Goblin Precinct (Dragon Precinct) (21 page)

“Yes.”

“Then can you be tellin’ me—was Dru tellin’ himself the truth? ’Bout my son?”

“Every word of what Dru said about Hawk was the truth, sir,” Torin said solemnly.

Hawk’s father let go of Torin’s arm, for which the latter was extremely grateful. “So you mean to be tellin’ me that that little ingrate was gonna be buyin’ a damn
boat
? What was I supposed to be doin’ while he was off gallivanting on some damn
boat
? Damn fool, he was. If his soul wasn’t with Wiate right now, I’d be puttin’ his ass over my damn knee.”

He turned to wander off, still muttering expletives regarding his dead son.

Horran was standing near Torin, and he regarded the lieutenant with confusion. “Was that Hawk’s old man?”

Torin nodded.

“Damn.” Horran shook his head in disgust. “Some father, huh?”

“Oh, it could be worse,” Torin said knowingly.

“Really?”

“Trust me,” Torin said emphatically, then continued walking toward Danthres.

Just as Torin approached, the woman she was talking to was heading toward a boat. It looked to Torin like the
Breeze
. “Who was that?” he asked Danthres.

“A friend.” Danthres shrugged. “Come on, let’s head back. We’ve got paperwork to do.”

Torin frowned. “You
hate
paperwork. Why are you suddenly so eager to do it now?”

“I just want to put this mess behind me so we can move on to the next case.”

Everything Danthres said was reasonable, but something was wrong with her tone. It wasn’t anything major, just a slight lilt. Torin doubted that anyone else would have noticed it, but to Torin, it was a warning sign.

“Who was that woman?”

“Just—”

“The truth, please, Danthres. You’re using the same tone you used three years ago when you got kicked out of your flat and wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Danthres let out a long sigh. “You know me too damn well.” She looked around furtively. Of course, they were surrounded by their fellows, as well as the few sailors that were willing to brave the docks anywhere near this large a collection of guards.

“C’mon, walk with me.” She started striding back toward the mainland.

It wasn’t until they were walking down Meerka Way just past Jorbin’s that Danthres finally spoke. “That was Morenn.”

Torin stopped walking. “What?” he bellowed.

“She’s getting on the
Breeze
and going somewhere far away.”

“Danthres, I saw her corpse, however briefly. We
all
did. How did—?”

She held up a hand. “I’ll explain. But can we keep walking? We’re drawing attention.”

Looking around, Torin saw that the people of Goblin, who generally minded their business, were staring a bit after Torin shouted.

“Very well.” He started walking, Danthres moving alongside him. “How did she survive being a corpse in the interrogation room?”

“She never was one.” Danthres smiled.

“Look, Morenn,” Danthres had said in the interrogation room to the wizard, “I have no wish to turn you over to those sanctimonious shitbrains, but I don’t see that I have any choice. Do you?”

Silence greeted Danthres’s question for several seconds, before Morenn finally asked one of her own: “What if you give them what they want?”

“What do you mean?” Danthres asked, confused.

She held her hands out, palms-up. “Let’s be honest, Lieutenant. They want me dead. They’ll try to rip whatever they can out of me to find out how I managed to learn magic without their
precious
instruction, and then they’ll kill me. We both know that.”

Danthres nodded. She’d been avoiding stating it outright, partly because she wasn’t completely sure it was the case, but it seemed pretty damned likely.

“So let’s give them my corpse.” Morenn was smiling, which concerned Danthres. “I can cast a spell on a body to make it appear to be me in every way, and cast a similar one on myself to change my appearance. They’ll think I’m dead, I can go somewhere far away, and everything will be fine.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, and there are scrolls I’ve hidden in the house that have spells that will wean people off Bliss. I’ll tell you how to find them in exchange for letting me do this.”

While Danthres had to admit to liking the plan, it had one major flaw. “It can’t be done. Remember what happened the last time you tried to cast a spell within these walls?”

“Shit.” Morenn sighed. “I forgot about that.”

“Boneen’s warded this place tight.” Even as she spoke, though, Danthres realized that there were other options, especially given the tenor of her conversation with Boneen before coming in. “But there might be an alternative. I’ll be right back.”

She left the interrogation room to find Boneen right where she left him. Fanthral was nowhere to be found, which suited her fine. “Boneen, how would you like to stick it to the shitbrains who dumped you here and refuse to listen to your wise counsel about how to deal with female mages?”

Boneen frowned. “You are aware, Tresyllione, that I was joking about turning a female mage male, yes?”

In fact, Danthres had assumed him to be utterly serious. “Answer the question.”

“It depends on what you have in mind.”

Danthres smiled. “Just casting two Alter Appearance Spells.”

Torin shook his head. “So you took one of Boneen’s corpses—”

“Not one of his,” Danthres said emphatically. “Those all are part of ongoing cases. No, he went to the body shop to get one that was up for the firepit. Boneen cast both spells, and then he went to a meeting with the Lord and Lady. I followed a few minutes later with the news that Morenn had killed herself.”

“And they believed it?”

Danthres snorted. “Gunderson was relieved. Osric was pissed, but then a couple of guards from Goblin showed up with Morenn’s scrolls.”

“That part I knew about. Sergeant Markon is coordinating with a bunch of local healers to get those spells to the Bliss addicts. It’ll take a while for people to recover.” Torin stared at Danthres intently. “That’s something Morenn should be supervising.”

“She couldn’t stay here, Torin. The spell would fool Gunderson for a bit, especially since it all but gave him what he wanted, but if she stayed in Cliff’s End, she’d run the risk of being discovered.”

“So she gets away with murder?”

“Oh, stop it.” Danthres sounded aggravated now. “She didn’t kill Hawk, Gavin’s buddies did, and they’re going before the magistrate tomorrow. Kempog was the one who made the deal with Gavin, and he’s already confessed to it now that he’s lost his pet wizard. The accessory charge was just a way to try to keep her here that failed.”

“So you found another one?”

“Yes! What, exactly, did I do wrong, Torin?”

Torin sighed. “Oh, any number of things.” Before Danthres could harangue him further, he added, “But what would have happened had you not acted would have been far worse. Honestly, Danthres, I’m far more displeased that you neglected to inform me of any of this. Or that you weren’t going to tell me until I caught you out.”

“I
was
going to tell you.”

At that, Torin glanced at her sidelong.

“I
was
!” Danthres clicked her tongue. “But I wasn’t about to do it in front of everyone. When we had a moment alone together, I would’ve shared the story. Besides, you weren’t there—you were helping catch Hawk’s killer, which believe you me, was a nobler task than anything I was dealing with back at the castle. Why Osric stuck me with that—”

“Because Osric is one of the cleverest people I know,” Torin said. “Who else would he put in charge of dealing with the only woman in a male-dominated job?”

Danthres blinked. “I must admit—I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Yes, well, that’s why he’s the captain.”

“Indeed.” She shook her head. “Y’know, I was in that meeting for only a minute, but—well, Lord Albin looked
awful
. He should’ve been in bed. And Lady Meerka was with him.”

That surprised Torin. The lady of the demesne generally stuck to finances and avoided politics. “She must be worried about him.”

They arrived back at the castle in due course. Torin noticed that the quiet he’d observed on the docks was present throughout the city-state. Nobody wanted to mess with the Castle Guard today, it seemed, which suited Torin fine. After everything that happened, they all could use a few calm days.

As they approached the castle, they saw Fanthral exiting it.

“On your way are you, General?”

Fanthral nodded. “My business here is done. The man I came here for is dead, and the woman responsible is also dead. I had hoped to bring her back, at least, so I would return with
something
. Instead, I return to the Consortium empty handed.”

Danthres grinned. “Maybe you’ll be lucky, and the Consortium will have fallen apart by the time you make it back west.”

That earned her one final glower from the elf—but it only lasted a moment. “Lieutenant—I do recall one thing from my sojourn to Sorlin that might be of use to you. A member of the council, a halfbreed like yourself, named Javian told me that he was also coming to Cliff’s End, once his business in the south was concluded. He said that he was only three weeks behind me, which means he should be here some time in the next two weeks. Perhaps he will be able to provide you with the answers to your questions.”

Danthres said nothing, but her mouth appeared to get smaller. Torin hadn’t seen
that
look on her face in years, either.

“Farewell, Lieutenant ban Wyvald. It was a pleasure to be on the same side as you for a change.”

Torin simply inclined his head, since the alternative was to give a reply, which would almost have to have been, “The pleasure was all yours” or something similarly snide. Again he found himself reminded of how bad an influence Danthres was on him.

They continued into the castle. “Who is this Javian?”

“Among other things,” Danthres said in a low voice, “he’s the person responsible for my exile from Sorlin.”

Before Torin could query her further on that, Sir Rommett, the demesne’s chamberlain, entered the castle’s grand entrance from the western side. He looked almost physically ill.

He looked so bad that even Danthres looked concerned, and Danthres hated Sir Rommett with a deep, abiding passion.

“Sir Rommett,” Torin asked, “are you all right?”

The chamberlain shook his head. “No. None of may ever be all right again.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Lord Albin is dead.”

TO BE CONTINUED IN
GRYPHON PRECINCT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Keith R.A. DeCandido
introduced Lieutenants Torin ban Wyvald and Danthres Tresyllione of the Cliff’s End Castle Guard in
Dragon Precinct
in 2004 (reissued in 2011). They returned in
Unicorn Precinct
as well as short stories in
Murder by Magic, Hear them Roar, Bad-Ass Faeries, Pandora’s Closet
, and
Dragon’s Lure
. Those stories will be collected along with five new tales of Cliff’s End in the upcoming collection
Tales from Dragon Precinct
. Rest assured, he’s going to be diving into
Gryphon Precinct
soon enough. His recent and forthcoming work includes the
SCPD
novels
The Case of the Claw
and
Avenging Amethyst
(also fantastical police procedurals, but these taking place in a city filled with superheroes), the
Leverage
novel
The Zoo Job
, the
Scattered Earth
novels
Guilt in Innocence
and
Innocence in Guilt
as well as several pieces of short fiction in that universe, the opening novella in the thriller series
Viral
in collaboration with Steven Savile, writing the monthly
Farscape
comic book in collaboration with series creator Rockne S. O’Bannon, and short stories in
More Tales of Zorro, Liar Liar, Tales from the House Band, Bad-Ass Faeries 4: It’s Elemental,
and
V-Wars
. All told, Keith has written more than 40 novels, dozens of short stories, and many comic books, with plenty more to come. Find out less at Keith’s web site at DeCandido.net, which serves as a portal to his blog (kradical.livejournal.com), Facebook (facebook.com/kradec), Twitter (@KRADeC), his podcasts (
The Chronic Rift
,
Dead Kitchen Radio: The Keith R.A. DeCandido Podcast, Gypsy Cove
, and the Parsec Award-winning
HG World
), and his band the Boogie Knights.