The Artifact of Foex (15 page)

“I’ll take him. I got paperwork to catch up
on.” The guy paused as yet another officer stuck his head around
the quad corner.

“Both of you jokers better get back here. We
found a body. It’s still warm, too.”

A body? A
body?
Chet craned his head
over his shoulder as the police ran off, leaving him alone. He
jittered, trapped in the back of the police car. His arms were
starting to hurt, too. Chet absently wondered whether the Flame
ever had circulation problems with their shapeshifting talents,
then snorted. They could probably just shape out of handcuffs.

Speaking of which...
Chet closed his
eyes and concentrated on the invisible bonds. Now that he was
properly paying attention, he could feel the movement of the
others. Though they were in three different places, he was pretty
certain none of them were dead. The Raptus was headed toward him,
he knew that much—it was growing closer by the second.

“You thought you and your nasty friends could
grab it without repercussions, didn’t you?”

Chet’s eyes flew open. Professor Clementina
stood outside the car window. They were alone, no police in sight.
The window was closed, but Clementina was pressing her face against
the glass as if he were a biological specimen in a zoo. Chet
scooted into the middle seat by instinct, wanting to get as far
away from her as possible. She smiled and opened the door—wait,
hadn’t the police locked it? Chet yelped as she reached in and
grabbed him by his lapels. Clementina pulled him from the car like
someone cracking open an ocean crustacean for its meat.

Chet squeaked, pumping his legs. He was being
held inches above the ground. “Hey, I’m in police custody! What do
you think you’re doing?”

“I know you and the others stole the Raptus
from the dig site, so don’t play games with me,” she hissed,
slamming him into the police car. “Where is it?”

How on Uos had she known the relic’s name?
Did everyone else know about this thing but him? How had he been
surrounded by a conspiracy yet never twigged to it? Chet stared at
her, made stupid by fear and shock. “What?”

She maneuvered him so one arm held him up,
bracing him against the car. Then she wrapped her free hand around
his neck and squeezed. “Listen, you little dium, the Raptus is
mine. I didn’t spend hundreds of thousands of gilt on the dig site
for chew sticks and clocks. Where is it?”

Chet wheezed with what little air he had,
struggling for breath. As his vision grew dark, he realized with
the rational part of his mind that he’d felt safer with Knife’s
hand around his throat than with Clementina’s. Knife had just
wanted to make a point: she was a professional and had known
precisely when to stop. Clementina didn’t. He could see it in her
eyes, her reddening face. Spots erupted in his vision... he was
passing out...

“What are you doing?” someone yelled. “That’s
our suspect!”

Chet was released. He fell onto the pavement,
choking. Abyss, he’d been throttled for the second time in as many
days—he was going to have some spectacular bruises.

Clementina and the officer were talking above
him, but he couldn’t focus properly. He blinked his watering eyes
as Clementina turned and walked away.
What?
Why hadn’t the
police officer arrested her for assault and battery? Chet’s
indignation broiled as the officer hauled him to his feet. Bulky
and bistre-skinned, the new officer seemed oddly uncomfortable in
his uniform.

To Chet’s surprise, the officer began leading
him away from the car. “What are you doing? Where are you taking
me?”

“Hush. I’m getting you out of here, Chet,”
the guy murmured in his deep bass. He was carrying a large paper
bag in his other hand, marked “evidence.”

Chet stared as he was hustled forward. The
policeman’s uniform exactly like the others, only he wore his hat
scrunched down to his ears. No sideburns, no hair peeking out from
under the cap. Moreover, one of the cords was located right beside
Chet, as was the Raptus.

“Journey?” Chet whispered with disbelief.

“Yeah. Come on, they’ll be back any minute.”
Journey hustled him into the nearest building, an archaeology
lecture hall with faculty offices in the basement. Chet knew the
building inside and out.

“Can you get these cuffs off? I mean, can you
shape your fingers real thin and break the chains in half or
something?”

“I don’t have extra-human strength,” Journey
growled in his deep voice. “I’d shatter bones doing that, and Pelin
doesn’t heal bones. I got this guy’s keys, though, when I stripped
him. Whoops!”

Journey swiveled around and walked the other
way, but not before Chet saw the officer at the end of the hall.
Fortunately, he was faced the wrong way. He’d been positioned like
a man guarding something.

“Go left,” Chet said in an undertone. “Now go
right, straight down this hall. There’s a stairwell we can
take.”

“Where are we headed?”

“Down to the steam tunnels. We can’t get to
the economy parking lot that way, but at least we can get out of
this quad.” The invisible bond to one of the others seemed to point
downward. The other... Chet frowned, uncertain. He couldn’t
properly concentrate while hustling with his hands cuffed behind
his back, but whoever it was wasn’t in the archaeology quad
anymore.

“Won’t the police expect us to take those
tunnels?” Journey said, glancing behind them. Chet could see the
whites of his eyes.

“Don’t know, but better than nothing.” There
had been two police cars and one security car, meaning... what?
That there were four officers and two security guards out there? Or
three, since Journey seemed to have taken one down, or whatever,
for his clothes. They had to have called for backup, though, which
would be arriving soon.

Chet and Journey turned the corner, and a
policeman was standing right there. He was in the process of
lighting a cigarette. “Hey, what are you doing, Myers? The kid’s
supposed to be locked up in the car!”

“I was told you wanted him,” Journey said
evenly.

Myers? Journey had apparently copied the
appearance of the officer whose uniform he wore, which made sense.
Chet had known Journey for only a short time, but it seemed to Chet
that this current face and figure wasn’t his
style
.

“Aw, Abyss with that. Take the kid back up,”
the officer growled. “We can’t screw up this scene or admin will be
all over us.”

“Right.” Journey swiveled and led Chet back
the direction they’d come. “That was close," he whispered.

“Take a left up here. We can still get to the
staircase via a roundabout corridor.” Chet had often used that
particular corridor while coming in and out of Professor Tibbet’s
office.

“Chet,
look
.” There was a smear of
blood on the floor near the corner, leading in the direction Chet
was taking them.

He hestitated, then swallowed his fear. “Come
on, we’ve got to keep going.” They either went this way, or they
didn’t get to the steam tunnels.

They rounded the corner. Even though he was
prepared for a gristly scene, Chet’s mouth opened, and he felt
blood drain from his face. Journey gasped, his hand reflexively
touching his heart, an effeminate gesture belied by his current
appearance. Chet couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t.

Professor Tibbets sat against the wall. There
was blood all over the floor, smeared and marked. By the mess, it
looked like Tibbets had dragged himself into that position. His
chest was bloody, marring his perpetual tweed suit.

He was dead.

“Oh, Pantheon," Journey said as they tiptoed
around the body. “Oh,
Pantheon
.” He sounded far too
effeminate to be a policeman, now, though his voice was still
low.

Numb and sick to his stomach, Chet took the
lead. Journey trailed behind, not even pretending to be an
arresting officer anymore. They trotted downstairs, and Chet led
them through the double doors marked “Do Not Enter.” The
utilitarian corridor was silent and dimly lit by emergency
lighting.

Chet stopped and leaned against a wall,
unable to continue. His teacher, his mentor, was dead. Professor
Tibbets had been a swell guy, completely affable. He’d never once
expressed concern about Chet’s non-affiliate status. Now he was
gone. His body had looked so awkward, sprawled on the floor.
Something inside of Chet wanted to protest the careless, almost
accidental nature of the scene they’d just witnessed. Professor
Tibbets had deserved to be more than a corpse, killed before his
time.

Blood. There’d been so much blood.

Chet swallowed. “I think I’m going to be...”
He barely had time to take a breath before throwing up. Coughing,
his throat burning, Chet slowly straightened.

“You okay?”

“Not sure. I guess so.”

“Turn around, Chet. Let me at those cuffs.”
After a few false tries, Journey found the correct key to free
him.

Chet rubbed his hands and arms, chilled
through. He could feel the invisible cord to the nearest person;
whoever it was, they’d begun heading their way. They were on the
same level, he was certain. Was the other person lost in the steam
tunnels?

“Come on,” Chet said, heading toward the
sociology-anthropology lecture halls. By the loosening of the
bonds, he was certain both Fenimore and Knife were in this general
direction.

“Who would do that to poor Veyaon? He was a
kind, generous man who wouldn’t hurt a dium, not even if it was
gnawing on his face.”

His voice was a light alto, and Chet glanced
back, startled. Journey was shapeshifting even as Chet watched. His
skin color rippled back to flaxen, growing taller and skinnier in
the process, though he stayed male. Now Journey looked much as he
had last night. He stripped out of the button-down police shirt to
reveal a white undershirt, but didn’t discard the hat; the wig was
nowhere to be seen. Myer’s clothing was loose and baggy on him now,
too short for his stature—Chet could see a sliver of Journey’s
midrift between his shirt and trousers. He carried the purse with
the Raptus openly, the paper bag having been abandoned.

Chet licked his lips. Barring a random
killing... almost
any
of them could have murdered Tibbets.
“I know Fenimore has his blade, but does Knife carry any
weapons?”

“Several. He even has a concealed gun. I know
Knife doesn’t have a problem hurting people while on Pelin’s
business, but we aren’t on Pelin’s business. Knife isn’t a
sociopath, you know.”

“Um, you don’t say.” Chet shot her a sideways
look from the corner of his eye. He’d never thought Knife
was
a sociopath.

Journey shrugged. “All I’m saying is, she
doesn’t enjoy murder. For that matter, I’ve killed men in my
time.”

“This lifetime, too?” They opened another set
of double doors, paused, then entered the next set of steam
tunnels. Somewhere in the distance he heard the rumble of pipes and
a water heater turning on.

“Mmm. I survived the war, you know. You do
things in war that it normally wouldn’t occur to you to do,"
Journey said thoughtfully, his voice distant. “But I know it wasn’t
me. I don’t think it was you.”

“Good great Pantheon, Professor Tibbets was
all that was standing between me and being expelled because of you
guys. Plus, he was a fantastic person and a good teacher. Why on
Uos would
I
kill him?”

“Motivation is a problem for all of us. What
about if it wasn’t one of us, though? What if it was
Clementina?”

Chet chewed the idea over, wiping sweat from
his brow. It was getting warmer now that the corridor led upward.
They were probably near the boiler by the sociology faculty
offices. “How do you figure?”

“What if she saw this as an opportunity to
finger evil, perverted Flame for murder? The timeline works. She
spots us, calls the police, murders poor Veyaon, then has enough
time to meet the police in the quad.”

A dark shadow stepped out from behind water
and sewage pipes down the corridor. Chet jumped, heart in his
throat.

“Did I hear right? Tibbets is dead?” Knife
said quietly.

“Where have you been?” Chet said,
glaring.

“Don’t snap at me, boy. We got separated
running from the police. This place is a maze. Finally thought to
follow this bond thing to find you.”

Chet let Journey do the explaining. The forth
cord—Fenimore’s—was definitely straight ahead and up a level.
Apparently he was in the faculty parking lot nestled between
buildings. Chet turned and led them through another set of double
doors and up a stairwell. The problem was that Journey was right:
they all had a problem with motivation. Journey could even be
covering his own guilt. He and Tibbets had been old friends, or so
it seemed. Maybe Journey had slept with Tibbets, too, when Tibbets
had been younger. That would fit Journey’s
modus operandi.
Yet Chet could have sworn Journey’s reaction had been real.

But what did he really know about these
Flame? He’d known them three days.

They emerged from the quiet building to the
secluded faculty parking lot. After a few seconds, Fenimore emerged
from behind a vehicle and loped over.

“Where have you been?” Fenimore was wild eyed
and stranded looking. He seemed relieved to see them, his hair
escaping the ponytail in puffy, frothy curls.

Journey explained again. Chet ignored them,
watching Knife—he seemed to be casing the joint, or something like
that. Chet had never seen someone do such a thing, but the phrase
fit his behavior. Knife was looking over each vehicle the way a
ceros thief looked over a herd. He paused beside a large luxury
sedan.

Chet recognized it. “That’s Professor
Clementina’s car. One of them, anyway.”