikes into the ground. “Four hits each?” he asked her after he had done the first one.

“Reasonable as anything,” she said. He feigned driving the other spike in.

“Now the heart,” he said.

“How long does that take?” she asked.

Pretending to hold a blade over her chest, he narrated his actions. “From what I saw, the job was done with four cuts, done with strength and precision. Like so. Chest opened, four more cuts removed the heart itself. And so.” He stood up, holding the imaginary heart in his hands.

“That quick?” Rainey asked.

“It would have to be. Then back out the sewer, or just walk out the alley?”

“We’re presuming the killer is daring, yes?”

“So walk right out, heart wrapped like he just bought it at the butcher shop?”

“Perfect,” Rainey said. Minox blew the whistle again. The page turned around.

“Sweet Saint Heprin!” the boy shouted, his eyes wide as he stared at Rainey.

“Eyes around, page,” Rainey said flatly. The boy spun on his heels in fast compliance. Rainey returned to the end of the alley.

“What was that time, boy?”

“Oh, it was . . . twelve and a half minutes. Near as I could tell.”

Minox considered this. Too long, too big a window for discovery.

“Twelve and half minutes,” he called back to Rainey. “I think that’s far too long.”

She was at the end of the alley, getting her clothes back on. “I agree. Our theory is flawed.”

“How is it fixed?”

Rainey pulled her boots on. “Several ways.”

“Earlier you had a theory you didn’t tell me.”

Rainey had her coat on, and came back out the alley, carrying Minox’s own coat. “It was nothing.”

Minox clucked his tongue. This wouldn’t do. “It is only nothing if it doesn’t fit the facts at hand. Does it?”

Inspector Rainey hesitated. “It does, but it . . .” She shook her head.

“It is highly likely I’ve already considered your possibility,” Minox said. “Nonetheless, I would be remiss in not pressing your opinion.”

“This is a ritual killing involving a mage, yes? Involving magic.” She was leading her idea, holding back. That wouldn’t do.

“That’s not all you were thinking.”

“What if the victim participated willingly?”

Minox acknowledged that was an obvious solution. “It seems unlikely, but we would be remiss to ignore it.”

“The other solution is two killers.”

“Or three, for that matter.”

“Or a small group. Perhaps a group united together in common cause.”

“Such as?”

“I was thinking a Mage Circle.”

Minox looked back to the space on the ground where the body had been. Ritualization. Dead mage. Circle tattoo desecrated in the process. “An ousting?”

Rainey handed over his things. “Or some sort of power ritual, with a willing sacrifice. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“My knowledge of magic rituals or Circle politics, either internal or external, is notably lacking.” Minox didn’t like having information gaps. He wasn’t sold on the theories, not entirely. Something didn’t fit, but he had to admit it had enough merit to keep looking into it. “We need to identify our victim to go any further along those lines.”

The patrolmen at the mouth of the alley called out to them. The bodywagon from the stationhouse had arrived.

“Come on,” he told her. “We’ve got work to do.”

Chapter 4

T
HE BODYWAGON DRIVER was a small man, barely coming up to Satrine’s chin. Her first impression was he was compensating for this by wearing big things: his leather gloves went past the elbows, and the smock he wore over his Constabulary coat covered most of his body. The strangest part of his outfit was his headgear, a skullcap with some lensed device hooked to the front.

“Oyah, Welling,” he called out as they approached. Accent from northern Druthal, likely Archduchy of Acora. “You always pull the strange cases, don’t you?”

“This could be one of the strangest, Leppin,” Welling responded.

Leppin looked at the body, giving a low whistle. “Ain’t that a whole piece of truth?” He turned his attention to Satrine. “So you’re the new dress who got made inspector, eh?”

“You should be careful who you call a dress with that thing you’re wearing, mister.”

“Ha!” Leppin said out loud. “She’s funny. Let’s get this dead guy in the wagon.”

Leppin went over to the body, running his fingers on the spikes. He grumbled something incoherent while pulling the device on his cap down over his eyes. He leaned in closer.

“Hammered in?” Welling asked.

“Mighty big hammer at that,” Leppin said.

“Like a mining sledge?” Satrine asked.

Leppin ignored her. He flipped one of the lenses around and leaned in closer to the spikes. “I don’t know what the blazes these are made of, but look at that. Look!”