My Path to Magic (43 page)

What happened further concerned only the dark; we disputed the question of whose will was primary—whose was poised to cause the enemy more problems and to make it through to the end.  Strictly speaking, the majority of the dark are interested in just that, not in the nonsense about the law and the order.  The sergeant saw the white lieutenant and, obviously, thought that the latter wouldn't be able to reprove him.  He decided that they had done enough.  But now Mihandrov was my town, and for my own territory I would tear anyone to pieces.  Gorchik restlessly fidgeted in his chair, but I was confident that I could awaken my Source more quickly than he his.  Do not tell me about arrogance!  That kid did not see anything worse than the
witch's baldness
, but I had overcome three mature
ghoul
s!  I would even set my zombie-dog on them.  There were eight corpses—and there would be eleven.

And Claymore faltered.  He did not want to challenge his scope of duty, but to retreat in front of his subordinates meant to lose his indisputable authority.  It would be bad for the discipline.  Evidently, the sergeant was looking for a way out of the conflict.  His posture and body language—one shoulder slightly forward, as if taking a bow, head low, gaze on the enemy, but askance.  Okay, sergeant!  I closed my eyelids, breaking resistance, and Claymore immediately took advantage of me.  "Hey, kid, relax!  We will find that scum, clean up the neighborhood, and then will do what our superiors will order.  We are soldiers."

I nodded, accepting the new terms.  The sergeant was absolutely right; they didn't have a reason to go against the order.  Hence, we would continue working together; I had a lot of interesting ideas in this regard.

The "cleaners" dragged themselves in single file to the door, looking at me warily.  I poked Clarence with a finger again.  I hoped he would not apologize!  That would spoil the whole disposition—as long as they considered themselves on foreign soil, they would not be tempted to do a shitty job.

"Keep quiet, take your seat," I whispered to the lieutenant as soon as the door closed behind Rispin.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, while I pondered whether Gorchik had eavesdropped on us.  Maybe I should check it out?  My conflicts with the other darks had never reached that stage before, and the encounter with Mr. Satal was lost from the start.

The lieutenant broke the silence first: "That was outrageous!"

"What was outrageous?" I did not understand.

"All of that!"

"That they wanted you to sign the claims rejection?" I guessed.

"Exactly!"

The poor fellow felt abused.

"Hey Rudy, have you had any dark among your acquaintances?"

He shrugged uncertainly. 

"I see.  Remember (better write it down): the first thing a dark magician does when he receives an assignment is an attempt to get rid of it.  To frighten him or appeal to his sense of duty would be useless, but to indicate the possible consequences of underperformance with an emphasis on personal responsibility is a must."

The lieutenant frowned.  What a naive kid!

"Do not look at me.  I grew up among the white; consider me a cripple.  The real dark behaves exactly the way I described.  Judge for yourself: why would they want to clear up mess that wasn't their fault?"

"But... what can we do now?"

"Let's follow the plan as before; now you know why the plan was like that.  Your senior coordinator remains our goal, so look out for journalists.  Ask the directrix of the school for help; she seems to be smart.  And forget about these guys: as long as they know they are being watched, they will do their job in the best possible way.  Do not flirt with them, or they will instantly make you do their job."

Poor old Clarence rubbed his eyes in confusion, trying to make his brain understand my logic.  I think the white are unable to grasp the subtleties of the dark character, though empaths seem to cope with that somehow.

"I'm stunned," he concluded finally.  "I took a course on dark magicians—even attended a workshop.  Nothing like reality."

"Theory without practice is dead!  Go back to work."

* * *

Striped police ribbon carved out from the monotonous landscape a large rectangle, inside of which the grass was either mowed short or burnt out to the roots.  A convenient wide passage was cut through dense thickets of thorns.  The three combat mages were busy, each one doing the work that suited him best.

Rispin rustled through the brush in the location of the secret burial.  The exhumed corpse had been thoroughly examined, described, and its parts wrapped in packing paper.  He was an experienced criminalist, able to make the dead speak without the aid of necromancy.  The credit for his hire by NZAMIPS, and not by the criminal police, should be given solely to Coordinator Axel; NZAMIPS doubled his pay. 

Sergeant Claymore plotted on a sheet of paper a detailed plan of the crime scene, concurrently sketching a draft of his future report.  His subordinates flocked to him with their findings.

"He was right, that kid," Gorchik came out of the bushes in overalls and goggles, the lenses of which made his face look like a fish tank.  Needless to say, the dark did not like wearing glasses.

"What, someone called
Rustle
?"

Gorchik winced: naming the only monster that was more or less responsive to the call of the otherworldly liquidators was considered bad taste among combat mages.

"
Shield
, modified to specifically kill the white Source."

Claymore raised his eyebrow.  An interesting picture!  The dark Source could exist for some time outside the body, but the white one was not receptive to the fixation on the pump-sign.  There was a time when inquisitors could induce spontaneous manifestations of white magic, but the consequences of that were so horrendous...

"It does not look like they tried to exorcise the possessed here."

"No, it doesn't," confirmed Gorchik.  "The victim followed the killer to this place without any resistance, voluntarily called his or her Source during the ritual, and was murdered then.  This requires either utmost dedication or an extreme amount of credibility to the murderer."

"Given the age of the victim," the sergeant nodded to the lovingly-wrapped remains, "one does not exclude the other."

"That means that our scum is a highly respected person.  A man like this you won't approach without an order."

Claymore frowned.  "Shit!  It increasingly looks like the artisans.  I hoped they weren't involved—so many years have passed, and Axel watches the white community thoroughly."

"The place already smelled bad a year ago, but the empaths decided that there was a collective magic resonance.  I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of those nerds now!"

The dark mages exchanged malevolent grins.

"What, are you done?" Rispin broke away from the excavation.

"How about you?" the sergeant looked at his watch.

The forensics expert shrugged.  "Nothing.  The scoundrel works exceptionally accurately.  The bones are not damaged; apparently, the victim died from a puncture to the soft tissue.  I can't say anything more specific; the spell, accelerating decay, was applied.  If the murders started ten years ago, it would be extremely difficult to find all the victims.  The imprints of their auras will be hard to identify."

"I'm in a better situation!" Gorchik boasted.  "There are some fragments suitable for identification, but they won't tell the overall picture."

"Shit," the sergeant spoke out.  Hence, they couldn't find the murderer with magic.  They would have to use good old police methods.  "Can we identify the victim?"

"Yes."

"Compose his or her portrait, and we'll show it at school.  He was young, so he must be one of theirs.  We are done for today.  Tomorrow we'll start to look for the rest.  Can any of you ride a horse?"

For an urban dark, the idea of getting on a horse seemed unnatural.

"I see," the sergeant sighed, "that means we'll walk."

Rispin muttered under his breath something dirty that rhymed well with "Tangor."  The sergeant himself could hardly refrain from swearing.  No, in his mind he certainly understood the importance of catching the killer and the significance of their mission, but in his heart...  Claymore wished with all his heart that the underage parasite would die in agony, infected with shingles.  Well, he must have tried hard to find such a vile job for the three respected magicians! The sergeant did not doubt the success of the investigation—no villain escaped their team—but at the thought of how much time they would spend searching for the other corpses, he wanted to get drunk.

Chapter 34

A call from the school caught me lying under the car: I finally got into that squeaky vehicle!  Of course, Alfred didn't let me work on the car right away; it was preceded by a thoughtful conversation about the benefits of front-wheel drive, the quality of local ethanol fuel, and the prospects of oil engines.  Of course, he was not a professional alchemist and could not resist my obsessive charisma.  I approached the adjustment of the carburetor with the piety that some people begin a prayer with, but then things got livelier.  I started to feel great peace and happiness.  The design of the machinery, clear and functional, was such a contrast to the intricacies of human existence that I sensed tears welling in my eyes.  I officiated over the brake actuator (a critical part of cross-country driving) when I was interrupted.

Clarence came up, reporting, "Mrs. Hemul called and begged you to come to school.  She seemed to sense that someone at the school cast spells this morning, and it highly disturbed her."

I almost threw a wrench at him.  Could I have some personal time off?  Which of us was the town's sheriff?  Who was the head of Mihandrov's NZAMIPS?  A unit of combat mages was grazing in the town, but he called for help a poor student on a business trip, a student who didn't even have a degree in magic!

But Lyuchik was at the school.  I sighed and went to wash my hands off grease. 

On the way to the school I was planning to tell the directrix all I thought of her.  She hadn't known the words I was about to say!  I had called her yesterday, but she discouraged me from coming, hinting that she did not want to provoke Fox.  And now everything seemed okay with her "boyfriend".  Just when I was finally back to doing interesting things, he was readying his excuses!  I hated that!

My self-control thinned completely.  Now I understood why Coordinator Axel did not want to send his people here; Claymore with his mates would lynch him after such a trip.  Satal would neigh at me when I came back "well-rested".  However, I was ready to solve the problem with Satal in three hours.  Very interesting grass grew on the flowerbeds at the school; the master of poisons, Tiranidos, would hang himself in envy.  A full herbarium from "Toxicology", no doubt.  I have to admit, Milky Widow blooms beautifully and looks great in the ridges, but, in my opinion, the gardener should think a bit more on his selection of species before planting them.  There were children all around!  I already dried out enough plants to fill half of my suitcase with interesting roots and flowers, and the thought of Satal's surprise when he learned what he was dying from brought my good mood back.

Do not believe the intuition of practicing magicians, no matter what people say about it.  My gaze caught a narrow leaf with a distinctive silky sheen, because all the time I was searching for something like that.  Not trusting my luck, I picked up the leaf and began looking around in search of the rest of the plant.  Alas!  Nothing like that grew on the nearby lawns, and a measly half a gram serving was obviously not enough for my goal.  I was about to search the silage pit with the mowed grass.  But the path where I found the treasure led to the back kitchen door instead of a park or a greenhouse.  The cooks were busy with all their might and main: lunchtime was fast approaching.  Not feeling any unrest in my soul, I mentally connected these three concepts: grass, food, poison.  I shook the grass off my hands and wanted to go further on my business, but then a sense of duty prevailed.  Perhaps that was nonsense, but the maniac that killed nine people was still at the school, and the artisans are like maniacs, in my opinion...

Clicking the "whistle" in my pocket (do not sleep, shitheads, do not sleep!), I burst into the kitchen door with a businesslike air, ignoring the blank stares and surprised faces; my eyes were fixed on the tables, and I did find on one of them the remains of the sliced green. 

"Where is the rest?" I asked stupidly, thinking that I could still use some of the grass, perhaps.

The chef began to breathe air into his chest to make a perturbed retort, but my stupor was over; I pulled out my temporary certificate and jabbed it in his face.  "The combat operation of NZAMIPS.  This herb is poisonous.  Where did you put it?"

Frightened eyes shifted toward a large soup pot.

I tossed a chromatic curse in the pot, which stained the contents with a threatening scarlet color (harmless, but impressive).

"Who brought this stuff here?  Name!"

They did not know, could not recall, and became horrified with it.  It was a typical reaction to the masking spell.

"All kitchen supplies (all, got it?) are arrested until the experts' arrival.  I hope no one tasted it?  It is deadly poisonous."

A portly cook got very pale and gripped her chest.

"Wash out your stomach, quickly!  And pray that the poison hasn't been inside long enough to absorb into the blood."

I waited until all the cooks left the kitchen and tied the door handles for safety with a cord I had found right there.
"What is happening here?"

It was the directrix.  I gave her the damned leaf; she frowned, trying to identify it.  Mrs. Hemul seemed not to know much about poisons.

"It is Opal Buttercup.  Someone brought it in the kitchen and made sure that the plant got into the soup."

She still did not understand.

"Did you hear about the potion of Red King?  Opal Buttercup, the main component, is harmless, but after the heat treatment it is transformed into a lethal poison—the antidote to which does not exist."