Dead Letter (29 page)

“
I’m sorry!” blubbered the Jandan trader. “It was wrong what
we did, but I repented and was redeemed.”

“
Did you really? Oh, thank the Lord! That makes everything
better.”

“
The Lord will forgive you,” said Wasnid, offering up the
black star for her to make penance. “Take it and he will redeem
you.”

“
I doubt I’ll be needing that. You see, I’ve found catching up
with old acquaintances is all the redemption I need.” In a swift
motion, Minni plunged a stiletto into his chest, pushing through
his still beating heart. He fell back with a convulsion of
disbelief, gripping the black star in a tight fist. There, laid
flat, he writhed in pain for a moment; blood blooming across his
chest, unable to draw his last breath, for the rogue had stolen
it.

Minni
wiped her weapons on the dead Jandan’s shirt and slipped into the
shadows of the alley without another word to the mages. It was a
relief to Kettna, for the sorceress was torn between gratitude and
a need to question the Reik on her motivations. Either of which
would have been unwelcome in that moment of quiet grace. The
gruesome slaughter stained the streets in vengeful gore, but Kettna
felt sympathy for rogue. Whatever evils had the Jandans put upon
her to forge that creature of shadow and death? Minni’s persona
swung between cool charm and cold, calculated wrath.

Kettna
thought it best for personal, political and professional reasons to
let the shadows have the quiet justice of the night.

***

Kettna waited at the scene for the district’s assigned night
watchmen to make their rounds. She dreaded it would be Captain
Malik and his henchmen who would have doctored the criminal report
and blamed the Inspector for the crime. Her fears were unfounded. A
young guard with a bottle in one hand and a spear in the other came
upon the scene. His liquor glazed eyes widened in shock and he went
as green as a spring leaf. Kettna sent the night watchman to fetch
his less inebriated captain and explained the situation of their
ambush, including the good citizen who came to their rescue and
required anonymity for their safety. The Night Watch captain took
control of the cleanup, vouching his support for the Inspector and
congratulating her for her good work.

Kettna
didn’t want congratulations. She just wanted to drop onto her bed
and sleep off all the troubles of the city.

That was
not to be the case.

As the
Inspector opened the door to the Cog and Wheel, a roar of good
cheer crashed across her weary bones. Innkeep Rimple ushered them
to a welcome table adorned with garlands and brimming with a feast
of cakes, cuts of meat, fruit and cheese. Hands pressed and
shoulders were slapped. Well wishes were bestowed in a tide of
gratuitous thanks that embarrassed a grin onto her face. Kettna was
as gracious as the sea of people allowed, while Lanuille did her
best not to burn the inn down in order to reestablish her personal
space. The twins performed to perfection, for the people only saw
what they wanted to see and didn’t especially care about any of
them. The joy was not for the Inspector’s accomplishment, it was
for the bragging rights of having met someone who did something
they would never do. Like the ocean, the gushing tide retreated and
left the mages to eat and enjoy the music while the revellers
danced and spoke of their brush with fame.

Innkeep
Rimple returned with Elrin in his shadow. “Sorry to disturb you,
Inspector. Elrin asks for a moment to give you a
message.”

Lanuille
waved him off. “Let it wait till morning.”

“
Rix said it was urgent you get this, Inspector.”

“
You found him?” asked Kettna, fearful of the black seal
message Elrin held out for her.

Kettna
read the note, and quiet tears snuck down her flushed
cheeks.

I tried to make reach, but my magic cannot pass through these
walls.

You must stop looking for me, or you will get yourself
killed.

The Black Hand Boys are dangerous, and we run for those even
more so.

If I die here in this mess, it is of my own
making.

Know that I love you.

I’m sorry.

“
Where is he?” asked Lanuille. “What does it say?”

Kettna
handed it to Lanuille and gripped Elrin’s hand. “You have done a
great thing for me. I won’t forget it.”

Lanuille
quickly read the note. “Do you know what it said?” she asked
Elrin.

“
I don’t look at messages,” replied Elrin with pride. “It’s
against guild law and honestly, it’s none of my
business.”

“
Good,” said Lanuille. “Best you tell us what you saw, then
strike it from your memory. Is that clear?”

“
I understand,” replied Elrin.

“
You know we have to find him at once,” said Lanuille to the
Inspector.

“
What if it puts him in danger?” asked Kettna.

“
Pardon me for saying, Inspector. But I got the feeling he was
in a great deal of trouble with the wrong kind of people. There
were four others, tough as tigers and all with the black hands that
you mentioned.”

“
Then we need to call the Night Watch to arms.”

“
Do you trust Malik?” asked Lanuille.

“
No, but we can call on another captain.”

“
What if they are in the pockets of these criminals?” asked
Lanuille. “There is no one we can trust but ourselves. You know as
well as I do that Rix is the link behind all these crimes. If he is
discovered leaking this note to you, he will be killed. We must go
at once and prepare for a fight.”

Lanuille
told it true. With the adept by her side and the twins as well,
Kettna could outthink an upstart bunch of thieves. If they moved
now, they would surprise the Black Hand Boys, and she’d have Rix in
her arms when the sun brought the morning in. Kettna stoked up her
courage. “Tell me where to find these tigers, Elrin. I’m going on a
hunt.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Warehouse Nine

The night
sped the sorcerers to Salt Gate district without incident. While
the other buildings in the area had small glass windows, Warehouse
Nine had each one boarded over, halting all but slivers of light to
escape from inside. Moonlight trickled silver upon the cliffs and
over vapours rising from the roof. A trick of the light and
circumstance painted the illusion of a waterfall in reverse,
fighting against the natural way of things, like some fae
mischief.

The
Inspector studied the building. If criminal elements had gone to
such lengths to keep this place hidden, they would have armed the
entrances with wards. Kettna sunk her mind into the weave and
scoured the warehouse for any such enchantments. What she found was
a manifest lack of any magical signature distorting the weave. It
was so distinctly lacking that the whole warehouse was dull to her
magical senses. More dull than the other buildings and the
background — it was deliberately muted.

“
How are we going to get in?” asked Kettna. “The whole place
might be rigged to kill an intruder.”

“
I’m going straight through the front door. I can’t detect any
wards,” asserted Lanuille. “You?”

“
Nothing either, but the whole place is smothered in a cloak
of some kind. There is magic in there by the virtue that I detect
nothing; I can’t even sense Rix.”

“
He is likely the very reason for it. He’s too smart by
half.”

“
Why would Rix dampen his talent?”

“
We’re going to find out and I’m not about to knock and give
away the advantage of surprise.” Lanuille dove into the weave and
flexed her talent. It agitated the air around her, billowing the
adept’s blue robes with magical flux and sparking motes caught in
her wake. She pulled her cowl over her ash blonde hair, covering
her beauty in shadow. “Are you ready?”

Kettna
engaged with the weave and steeled herself, grateful that her
mother had commissioned Lanuille to be her protector. The Archmagus
had foresight Kettna lacked. She had been so narrow-minded to think
she could be a guard without skill in weaponry or talent in magic.
Without the crutch of a mana frog at her disposal, the Inspector
felt feeble. All she had were the twins at her command. “Prepare
yourselves for battle, guildermen. We are going to teach these
criminals that magic is our domain.” With an image of Calim
summoning elemental fury in her mind, the twins drew around them
identical spinning elemental pentacles that seethed with five
phases of fury.

Lanuille
grinned. “They are quite a sight.”

“
If only I could do the same,” said Kettna.

“
Stay close to me.” With that Lanuille approached the door and
knocked.

The
shutter opened and a dull pair of eyes widened in shock. “What in
the five hells?”

Lanuille
placed her hand over the door and uttered an arcane phrase, which
blasted a hole through the timber, smashing it open and knocking
the door guard to the ground. With his face a pincushion of wood
fragments, the burly fighter screamed in pain, scraping at his eyes
to remove the splinters. His face was a dripping mess of blood that
blinded him from any counterattack.

The
mages swept through the doorway and faced off against the Black
Hand Boys.

Two men quit their game of cards and drew their swords. Rix
stood startled beside the stolen laboratory apparatus, holding a
pipette in one hand and a flask in the other. A second door guard
lay in wait to the right and with reflexes unshaken by the violent
intrusion; he raised a broadsword and lunged at Lanuille. Almost
too late, the adept summoned
Delune’s
Scintillator
, a blue disk, to shield her
from the attack. The disk saved her arm from being severed at the
shoulder, but the force of the blow knocked her down on one knee,
shattering her focus and her magical shield. The mighty brute
raised his blade for the killing blow.

The
twins launched a dual attack, driven by Kettna’s impulse to
restrain the doorman and save her companion. One cast a tangle of
vines at the fighter, which entwined around his arms and torso,
restraining his movement. The other set the vines alight with a
ball of flame, driving the big man to hysterics. He forgot about
attacking the mages and desperately tried to extinguish the flames,
dropping to the ground and flailing about, screaming for
help.

“
Do something, Rix!” beseeched one of the card players,
stalled at the sight and smell of his companion’s
combustion.

The
other man, a half-elf, gulped a potion and charged at the mages
with inhuman speed. Closing on one of the twins, he slashed a short
sword across the twin’s abdomen and plunged a dagger into his
chest. The twin collapsed to the ground, spilling entrails and
blotting his blue robes red. Even in death the illusion was the
perfect mimic. The second twin defended his brother, casting a cone
of frost from the spinning pentacle, turning the half-elf to a
crusted ice statue.

Rix
dashed the flask and pipette to the ground and disappeared behind
the cover of the smoke. “Get out of here, Haggan!”

The man didn’t have a chance to turn and run. Lanuille
summoned a
Deathly Orb
that pulsed with arcs of green energy and launched it at
Haggan. The spell imploded on impact, compressing half his torso
into a black ball of char and collapsing the rest in a pile of
gore. Next, the adept summoned a swarm of
Itelid’s Barbed Bolts
, snapping and
zapping amongst themselves like riled up dogs before the hunt.
“Come out of the shadows, Rix!” she called, releasing a volley of
bolts to strike the life from the two struggling door guards and
the frozen half-elf.

“
Kettna,” said Rix, his voice magically projected, as if from
every corner of the warehouse, masking his true location. “I told
you not to come. Leave now and save yourself.”

“
Everything is fine, Rix,” said Kettna, glad that the Black
Hand Boys were no longer a threat, but shaken at Lanuille’s
excessive use of force. “Come out. They can’t hurt you now. You’re
free.”

“
Listen to Kettna, Rix!” Three hungry bolts of energy still
chased circles in the air beside Lanuille. “I can see why you two
are such a fine match. I’ve come to like her, actually. It would be
a shame for your sweetheart to die because of your indiscretion. If
you come now, I’ll let you both live.”

“
Run!” screamed ten mirror versions of Rix, marching from the
shadows, shooting blue flaming darts at Lanuille.

The
adept released her last barbed bolts. One brutalised the neck of
the remaining twin, dropping him dead, and another eliminated a
copy of Rix. The last bolt flew at Kettna, who dove for cover
behind a stack of barrels. A keg took the hit and detonated,
ejecting a dazzling red veil of dust over the battle. Fine red
particulate settled on Kettna’s green robes and sweating
skin.