Industry & Intrigue (10 page)

The man leaned
back
. “Not
sure how much help I can be. Kyle never told me the name of which
of you prestigious mages was having his way with young students.
But I do there is someone who would know. Kyle wasn’t the only one.
He said there were others.

He said the
older ones outside of the
pervert’s taste were still being mind-controlled. Helping him to
find the ones he wanted and cover up what he did. He told me that
Darius Sidonius was the trigger. When he saw him again in his
tutorials, that’s when his memories started coming back and he
needed the drugs. Is that enough?” he asked.

Zuri threw the coins into the
cell and the man scrambled to pick them up before
the
y rolled
out of his grasp. Zuri turned and stormed back to the entrance of
the cells yelling at the guard, “Let me out!”

S
he stopped in the hallway and slumped
against the wall. She stayed there until she felt Brenna’s hand on
her shoulder.

“
Mastermage?” Zuri didn’t
respond
.”
Zuri?”

She
turned, there were tears flowing from
her eyes and her wingtips were raised above her head.

“
I’m sorry
,” said Brenna, “That can’t
have been easy to hear.”

Zuri wiped her eyes and looked
at Brenna
,
“So now what?”

Brenna folded her arms.
“This isn’t exactly
my area. I investigate drugs and criminal organizations not sex
crimes. But I can’t ignore what I heard, if that’s what you were
hoping.”

Zuri said
, ‘I wasn’t…oh who am I
kidding, you’re good sergeant, and you could tell exactly what I
was thinking couldn’t you?”

“
I can only imagine what you’re
feeling right now especially towards the person responsible. If you
want to look into this fine. You know the magic and whoever did it
sounds far up the food chain at your school. I don’t know if the
watch would be able to get to them.”

“
So what are you saying
exactly?” asked Zuri.

The watch officer looked
at
her in a
conspiratorial manner. “What I’m saying is this. I’ll inform my
captain of the claims made by that dealer in a few days. He’ll pass
it on to Imperial Branch and they’ll decide what to do.”

Zuri slowly realized what
Brenn
a
meant. “A few days…” said Zuri.

“
Is all I can give
you
,”
replied Brenna.

“
I see
,” said Zuri, “Thank you
sergeant.”

Brenna
nodded
.
“Look this may not mean much in your state right now, but if you
need a friend to talk to, well I get off at nine o’clock. Or
another time, if you need help with anything.”

Zuri nodded
. “I’ll be fine sergeant, thank
you for the offer.” She turned and exited, all she could think
about now was how she could question Darius Sidonius.

***

Shit
thought Brenna.
The son of Frederic Dunn killed
himself because he was raped by someone high up at Warded
Spirals
.
This could get nasty, depending on what the Dunn family decided to
do if they found out. She put the thought aside, she had a case to
be working on.

S
he walked into the interrogation room and
saw Officer Selim en’Vornos, one of the few elves that served in
Justice Branch. Selim brushed his dark, wavy hair from his face and
leaned his lithe body against the wall. He was still trying to
placate the suspect with promises.

It
wasn’t going to work, they would have
to apply more intimidating methods. Snar was standing behind Selim,
doing his best to give off a menacing look. Connor looked far less
confident than when they had grabbed him at his
building.

“
He give you anything?”
she asked.

“
No, but it doesn’t
matter
,”
replied Selim. He looked at Wallace “If you’re not interested in
cooperating then I guess we should charge you and be done with
it.”

The criminal looked up at
him.
“Guess
you should then,” he replied and crossed his arms.

“
Offic
er Snar, please take him to the
cells,” said Selim. The agorid nodded and pulled Connor out of his
seat and dragged him out of the room.

Brenna had a confused look on
her face
.
“That’s it? I thought you were saving the proper interrogation
until I arrived?”

“
No need, his body
language tell me everything,” replied Selim.

“
And that would be what?” asked
Brenna. She sat down at the table. Her feet and legs were aching
from the exercise of this morning’s raid.

Selim gave her one of
his ‘I know
something you don’t’ smiles. “While you were taking the bear out to
that overdose at the magic school, I was staking out Barus
Asulius.”

“
Yes
,” said Brenna. “I know. I’m the one
who gave you the order.”

“
Well it turns out Barus isn’t
the one in charge,” said Selim. “I followed him from that tavern he
hangs around in Galmouth, he ended up in the center of the Keys at
a martial arts training academy.”

The Keys was the bustling center of
the city, markets, hotels, bars and restaurants dominated the
district as well as many more niche shops and services.

“
So he goes inside for like an
hour, comes back surrounded by half a dozen men. Then heads south
again,” he said. Then he moved closer to Brenna. She could smell
his Zefey perfume. “I go to speak to my snitch.”

“
You have
a snitch with information on
Barus Asulius?” asked Brenna.

“
Yes I do
, I have plenty of informants.
They talk to me, I’m a people person,” he replied and Brenna
laughed softly. “So anyway my snitch tells me that Asulius was
answering to his boss, who owns the academy.”

“
So he’s not the boss man?”
asked Brenna
. “Then who is?”

They had been operating under
the assumption that
Asulius was in charge, but it could be he was only the
front for the real power behind the tarcaine trade.

Selim pulled a pamphlet out of
his pocket and passed it over to her. In blue letters at the top
i
t
read
Mikono’s Tojitsu Academy
. It had details on membership and hours
of operation, with artwork of tojitsu fighters at the
bottom.

Tojitsu was
th
e most
well-known martial art of Minakaya, an island nation located far
south of Alkos. It had become popular as large numbers of Minakayan
natives immigrated to the continent of Maceon over the last few
centuries.

The natives of Minakaya were a
race called kitsune, bipeds with angular
foxlike faces, pure white eyes and
large extended ears. They had a unique culture, one aspect of which
was a number of melee fighting skills, tojitsu used a combination
of hand-to-hand and daggers.

“
A kitsune huh,” said Brenna.
“She plays it damn smart I’ll give her that, keeps herself well
isolated from the tarcaine trade. If wasn’t for your snitch, we’d
have still been all over Asulius for who knows how
long.”

Selim asked
, “So what’s next sergeant? Do
we pay her visit at this academy?”

Brenna
nodded
,
“Normally I wouldn’t want to tip off our target, but to be honest I
don’t think her soldiers will give her up and she’s paranoid enough
to use Asulius as a front man. A visit from Justice Branch is what
she needs to go off balance. We’ll shake the branches and see what
falls out.”

Chapter 10

A luxurious bed was covered in
mourning sheets. The sheets themselves were spun from the finest
silk, harvested from deepones, enormous bat-like creatures that
lived in
the
deepest caverns in the mountains of Jaefia. The goblinoid
chieftains of Jaefia that sold the material sent their criminals
there as a method of punishment. It was an incredible risk one had
to take to enter the caves of deepones, creatures that feasted
exclusively on fresh meat.

But it was a highly
desirable
material, at least for those able to afford it and thus
they continued to gather it. And there were few in Alkos more able
to afford luxury goods than the Mordain family, their collective
wealth making them one of the richest in the empire. They could
trace their ancestry back to the founding of the city, thousands of
years ago and were said to be the second most powerful family after
the Imperial line.

The body that was covered in
mourning sheets was the recently deceased head of the family,
Cormac Mordain
. He had died two days ago, after months of deteriorating
health. As was the family custom he remained in his bed covered in
mourning sheets for two full days before the funeral.

Tessa his oldest child at
thirty nine, stood
by the lavish window, watching the bustling city. From here
she had a fishbowl view of the city. She was on the eighth floor at
the top of the Mordain mansion and except for the Imperial Palace
and Ministry, there were no other buildings in the city that could
match its size and splendor.

Her black hair was tied up
neatly above her head, in order to keep it out of her face.
She was still in
her red and white ministerial outfit. She hadn’t wanted to waste
the time it would take to change before coming here, she still had
another council meeting to attend.

She turned away from the view
and towards her younger siblings. Tegan, two years her junior was
sitting by the bed, her eyes no longer weeping.
Tegan looked more like she was
still in her twenties, but she had always been the prettier one,
not to mention she cared far more about her looks than Tessa
did.

Tessa herself had not
shed
tears
at her father’s passing. He had never approved of the path his
eldest daughter had taken and the last time she had been in this
room was a year ago. Loud and angry words had been
exchanged.

She had not returned until last week, when
Luthais, her younger brother by six years, had begged her to come.
He was sitting in a chair by the door, wearing fine indigo and blue
clothing, his neck and fingers shining with jewelry. He had always
been flashy, adorning himself with gold and gems, trying to compete
with the other young nobles.

Tessa walked over to the bed
and then pulled out her pocket watch to check the time.
“They are taking
their time aren’t they,” she said.

“
That’s all you
have to say?”
exclaimed Tegan. “Our father’s dead and you’re concerned about your
time being wasted.”

Tessa held back what she
wanted to say in
reply, out of consideration of her sister’s emotional state. She
was not certain she would be able to keep it contained if Tegan
kept pushing her. Luthais looked between his two sisters as if
trying to decide whether he should take a side or not.

“
No Tegan, I am not concerned
about time wasting. It would be unseemly if our father was not
attended to on time
, per the family custom. He wouldn’t be most displeased
about if he were still here,” she replied.

Tegan looked down at their
father and nodded but she couldn’t
resist another retort, “Typical. Only
after he’s dead do you start caring about what he would want,” she
said. “Why didn’t you show the same concern a year ago?”

Tessa sighed, she had tried to
maintain civility, but Tegan was
in a fighting mood, it was her way of
dealing with the pain.

Their family owned the largest company in
the empire, Typhon Trading, it dealt in international trading of a
wide variety of commodities with several subdivisions in other
areas, including armaments, fisheries, mining and electrical
research.

It
had been founded more than two
hundred years ago by their ancestor Lorcan Mordain. Their father
had managed the company for the last thirty years until his health
had taken a turn for the worse. He had wanted Tessa to take over
the company even though she had always tried to avoid his demands
for her to do so throughout her life.

She worked in the
Imperial government
and enjoyed it. When she had been offered the position of Minister
of Treasury she embraced the role. For her father it was the last
disappointment he was willing to tolerate.

He gave he
r an ultimatum-leave her
government position and start running Typhon Trading, or she could
get out of his sight and never come back. She had chosen the
latter. Thus her younger sister had taken over their father’s
position of managing director and Cormac Mordain had stepped
down.

Tessa
thought that her sister was far
better qualified to run the company anyway. Tegan had the
self-serving, objective-oriented, and profit-driven personality
required to run a large corporation. Typhon’s portfolio was
excellent and it was unlikely that with her in charge it would have
been.