Con & Conjure (25 page)

“Chatar didn’t commit suicide,” I told her.

“I would be surprised if he had. As you no doubt remember, he never shied away from confrontation of any kind.”

Like wanting to obliterate me that day on the pier. “I got that impression.”

“That included being accused of the assassination attempt. Chatar vehemently maintained his innocence, and he didn’t seem to feel the weight of any guilt. Hardly the behavior of a man about to commit suicide.” Imala was silent for a moment. “You have done so much for our people already, but I have to ask—”

I knew where this was going. “If I could tell you who the murderer was by touching the corpse?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Raine. If there was any other way—”

“I’ll do it.” My voice said the words, but I wasn’t eager.

I still had nightmares about a corpse I’d touched to find how and where he had died. It’d been one of Sarad Nukpana’s victims whose life force he’d fed on to regenerate his body. The goblin had left a surprise message for me, delivered by a corpse who grabbed me and didn’t let go until Nukpana had promised to do the same to everyone I loved and then me.

No, I wasn’t eager to have a repeat of
that
experience.

But Sarad Nukpana hadn’t infested Chatar’s body.

At least not that I was aware of.

Way to be paranoid, Raine.

“Thank you,” Imala said.

“You might want to hold off on those thanks. The last corpse I touched reached up and touched me right back. There was unsightly screaming involved.”

“I would have done the same.”

I smiled, my first real one of the morning. “Somehow I doubt that.”

“You believe the murderer to be here, among your own people?” Mago asked Imala.

“It’s likely that they’re here in this very building at this very moment. Now that they have eliminated Chatar, they would again be focused on their primary task.”

“The prince is well protected?”

“By my most trusted agents. His Highness is quite safe.” Imala smiled in a vicious flash of tiny fangs. “His potential killer is not.”

Mago chuckled. “You do appear to be a lady who enjoys her work.”

“What the lady will enjoy is catching the bitch or bastard who’s made themselves so inconvenient.”

“And he—or she—tried to make Chatar’s death look like a suicide so you wouldn’t dig any further,” I said.

“I’ve got news for them; I haven’t even begun digging yet.”

“If someone felt Chatar needed killing, it was in all likelihood because that someone wanted him quiet,” Mago noted.

I glanced sharply at Mago. “Think he might have said something to the girl? You know . . . pillow talk? You’d tell your bartender your troubles. Is the same true for working girls?”

My cousin smiled. “I make it a point not to share my troubles with anyone outside of the family. One can’t be too cautious.” He turned to Imala. “Did Chatar make it a habit of frequenting bordellos?”

“Not that I am aware of,” Imala replied. “He has a mistress in Regor who he hasn’t seen in some time. With the prince being in exile, his retinue hasn’t exactly stayed in places where such . . . creature comforts are available. Since they arrived, more than a few have visited the finer establishments Mid has to offer.” She smiled, her dark eyes shining. “We are a most passionate people.”

I slowly pushed myself out of the chair. “Well, hopefully I can get Chatar to tell me what his last trouble was.”

 

 

Imala led us into what looked like a ballroom. There were a few
chairs against the walls, but a table in the center of the room had my full and complete attention. There was a body on that table—Chatar’s body. It was covered with a long piece of black silk. I don’t know what that table’s purpose had been before it’d been drafted into service as a funeral bier, but if it’d ever been used to serve food, I sure as hell wouldn’t eat off of it ever again.

The goblin guards’ hands went to their sword hilts at the sight of me and Mago. I couldn’t blame them, considering I still smelled like scorched leather, and Mago didn’t look any less disreputable.

“Stand down,” Imala ordered. “Mistress Benares and Master Peronne are here at my invitation. Leave us for a few minutes. Mahet, I want you to stay. I will tell the rest of you when to return.”

All but one of the black leather-armored goblin guards left. Imala closed the massive doors.

An amused voice came from a shadowy corner. “I’d hug you from behind, but I’d probably get a knife in the ribs.”

Tam.

Goblin guard be damned. I ran across the room and wrapped my arms around him in a crushing hug. I got the same in return. Considering that I’d last seen him battling a buka that wouldn’t die on the top floor of a hotel on fire, I thought it was an entirely appropriate response.

I raised my head and grinned up at him. “You’re alive.”

“Of course I am. Didn’t Imala tell you that I was at—”

“Yeah, but being told and seeing for myself are two different things.”

Tam chuckled. “It wasn’t like you left us all that much more to do.”

“Just kill a buka.”

“Well, there was that. Mychael and I finally managed to dispatch the thing, then all we had to do was haul our asses down burning stairs. We met Imala and the prince at the basement door.” His hands tightened on my shoulder. “I heard what happened outside . . . what you did. Thank you.”

“You should be thanking the rock.”

He studied my face, his dark eyes solemn. “I’m thanking the lady
in charge
of the rock. I had an easier time fighting the buka than I did wrestling Mychael into that tunnel. The ceiling was caving in and he was still determined to get to you.”

“Then I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

“Mychael already did.” Tam grinned. “That is after he apologized for trying to knock my head off.”

“Ouch.”

“And it still does.”

Mago cleared his throat from behind me. “I’d rather not stand next to a dead body for any longer than I have to.”

I didn’t like being in rooms with dead bodies, either. “Well, once we see what secrets Chatar here can tell us, we can all get the hell out of here.”

Without any ceremony at all, Imala stepped over to the table and pulled down the covering. Chatar was still naked, but thankfully Imala had only pulled the sheet down to just above his waist.

I didn’t give myself the chance to think about what I was about to do. I went to the end of the table where the goblin mage’s head was, placed my palms on either side at his temples, and tried not to think that I was touching cool, lifeless flesh. Chatar’s mind no longer functioned; but while he lived, it had been the center of his life force and his memories. Standing at the head of the table also had the benefit of putting me out of reach should his corpse suddenly get grabby. I knew that would probably never happen to me again, but I’d taken enough unnecessary chances lately.

The first image I got wasn’t an image at all, but a scent. Wild rose. The girl. I remembered her perfume from standing near her at the Satyr’s Grove. The girl was lying on the bed; the scent of her perfume in the air was like a freshly gathered bouquet. She was smiling and stretching like a cat that had been on the receiving end of a most proficient petting. Apparently Chatar was good in bed; something I really didn’t need to know.

There was a small table with a dish of candied fruit. Chatar selected a pair of chocolate-covered strawberries and bit into one of them. An instant later he gasped and jerked upright, his throat closing, unable to speak, unable to breathe. The mage’s limbs were paralyzed; he couldn’t move or fight back as his vision went dark, the strawberries dropping from his dying fingers.

Poisoned.

Death by after-sex snack. Damn.

As he fell, strong hands caught him around the chest and lowered him quietly to the floor.

Hands that definitely didn’t belong to a girl.

Chatar had only turned his back on the girl for a moment; there was no one else in the room, and certainly not a man strong enough to hang him from that rafter. He knew there was no one there. He knew because he had checked, searched every corner of that room.

Chatar had known that someone would try to kill him.

I moved my right hand down to his chest, where the killer’s hands would have grabbed him.

A man . . .

How the hell had he gotten in the ro—

I froze. A man smelling of wild roses.

Oh mother of hell.

That girl had changed into a man—into the assassin. Mago and I had comforted the killer right there outside the room.

A master glamourer. Very rare, but not unknown. Able to instantly morph from one form into another, one sex to another. Even with the Saghred’s power, I needed time, concentration, and an exact image to work from. The assassin didn’t need any of those.

He or she could literally be anyone. Anywhere.

Here.

Imala sent her two most trusted agents to the citadel with the mes
sage for Mychael, with the explicit instructions to deliver it to Mychael and no one else.

All I could do was wait.

I usually wasn’t good at waiting.

Unless I was taking a much-needed soak in a tub of steaming water. My predator impersonation had been a success, so I didn’t have to stalk around the embassy anymore in burned clothes. As to waiting, as long as the water stayed hot and no one broke down the door with the intention of killing me, I could probably wait forever.

I sighed and leaned back. I didn’t go so far as to close my eyes. The trust of a naked elf in a goblin embassy only went so far. There was a master glamourer on the loose, not to mention the walls of my room probably still had eyes. In fact, once word got around that Imala had ordered a tub and hot water brought to my room, I imagine there were a few more pairs of eyes watching. I didn’t care. I didn’t have anything to be ashamed of, and I was too exhausted to go around the room, poking my fingers into everything that might be a spy hole for goblin Peeping Toms. If they wanted to see a naked elf, let ’em look.

And if anyone should make the mistake of trying anything more hands-on, Tam had provided a pair of sleek, curved goblin swords and enough daggers to make me feel warm and cozy almost anywhere. Imala had found clothes for me.

Those did
not
make me feel warm and cozy.

It was a goblin secret service uniform. Imala had a number of female agents among her people, and one of them was just my size. Lucky me. I glanced over at the sleek black leather ensemble on the bed. I had to hand it to Imala; she knew how to dress her agents. Carnades would love to see me wearing that. To him, it’d be the proof of everything he’d been claiming since I’d set foot on Mid—that I was not only a goblin sympathizer, but I was working for them. And if I set foot outside of the embassy wearing that, I’d be putting the last nail in my coffin.

I wasn’t taking one step outside the embassy’s front doors. If I did, I not only wouldn’t be wearing a goblin uniform, I wouldn’t be wearing my own skin. The assassin wasn’t the only one who found it easier to roam around town incognito.

I wasn’t the only one lying low. I could feel the Saghred’s presence inside of me like a rock on my chest. Solid, immovable, but for the moment, quiet. Through me it had killed nine firemages. The rock was used to destroying, but not on an empty stomach, or whatever the Saghred had. It had expended a hell of a lot of strength in the streets outside that hotel, and it hadn’t gotten any souls to replenish itself. No wonder the thing damned near killed me to get at the souls fleeing the bodies of the dying in the hotel. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Saghred had known about the firemages, and what the two of us would have to do to stop them.

At that cheerful thought, I sank down farther in the water and added it to the list of my other potentially fatal problems.

Someone glamoured as a girl in the Satyr’s Grove to kill Chatar. Had the killer also morphed into Chatar to try to assassinate the prince, then had to kill the mage to cover his tracks? Until I learned otherwise, that convoluted mess sounded not only plausible, but highly likely.

There were reliable witnesses who confirmed that Chatar had been near the stern of the yacht when the assassination attempt had taken place. I’d seen him myself after Tam had fished Chigaru out of the harbor. He didn’t act like a man who’d had his evil plan foiled. He was pissed at me for interfering with his attempt to keep the pilot boats from ramming the yacht. I’d felt his magic; it was strong. He’d used every last bit of his strength against those boats. He didn’t suddenly stop doing that, run to the bow, shoot the prince, and then threaten to vaporize me for ruining both attempts.

I glanced over at the glove that I’d been carrying around under Symon’s doublet and then mine. It was on the bed with the uniform.

I had no doubt in my mind that I’d seen Rache in that window overlooking Embassy Row. He’d let me see him after he’d taken a shot at Mychael. He wanted me to see him.

Now I knew why. It hadn’t been Rache. He’d never been there, but his competition had—glamoured as Rache.

The unknown assassin had glamoured as Chatar to try to kill Chigaru, and had morphed into Rache to take a shot at Mychael. Then the nimble little minx had changed into a working girl at the Satyr’s Grove to poison Chatar—that is after they’d had some kinky fun. A man who’d turned into a woman to have sex with another man, kill him, then turn back into a man to hang his victim to make it look like a suicide.

This guy was a real go-getter in every sense of the word, no wonder Sarad Nukpana hired him.

Rache said he knew he had competition; competition he referred to as a bastard, not a bitch. I knew Rache well enough that if a woman was trying to steal his hit, he definitely wouldn’t hesitate to call her a bitch. That meant the assassin was a man.