Dragon Precinct (15 page)

“But you didn’t.”

“Your source is wrong.”

“I don’t think she is, and her information fits.” Torin turned to Osric. “Captain, I want to have Dragon round up some of the Dog and Duck’s patrons, have them look at the body, see if they think he looks older now than he did when he was alive. If he was, it’ll corroborate my source.”

Osric nodded.

Danthres, however, was more concerned with how Boneen started the conversation. “Why are you so sure Chalmraik isn’t the murderer?”

“What?” Boneen asked.

“When you walked in, you said that Chalmraik wasn’t the murderer. Why’re you so sure?”

“Several reasons. The most obvious is that he’s supposed to be dead.” Boneen shrugged. “Still, I suppose he could overcome that, seeing as how he was supposed to be dead at least twice before.”

“Twice?”

Boneen nodded. “Oh yes. There’s the time everyone knows about, of course, but there was another time before that, when he did manage to resurrect himself. Only a few wizards are aware of it, though.”

Danthres shook her head in annoyance.
Another omission to add to Ythran’s ledger.

“But that’s the other reason why it can’t be him,” Boneen continued. “Chalmraik was—is—was—whatever—many things, but subtle has never been one of them. Nor is he wasteful. If he wanted this group dead, he’d have wiped them all out at once. Picking them off one by one doesn’t match his particular idiom.”

“Yes, but resurrecting himself would require a great deal of power, wouldn’t it? Perhaps he drained his resources.”

Boneen snorted. “So he’s killing them one by one through a means that isn’t detectable by a peel-back? Ridiculous. Besides, there’s no kind of practical magic that can do that sort of thing. In order to kill these people magically, he’d have to leave some kind of trail.”

Torin asked, “Couldn’t he mask the trail?”

“In a way, but there’d be a ripple effect of some sort. You can’t really
block
magic, you can just manipulate it. But the scale we’re talking about here is something that can’t be easily hidden, and would take enormous power—not just the murders, I’m talking about the initial resurrection. Frankly, it’s a great deal more power than is worth committing to murdering a few people, even ones as well regarded as Brightblade and lothSirhans, and certainly more than is worth committing to two halflings. And each time he did—bring himself to life, then kill Brightblade, then kill lothSirhans,
then
kill the halflings—the risk of exposure would be even greater. It would be progressively harder to hide it. But there have been
no
disturbances,
no
leaks,
no
indications
of any kind
that this level of power’s being used on any of the four murders, nor have there been any kind of disturbances, leaks, or indications that someone has pulled off a resurrection. Believe me, the last time, half the wizards in Flingaria knew
something
major had happened, and a quarter of those knew that Chalmraik had reconstituted himself.” Boneen let out a long, wheezy breath, which didn’t surprise Danthres, as this was the longest collection of consecutive words she’d ever heard him utter. “Blocking one I can see. Blocking two, even, especially given Chalmraik’s power. But all five occurrences? It’s possible, I suppose, but so
extremely
unlikely as to be as close to impossible as makes no never mind.” Boneen shook his head. “Damn you both, you’ll make me into a gibbering madman.”

Grinning, Torin said, “ ‘Make’ you?”

Boneen ignored the gibe as he headed for the exit. “I need to go to the house of this rapist-cum-black-
market-spell-seller. Sometimes I wish we just let anyone use magic like the old days. It may have been more chaotic, but I got a lot more naps.”

After the M.E. departed, Osric looked at Danthres and Torin each in turn. “So, is this a dead end or not?”

“Not.” Torin sat back down. “Two of the bodies had magic on them that Boneen didn’t detect.”

“Possibly three,” Danthres said, a thought occurring. “Thanks to the timely arrival of Sir Rommett, nobody did a thorough investigation of lothSirhans’s body. What if he was carrying something magical as well?”

“Worth a look.” Torin looked at Osric. “We should go check the corpse.”

Osric’s lips twisted. “Normally, that’d be Boneen’s job.”

“Yes,” Torin said, “but he’ll be busy for most of the day going through those spells Dru and Hawk found.”

“He hates it when anyone enters his work area. He’ll carry on like trash about it for weeks.”

This was an irrelevant concern as far as Danthres was concerned. “He’s
been
carrying on like trash ever since Brightblade’s body fell. What’s one more thing he’s complaining about amid the litany?”

As Danthres watched, several emotions played across Osric’s face. She could tell his desire to see this case closed as fast as possible in order to get the Lord and Lady off his back warred with a desire not to piss the M.E. off.

As expected, the former won. Boneen was perpetually pissed off anyhow.

“Do it,” the captain said, unfolding his arms.

Danthres was out of her chair like a shot.

She and Torin exited through the west-wall doorway and headed to the narrow, winding staircase that led down to Boneen’s lair. As they proceeded, their way lit only by a pair of hand torches they’d grabbed on the way down, several odors started to creep into Danthres’s nose, even as the air grew considerably colder, making her grateful for the warmth of both her cloak and her torch.

The staircase fed into a doorway. No hallway, no other access, just a tiny landing enclosed by two walls on the right and left, the staircase behind them, and a huge, imposing wooden door with an ornate knocker in the same gryphon image as that on the crest of Danthres and Torin’s armor and cloak.

As they approached, the gryphon spoke, using a squeaky voice that was even more annoying than either Ep’s or Boneen’s, which Danthres would not have believed possible. “What do you want?”

“We need to check something,” Torin said blandly.

“Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Torin ban Wyvald and Lieutenant Danthres Tresyllione.”

“What case?”

“The murders of Gan Brightblade, Olthar lothSirhans, Mari, and Nari.”

This was followed by a lengthy pause. Danthres assumed that the spell was verifying that they were really who they said they were, and probably cross-referencing the case with Ep’s files. Despite herself, she was impressed with the complexity of the spell.
Not that it matters. Boneen doesn’t like us to come down to his sanctum sanctorum, and this fake gryphon will probably tell us to go hang until the old bastard comes back.

To her surprise, she then heard the click of the door unlocking. The squeaky voice said, “The items relating to the case in question will be glowing. You may touch them. If you touch anything else, neither I nor my caster will be responsible for the consequences.”

The gryphon then went back to being an unmoving door knocker. Letting out a breath, Torin pushed the large door inward, and they went inside.

Before Danthres could open her mouth, Torin said, “I know, I know, you
hate
magic.”

Danthres smiled even as she wrinkled her nose. “Actually, I was going to ask what that smell was.”

“Which one?”

“Well, I can make out peat moss, several spices, and goblin dung, but the rest is a blur.”

Torin grinned. “I bow to your olfactory superiority. I just know that it smells wretched.”

“That it does.” Danthres put her torch out, as the windowless room was lit by an unseen source. Then she looked around to see a massive space filled with tables, some holding bodies—all of which had the blue tinge of a Preservation Spell—others laden with parchments and various odd-shaped items, plus one in the corner piled with jars labeled in a language Danthres didn’t recognize and containing both liquids and various combinations of plant pieces.

Seven blue-tinged bodies were on tables, and four of them were glowing. The other three belonged to the triple murder Danthres and Torin had closed a week earlier, on which the magistrate was scheduled to make a decision fairly soon. There was no hurry as far as Danthres was concerned—they’d captured the bastard who did it, and he’d rot in the hole until it was time for him to be hanged. She and Torin had done their job in bringing the killer to justice and had moved on to the next case.

Torin went over to the elf’s body. Danthres couldn’t help but notice that, even in death, Olthar lothSirhans looked arrogant and pleased with himself. Elves spent most of their unnecessarily long lifetimes cultivating that look, and it was one inheritance from her father she would happily live without.

In fact, he looks just like that child-killer I disembowelled.

She still recalled the smell of the bodies of the mass grave of dead half-breed infants she’d come across on her journey from her birthplace of Sorlin to the city-state of Treemark, and for a moment the memory of that foul odor overpowered the stink of Boneen’s lair. Yet, when she tracked down and killed the highborn elf responsible for the murder of the children whose only crime was to be, like Danthres, born of both human and elven blood, she recalled no smell at all. It was as if such earthly concerns as stench were beneath elves. Still, the sneer on the murderer’s face just before she sliced him open from stem to stern was just like the look that was forever etched on Olthar lothSirhans’s face now….

“Well, look at this.”

At Torin’s words, Danthres forced herself back into the present. “Look at what?”

Torin was holding a pouch, one of several that was attached to Olthar’s belt, with one hand. With the other, he had removed a vial from the pouch. It was labeled in Ra-Telvish and full of a blue liquid.

“Even I know what that says,” Danthres said. “ ‘Healing.’ That’s a potion.”

“And Healing Potions are
not
minor magic, yet Boneen didn’t mention it, either.”

Danthres nodded. “Much as I hate to admit it, your whore was right. Whoever killed these people used magic, and was able to hide it.”

“Along with any other magic. Which puts Chalmraik right back on top of our list of suspects.”

“I
’m tellin’ ya, I don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’.”

Iaian sighed. He’d been getting variations on this answer for the past several weeks from all the possible sources of the bad glamours. None of the usual suspects were being especially helpful. The victims all got theirs from intermediaries, most of whom they couldn’t identify. The few that could be identified were just facilitators, half of whom didn’t even know what the merchandise was.

That
, Iaian thought,
is the problem with a good law-enforcement system—it forces the criminals to get smarter.
In the old days in Cliff’s End, when Iaian was a boy, crime was more rampant, but it was also fleeting and mostly committed by idiots. As a teenager, his home had been robbed several times, but the thieves were often incompetent, either stealing nothing of value, or dropping it on the front lawn, or leaving it in pawnshops that were easy to trace back. Now, though, the thieves were organized, making sure that the stolen merchandise couldn’t be traced, since if they didn’t do that, they’d be caught by the detectives of the Guard.

“Well,” Iaian said to the latest in a series of ignorant witnesses, “if you do hear anything, let one of the guards know.”

“Fine, whatever. Hey, listen, whaddaya care ’bout this, anyhow? Shouldn’t you be out findin’ who killed Gan Brightblade and that elf?”

Iaian tried not to sigh. “Other detectives are handling that case, sir.”

“What, you ain’t all handlin’ it? I mean, it’s
Gan Brightblade,
f’r Wiate’s sake, not some rat off’a street.”

Smiling falsely, Iaian said, “We’ve got our best people on it, sir. Thanks again for your help.”

“Yeah, fine.” The man shook his head as he walked off.

I hate this job,
Iaian thought as he wandered down Auburn Way in the opposite direction from his erstwhile witness. One of the minor thoroughfares in Dragon, Auburn was nonetheless full of exactly the kinds of small shops and tiny business concerns that fronted things like this bad-glamour ring. After twenty-three years in the Guard, nineteen of them as a detective, Iaian knew most of the shop owners by name, and was intimate with the details of many of their personal lives.
At this point, I’d probably have an easier time remembering Shiftless Alberto’s favorite color than I would my wife’s. If this damn job didn’t pay so well…

He was heading for Minar’s Emporium, the over-impressive name of the underimpressive shop where Grovis had allegedly found a lead. Considering that Grovis couldn’t find his ass with both hands, Iaian had his doubts. However, he let his partner indulge himself, in part because they weren’t especially burdened with good leads, so they might as well chase a bad one, and in part because it meant he could get away from the twit for a little while.

Just two more years,
Iaian thought. Then he’d have his twenty-five and a massive bonus that would be enough to set up his wife in a big house in Unicorn, and leave him alone in their modest Dragon apartment to spend all his evenings on Sandy Brook Way indulging himself. They’d no longer need to maintain the pretense of wanting to have anything to do with each other.

As he entered Minar’s, he heard Grovis’s annoying voice: “—on’t provide me with the information I desire, my good man, I can assure you that it won’t go well for you. No, it won’t go well for you at all.”

Grovis was leaning on the glass counter in the small space, attempting to look intimidating. Like most of Amilar Grovis’s attempts to do anything relating to police work, it was an abject failure, as evidenced by Minar standing behind that counter with his bread-loaf-sized arms folded over his barrel chest and looking almost bored.

“Look, Lieutenant, I been tellin’ ya, I don’t know shit ’bout these bad glamours. Only magic I sell’s registered with the Brotherhood. I ain’t stupid enough to do any’a that black-market shit.”

“You expect me to believe that everything in this store is properly licensed and with proper provenance?” Grovis obviously wanted to sound tough, but to Iaian’s trained ear he sounded only whiny.

“I don’t give a shit what you believe, Lieutenant. Check my merchandise if you want, it’s all legitimate. I ain’t scared’a you, but I for damn sure’m scared’a the Brotherhood. See you put me t’sleep ’cause ya bore me, but I piss them off, and they’ll put me to sleep more permanent-like.”

Grovis was about to say something else, but Iaian chose that moment to speak up. “Let it go, boy.”

Whirling around, Grovis favored his partner with an angry look. “I’m sure this gentleman knows something.”

Minar unfolded his arms and set his palms down on the counter. “Only thing I know’s this, Lieutenant: I hope you catch the bastards, ’cause it’s hurtin’ my business. Folks like them jus’ make it harder for guys like me t’make an honest livin’ in the magic trade.” The shopkeeper let out a snort. “Shit, the Brotherhood’ll prob’ly use this as an excuse t’raise their damn prices again. I’ve had t’mark up s’damn high I’m losin’ business. Course, it just means the black-market shitbrains can just lower their prices even more, and screw me outta
more
business.”

“Thanks for your time,” Iaian said quickly before Grovis could say something else stupid—which was pretty much anything that might possibly come out of his mouth. He grabbed his partner by the arm. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Grovis didn’t shake Iaian’s hand off until they reached the street. “What did you do
that
for? I was
this close
to make him crack under the pressure!”

Iaian couldn’t help but laugh in the other detective’s face. “Boy, the only pressure he was under was from busting a gut laughing at you.”

“Why do you always do this? Every time I get near a suspect, you undermine me and make me look like an idiot.”

Sighing, Iaian said, “No, nature does that, boy, I’m just trying to keep you from shining a torch on it.”

“And you keep calling me ‘boy.’ ”

“That’s because you
are
a boy, boy. I been doin’ this job for longer than you’ve been alive.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t automatically make you superior to me. You just assume that because I’m the son of a banker, I can’t possibly be a good guard.”

“No, I assume you can’t possibly be a good guard because we’ve been partnered for six months and I haven’t seen any evidence to convince me otherwise.”

Before Grovis could embarrass himself with further attempts to defend an honor he never had, a familiar figure approached, wearing leather armor with the Dragon crest of the local precinct.

Smiling, Iaian greeted the young man. “Simon! What the hell are
you
doing out in daylight?”

“Double shift. Last night was my night off, too, but then Grint hauls my ass in at sunup—like I need to be up at this hour, ain’t like I’m gonna make the flowers grow.”

Iaian laughed. Simon had never been one for the daylight hours, so he had always requested night duty, even when he didn’t have to.

“Anyhow, he says they need extra bodies on account’a that big bust your boys made last night. So I get to do two shifts in a row.” He shrugged. “Can’t complain about the extra coin, now, can I?”

Primly, Grovis said, “Lieutenants Dru and Hawk are of higher rank than you, Guard, and you will speak of them with respect.”

Simon looked at Grovis like he had an additional head and laughed. “Who’s this then?” he asked Iaian.

“My partner, Amilar Grovis. Feel free to ignore him, it’s what the rest of us do.”

“Grovis?” Simon frowned. “What, like the bank?”

“Harcort Grovis is my father, yes.” Iaian’s partner was the youngest son of the owner of the Cliff’s End Bank.

“I thought that whole family got arrested in that scandal a few years back.”

Iaian hid a smile even as Grovis replied with great indignation, “That was the previous owners! My father purchased the bank following the conclusion of that unfortunate business. I can assure you, my father is above reproach.”

“For one thing,” Iaian said, “he’s smart enough to keep his youngest kid out of the family business.” Harcort had, in fact, petitioned Lord Albin to allow his son to join the Guard “to make a man of him.” In Iaian’s considered opinion, Amilar didn’t have the equipment for such a manufacture. However, Lord Albin acceded to the request, and instructed Captain Osric to make the young idiot a lieutenant (a lower rank would not be worthy of the Grovis family name, after all). Osric teamed him with Iaian, presumably on the theory that the veteran could teach the new kid a thing or two.

Either that or he figured that, with only two years left before I hit my twenty-five, I wasn’t gonna complain.
In that, at least, the captain was right. That Iaian only had two years left before his pension was the only thing that kept the banker’s son alive.

“Look,” Simon said, “I heard you caught the glamour case. I may have somethin’ for you.”

That got Iaian’s attention. “Oh?”

“See, last night I was down Sandy Brook Way, over at Amelie’s.”

Grovis frowned. “Amelie’s? That’s a house of ill repute, is it not?”

Again Simon laughed. “ ‘House of ill repute’? This guy’s
really
your partner? You’re not shittin’ me?”

“The shit’s on me in this case,” Iaian said. He hadn’t been to Amelie’s in years—mainly because since becoming a lieutenant, he could afford a better class of nighttime companion, one that was both more adventurous and more discreet. After all, he had to at least maintain the pretense with his wife. He couldn’t afford that place at the end of the Way that Torin was so keen on, but there were some other good ones on that end. Amelie’s, though, was strictly pay-fuck-and-leave.
I can get that at home, though the pay comes in a different form.
“So what happened at Amelie’s?”

“I think,” Grovis said, “we all know what happened at Amelie’s. What I fail to understand is why the tawdry exploits of a guard and his concubine are of any interest to Lieutenant Iaian and myself.”

“Who writes your dialogue, Lieutenant? I swear, I only thought people talked like that in plays.” Simon shook his head. “Never mind. Anyhow, I usually go with Maria, but my luck, it’s
her
night off, too. So I go with someone else, someone
gorgeous
—name’a Connilee. Lotsa energy, too, lemme tell you.” Simon grinned widely at that.

Kids,
Iaian thought with the amused distance of one who had long since lost interest in this kind of goofiness regarding sexual exploits. “So what happened?”

Simon’s face fell. “Let’s just say she stopped being so gorgeous—right in the middle of it all! Put me
right
off my game. Never shriveled up so fast in my life.”

Putting a consoling hand on Simon’s shoulder, Iaian said, “Well, you’re young yet. Amelie’s, huh?”

The guard nodded. “I ran the hell outta there, but when I came on this morning, and saw the bulletin about your case, I thought maybe it might have something to do with the bad glamours.”

Iaian nodded. “Good call, Simon. We’ll take it from here. But, uh, we may need you as a witness, in case Amelie gives us shit. You know how these owners are—they’re not gonna want to admit to us that one of their clients wasn’t wholly satisfied, and they’re sure as hell not gonna want anyone to know they’re even using glamours, much less bad ones.”

Simon shook his head. “Yeah, that’s a
real
big secret. Hey, thanks, Lieutenant. Anything you need me to do, you let me know.”

As the guard walked off, Iaian shook his head and smiled. The bulletin that was up on Dragon’s board probably made mention of the priority the Brotherhood placed on this case. Simon no doubt figured that helping out on a case like this could only help his career.

“We’re not really going down to that den of iniquity, are we?”

Iaian rolled his eyes.
I never used to roll my eyes. It’s only since I was partnered with this infant.
“What’s your problem, boy?”

“Such activities as go on in places like that are an affront to Ghandurha.”

“Yeah, well, this bad-glamour ring is an affront to the captain, the Lord and Lady, and the Brotherhood. Frankly, I’m more worried about them than Ghandurha, especially if we don’t put this case down soon.” Even as Grovis nervously made his religion’s wards against evil with his hands, Iaian started walking down Auburn Way toward Meerka, which would take them to Sandy Brook. “Half the rich shitbrains in this town say they worship Ghandurha, but I swear, you’re the only one who takes it seriously. You’d be better off with Wiate. He expects people to be hypocrites.”

Grovis had nothing to say to that; he simply walked alongside Iaian.

When they reached Meerka Way and turned right, the young idiot said, “I don’t understand what difference this all makes anyhow. As if it matters that some vain fools are taken by criminals. Serves them right for not knowing better. We should be solving
important
cases.”

“Like the Brightblade murder?”

“Exactly!” Grovis practically skipped down the street, so excited was he by the prospect of handling that case. “That’s what’s important!”

“It’s all important, boy. And none of it is.”

Grovis frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“And
that
is why you’re not a good guard.” Iaian grinned. “When what I just said makes sense, then, maybe, you’ll be a good one.”

“You’re just saying that to annoy me.”

“Well, I have to get some of my own back,” Iaian muttered.

As they proceeded down Meerka, several people inquired if they were going after the killer of Gan Brightblade and Olthar lothSirhans, which only served to worsen Grovis’s mood. That, in turn, improved Iaian’s.

By the time they reached Amelie’s on Sandy Brook, Grovis seemed ready to jump out of his own skin. As they walked through the poorly carved wooden door, the boy had his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“You’re not gonna need that,” Iaian said with a sigh. “Or you think the average whore has combat training?”

Sheepishly, Grovis removed his hand from the hilt.