Infernal Investigations

“Why?” was the first word out of my mouth, followed swiftly by a host of others. “And don’t say I cannot know. If you want me to set foot anywhere near that man, I’m going to need more than your say-so, Voltar.”

“Which man would that be, the father or the son?” he asked with a smirk on his face.

“The father,” I deadpanned. “If you put a sufficiently voluptuous and willing woman in front of him, he would not notice a dagger going through his throat.”

The smirk deepened. “I would underestimate Gregory Montague at your own peril.”

“After this I’m going to go about assuming anyone who spends over two seconds talking with me is a demon, Imperial Intelligence, or an archmage,” I said. “It’ll save me from being horribly surprised later. Can you at least tell me what his little secret is?”

“No, that would be rude, since it’s not relevant. But on why we are going to the Montagues, there are a few unanswered questions about his lordship’s involvement in this. Him being the culprit seems unlikely, but it would not hurt to make sure. And also to make sure your involvement in his son’s cure hasn’t made him disregard your instructions on administering it.”

That seemed reasonable enough. Except for one little detail. “And I’m coming along because?”

“Because I want a second pair of eyes in there with me and Dawes will still be busy come tomorrow. Also, because I want you to look at the boy and make sure it’s only Angel’s Sorrow he has.”

I frowned. I’d done several tests on the blood samples Lord Montague had been cajoled into providing before our meeting, and each of them had turned up negative for any alchemical substance except for Angel’s Sorrow.

“You suspect another poison is in play?” I asked.

“I suspect something else must be going on. This is a very expensive, very slow-acting poison that has very few advantages. There’s a reason it’s creators devised it when searching to find a way to test morality, not a tool of murder originally.”

“You don’t need to give me a lecture on its origins,” I said. “We’d be talking a slow poison, to still be active. That might explain Karsin’s sudden vomiting at the party.”

“Or perhaps another substance. A poison isn’t the only possibility.”

“The question of why comes up, though,” I said. “If the Angel’s Sorrow is intended to mask the other poison, they would need similar symptoms, but the only symptoms that overlap can be mimicked by cheaper, more effective poisons. I can check. What time do you wish to visit him?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“That soon?” I asked.

“Technically this morning, by now. We should leave at nine by the latest.”

The clock sitting on the wall had the time at five minutes till one, and I wouldn’t doubt its veracity if Voltar owned it.

“It’ll take me three hours to reconstruct my eye, probably longer. And who knows how long it’ll take to make sure those rocks aren’t the result of a basilisk?”

“Sounds like a busy morning,” Voltar said, and gave me an apologetic grin. “I’d stay up to help, but as I am currently the one who didn’t get to sleep last night, I think it should be your turn.”

***

My eye itched.

I should be grateful that the newly constructed organ only itched as opposed to any of the other sensations that could be running through it after being reconstructed from scratch. Still, the persistent annoyance running through it had been frustrating me over the last couple of hours.

As far as I could tell, there were no issues with its performance, I’d gotten it reconstructed in only a few hours, and I hadn’t accidentally torn anything out of my body while grabbing the components I’d consumed to form the eye. The most painful part had been eating those base components to begin with.

Still, the irritation nagged at me, especially considering how much my current work depended on it. Knowing I’d be getting a bare minimum of sleep afterward didn’t help. Nor did the dull ache in both of my eyes from the lack of sleep.

“Looks like you’re almost finished,” Voltar said right behind me.

The shock did little to dispel my lethargy as I turned to look at him.

The detective was dressed in a robe and had a fresh cup of what smelled like coffee in his hands, clearly to help keep him up since he’d gone for a shorter sleep.

His remark was regarding my current work, which was nearly finished. A half-assembled arm of stone lay on the table, joined by some cheap adhesive just to keep it in one piece. Chunks were missing, enough that in some places you could see through the middle of the arm, but enough was left to leave it unmistakable. I’d only kept working to make absolutely sure, or maybe I’d just lost track of time as I reassembled.

“Your basilisk hypothesis became much more likely,” Voltar said, looking over the reassembled arm.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to get some measure of consciousness back. “I’d say this confirms it.”

“Assume nothing. There’s a few other options but the possibility of them being correct is so minute you are probably correct. You’re more of a Delver than me or Dawes. How would you kill such a beast?”

“I’m not much of a Delver, but I can tell you the general idea for fighting a basilisk is don’t. They’d be enough of a terror if they could just petrify with a glance, but they are also giant lizards that can bite through stone who you have to fight blind. Delver’s Guilds would be the best option to handle it. They’ve already been having issues with it.”

Voltar grimaced. “I hardly have enough money to hire a team of Delvers.”

“Well, my only contact among them doesn’t know Malvia Harrow, and was already mad at me over the amount of people interested in knowing who Katheryn Falara was, so I can’t do much about that either. I’d be a stranger approaching them.”

“I can see what my contacts among the Watch make of this after we visit Montague,” Voltar said. “Although if no more cases of Angel’s Sorrow poisoning occur over the next few weeks, interest will wane fast in hunting a monster under the city.”

“I know at least one person among the Watch who's interested, but I can’t speak to the quality of his unit. For the guilds, they’ve already lost people to the basilisk so they may not be a hard sell. We might need something more concrete, but it’s worth a shot.”

Voltar mused for a few seconds before replying.

“Perhaps, but not anytime soon. We have the Montagues, then the Pure Bloods hideout to handle first. Leads from those might end up serving us better, and frankly, I’ll take that over the Underground. Even if there’s a general area they know the Basilisk is in, it could mean potentially weeks of searching if we don’t have the help of the Watch.”

That was true. Even small areas of the Underground were extensive warrens of tunnels and caverns, where you could spend an entire day in a cubic mile and not retrace your steps once.

“And if we find no more leads running through the next few days?” I asked.

“Then the hard work begins. But enough on that.” Voltar gestured towards the clock on the wall, which I only belatedly realized had its hour hand pointing straight down.

“Might be best for you to get a few hours of sleep before our departure.”

***

Two and a half hours of sleep was too small a period to get some sleep in, and the half hour I’d gotten ready in seemed too short as well, but I’d eventually made it into the carriage.

The jostling motion of that helped me stay awake, for once the poor maintenance of the city’s eternally damnable roads doing something good for once in their existence.

“I maybe should have rescheduled,” Voltar noted. “Your head is wobbling like a horse has kicked you.”

“You say that like you have experience,” I said. “I’ll be fine. Just give me a few more minutes. If I keep nodding off, I’ve got a chemical solution I can fashion on the fly. Besides, how much experience do you have getting kicked in the head by a horse?”

“Too much, far too much. One would think when wrestling with a criminal, his livestock would have the decency not to interfere in it, although the horse later assured me it had been aiming for Krawlen’s face.”

It took me a while to place that. “The Case of the…what did Dawes title it? The Chimera Horror? The one where you worked with those druids against an insane Biosculptor.”

“It seems like Biosculptors are made insane,” Voltar observed. “Present company excluded.”

“It helps when you specialize in the human form and repairing or cosmetically altering it,” I said. “And a few other tricks, most of which I removed when I reverted. Still debating if I should put those back in, to be honest. They’re a good crutch, but at the end of the day they’re still a crutch.”

“You read Dawes’ write-ups of our stories, then?” Voltar asked. “I never got the impression from the past you were particularly fond of either of us.”

“I don’t like being caught up in messes,” I said. “That’s what Falara was supposed to be, a way to not get involved in every little thing. And no offense, but a lot of the people who help you out in your stories die.”

Voltar snorted. “Oh, those? Most of them are still alive. Dawes’ just adds them because he and his editor think it heightens the dramatic tension.”

“You jest.”

“I do not! He’s actually killed poor Victor three times, each time under a different name. I think only the royalty money has prevented those two from coming to blows.”

I laughed. “Well, I will say they heighten the tension some when they aren’t every book. He’s a good writer. And I read them religiously, if only to find out when you finally handle Versalicci.”

Voltar’s expression darkened.

“One of these days, yes. But hopefully Dawes can hear your compliment himself. That and you removing those tethers on your face makes me feel a little bad about this next bit. I need you to fully be Malvia Harrow while we are there, in order to keep any suspicions at bay.”

I grimaced. “That’s..a difficult thing to ask. For a few reasons.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard and put Versalicci’s entire mask spiel to use a few times by now.”

“Some masks are easier to wear than others. One mask is closer to who I consider myself than the other,” I said. “I’d prefer to wear it as opposed to the one you’re suggesting because I don’t like putting myself back in that mindset.”

Voltar blinked. “You mean to tell me you consider your true self to be a refined, well-spoken, quick-talking, usually polite young lady who may as well have stepped out of one of the many examples of adventure or romance literature published here in the hundreds per year? And not a ruthless, quiet, blunt alchemical torturer, devil-summoning diabolist, and biosculpting gang member?”

“Some people like to aspire to something. It’s who I’d like to be,” I replied. “And yes, I consider the former truer to myself than the latter.”

He started laughing. I lost my temper. A hoof lashed out.

A few minutes later, silence reigned in the carriage.

His voice had a heavy edge of pain and strain to it as he spoke first. “I suppose, in the end, I may have deserved that.”

“You did,” I said. “Potion helping some?”

“A little. I’m surprised I’m able to speak as well as I am.”

“That’s the potion helping. You’ll not want to do any strenuous activity for the next day. Any friends of a special nature should refrain from intimate encounters to avoid any permanent damage.”

“I’ll do my best to inform them.”

The carriage came to a sudden halt, and I spared a glance outside and was confronted with a gigantic townhouse, four stories tall with the usual displays of noble, grandiose decorations. Marble pillars and a full sculpture of a dragon on the rooftop? Definitely built before Draconic species started coming here. They’d made it pretty clear what they thought of humans claiming dragons as part of their coat of arms or sigils.

It reminded me of the dead drake whose corpse I had harvested for the cure. Another loose thread to possibly examine. But there wasn’t time for that now.

Time to go see the Montagues.