Infernal Investigations

The walk back from the hanging bodies was only fifty feet to round the corner of the manor. It felt close to ten times that as I walked, the wind picking up. It carried a chilling bite that bit down to the bone. My hooves nervously clopped along the cobbles of the road at an uneven pace. There were Watch on both sides, several within sight of me, and I still had enough magic to rot any shapeshifter I spotted till I could escape.

It didn’t stop me from trying to hurry up my pace even as my leg throbbed in protest. I still needed to examine it myself, see how bad the break had been. It had looked horrible on the floor of the manor, but it didn’t feel anywhere near that bad.

An unwanted thought crept in my head at that thought. The Diabolism I’d ran through my leg to be able to move may have burnt out nerves, necrotized flesh. The reason it might not hurt might be because I was walking on a dead leg.

I did my best not to think about that.

I was near the corner now, nodding to the Watch as I passed.

Guests were gathered in the front, most of them lying down, a few upright. Their servants were in their own section. A third where the wounded were being treated by a couple of doctors. One of them had probably splinted my leg. A loose perimeter of Watch around them all, keeping anyone from leaving. I moved in, waving to them.

“From Captain Malstein,” I said. “I might leave with a few others if that’s alright?”

I didn’t spot any familiar faces; the three nearest me traded glances.

“Not outside the estate,” One of them replied, and I nodded before limping past.

Gregory Montague was talking to his brother Henry, and I limped over there first. No sign of either Dawes or Tagashin disguised as Voltar.

“Malvia,” Gregory called out. “I don’t suppose you can get me out of here?”

“I can,” I said. “Don’t know if it’s the best place to be for right now. They’re keeping everyone here?”

“Until they’re certain whose a shapechanger and who isn’t.”

“We do have an idea for the test,” I said back to Gregory. “Albeit one I don’t think is going to work for more than a few people.”

“We are not stabbing people,” he said. “Just think of how that’ll look in the papers if it came out there was a series of stabbings at one of my family’s parties. The scandal!”

“I don’t need to stab someone for it to work,” I said. “Just need to apply it to skin. But again, we don’t have too much of the paralytic. Have they found that assistant cook who arranged for the carriages, Dalian?”

“Not accounted for yet,” Gregory said. “They’re still searching the manor, and they’ve found eight bodies so far, besides the dead in the ballroom. None of them are him.”

“Well, he’s either made his escape or is trying to experience life with a slit throat,” I said.

“Unpleasant but probably true,” Henry Montague said. “Dalian has never seemed disloyal in the time I’ve known him, but I’ve been gone for a while. Gregory?”

Gregory was lost in thought for a moment. “His wife died. He had children, but I saw less of them after she passed. Maybe they’ve been kidnapped?”

“If they were, they’re probably dead now,” I muttered. I’d been looking over the three groups: guests, servants, and wounded. There was a group missing. I needed to-

“There she is! One of the Black Flame members!”

One of the young noblewomen who’d grabbed my tail pointed at me, the statement delivered at a shriek that rang through my ears.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked while every head within fifty feet turned my way.

“She’s got the same tattoo as the others. She’s one of them!” One of the younger nobles insisted.

“I fought them,” I snarled back. “And this is not the same tattoo. You go back into that ballroom, and you’ll find rough work with needles. This was cut precisely into skin and beyond it. Does anyone need me to carve my skin off with a knife so you can see this pattern carved into my bones?”

That didn’t make any of them back off, and I was far too aware of how much my splint limited me all of a sudden.

“Hold on folks,” Henry Montague said. “I can’t speak to the young lady’s allegiances, but she did help fight off that attack. I wasn’t the only one who saw. Mrs. Xang?”

There was some demon down in hell dedicated to making my path be forcibly intersected. At least it was only Aunt Diwei standing nearby who looked my way and, to my astonishment, bowed in my direction.

“Lord Montague speaks the truth,” she said stiffly as she straightened back up. “This one resisted the taint in her blood to fight those who could not. A credit to her triumphing over the influence of her race.”

It was tempting to tell my aunt exactly what I thought of her compliment, especially the phrasing, but I swallowed that. Do not make things worse Malvia.

“Thank you for the compliment, Mrs. Xang,” I said, matching her bow.

Aunt Diwei’s eyes narrowed just a tad. Shite. I’d done the bow too well, hadn’t I? Of course actually being nice to her had made her question if that movement was too practiced. She’s been one of the ones to drill it in me after the age of eight after all.

“I must confess my part,” Gregory Montague said. “You all know how I tend to get myself into sticky situations. Well, there was a genuine concern with one of the later ones that someone might try to kill me, so I hired someone recommended as my bodyguard. I’ll not lie. Some of it was for other reasons besides her abilities.”

That got both disapproving looks and chuckles, which I did my best to ignore as attention went off us again, and I resumed our discussion.

“A quick question for the both of you. The band your father hired, do you see any of them?”

Both of them stilled, and I bit down on my tongue. Gregory I got to an extent, but I was hoping an army officer would have the wherewithal to not look pole-axed for everyone to see.

“Do not start running through the guests, trying to spot them,” I warned. “The last thing we need is tipping any changers off. The Watch has done counts?”

“As best as they could,” Henry Montague said. “There was a count, but well, we don’t have a full list.”

“Of the guests?” I frowned as I considered the implications of that.

“The guests. The outside help. The guards were tracked but that’s because he was paying them for time not spent guarding the archives.”

“Count on Father to keep track of it when money is involved.”

“Count on Father to keep track of everything but us,” a new voice said as a stranger walked up to us.

A young brunette woman in an evening dress walked up behind us.

“Elise, I see you’ve finally left your beau for the evening,” Gregory said.

“Elise. You’re the one who got caught making out with someone in your brother’s sick room, correct?” I asked.

Elise Montague’s smile faded just a little, irritation creeping into her eyes.

“Yes,” she replied. “That was me. To father’s eternal disgust. I suppose I should thank whoever attacked the party tonight that I actually got a chance to leave the manor. If father had his way, I’d be stuck there till he found someone more suitable for me to marry.”

“Oh please Elise,” Gregory said with a chuckle. “You weren’t going to marry him. If you were, you would have picked an empty room instead of choosing to lock lips over William. You know how easy it is to rouse him before he got poisoned.”

“As opposed to you who tried the same within full view of the entire party?” She spat back and I suddenly became very interested in the texture of the cobbles underneath my hooves.

“Now, that was all Miss Harrows idea,” Gregory said, and I started considering if I could pull off the one-legged kick then collapse again like I had with Voltar.

“Maybe we should focus on the possible loose band of shapechangers and not who bears responsibility for certain actions tonight?” I asked looking up and pretending not to see a few different smirks. “Their carriage would be near the same servant’s entrance as before?”

“It shouldn’t be anywhere else,” Gregory said as I led us past the cordon of Watch, quickly arranging our passage through, reluctantly adding Henry and Elise to those I’d planned to take through. “Then again, tonight has been a night of things not being where they should be.”

“That it has. Miss and Captain Montague, before we go any further, I don’t suppose either of you are a secret mage of some kind? Just in case we are about to stumble across a group of changers.”

Both Henry and Elise looked at me in mild bemusement while Gregory rolled his eyes.

“I may not have mentioned my religious affiliation to Miss Harrow when we first met,” Gregory confided in the other two. “So she might be suspicious of all of us as a result.”

Elise Montague rolled her eyes. “It just slipped your mind like so many things do, don’t they brother?”

“In my defense, during our first meeting, I was on my back with her on top,” Gregory said lightly. “A saber pressed against one’s throat tends to make one’s mind blank on important details. As well as other thoughts trying to crowd them out.”

Wait. Had he just-?

Elise frowned. “One moment. I thought that was the one father accused of poisoning William? Katheryn Falara?”

All three of them were now looking at me, Gregory sheepishly and his two siblings searchingly.

“I just want to make clear,” I said as calmly as I could, some bite leaking through into my words. “I have outlined, multiple times, why me poisoning your brother is possibly the stupidest possible thing I could do. Your father, with as little offense intended as possible, has refused to listen at every opportunity.”

“That sounds pretty insulting even with as little offense as possible,” Elise noted.

“And something being moronic is hardly a defense,” Henry added. “Some of my superiors more notorious designs were utter stupidity but they still made them.”

“Not to mention some of your defenses have been maybe a touch on the ‘it would be inefficient to kill him this way’ side,” Gregory finished.

Was he joining in on this? “I have no incentive, no way of having done so, on top of which, in a case where shapechangers are clearly involved, is any evidence your father was given even slightly solid?”

The three siblings traded a look between them I couldn’t decipher.

“Oh definitely not,” Gregory told me. “In all honesty I think pretending you weren’t Falara is just silly.”

“Father’s never been the best at getting things right with people he looks down on,” Elise added. “Which you qualify for in several different categories.”

I looked at Henry Montague, who simply shrugged.

“I got here yesterday. I’ll take these two’s word that you didn’t poison William. That is what you two think right?”

“She would, but she doesn’t have a need to,” Gregory said.

“I wasn’t going to be that harsh,” Elise said with a mildly reproving look at her brother. “Miss Harrow seems a bit rough around the edges, but I don’t see any reason why she’d poison William. And you know how father is when someone puts an idea in his head.”

Gregory hadn’t been wrong, but I kept my mouth closed for now. Instead I continued onwards to the wagons and carriages along the side of the manor.

Watch patrols moved among those now, many of them with doors flung open. Dead Infernals lay scattered across the ground leading to the manor side entrance. I limped past, waiting for the Montagues to pass by and direct me to the band’s carriage.

It was a large wagon, more rustic than I expected for them, the wooden door set in it’s side locked tight. A few minutes with some tools fixed that, and I opened the door.

Inside were scattered instruments, some clearly damaged from the lack of care they’d been tossed around with, and the clothing the band had worn earlier, empty and with their owners nowhere in sight.

“Interesting,” I said, looking among the scattered clothing of the disappeared band. “Only two, hells only one that we can prove went after your brother. But easily a dozen could have been here as the band. Two of them maybe went to lock up Voltar and Dawes, then went off as me and Gregory...and did what? If anyone witnessed it, they’d have mentioned it by now, and we can ask if anyone saw us in the manor while we were fighting on the roof. So that’s four accounted for? Out of twelve?”

“Was it even Hawkins who killed Calab?” Gregory asked.

“Maybe, maybe not, but that’s beside the point. This should have been easy. I don’t know what your father has on that third floor, but it was sufficient to engage one changer but not enough to stop Hawkins from escaping.”

“Do you know there were only two on the third floor?” Henry asked. “You and Gregory mentioned being on the ceiling, so how much of the third floor could you have seen?”

I paused, considering that. “Right. Can’t leap to assumptions. I only saw what looked like two peering down the chimney. But there could have been more on the third floor. But the waltz was coming to an end when the assault from the fake Black Flame began? And the screams from the third floor started when that ended. A few minutes at most. Enough time for all twelve to come here and shuck their clothes, then make it to the third floor unobserved?”

Everyone remained quiet for a bit, thinking it over.

“Considering what Hawkins could turn into,” Gregory said. “Its not entirely impossible.”

“Not entirely, but very unlikely,” I said. “And this is ignoring how lax your father was. Outside help was brought in. No guards along the outside perimeter. Placed in isolated rooms. If they’d been patrolling outside instead of spread out in packets along the rooms, less chance of this. Individually, many of these don’t seem too suspicious, but added together.”

Three displeased faces looked at my own.

“While I am generally for anything that inconveniences him, you are not stabbing my father,” Gregory said.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, yes, I get that.”

“I don’t think you do,” Gregory continued. “I’m not particularly fond of the old man, but you are not harming him.”

The other two didn’t disagree, either verbally or with their expressions. Fine, it wasn’t what I aimed for anyway.

“Perhaps this night was a recon in force,” Henry Montague offered. “If they wanted to test the defenses, get the lay of the land.”

“Maybe,” I conceded. “If they gave up on replacing your brother. It doesn’t explain your father’s actions, though.”

“There’s been no personality shift,” Gregory said.

“I don’t think he’s a Changer,” I said. “If anything, a Changer wouldn’t need to be sloppy. Just leave a window open somewhere, and don’t post guards near it. Done. No. I’m not sure why yet, but we’ve discussed before when his behavior changed.”

“You think he found something in the archives.”

“I suspect so,” I said. “Something’s changed. Something that resulted in tonight being allowed to happen. This should have been far worse than it was. A dozen shape-changers on the loose? All of them were presumably as capable as Hawkins was. Yet, instead, they leave. Why?”

Gregory was frowning, thinking. His two siblings seem less convinced.

“Do you think the answer to that is in the Archives?” Henry asked.

“Not all of it. Some of it? Maybe. Because what I have besides that are leads I can’t be sure go any deeper than the surface or people to interrogate who might not tell the truth.”

“The archives are massive,” Elise said. “Thousands of books. It would take lifetimes to read all of them, and if Father has removed any relevant volumes, they won’t be there at all.”

“That depends, is there a record kept of the books removed or looked through?”

All three traded a look again, and I leaned against one side of the wagon, taking some weight off my splinted leg as I considered all of them.

“Listen. Whatever else, we might get some answers. An end to this. Because it’s entirely likely your father deliberately put not just you but your brother William in harm's way tonight. So. Are you willing to help me find them, or will I need to try this on my own?”

The look between them lingered a little longer before Henry spoke up first.

“There is a record, and we can help. Maybe. What did you have in mind?”