Four and Twenty Blackbirds (28 page)

"We'll be using the knife for the killing, rather than this beak I've been cursed with. For the moment, don't worry about
how
; I'll explain that in a moment. You seem to know enough about magic to know that mages can read where objects have been and you were probably wondering how I intended to deal with the traces of
your
personality that you left on that knife, as well as the magic that I shall imbue it with," Rand-the-bird rasped smugly as he cocked his oil-sheened head to the side to gauge Orm's reactions. "It's simple, really. After the woman is dead,
you
move in and steal the knife before anyone else can touch it."

Rand had probably expected Orm to put up a strenuous objection to this; Orm just waited for the details. Rand wouldn't have tried to shock him with this if he didn't have a damned clever plan to avoid the two of them getting caught.

Orm had been correct in his assumption. Rand did have a damned clever plan, and the more he outlined, the more at ease Orm became. Rand knew what a Justiciar-Mage could and could not do (as well he should), and he had planned for everything.

"I use the knife to gain control of the street-thug's body," Rand explained carefully. "Once I have done that, I use him to murder the woman. Then I have him throw the knife away, which is when you will look for it and carry it off, bringing it back to me. When that is done, I have the man throw himself into the river as a suicide. The very few traces of magic contamination will be washed off in running water. This will look like a simple crime of passion or a robbery gone awry, and no one will think that this is anything out of the ordinary. People are murdered all the time in an area like the one these two frequent."

"You take control of him?" Orm had asked, fascinated in spite of himself. "How?"

If Rand had possessed such a thing as an eyebrow, he might have raised it sardonically. "It is a great deal more simple that you would think," Rand had replied, assuming the manner of a vulture. The wicked bird chuckled harshly, an odd sort of crow, and fluffed his feathers.

Orm had laughed softly with delight; this was the kind of clever scheme he enjoyed the most, and when Rand detailed just how he would control the bodies, he gave the mage credit for even more cleverness than before. The only unanswered question was why Rand didn't suggest that after Orm stole the knife, he get rid of it elsewhere; Orm had a suspicion that Rand wanted it for personal reasons. That was perfectly acceptable to Orm, and Orm planned from the beginning to see that the knives Rand used were clean of even the slightest trace of blood before he ever turned them over to his employer. Blood could also be used to mark a trail for a mage hunting a murderer, but if there was no blood, there would be no way to follow the path of the knife.

It had all followed just as Rand had wished, from the first killing to the last. Orm would find several possible victims and Rand would watch them, stalking them in either human or avian form. When he had chosen who he wanted, if he had not already reverted to birdshape, he would wait until he had done so while Orm made a note of every movement of their days, finding places and times where it would be easy to ambush them. Orm would construct the knife, then find a way to get the knife into the hands of the man, often commissioning a hilt to suit the victim, but always making the blade from a triangular file so that there would be no trace of where it came from. He was no fool; sooner or later someone would begin to notice that there were strange murder-suicides committed with a very odd weapon, and he didn't want any smiths recalling the fellow who had asked for triangular blades.

When everything was in place, Rand would follow the first victim and take him over, then make his kill. When their activities began to draw the attention of constables or other people in positions of authority, they moved on before the civil authorities could begin a real investigation. In small towns and villages, they would move after only a single death; in larger, they might take four or five victims before judging it prudent to move to the next venue. Occasionally, circumstances would permit Rand to enjoy a lingering and elaborate ritual of mutilation of his primary victim—this, of course, increased the anguish of his secondary victim almost as much. Rand relished these opportunities, although they were few, and looked forward with anticipation to opportunities for more such. Rand kept with him a growing collection of knives, and he would take them out to gloat over them as soon as they were established in their new home.

Orm had a secret of his own which he had no intention of sharing with the mage. He enjoyed watching the murders; it gave him all of the pleasure with none of the risk. And the moment he got his hands on the blades that did the deed, he experienced a thrill that was almost as good as being with a woman. He wondered sometimes if Rand felt the same.

Well, whether he did or not, each successive victim allowed him to spend time as a human being again, although how much time varied from victim to victim. The best had been the jeweler and the Gypsy, both for Orm and for Rand. Once the girl had been pegged down to the worktable, Rand had made the jeweler let them in, and they had both watched every step of the proceedings. When the girl was dead and the man had drunk every drop of caustic chemicals in his workshop, it had been Orm who dragged the body beneath the water-barrel and let the water flow over him, erasing the taint of magic that was on him. The beautifully jeweled knife had been sold to him by a thief who had in his turn "stolen" it from Orm—careful study had shown that at least half the jeweler's income had come from the purchase of stolen property and the sale of the component parts. Orm himself had directed the Gypsy to that jeweler on the fatal night, after seeing to it that the clasp of her belt of copper coins was broken past amateur repair. Rand had stayed human for an entire week after that.

Some of the murders had gone slightly awry, which was inevitable considering the neighborhoods in which they were operating. Twice the knife was stolen by someone else before it could be used on its intended victim, and a new victim of opportunity had to be found—Rand had hated that, but there was nothing to be done about it if he wanted to take on human form again. But on the whole things were going entirely to plan, or to the plan as Orm knew it.

He suspected that Rand had some specific goal in mind, which was likely to be the murder of the Justiciar-Mage who had put him in the form he now wore. A few wenches more or less wouldn't cause an authority to issue an all-out manhunt, but the murder of a High Bishop would bring out every Hound of God, every constable, and every private guard until the killer was caught. Too risky, far too risky. If that was the case, Orm had plans of his own. Once the deed was done, the knife would
not
be stolen and carried away, because Orm would not be there.

Rand was so busy controlling his victims that he had no time to watch for Orm, and on this final occasion, Orm would be elsewhere, possibly even on a horse on his way out of Kingsford. This would neatly circumvent the problems that would arise when his employer no longer needed his services. Once Rand was caught and punished, Orm would be free to return and take up his old profession again. The very construction of this house would make it possible for Orm to claim that he had no idea that the other tenant of the place had been up to no good, no matter what claims Rand made—for although the suites did share the common entrance, that was
all
that they shared. Orm would be shocked and appalled, professing horror and relief that he himself had escaped the fate of so many. He would express the opinion that a man mad enough to murder so many people was mad enough to claim anything, including the idea that his innocent fellow tenant had a hand in the evil deeds. And as for how many victims the madman had claimed—well, the collection of blades in Rand's bedroom would serve as mute testimony so powerful that the Justiciars would need to look no further for their killer.

A light tap on his door alerted him to the fact that Rand was home again, and he went to answer it. No one but Rand ever knocked on his door; none of his other clients knew where he lived.

As he expected, Rand was standing at his door, impatiently tapping a foot. "Did you get it?" Rand asked, in lieu of a greeting. He was probably a handsome man in his human form, though Orm's taste more mundanely ran to women. His body was kept in perfect physical shape by the exertion of flying in his avian form; his features were regular and almost aggressively masculine. Although he no longer wore the black robes of a Priest, he continued to favor black clothing. It seemed that when he transformed, whatever he was wearing became his feathers, and a black bird was less conspicuous than any other color.

"It's in your room," Orm replied, and Rand smiled in a way that had very little to do with good humor.

At least he transformed immediately this time.
Rand's bird-form made Orm feel a little queasy, although he managed to hide his reactions, and he was always very well aware of the deadly potential of those claws and that spearlike beak.

"Well, how did it go? Did anyone see you?" Rand continued, without bothering to thank Orm for what Orm considered to be a very neat little bit of theft. He had plucked the knife literally out of the gutter, with at least a dozen people around him looking for it as well.

"No one saw me," he said, restraining his irritation. "The bird-man set off after your man, and everyone was watching the bird-man. They never even noticed I was there, much less saw me taking the blade."

"Good." With an abrupt nod, Rand turned on his heel and went up the steps to his own rooms, leaving Orm standing in his own doorway like a dismissed servant, his breath steaming out into the icy foyer.

Orm repressed more irritation and simply closed his door. He reminded himself that Rand had been a high-ranking Priest and a wealthy man, with servants who were accustomed to being ordered about like Deliambren automata. Rand would never change, and that was that.

Still,
he grumbled a little as he threw the latch on the door, i
t would be nice to be appreciated for good work once in a while.
It annoyed and sometimes angered him to be treated like a scullery-maid.

But then again, if he suspected how clever I am, he might be more wary of me, and more inclined to get rid of me. I am a convenience, he reminded himself. He is used to having me around to do his work for him, but now he could be rid of me without harm if he chose. All he needs me for is to steal the daggers, and he could hire a petty pickpocket to do that for him. Given that—perhaps it wasn't so bad to be dismissed.

Orm went back to his chair before the fire, settled in with his feet near the grate, and considered his actions for the rest of the day and evening.
I should go down to the Purple Eel,
he decided.
By sunset every constable not on duty will have heard what happened, and all of the ones in that district will be there to flap their mouths over it.
This was an easy way to discover what the constables knew and what they didn't, and Orm had used it in every city they'd worked so far.

Orm had been a constable himself for about a year, in between being a thief and becoming a broker of information. He had come very near to being caught after a theft that had resulted in the death of his victim, and had decided to learn how the constables themselves thought and reasoned so that he would know what they were likely to do in a given situation and assess the risks of a given action in an instant. As a result, he was able to pretty well anticipate every move that the constables made so long as he knew how much information they had.

It did bother him that the murder victims were always women of a particular type; that was a pattern, and patterns made them vulnerable. If the particular women Rand insisted on ever took this seriously enough to start staying off the streets altogether, Rand would either have to pursue them inside—which was very, very dangerous—or choose another type of victim. Knowing Rand, it wouldn't be the latter. He was brilliant, but obsessed, and quite insane.

More than that, although it hadn't yet occurred to them, the constables
could
set up a trap for them by using a seemingly ideal victim as bait. Of course, that would mean setting her up in such a way that neither Rand nor Orm detected the trap, which would mean that her behavior would have to be perfectly consistent for several days. And that in turn would mean either that the constables were able to deduce that these were
not
victims of opportunity, or that the constables planned to set up a trap around a street-girl who was unaware that she was being used as bait.

The former wasn't likely, he decided. For the most part, he had been very careful to select potential victims that no one cared about. The closest they had ever come to getting caught was that obsessive fellow a few towns back—and he had been working alone, without the cooperation of the constabulary officials. As for the latter—well, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of potential choices in Kingsford, and the chance that the constables would select exactly the same one as Orm and Rand was minimal.

But I should listen for such a plan, he decided. The Purple Eel is definitely the place to go tonight. 

But he was loathe to leave his chair just now. He'd gotten horribly cold out there, waiting for Rand to make his move. Before he went out again, he wanted to be warmed down to the bone.

He thought back once again over the last set of murders and could see no flaws in them. Most murders not committed for gain were committed by people who knew the victims, often very well—most often, relatives. Orm made very certain that no one ever connected him with the recipients of the knives, generally finding ways of getting the blades into the chosen hands indirectly, as he had with the jeweler. The only pattern was in the women, and none of them were
ever
seen near, much less with, Orm.

Rand would be unbearable this evening, exulting in his stolen power and his new form, but by tomorrow he would be pleasant enough, if overbearing. That was the pattern, and Orm was used to it. There
would
be a generous reward for a successful "hunt," as Rand termed the murders, and as soon as Rand calmed down from the intoxication of success, he would want to know who Orm had singled out for the next prey. Orm, of course, would have his list, and Rand would be very pleased, which would make him generous.