Infernal Investigations

“Shit,” was Zarrow’s only remark. His eyes flitted towards the doorway, trying to find a way out without touching Voltar.

The detective watched in mild amusement as my patient tried to move as far away as the chair would allow. I had no idea where these two had crossed paths, but Zarrow clearly better appreciated the danger Voltar presented than most did. The detective’s thin frame resembled a scarecrow, only padded out by the thickness of his greatcoat, and his face wasn’t particularly intimidating. His eyes, though…

You learned quickly on the streets from people’s eyes. Some were steel all the time, constantly projecting it outward. But there were those who, even if you saw not a single glare from them, not a harsh word or threatening notion, but you knew what lurked underneath.

“Hold still, and relax,” I told Zarrow, and I stuck the syringe into his elbow. I lodged it right into the vein and held it steady. It was an extract from a fire lizard in the underground, not that I’d ever let Zarrow know. It could clear out the lungs if it had time to work and you kept up the doses.

Not relaxed, Zarrow sputtered while Voltar politely cleared his throat.

“I hear you, Mr. Voltar. I’m handling a patient right now.”

Petty on my part, but he’d barged into my home, currently standing in my doorway. Yes, the door was open, but that was hardly an invitation to enter.

“I can come back later if that is a better time?” Voltar asked.

“No, this will only take a few moments,” I said, wrangling Zarrow. I kept the needle's feed slow. “Can you please wait outside or somewhere beside my doorway?”

Voltar took a few steps back, clearing my doorway. I turned my attention back to Zarrow.

“Please hold still. Also, I have a message for you to take to Mr. Tolman. I’ll be around his house in say, a half hour? I’d appreciate it if he could be ready for a job by then. Double rates. It’s understandable if he can’t make it. Did you get all that?”

Zarrow gave me a nervous nod in reply.

I reached for a bandage on my table, managed to grab it, and put it over where the needle pierced the skin. I took it out, keeping pressure on the bandage as I tied it up.

“It should take a few minutes to heal. In about half an hour take it out. Could you repeat back the message for Mr. Tolman?”

He repeated it back to me, adding his own rambling vernacular as I finished the bandage. Then, I went to get a bottle of the elixir from my closet. It was close enough to the original message, so I handed him the bottle.

“Swallow it all at once, Mr. Zarrow,” I told him. He didn’t pay attention, eyes still locked on Voltar.

“Don’t eat anything for at least an hour from now. If you must, make it something dry. Crackers would suffice. Mr. Zarrow?”

He gave me a shaky nod, heading for the door. As soon as he was past Voltar he started running, boots rocking the cheap wooden floorboards.

“And remember to deliver that message to Mr. Tolman!”

Voltar stepped in, closing the door behind him. Immediately, the room felt much smaller than it had with Kalasyp or Zarrow. I wiped my hands on a bit of cloth and walked over to where the fire was.

“I can not even begin to guess where you crossed paths with him, Mr. Voltar, but you’ve put the fear of both deity and devil in his heart. Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee, if it would be possible?”

Zarrow had only had one cup. My battered drip pot had enough for one more.

“It is possible. I must say I’m surprised to see you here, Mr. Voltar. I’m not about to be led outside and find a squad of watchmen waiting to lead me to the Coffin in chains, am I? My heart might not be able to survive the scandal.”

The polite smile didn’t change. “No, nothing like that. I wanted your opinion on a substance as a professional.”

“There are plenty of alchemists you must be able to consult, some of whom I imagine are much closer to your dwelling than I am,” I said.

“Yes, but there is another reason for me to come here. I have some follow-up questions from the interview yesterday. I figured I might as well get two pieces of business solved at the same time.”

Sure. The only reasons. I was well aware of the absence of Dawes. Or maybe he had one of those lowlife kids he worked with trying to break into my bedroom while we talked. There was another game afoot.

“It saves me a trip to the Coffin,” I said. “I can hardly complain. Pass me the sample?”

He produced a small vial from his coat, which I took. A clear liquid lay inside, half-filling the vial. At first glance, it seemed to be water, but something seemed off.

“I’ll take it to my lab later, although I can try a few things before you leave. The questions?”

“The infernal you were with had a box with him. I’d like to know what became of it.”

I shrugged and uncapped the vial. I took a few hesitant sniffs. Nothing recognizable. A slight whiff of pine, maybe? He hadn’t slipped me a vial of water just as an excuse to talk, had he? I started dividing the sample between the original vial and some of my own.

“Yes, he did have a box with him. I remember him dropping it when we reached the cathedral. He got rather cross with some urchins when they tried to nab it, and then the humans arrived, and I lost track of where it was. Why, was there something illegal inside?”

Voltar stood, watching as I divided the sample between six vials. “A good question. We don’t know because no one has found it yet. Why did you not mention the box to the Watch?”

I shrugged as I took one of the vials and put a stopper in it. Using a pair of tongs, I held it above my fire. “I thought they had picked it up themselves. I didn’t know much about it, my questions to the gang member, uhm, Golmar?”

“Golvar.”

The liquid in the vial had begun to boil, but there was no other reaction from the liquid. “Well, Golvar made it very clear that he would not tell me anything of what was in the box. And since he seemed violently predisposed to me prying further, I left it at that.”

“You didn’t bother to look for it last night at the ruins of Halspus Cathedral?”

Was he fishing for something off in my response? A stupid question. That question was too specific to ask if he didn’t know the answer already.

“I did visit there last night, and I won’t deny it. How did you know, though?”

“You smell faintly of a tannery. The night wind only went to the south, so you must have gone south of the only nearby tannery, Jasper Leatherworks. But your apartment, your lab, and Carnly’s all are north of that establishment.”

I did my best not to drop my cup. I let wide-eyed amazement take over my face as if in awe of Voltar’s discovery. Inwardly? I wanted to kick him. Hard. He knew where my lab was? I thought I’d have a day or more before he or the Watch went there, but now I might be down to hours. This was becoming increasingly bad.

“You have a perfect sense of smell, Mr. Voltar.”

“Yes, although in addition, I have an eyewitness to you revisiting the crime scene and doing some peculiar things. Sticking your arm up to its elbow in the rubble of Halspus Cathedral. A bit odd for you to be doing, one would think?”

Of course, I’d been found out anyway. The question would be whether a tracker had been planted on my possessions I couldn’t part with or had someone legitimately tailed me.

“I can certainly see why you would think that odd. Truth be told, I lost a brooch of sentimental value and was just trying to find it. I figured if I brought it to the Watch’s attention, it would simply be pawned off by whichever officer did find it.”

“You mentioned having Sculpts done on you. I hadn’t asked at the time, but who exactly did your Sculpts?”

He hadn’t bought the lie about the brooch. I could tell even if his expression didn’t change in the slightest between sips of coffee. He’d just moved past it to this new line of attack instead.

“Verinith Scaligi, a year and a half ago. I think he’s died since then, back in the Blaze. At the minimum, I haven’t heard or seen him since then.”

The Blaze was the latest in a series of grand conflagrations that threatened to eat the entire district. Fires were a regular occurrence in the still mostly wooden construction of the Infernal District, helped by the war with the dwarves, which had left brick and tile in short supply for the longest time. Great blazes that ate entire blocks were rare, they’d threatened the district three times in my life.

At least these days brick and tile buildings were slowly entering the Infernal District.

“A costly series of changes to have made to yourself, permanent cosmetic alterations. And a smuggling pouch as well. I do wonder how you afforded it?”

Mostly through a lot of self-financing, some stolen funds from Versalicci’s coffers, and the fact that I made the modifications myself. Scaligi had never worked on me, not that I would have trusted him to. The only reason I shared his name was he was both dead, and with his body missing, no necromancer would get answers out of his spirit.

“I got very lucky with a client early on, and for why I spent so much on them,” I hesitated, and gave Voltar a downcast grin that didn’t reach my eyes. “Mr. Voltar, I don’t think I need to speak on the prejudices so many in this city have. So I did my best to accommodate them and reduced my demonic features to cater to them.”

If those words had any effect on him, they did not show. He finished his coffee, put the drained cup back on the table, and said nothing else.

This was not going to take the heat off of me. If anything, it only indicated that the detective had taken an interest, which was worse. Should I take a risk, or just suffer his interest in silence till hopefully this died down?

Maybe a small offering of the truth would help a little.

"I was lying about the brooch" I offered. "I was looking for the box, although I didn't find it. You probably know that already from your eyewitness."

"It was reported that you left empty-handed. Not the most important part, which is that you searched for it in the first place. And if you know what's inside."

"I do not," I replied quickly. "I'd never seen it before that day, nor did I find out was inside it, nor do I care to find out what was inside it. I only hid it and tried to retrieve it because I have to live here Mr. Voltar. There's a few rules to live by to live here, and one is do not cross the Black Flame."

"Not wanting to cross them is not the only reason to try and retrieve their property," he remarked.

"I am not a member. If you must be convinced, I will go to the Coffin again, and female members of the Watch can try searching me for the tattoo. I can already assure you they won't find it. Besides, if I was a member or even an associate, I'd just send word to the Black Flame, and someone not under suspicion by the Watch would have gone there to look for it. Assuming they didn't already find it."

There was no reply from Voltar.

I did my best not to look at Voltar, afraid of giving away my thoughts through my expression. Instead, I focused on the mystery substance, the identity of which I had a good guess. The details fit, for what better poison was there than one that had no odor, no color, no reactions with many common substances, and seemingly no distinguishing features?

Lucky for me, I hadn’t tried taste-testing it.

I pricked my earlobe with a needle, collecting the blood as it fell out. Once I had enough for a drop, I let it slide into one of my vials.

The mixture turned to gold, bursting into light as it mixed with my blood, instantly turning it into vapor. The glass at the bottom began to melt, but the violent reaction stopped as soon as my blood finished evaporating.

I gingerly put the vial down and started collecting the other ones I’d been using. If the sudden reaction had startled Voltar, he showed no signs of it.

“Angel’s Sorrow,” I concluded. “An uncommon poison. You ran across this recently?”

Which one of my clients had hired Voltar? Or was there a third case?

He inclined his head. “Very recently. My current case, in fact. Not everyone would think of mixing their blood with it, Miss Falara. You’ve handled it before?”

Claim I regularly mixed my blood in as a test or the truth?

“I’ve handled cases of it before. Two, in fact, recent ones. Possibly the same ones you might be investigating yourself, although I doubt we are free to say who our clients are.”

“My client made no statements on such things.”

“That does not mean it wasn’t implied. Are you going to state who it was?”

“Lady Kersin. She did mention hiring an alchemist to help obtain a cure. You, I presume?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” I said.

Let him dig that answer out with his own two hands. He seemed entirely too calm dropping that name, but he traveled in circles much higher than my own. To him Lady Kersin would be minor nobility, whereas traveling down to where I was, nobility was nobility. There are fewer resources at their disposal, yes, but they are still in the stratosphere.

He didn’t seem inclined to pry further into that.

“If you were to prepare it, would there be any difference to your methods? “

I have him a coy grin. “Mr. Voltar! I hope you are not implying what I think you are?”

There was still no change to the somewhat amused look on his face. I’d seen it before, in predators playing with their food. “And what would that be, Ms. Falara?”

I gave him the most scandalized look I could muster. No nerve manipulation this time; simply acting.

“I think you are trying to ferret out if I’m the one who poisoned those two souls,” I said

“And what would you say if I did accuse you of the crime?”

I tapped his cup, and he nodded. I picked it up, taking it over to the sink. I didn’t wash them, not yet. I needed this saliva. It’d be a nasty business I had planned with it, but it's necessary.

“The first is that I lack the resources for it. To begin with, I’d need to employ someone to travel in those circles to poison them. Secondly, I’d have to know there aren’t any other alchemists better placed in the social circles they could trust. The money to fund it and pull it off, the fact I’d need to obtain very rare ingredients for both, would make it a very expensive scam. There are other reasons, but I think the third and most important is you’ll find no evidence of me preparing them, as I have not made a single dose.”

“It seems rather well-reasoned. Did you prepare that little speech in advance after our meeting yesterday, Ms. Falara?”

That was an interesting little nugget. Why would I prepare a speech about not being responsible for poisonings and have no clue he was investigating?

I grinned. “Oh no. I’ve just read so many of Mr. Dawes accounts of your adventures, you might say I have something of an insight into how your mind operates. Where is the good Mr. Dawes, anyway?”

“Handling another matter related to this case. One I must attend to soon myself. Thank you for confirming the sample’s identity Miss. Falara.”

Mr. Voltar grabbed his coat and hat, preparing to leave. I already moved to the door, opening it with a genuine smile. The sooner he was out my door, the better

“Thank you for your time, Ms. Falara. It’s been a very illuminating visit. Before I go, my original question, Ms. Falara? On the preparation?”

“Hrrm. Oh. There couldn’t be a difference. The process of extracting the poison doesn’t really produce a variation, no matter how you do it. The key one was thought to change depending on the method, but I honestly think that’s just silly superstition.”

“And that key ingredient is?”

He knew the answer, I was confident. But there was no reason not to humor him.

“The tears of a divine creature, of course.”