Infernal Investigations

It was afternoon by the time I’d woken up, and not on the same day as I’d swallowed the sedative.

I’d gotten dressed and tried to get used to being in my old body once again. Missing the door knob when trying to open the door and the number of times a hoof had hit something told me it would not be fast. Hopefully, it would be faster than it had taken me to be used to being Katheryn Falara.

It’s what you get for having your other body be such a contrast to your first. The Imp cackled in my head after I’d hit it against a wooden beam.

It’d had a whole slew of comments about both the bodies I picked, most of which I ignored. The Imp also claimed only a day had passed and now wanted three cows for being forced to wait so long with no food at all.

It was getting more insistent, which was not a good sign. I did not need it in a mood to warp my flesh.

I at least confirmed the time passage when I’d put a few coins into a newspaper boy’s hands and gotten it across I wanted to buy one. It was a day later, and at least my exploits only made the second page after a few more noteworthy events. More marches in the Infernal Quarter, including a clash that the newspaper claimed had resulted in a hundred dead, which I doubted. Then a fire at a factory, rumours of war upcoming with the Drakelords in the south, trouble in the colonies in the west, and there halfway down the second page a mention of an Infernal going on a rampage at Lady Karsin’s estate.

No mention of Diabolism. Interesting.

I pulled my hat down to cover more of my face as I walked, sure to keep my empty eye socket as covered as I could. Missing eyes weren’t uncommon, considering how many were survivors of being conscripted, but the less potential linking of me to that incident, the better.

Especially since I needed to head out of the Quarter.

***

It took two hours to get out of the quarter and near to Dawes and Voltar’s residence. I kept myself a respectful distance away, partially because of a desire for no one to see me near there, and partially because it was too crowded to get near.

It was hard to tell what was worse, the crowd of reporters waiting, staring at the front door waiting for a glimpse of the great detective, or the crowd of definitely just everyday laborers and work people who all happened to be taking their breaks right on this street.

At least have some class and wait at the end of the street like I did.

I wasn’t actually on the corner, or hells forbid lurking in a doorway or on top of a roof. All of those were entirely too difficult to pull off in open daylight, so instead, I sat down by the roadway, a crude sign stating my status as a veteran of the underground wars. I glanced down either end of the street as I waited out of geniune nervousness. I wasn’t just selling the illusion of an Infernal dreading the moment she got sent scurrying back to the Quarter for soliciting in a nicer neighborhood.

Even if I was taller as Malvia, larger, an entirely different shade, an altogether different shape of horns, even with all that, an Infernal showing up on Voltar’s doorstep in public view would be too obvious. Especially missing an eye and several fingers. At that point, even Lord Montague would put two and two together regarding who I was.

Well, perhaps I was being paranoid. But after everything that had happened, I did not want burning my identity as Katheryn Falara to go to waste.

You couldn’t guard against everything. I could just hope I’d guarded against enough.

You could count on urchins for a lot of things. Excellent service if you promised payment ahead of time. Generally not being able to read. Knowing to be discreet when paid well. Betraying you when someone else paid even more.

Because of that, the message was pretty innocent as far as messages went. An invitation to dine from Madam Carmelia Rouves to Voltar at a small cafe. I was pretending to be a servant of hers.

I couldn’t hide what I looked like from the urchin, but I could disguise it as being part of something else. A rendezvous between Voltar and his rumored criminal lover would lead people on the wrong track.

If not…well, a paranoid enough mind would always make connections between things. Mine had.

Voltar had an entire network of urchins he relied upon occasionally, so this was a better bet than any other. At a minimum, I was sure the message would reach the detective. He was, despite any of his faults, a very good tipper.

Of course, I hadn’t seen the little gremlin I’d paid off show up at the front door yet. There were other entrances to the house, but I could only keep an eye on one. That and hope I hadn’t wasted eight pennies and a very extensive written explanation about how Voltar would give him ten pounds.

I had company as well, company I was trying very hard not to stare at. Not that his waxy, discolored skin didn’t draw the gaze, but of all the people to run into on this street, this one seemed a coincidence too far.

The front door of the house opened, and a pair of figures emerging from within. I did my best not to stir from my slouch, but those closer perked up.

For a moment, then a call rose from the side of the house.

“They’re coming out the back door!” someone yelled, and immediately half of the group on the street went to the back of the house while the two figures continued out the front door, drawing even more with them.

Ah. Body doubles? Illusions? Either way, it meant even more chances of me not finding the real duo.

“You know, you are being far too cautious about this,” the other Infernal told me.

My head spun around, my hand going for a knife in my coat. The other Infernal winked at me as I drew it out.

“Perhaps don't do that. Like I said, far too cautious. Caution that is perhaps due, but do you know how many one-eyed Infernals missing fingers there are in this city? Too many for you to not just come to the front door and trust a message to the whims of an urchin. Door across the way. Just wait a few minutes first, please.”

With that, he got up and walked across to a modest home across the way, entering as if he owned the place. If he was who I suspected, he probably did.

I gave the door a wary glance. Damnations, how much had I fallen for over the last few days? More than I’d realized.

In for a penny. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice, it was this or wait till nightfall. And even that probably wouldn’t clear out most of those here. I went up to the door, to the indifference of the watchers who had stayed, and tried the handle. Unlocked.

“Miss Harrow! Welcome to my humble abode!” Voltar seemed to be in a cheery mode, seemingly not bothered at all by what had occurred at the tower. He and Dawes were both seated in a front parlor, a pair of teacups and a pot set between them.

Oh, how I’d love a cup, but swallowing without a tongue was begging to choke me.

Baah, no food? Only that flavored water you desire so much.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. The damn thing loved me indulging my love for the drink. It only was upset I didn’t drink something more addictive as often.

I raised a hand in greeting. All I could do outside of making some incomprehensible noise at him.

“It seems that you are still missing a few different things,” he said, gesturing to my eye, then to my half-formed figures.

I shrugged. I retrieved a sheet of paper from inside my coat, on which I’d wrote a brief message.

I need my Biosculpting tools to bring my tongue back. I swallowed what it turned into so that’ll be the easiest to fix. The eye will take more time. Where are my tools?

“Well,” Voltar said after looking at my writing. “I have them, but we never agreed on what the terms of our agreement would be, so I think-”

Dawes’ elbow jabbed into his ribs as I rose from my chair, reaching for a knife.

“Voltar, this is going to be difficult enough to explain without adding that you’re blackmailing Harrow besides bringing her into your latest case,” Dawes said with a scowl. “Please do not make my life any more difficult than you already are.”

Interesting. I knew Dawes had a leash, government-issued, around Voltar’s throat, but it must be a bigger one than I’d assumed. This couldn’t be a regular occurrence either, people would notice if the doctor was ordering around the detective this blatantly.

“Yes, yes,” Voltar said before his face sobered. “We will return them to you, although I’m to understand replacing the fingers and eye will not be easy?”

I resisted the urge to ram my head onto the table. Could he not just give me my tools back so we could talk about this?

I gestured for them to return the piece of paper.

Difficult but not impossible. I’ll need to ingest the working ingredients of those body parts or have them on hand to work with. The chief difficulty is construction, especially with the eye, the second most complex organ in the body. It’ll take the better part of a day to reconstruct one, as opposed to the tongue, which is mostly just muscle. Therefore I’d prefer to start on this now, instead of wasting time.

“We may not have time for you to do that,” Dawes warned. “Your stunt on Lady Karsin’s estates will make things accelerate.”

I glared up at the two of them. It wasn’t exactly my fault that they’d left that as my only escape route.

“She is right about getting this started early,” Voltar said, grabbing the box and sliding it my way.

I snatched it up, took the lid off, and grabbed the three pieces of silver inside. I looked them over, making sure the inscriptions were laid in correctly and that no one had swapped out one of the tools.

For Diabolism, a focus was a tool to aid and help, not a necessity. Complicated workings could be spoiled by errant thoughts or distractions. The more powerful castings could cause a backlash if you were distracted or result in effects you didn’t intend. But the simplest castings could be done without the focus, and more complicated ones as you learn more.

For Biosculpting, you needed tools to make it even possible. Every little working was a complicated adjustment, needing to account for biology and making sure it would stay in place once done. You could work Biosculpting if you wanted to, but it would require large amounts of energy to convince flesh to shift, and the best you could hope for in the aftermath is that it wouldn’t be immediately fatal for whoever you sculpted.

More complex tools improved what you could do, but these three were the cornerstone, each matched to a specific part of what magic called the contingent parts of a person. Mind, soul, and body. Two were to be kept level as you forcibly adjusted the last.

This wouldn’t be too difficult. The parts that had once been my tongue were still inside me, swallowed. I settled the three tools on the table in a triangle, grabbing a knife from the belt and nicking a finger. Drops of blood on each, a chime in my ears for each one I fed.

With it mostly being inside myself, I didn’t need to sacrifice too much. Some additional blood to attune them to me. Time was the main sacrifice, as I took ahold of the magic being emitted and sent it inside myself, searching in my gut.

They found the contingent pieces scattered through my digestive process, and the first step was removing them from parts they’d become enmeshed or absorbed into, from entire chunks to the smallest bits and pieces. The Diabolism that had turned my tongue liquid had dissolved it into constituent chemicals, so for most of this I could only hope I was correct and I wasn’t wrecking my digestion to make a replacement.

I was reasonably sure. You were taught first as a Biosculptor to keep track of your own body, the constituent parts and the exact quantities within. Of course, I’d been going through five years of wear and tear with these constituent parts in different configurations, but best not to think too hard about that.

I slowly built it piece by piece, using the magic to drag constituent parts up my throat and assemble them into muscles, glands, and epithelium. I slowly put them into place, assembling at a snail’s pace inside my mouth.

Over the next hour, I reconstituted my tongue a little piece by piece, building it up, spilling more blood as necessary as Voltar and Dawes watched and drank tea. Occasionally, one left, but not both.

After reassembling it and scouring my body for any hints of missing pieces, I released the magic. I took a breath.

Immediately, I started coughing.

“Everything alright?” Dawes asked me.

“Yes, yes,” I said drily, waving them off. “It’s just…euggh. Reconstituting my tongue doesn’t exactly make for a pleasant taste. Or do wonders for my throat. Do either of you have any food? Or perhaps some tea?”

The two traded glances, and then Dawes felt around in the pockets of his coat.

“Bit of salted pork and some bread crust?” He offered. “We drank all the tea.”

Of course they had. I took the offered food.

Soldier’s rations, but I’d take anything in my mouth besides the taste of reconstituting flesh. I devoured both, which were gone far too fast, but the taste was…not gone, but at least my mouth didn’t taste of that. They also found me some water, which did wonders for my throat even if it was not tea.

“Thank you, doctor,” I told him. “You would not believe what the taste of one’s tongue is like. You! How the hell does that disguise work?”

Voltar smiled. “What disguise?”

I glared and decided that wasn’t worth pursuing. “What was the plan going forward from this? Since you’ve decided my offer was worth taking?”

“Well, the first step would be sharing information. As you might guess, I have a better idea of your last few days than you might have thought, but I may have missed something. A full account, please?”

Ah yes, right after I’d dragged my tongue up through my throat, I needed to talk extensively. Brilliant. I left little out of my account, mostly the visit to Arsene and anything involving Tolman being played down a bit. He did not need to know of their connection to Versalicci for now. Dawes left partway through, talking about paying the urchin for the message and also seeing how much of the watcher’s brigade outside the house down the road was left.

“An interesting few days you’ve had, outside of a few falsehoods, but nothing I didn’t know already. I’d prefer this started with being truthful with each other.”

“And I’d prefer you didn’t leave me in the dark till the last possible moment on us being in this together to any degree, Voltar. Did you even have a plan if I didn’t start using Diabolism?”

“That is fair. I did have alternatives, but you are here, and just in time for one lead that needs to be pursued, and you are best suited for it.”

I knew this would come up. It was impossible for it not to come up.

“If either you or Dawes can guarantee I’ll come out of meeting him alive, I’ll be happy to go ask. If not, you’re the Empire’s greatest detective. You can figure another way out.”

Voltar raised an eyebrow. “So soon into our partnership and already trying to fob off what you’d bring to the table onto us? Poor form.”

“I am not bringing a relationship with the Black Flame to the table,” I said. “I bring animosity, at best. I left. I left in a way where Versalicci is unlikely to feel kindly towards me afterward, considering I robbed him and then deserted him in his time of greatest need. Most of the old guard he still has would feel even worse about me, considering only a few of them are in it for the criminal part. Golvar, sad as it is to say, will probably end up being the nicest because he saw the Black Flame as criminal enterprise first, revolutionary organization second.”

“That’s ignoring a few things,” Voltar said. “You bring a certain relationship to Versalicci. He’s not likely to turn his back on.”

My tone turned chilly. “Those kinds of betrayals are among the worst, Voltar. Take it from one who suffered from them. That makes him even less likely not to cut me up.”

“Not everyone is you,” Voltar replied. “Versalicci is a pragmatic sort. He will not turn his back on a connection because of what would be a relatively minor betrayal at the end of something.”

“I….” I paused. Several people had fed me the same advice, and I kept on rejecting it. And I could hardly say I knew better. Hells, these last few days had proven I did not.

“He won’t kill you. Ignoring the personal feelings involved, he still thinks of you as useful. He also hasn’t taken revenge on you yet, and while you’re right about how Versalicci treats traitors, five years are pushing the boundaries of when to do that. If he needs to maintain his authority, he would have done it sooner.”

“He’s likely not told anyone outside of his little inner circle,” I said. “No need for the rank and file to know. No immediate thoughts of defiance. Hells, if you’re right and he wants me alive, best that way. Which will make this a little easier.”

“We agree then?”

I sighed. “I’ll do it. No promises about what I’ll get. And I do not like doing this after the hell that was yesterday. I’m already going into a snake’s den at your hands. For a second time, arguably.”

“True. Let me not ask anything else of you then. What do you have to ask me?”

The truth to this entire thing? Then again, if he knew everything, I wouldn’t be heading to Versalicci’s. I should start somewhere small.

“The warehouse?” I asked.

“Emptied by the time myself and Dawes got there, and for the Watch as well if my old contacts haven’t turned on me. Magic is likely involved beyond even the abilities you described, which bear a resemblance to a specific magical creature.”

“Shape-changers,” I said. “It’s one of the few things that makes sense. Except it doesn’t because why this?”

‘This’ could have referred to many numbers of things, but Voltar seemed to catch on.

“Motivation is one of the bigger unknowns at the moment. I can say that Shape-changers haven’t operated in these parts for nearly a half-century. Of course, that’s the official history’s stance, but if they were careful, no one would know. I’ve known a couple, but they don’t work around here, and I could hardly see them doing something like this.”

“So, just another mystery instead of an answer,” I said.

“Most mysteries are like that. Threads are at odds until you connect them. There are, of course, the victims, Edward Montague and Desmond Karsin. Heirs to two royal houses that seem to be opposite to each other but with closing ties. One is old nobility with significant soft power led by a hidebound traditionalist who has fathered many children yet is often at odds with them and is perhaps not the most personable. The other is led by a socially adroit, non-human in a country where nobility often is not that, has an adopted child, and has strong economic power. They seem quite an odd pick of victims, especially since the intent may not have been to kill.”

“That’s assuming the people pulling the strings to have me craft the cure were the same as the ones trying to kill them,” I noted.

“Yes, and while timing leads me to suspect as such, one can never assume for certain until you establish all the facts. And all the players accounted for.”

And we certainly had plenty of those running around. “Nobles. You. Me. Black Flame. The Watch, tangentially. The Pure-Bloods.”

“The Pure-bloods are one of the more interesting threads at the moment and are what I will pursue next,”

“The Pure-bloods? I don’t think it’s that deep. Someone hired them to take the box from Golvar, and since then they’ve come after me out of revenge for dead comrades. Mind you, they had to spend coin to find out I was even involved, but I’ve seen people do more for less for revenge.”

“I disagree. Let us take your statement earlier about the Black Flame. The membership is split between those who see it as a gang and those who see it as a political movement. That is by design, since it’s part of how Versalicci maintains loyalty, but at its core, you believe it is a criminal enterprise. Ah, Dawes!”

The doctor had come back, carrying a fresh pot with tea in it, the smell immediately perking me up.

“You like tea, Miss Harrow?” Dawes asked.

“I prefer a cup now and then,” I answered. “I wouldn’t say I feel strongly about it.”

The Imp started cackling inside my head.

“It’s just your tail is…” the doctor hesitated.

“Wagging,” Voltar said.

The Imp was howling now with laughter as I deliberately held my head still. And my tail, frozen mid-swing. The hells, I hadn’t done anything like this since I was ten!

“Involuntary muscle spasms caused by the recent changing of my body back,” I blurted.

“Ah, well, that’s a shame because putting our good china at risk is something I cannot abide, so perhaps you’ll have to go without-”

“Your china will be fine,” I said, glaring at him. “You were talking about the Pure Bloods?”

I accepted a cup from Dawes, taking a deep and delighted sip while Voltar went back to his point.

“The balance between ideology and profit. Versalicci’s group is quite the exception to this in how he operates because he attempted something radical and recruited for it. Most groups, while they make for nice bindings of members, there are other groups for them to join if political beliefs are their primary focus. So would be the case for the Pure Bloods, especially given their small size. Small, weak groups are not ones to be so brazen about their politics, or they meet quick, messy ends.”

I deliberately paced myself as I drained the cup, not following the example of that tea-gulping lunatic Gregory. “I’ll admit to little experience with the group, but you could be right.”

“I didn’t pay them any mind either,” Voltar said. “Small-time docks gang, involved in smuggling and protection racket, and a bit of a reputation for brutality, all of which I learned from Dawes.”

“I sometimes do charity work in districts closer to the house,” Dawes explained. “I’ve patched up some of their victims in the past. The description was of a bunch of close-minded thugs with a racket and some standards enforced by their founder before he choked to death on his own fist. He couldn’t control his mouth around a half-ogre about their ‘nature’, and the half-ogre took offense. And never got a scratch on her in return. Until yesterday. They dredged her body from inside the Nover.”

Probably from on top of the Nover, given the season and the river’s resemblance to a sludge pudding instead of a body of water.

“Sounds like a fitting end. For the gang boss, I mean. I think I see the bones of what you’re laying down. Their behavior. Sure, it sounds like they didn’t think well of other races, but getting hired to ambush and knife a Black Flame member is a bit out of their wheelhouse.”

“Far out of their wheelhouse,” Voltar added. “The watch found the bodies of four more members in the tunnels a day after their fight with you and Golvar. All indications are Golvar was the one who knifed them.”

“I said probably,” Dawes interjected. “The wounds match the blade, but anything more than that is conjecture.”

“Nonsense. He’s exactly the right height and build for where those knife wounds were, and-“

“Pardon,” I said. “But we’re a little off track. I think I see the pattern being reached here. They’re doing things far too big for their britches, and with resources they shouldn’t have. They don’t sound big enough to have a mage. Certainly not big enough to throw their weight around with the Delver Guilds.”

“That is interesting. I did not know before your account of the case, and it seems like a major overreach.”

“You didn’t know?” I asked. They had visited, and it seemed strange for him not to have ferreted such things out.

“The guild master seemed off-balance when I visited, but that appeared to be more because of recent tragedies within his own guild than anything else. I also kept my visit there short. You have not been the only one spending the last few days running about.”

“Well, not only have they been putting pressure on the guild, they’ve been approaching nobles, asking for funds, patronage. Bluntly, from the sounds of it, and not successfully. Most nobles have other horses they can back in that race.”

“Oh, that’s true, but not every noble is intelligent enough to realize they have that other horse. Or perhaps they know that such a group of individuals is more easily controlled than a broader movement.”

Ah. Of course.

“They’ve found themselves a patron,” I said. “One strong enough they feel like they can take on Versalicci. One who is paying enough that they can expand their ranks and hire better talent. And that same patron either is a Shape-changer, or also has a grip on them as well.”