Bronze Gods (3 page)

Mikani favored the red one with white-rimmed tires. It also had been equipped with a ceramic condenser by an aspiring engineer, long since gone north—and it could, in theory, be pushed well beyond the posted speed limit for mechanical conveyances within city limits. Anything that required less maintenance was a good thing; and as Mikani saw it, anything that could outrace House roadsters was a great thing. As luck would have it, Big Red was waiting for them, and he claimed the keys from the tyro with a half smile. He’d once minded the CID vehicles, so he knew what it was like to watch other officers jaunt off to their investigations.

•   •   •

M
IKANI DROVE LIKE
a man possessed, which Ritsuko sometimes thought he was. He wove through the chaotic traffic with hard jerks of the steering wheel and taps of the brakes, the cruiser’s rumbling a counterpoint to his murmured imprecations about other drivers and some pedestrians. Certainly, he had issues, but she had long since given up trying to reform him. Mostly, he was a rogue with good intentions.

They had been partners for just over three years. At first, she’d resented being assigned to someone with such unorthodox methods; it was an open secret at HQ that Mikani had been blessed with a unique ability to ferret out information he shouldn’t possess, both at crime scenes and about potential suspects. Ritsuko thought that was office gossip until she saw him in action. Unquestionably, his talent was real—and it hurt him. Sometimes she worried about the consequences of using his gift as often as he did, but their closing rate depended as much on his uncanny methods as her own impeccable attention to detail.

Dorstaad was a dark mistress tonight. Clouds hung heavy over the city, threatening rain. Mikani was silent as he navigated the last turn and stopped the cruiser with a muted hiss of venting steam. As she stepped out, the wind felt chill on her bare fingers. Fashion demanded she wear a hat and gloves, but such frippery got in her way during the course of an investigation. Tonight, the air carried a hint of damp inland from the sea, a whisper of salt, as if the wind were kissed with tears.

House Aevar occupied several blocks across city center southwest of the park; their holdings proclaimed their power. They took heritage seriously and liked to glorify themselves, which had to be taken into account during questioning. With a daughter of the house gone missing, these interviews would require tact. Ritsuko flashed her credentials for the security bondsman guarding the gates. His gaze followed her, as if disapproving of a mannish woman who worked for a living and wore split skirts. Mikani ambled in her wake, his lazy manner concealing a vicious streak.

The monolithic walls rose into the night sky. Built to impress, the front doors stood wide and tall; beyond, the atrium within held enough art and luxury to awe any visitor. These details, however carefully arranged to enhance that effect, seemed lost on Mikani as he marched through, striding over the hand-woven carpet with a tap of cane and sharp slap of heel. He paused a moment, his dark blue gaze drifting from one door to another and ignoring the servant signaling the way into the drawing room. Ritsuko hoped he wouldn’t cause trouble or offense, both of which were her partner’s specialties.

Under ordinary circumstances, they wouldn’t even be here. The girl had been gone for a day—not long, perhaps, but sufficient to alarm her family. Murder was their métier, and they only attended on missing persons under two circumstances—if the family was powerful or there was some reason to suspect foul play. In this case, Ritsuko suspected it was both, and Mikani was sensing . . . something. She watched as he canted his head, attending to currents undetectable to an average person.

At last he said, “Come on, then. Let’s see if we can get at the truth.”

She nodded, leading the way into the interrogation chamber, for no matter how luxuriously it was appointed, she treated the people in it the same as she did those who were confined at the CID. That was to say, she treated all suspects better than most. This space, however, put the drab gray interview room to shame, with its silken carpets, luxurious wall hangings, and the hand-carved table upon which a porcelain-and-gilt tea service perched.

Donning her helpful smile, she extended a hand to the gentleman who was clearly the head of the House. Despite silver at his temples and lines about the eyes, Oleg Aevar still retained considerable charisma. Most of his attention was devoted to a pale woman weeping into a linen handkerchief, but he broke away to greet them.

Aevar clasped her hand. “Officers,” he said in such a gracious tone that she found it off-putting.

House scions didn’t waste courtesy on underlings unless they had something to hide. She’d been promoted as the first female inspector, and she meant to have that achievement acknowledged, even by Oleg Aevar. No matter his station, she wouldn’t permit him to treat her like a coffee girl. Her face reflected none of those thoughts, but she corrected his mode of address.

“I am Inspector Ritsuko, and this is my partner, Mikani. We know this is a troubling time, and please be aware that any questions we ask, which may seem difficult or insensitive, are intended only to help you find your daughter”—her gaze skimmed from wan woman to older man—“and your granddaughter. Shall we get started?”

“By all means,” Aevar said.

She sat beside Mikani on a small settee while Aevar claimed one of the damask striped chairs opposite. The other woman held a fine, lace-trimmed handkerchief to her face, daubing at tears that kept trickling. If she wasn’t mistaken, Aevar looked a little impatient with his daughter. Ritsuko could almost read his thoughts.
Don’t show weakness in front of the help. You’re better than this.

“When did you become aware Miss Aevar had gone missing?” Ritsuko asked.

Aevar exchanged a look with his daughter, then he answered, “Cira never returned home last night.”

“Is that unusual behavior?” Some House scions liked to kick over the traces, spend time with unsuitable companions, drink and gamble, before settling into profitable marriages contracted by their families.

The girl’s mother spoke for the first time. “Yes. Cira doesn’t have a wild bone in her body. She comes home every night by ten of the clock, without fail.”

Except last night,
Ritsuko thought, glancing at her partner.

Mikani’s reading them.
She didn’t altogether approve, mostly because of the suffering it inflicted on her partner, but there was no denying its effectiveness. Though the CID didn’t officially sanction it, the practice wasn’t verboten, either. They accepted that some of their officers possessed Ferisher blood, so why not make use of such tricks, glamours, and small magics? Sadly, she had none, just logic and dogged persistence.

“Have you been in contact with her friends and acquaintances?”

Aevar nodded. “I sent word round to all her companions. Nobody has seen her or admits to knowing where she might be.”

“I’ll need a list of those names,” she said. He nodded, then she went on, “Did your granddaughter have any enemies? Anyone you can imagine wishing her ill?”

“Of course not,” the girl’s mother gasped.

Ritsuko ignored the hint of shock and outrage in the other woman’s voice, directing her next query to the man across from her. “What about you, sir?”

A stunned silence followed, which she took for surprise; it had never occurred to Oleg Aevar that his rivals might use his grandchild against him. To his credit, the man gave the question due consideration, before nodding.

“I’ll make a list of those who might believe they have reason to harm Cira because of me.”

“Thank you. Do you have any information on who saw her last? Did you find anything in her suite to give you a clue where she might’ve gone?”

Cira’s mother hiccuped out a sob. “No, there’s nothing. No trace . . . it’s like she’s vanished into thin air.”

That’s impossible. There’s always a trail, however faint.
But she didn’t argue with the distraught woman. “We’d like to see her room now, please.”

As Aevar stood, Mikani signaled her with a nod, and she fell into step with him. Some distance behind, they trailed the old man down the hallway. “There’s something odd about this.” His whispered words were barely above a breath, meant for her ears alone. “I can feel it.”

A girl has vanished without a trace. That’s not odd enough?
As if he heard her thought, Mikani’s mouth compressed into a white line. The lack of evidence was enough to drive a person crazy, not that Mikani had that far to go. He worried her with his sixth sense and his hunches. But there was no denying he knew how to read people.

“Verdict?” she whispered.

“They’re truly frightened. Aevar’s a little angry, too. No deception, though.”

At times like this, he was uncanny, and if he said the family had nothing to do with the girl’s vanishing act, then she believed him. In silence, they followed Aevar to the elevator cage, Mikani pausing here or there, canting his head in touch with some reality no one else shared.

To distract the patriarch from Mikani’s behavior, she fell into step with him, encouraging him to remember happier times, which often provided small clues regarding the victim’s life. Hints that when relatives dug after them, resisted being brought to light. By the time the lift stopped, she had a pretty good idea what type of person Cira Aevar had been.

Victim. Had been.
Mentally, Ritsuko chastised herself for having formed a conclusion without evidence to support it. But she was not without instincts of her own, or she would never have passed the CID’s rigorous qualifying exams to become an inspector. All those instincts told her that Cira Aevar would never be seen alive again.

Aevar could not bear to enter his granddaughter’s room, so he excused himself, leaving the inspectors to conduct their investigation in private. Done in pink, ivory, and gold, the suite confided that it had housed a young girl, one with varied interests and rather sweet taste. At once, Ritsuko paused, letting Mikani pursue his practice of touching and pausing and ambling on, before she began the more scientific aspects.

“Check the window, would you?” Mikani sounded distracted already.

With a faint sigh, she got to work.

CHAPTER 2

M
IKANI’S WORLD SHRUNK TO FINGERTIPS AND INSTINCT, BEYOND
sight and smell. Slowly, he drifted through the room, eyes closed to a slit under an intense frown. Surfaces slid under his fingertips, the thin kid leather gloves a hindrance he could compensate for after long practice. With the careful touch of a surgeon, he started his round. Cira Aevar had left her mark here. Scents of joy and pain mingled in her pillows; the grit of arguments dusted desk and bedspread. Brighter than those echoes burned the passion in the sketches littering her drawers and hidden between pages of heavy books. He flipped through to find that they showed various articles of clothing: a fetching hat, an elegant skirt paired with a tailored jacket. From what he knew of fashion, the designs appeared to be good.

Under the commonplace, however, he caught a glimmer of something else. Contrasting with Cira’s shadow and memory, recent enough to be barely discerned. The trace tasted odd, nothing he’d ever experienced before. His nose filled with the scent of copper, not blood, but deeper and sweeter, layered with dust and a touch of decay. It was not, precisely, the scent of the grave, but that was as close as he could come; it was wrongness, a presence that no longer belonged to the natural world.

“Someone besides the family has been here.” That much, he gave his partner. The other impression, he’d keep to himself until he could articulate it. “Keep a sharp eye out.”

He blinked, trying to clear his head. The headache would get worse; better to hurry while he could still see. “Don’t think there was sexual activity, but I’ll check the sheets. Something’s really not right.”

There was no question that Ritsuko recognized the symptoms of an impending attack. Her gaze was sharp with concern as she nodded. “We’ll get you back to HQ as soon as possible. I’ll be quick.”

He stepped toward the bed, giving his partner space to work around the desk. The sheets were cool, misted with Cira and sweat, a whisper of her nightmares, the faintly floral scent of her dreams. He had the impression the missing girl had enjoyed gardens and that she sometimes cried herself to sleep. Most nights, however, she was content enough, a princess in her tower. The feedback from such glimpses sliced through his skull like a knife; the pain was instantaneous.

Ritsuko went to her hands and knees, examining the carpet with a magnifying glass. Mikani knew she would leave no stone unturned. Through vision gone hazy, he watched her open drawers and search for hidden treasures. Before long, the girl’s secrets lay exposed on the floor in the way of erotic etchings and lingerie, a handful of crystal bottles that doubtless contained the latest street drug, and which her family would be shocked to discover. Or they would pretend, at least.

“What do you make of this?” Brandishing a small case in a gloved hand, she showed him her find, tapping the greasy streak on the box.

Mikani straightened from his perusal of a drawing that had drifted under the bed. His red-rimmed eyes had stopped tearing, at least; the waves of pain came regularly enough for him to do his work in fits and starts. “A sewing kit? Odd. She’d have no reason to mend her own clothing. What’s the smudge?”

He was careful not to reach for the case, suffering too much to risk a wash of what it meant to the girl just yet. Together, the clothing sketches and the quality needles added up to a significant clue, but he lacked the wherewithal to draw the connection at the moment. Just as well, Ritsuko excelled at such logical deductions.

“Looks like some kind of makeup. We’ll know for sure once we get back to the lab and test it.” Ritsuko glanced around, then walked over to the shelves, where several books of memorabilia occupied places of honor.

“Good thinking,” he murmured.

He knew his partner sought more casual photos of the girl, not the posed portrait that her family had displayed. Laying hands on an album, she paged through until she found what she was looking for. Tapping it with a fingertip, she showed him the picture. “Plain. She didn’t wear paint, did she? I think we’re done here.”

“We are.” Mikani surveyed the room one last time. They had found no sign of forced entry. Windows and locks had not been tampered with; they had found none of the telltale minutiae left behind in a struggle. Moreover, there was no emotional residue hinting at violent distress. “No clothes missing.”

He knew Ritsuko would have gathered as much already; he also knew he would forget if he did not reinforce the observations with words. That was the price he paid for the rest. “Let’s get this to the lab, then. We’ll have the bereaved relatives down tomorrow. See if they remember anything on our ground. Shall we?” He turned an expectant look toward her.

With a nod, she waved him out. He knew she’d smooth things over with the Aevars as a matter of course. It was a pattern they’d fallen into early on; Ritsuko eased his path over the details, and he cut corners so they wasted less time in grunt work.

Before too long, they returned to the cruiser. He wasn’t steady enough to drive, so she did. This, too, was part of their routine. He drove out to all their crime scenes, but she manned the wheel on the way back if he used his gifts at all. An ice pick tapped quietly inside his brain, so he missed most of the journey. Blessedly, Ritsuko chose to be silent, knowing that words would only ratchet up the pain. At times he questioned whether the payout was worth the price, but whenever they brought someone home or delivered a killer to the scales of justice, he decided it was, all over again.

He sat in the cruiser while she signed forms with the requisition officer. At her signal, he slid out. The world reeled, and he was half a shade from dissolving. He set a hand on the steel door as his partner came over, ostensibly to collect her attaché case, but in reality, she offered him an escort. Other officers were used to seeing her on his arm, and sometimes they joked about inappropriate relations, but the truth was, he often wouldn’t make it back up to HQ without her steadiness at his side.

The ride in the lift set his stomach to churning, and he fought the building migraine. When Mikani opened his eyes, the room swam with ghosts. Stale memories of despair and guilt, sharp flashes of anger left behind by killers and their captors. The flickering lights felt oily against his skin . . . their spreading coronas indicating he’d soon be incapacitated. He’d opened himself too fully in Cira’s room, been profligate with his gift, and now he’d suffer the consequences.

Ritsuko fetched him a drink; he took the glass wordlessly. After the first sip, he closed his eyes. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he leaned back as far as he could in the uncomfortable chair. This case marked the beginning of a hell of a mess; he just knew it.

Poor girls from the tenements down in Iron Cross might go missing, and nobody would bat an eye. But let some pretty House scion get taken, and the newssheets would be screaming about it first thing in the morning. The City Council then called the commander, who in turn put the boot to their backsides. Sometimes, the divide between privation and privilege rubbed him the wrong way, but he loved his job too much to do anything but complain inside his head.

“How are you feeling?”

“I just need some time. And quiet.” And a couple of chemical solutions that would win him a long, impassioned lecture on treating his body like a temple. While Mikani appreciated his partner’s concern, he had his own methods of coping.

“Will you be able to get home?”

“If I say no, will you take me there and tuck me in?” It wasn’t the first time he’d teased her thus.

The wrinkle on her brow evolved from concern to aggravation. Truth be told, he preferred the latter. “Of course not. I’d just enjoy some advance notice if you mean to get yourself murdered on the underground. I’d like to scout who my new partner might be.”

“Your sensibilities never cease to charm me,” he said, managing a half smile.

The resurgence of his skewed humor seemed to reassure her. “Oh, shut up.”

As Ritsuko eased into her chair, Mikani opened his eyes and gave her a nod in appreciation for the night’s work. “Let’s file this and get out of here.”

“Your turn,” she said.

And it was. She only cut him so much slack, after all. Document in hand, he filled in the details on the missing girl; that done, he set the toggles for the index-card press.

A person reduced to numbers and codes, a few comments, to be filed away.

•   •   •

“G
O HOME.
I
’LL
drop the evidence off at the lab.” It was easy to be kind to Mikani when he looked as if he had been dragged six blocks behind a hansom.

“Thanks. You’re the best.” Her partner pushed to his feet, somewhat unsteady, but she trusted that if he were seriously incapacitated, he would forgo that dreadful sense of humor long enough to ask for help.

Once she put the forms Mikani had filled out in the correct bins, Ritsuko gathered up her things and headed for the lift. This late, Anatole was probably taking his meal break, so the hall was quiet, eerily so. Flickering gaslight threw ominous shadows on the walls as she stepped out of the bronze cage. The lab was housed in the lower levels of HQ, affectionately called the Dungeon by those who had reason to utilize its services.

Like the rest of the division, Analysis and Laboratory Services struggled with budgetary and payroll issues, so there was only one man in the austere room when she pushed through the doors. With tired gray paint and cold stone walls, the Dungeon earned its name. It was a large, cold room where bodies could be stored without risk of immediate decomposition, and there were four tables overburdened with various types of equipment.

The scientist who had the misfortune to work the witching shift from midnight to eight in the morning glanced up as she came in. Cyril Higgins was also the youngest member of the team, only four years out of the Academy, where he had studied the latest forensic techniques and could be relied on to run experiments that other lab specialists would refuse for fear of failure or loss of prestige. Ritsuko wished she could’ve persuaded her grandfather to send her to school there, but he’d said higher education was wasted on a woman; that was a pity since the Academy had opened its doors to female pupils in recent years.
I would’ve loved to enroll.
The foremost institution of higher learning in Dorstaad offered so many intriguing study options for girls of moderate means, not only business and clerical skills but hard sciences such as engineering and mathematics, as well as softer courses like art and literature for those of a more romantic bent. With a wistful sigh, she put aside thoughts of missed opportunities and focused on the task at hand.

Higgins was a tall man, well over six feet, with the pallor of one who never voluntarily sought the sun; only a splash of freckles saved him from looking ill. His hair was perpetually in disarray though it was an agreeable shade of ginger, complementing bottle-green eyes, shaded by a pair of silver spectacles.

“What can I do for you?” he asked cheerfully.

Ritsuko greeted him with an answering smile, as many inspectors didn’t bother to do. They also waited a lot longer for their lab results. She’d learned that she was better off entrusting her requests to Higgins anyway, as the older scientists disapproved of her on principle, and therefore, they dragged their heels on her work, perhaps thinking that if they delayed enough, her cases would become impossible to close, thus causing her to be discharged for incompetence. She walked a constant line, and sometimes the effort to remain in balance was dizzying.

“I need you to analyze this sample, please. See if you can figure out what it is.” She slid him the evidence packet, along with a properly annotated request form. “Whenever it’s convenient.”

By his appreciative look, he rarely received such courtesy. Ritsuko was sure other inspectors couched their requests in the form of demands for immediate information, mostly because she had worked as an assistant in the Dungeon, early in her career, and the men had barked at her as if she were both deaf and mentally defective. There would be less traffic at this hour, but she didn’t imagine the late hour offered any improvement in a boor’s manners.

“As it happens, I can set aside what I’m working on and tackle this immediately.” He offered a conspiratorial grin, inviting her to share this quiet revenge, the only kind people like them ever enjoyed.

“I appreciate that tremendously. Do you need anything, Mr. Higgins? I could fetch you a cup of tea or coffee before I go.”

“Tea would be lovely, if you don’t mind. One sugar and milk.”

“I’ll be right back. I remember where the lounge is.”

The room where specialists took their rest didn’t offer a lot more warmth than the Dungeon, as it was just down the hall. In an attempt at comfort, someone had put down a rug, and there were some armchairs, but mostly it was a dank, depressing room. She put the kettle on the gas cooker and waited for it to whistle, then she found the requested milk and sugar to prepare the cup. In a moment of inspiration, she added a few biscuits to make it a snack as well. All told, it was an endeavor of five minutes, but the delight on Mr. Higgins’s face made it obvious it had been time well spent. Ritsuko was not, by nature, a nurturer, but she had found that small kindnesses often delivered excellent results when provided to people who did not generally receive them.