Infernal Investigations

The streets of Avernon were better than any signpost.

Even going by in a stagecoach at a speed of just below, avoiding a crash, you could always tell what part of the city you were in by the streets and those who walked in them. Some districts blended, some didn't, but even when the architecture and general state of the district failed, you could tell by just seeing what the majority was walking the street.

If you asked your average upstanding citizen of the empire, especially those who benefited the most from it, they would tell you no one had set out to make sure most races were concentrated in a single district, except Infernals of course, as penance and precaution after Her Most Infernal Majesty had carved a bloody furrow into history by killing anyone who didn't trace their ancestry to the Hells.

But regardless of any overt intent, there was no hiding how some had been herded away from others. Shoulders got rubbed, especially in the industrial districts where the demand for more people drew everyone in, but in the residential areas it was much less mixed.

Where are we currently? Halten, where ears are round, skin is pale, and good Anglean citizens were the rule. Which meant as I stared out the carriage, my skin itched from a new symbol of Halspus every block. Sometimes enough of them made the signal it felt like a deep scratch, or a cut with a nail.

It did keep my mind off what we were racing towards.

Two more dead, snuffed out overnight.

Barnes had been sparse on the details before we'd taken off for the first crime scene. The two had been ambushed far from their churches, and both were trying to lay low, it sounded like. Both killings had involved numerous casualties, either bystanders or guardians of the deceased. One had no witnesses left, another with quite a few left. In both cases, separate groups had desecrated the churches.

Most important to me was the names of the dead victims' deities.

Gallock and Kersov, both of whom had only one name on Harper's list. If you assumed the list was accurate, then both of them would have been natural next targets.

Voltar had that list. Had it not been passed on to his brother fast enough to arrange protection for either of them? Or had they chosen not to protect these two for their own reasons?

Ridiculous to think, but on one side, we had the Imperial government, in the seat of their power, all the power at their command. At the other end, some rogue diabolists, devils, and at least one talent who stood above the rest. But not even a single skilled diabolist could hold against the entirety of the Empire if it came crashing down on her. Yet they were winning.

Gregory cleared his throat, drawing my attention to the inside of the carriage.

"So," Gregory said, looking between me and Melissa. "I take it this is not part of your plan then? Having to deal with more deaths?"

Alice and Tolman had both chosen not to come with us, choosing discretion over valor when it came to being near Gallaspie. Probably the others as well, but I could hardly blame them for wanting to keep away from the soul-spiker. Melissa had outright refused to stay behind.

"Why are you looking at me?" Melissa asked Gregory irritably. "It's her wild ride we're all on at the moment."

It was tempting to remind her that she had signed up for this 'wild ride', but best not to poke the bear. Melissa, along with Alice, was one of the ones who was accompanying me reluctantly at best, a reluctance sure to grow as my dealings with our half-brother continued throughout the day. I still had no idea how to break that bond, but keeping her away from him for as long as possible was a decent first step.

"No, it's not part of my plan," I said, fully taking my attention off the street, almost missing yet another symbol of Halspus traced in the air. Ouch. "While I doubted the status quo would continue, I hoped that the pause in the killings would continue. Instead, we're stuck at halfway to the ritual complete. Far too close."

The moment we'd found out the ultimate goal any deaths should have been far too close, but instead here we were at halfway. Maybe. It depended on if they had any replacements for the two we'd seized.

If the ritual was impossible to complete, I imagine they would have stopped, instead of deciding to go after even more priests, taking on even more risk. But did the ones carrying out the killings know about that?

Too many questions.

"Two killings in such a short period might be desperation," Gregory said. "The last time, it led to some of them getting sloppy."

"The ones who got sloppy weren't ones on the level of the main killer," I reminded him. "The one who stormed the main church of Baltaren? Sloppiness can only help so much against her."

"Almost there," Barnes' voice said inside the carriage, making Melissa's hand go to a knife on her belt.

Ventriloquism was hardly an uncommon magic, so she was just being jumpy. I leaned out a little more, sighting our destination from the collection of Watch. It looked to be a studio house, a two-story home built along a long row of them. It would look charming if not for the shattered glass.

Gallock's priest was first, and this looked like a place I'd expect one of them to live.

And outside this little house was none other than Captain Walston, looking especially dour as she glared at our arriving carriage. Right, another person disappointed they couldn't kill me. The fact that they couldn't was about the only thing buoying my spirits in the face of how many wanted me dead.

"Might want to stay inside," I told Melissa. "Without Voltar here, a contest of authority between me and Walston isn't going to go well. And she would love to see any member of the Flame hung."

Then again, maybe her hang-up was with me having gotten off with what I'd done without consequence. Still best not to risk it.

Melissa sneered. "Like Hells am I letting some Watchwoman intimidate me-"

"Besides," Barnes said, suddenly in the seat next to her. "I'll be there too in case the Captain gets any ideas."

I looked blankly at the disguised kistune, then stared back outside as buildings continued to rush past.

"Shouldn't you be-"

And like that, she was gone once again.

Melissa shivered. "That….I was looking right at her. Doesn't most teleportation leave some kind of sign?"

"Yes," I said. "Displaced air pops, usually. Sometimes more visual effects for arcane teleportation. Don't worry about it."

"Oh, don't worry about it," Melissa repeated drily. "There's just a strange Fox spirit roaming around us that can appear right next to us at any moment without us noticing. Very not disturbing."

I wonder if I should tell her about the entire 'Almost cursed a trio of experienced monster hunters into lower-class teenage workers' episode. Probably not.

The carriage finally came to a halt in front of the good captain, and as soon as we stopped, I was opening the door.

Shattered glass lay all over the street, blown out from inside the building. A hole in the stones of the street, bloody, and streaks of blood leading back towards the door.

Someone had been stabbed with enough force to drive a hole in the street below, then dragged back inside the house. Shite. Diabolism could enhance someone's strength, but there were more efficient ways to kill. Probably a summon instead.

"Harrow," Walston said, her stern glare faltering as her eyes traveled up and down my body. "You're a fish?"

"I figured it would be nice to try it out," I replied. "I might go for a dip in the Nover later, see how I can take the cold water of winter."

Her eyes narrowed, then she snorted. "That might be worth seeing, just to watch that river eat you."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"It might be a new experience to be on the receiving end of that for once," I said. "I'd like to examine the crime scene?"

She grunted. "Your superiors have already looked it over. How about you continue to the next crime scene then?"

"Sorry, but I'd have to pass on that," I replied. "While I don't doubt Mr. Voltar's powers of observation, I am the alchemist. Samples are needed for analysis. And I already have my marching orders from them anyway."

I inclined my head towards Barnes.

Walston sighed, almost hissing through her teeth. "Fine. And the priest is fine. But the other devil can stay outside."

Melissa glared, opening her mouth to protest, and Barnes' grin widened.

I shook my head slightly. No, let's not push the Watch Captain, even if she couldn't harm us. We did not need to antagonize her or the Watch as a whole.

It figured, between a powerful fey creature, a petulant young Infernal who'd fallen for Black Flame propaganda, and the noble, I'd have to be the voice of reason. Or maybe that was because I was the only one who'd had to experience losing fingers.

Melissa was angry, but Barnes whispered something that calmed her down. Hopefully not anything magical.

Breathe out. Trust. Tagashin wouldn't do that. Probably. I went inside.

I almost went back out when I felt the burning itch of divine magic inside. It wasn't an ambush, though, just a priestess of Tildae at work.

We'd arrived after the clean-up crew. Despite that, the crime scene was still a mess.

Half a dozen bodies were scattered across the room. Possibly more than half a dozen, given the state of most of them. Pieces of the body were scattered all over the room, leading from the dwarf bisected on the welcome mat through a maze of hacked off body parts and armor.

It was hard to make out the normal decor. Most of it was smashed to shreds of wood or stone, or coated in blood.

Blows had sheared through flesh, bone, and metal. Putting on some gloves, I probed a nearly bisected bicep on the floor in front of me. Flesh squelched and metal shrieked, the single flap of both holding the arm together protesting as they were stretched. There was bone and flesh missing, the limb not rejoining perfectly. A wider blade then.

Scattered chunks of granite were spread across the room. Smooth lines indicated they were once part of a statue, broken up by rough ones where they'd been smashed apart.

Most of them were sectioned off, the rough surfaces hollowed out and glowing a dull, angry red. Contaminated, and preparing to birth devils. The Tildaen priestess was hurrying between each, purifying magic, cleansing each piece of rebel.

Finally, there was the victim. I couldn't avoid looking at them any longer. Their swollen form took up a third of the room.

There were remnants of a human face here. A brown eye, a bit of cheek that was still human flesh. Little bits of humanity struggling to surface among a tapestry of inhuman features. Just below the eye, a beak like a squid's pushed out of a half-formed draconic maw, raw, bleeding, and oozing pus as it shoved through shattered scales and broken-off fangs. The other eye was still there, pupil slitted, and the rest turned red. Hard to see, as stiff bristles were poking through the eye, piercing through and pushing out of the eye in a half-dozen places.

They'd started pushing out around the still human eye, the sharp ends poking out of the skin in a ring around the socket. One last untouched bit of mortal flesh.

Nothing like that on the body, bloated up and barely held together, skin stretched taut. A mish-mash of scales, fur, and bristles, all of it over skin ragged and torn. Tentacles spilled out from the cut-open insides, hollow tubes slowly leaking clear fluid across the floor.

"Who was this?" I asked as I leaned down. Alchemically treated gloves would protect from whatever this was.

"Breather Ryle," Captain Walston said dispassionately. "Don't ask me why the Gallock priests call themselves that, I don't know ."

Neither did I, but I'd like to think I had the tact to not sound so bored about it.

"It refers to their belief in breathing life into their creations," Gregory said, shooting her a reproving glare. "That through their efforts, they can create things as beautiful as life itself.

The body shuddered as I moved some of the tendrils. They fell out of inside Ryle, with a wet squelch, liquid pouring out of the holes in his bloated corpse.

"We can assume the sin theme was to one specific killer," I said, scraping some of the slime off the ground. "This is definitely diabolical in nature, but no traits associated with any one of the sins."

You could maybe associate the bristles with a pig, or the squid-like beak with aquatic animals, and the draconic maw was obvious, but a mixture of all three felt tenous. Especially compared to the mass of other characteristics.

"Matches with the method of death," I noted as I succeeded in my scraping. "Hellfire matches the previous killer, but it's not the main weapon on display here. Summoned devils might have weapons like this, but every body shows signs of this kind of violence."

Even Breather Rlye had nearly been bisected before being changed. His spilled-out intestines had become the majority of the pale, hollow tentacles slowly dribbling out white pus onto the floor.

"What do you even get from that gunk anyway, Harrow?" Walston asked me.

Mana signatures. A long shot, but a lot better than anything else that could be ascertained from this. The method of killing was obliterating most other alchemical clues, although the little bits of residue and chips of bone-white I'd pulled out of the other bodies might also prove useful.

"Possible tracing," I said. "Of where they've been."

"They?"

I eyed the priestess in the room and the other Watch officers, then looked to Walston. After a second, she nodded. Well, if she had misplaced her trust, on her head and not mine.

"I have other samples of the previous victims," I said. "The mana from being mutated to the diabolical is clearly different from any traces of them practicing diabolism. Still, it might be possible to make an approximate map of where they've been. Most likely just places they've been often, but possibly of their entire journey since they've started practicing diabolism."

The priestess of Tildae twitched, but otherwise didn't react. Interesting. Were suspicions spreading about the victims, or maybe just inside the churches?

I forced my attention off of that, moving to secure my samples.

I'd brought a satchel with me, one I gingerly put the samples into. Then it was moving on to chips of the various substances, scrapings from the wounds. Any residue might give a hint to the weapon used. But as I scraped from inside these wounds, the width of the blades used to cut these became clearer.

A width I was distressingly familiar with.

"Did anyone figure out the weapons used by the assailant?" I asked as calmly as I could fake.

"Sabers, oversized," Walston said, once again sounding bored to tears. "Voltar concluded as much before he left here, so are you done playing junior detective, Harrow?"

"Not yet," I said with a smile.

A smile I didn't feel inside. Hellfire and oversized sabers used to cut and stab. Slicing downward, as if from someone much taller than any of the victims.

Duty/responsibility/opportunity calls it seems.

Those Black Flame renegades had summoned another devil before the one we'd interrupted. One that had unnerved them. One that was probably too recent to have been the sloth devil that had infested my home.

I'd assumed it had been that devil going home, but instead it had been here this entire time. Too many questions raised by that, like how it had also been inside my head and also what the Hells was it?

I waited for a voice to chime in from inside my head, only to hear nothing. The Imp had been quiet since my time spent wandering inside my own mind. Still there but choosing to be quiet.

There was a silver lining. Knowing the other devil that had been summoned would make one thing easier. If only it didn't come with so many other horrible complications. It would be easier to fake its work, for one of my tugs on the threads.

With my silence, Gregory took up getting information out of Captain Walston.

"Why was the deceased here?" he asked.

Captain Walston gestured to the cut-apart dwarf lying across the entryway. "This was Kaltan Marblewhisper, a noted rival to Breather Ryle. Apparently, the two shared a fierce, intense rivalry over the arts, and specifically about how Ryle didn't have any actual talent, and was relying on his god for inspiration and skill."

"A common misconception," Gregory said, tone a little bitter.

Given his own deity's association with the arts, he probably had dealt with accusations of his own.

"Arguments got violent a few times," Walston said. "Runner came by with our notes on all of the folks here. Ryle himself has never been in a cell, but Kaltan here has been in cells for assault a few different times. Easily half of them on Ryle. Probably figured no one would think he'd hide here."

A mistake, but an understandable one when Ryle had probably never been hunted before. Don't hide with a friend, hide with someone known as a rival of yours, whose dislike of you sometimes turned violent. The issue was that when hunting, you worked down the list, friends, enemies, acquaintances. No, what you did is you found people no one would link with you at all.

"The others?" I asked, turning to the other bodies.

It took Gregory repeating the question before Walston was willing to answer.

"Two of them still aren't identified. Three of them are local adventurers paid for by Marblewhisper a few days ago for protection. He told the Guild Secretary he was worried someone was trying to destroy his latest statue, got a small group to sign on while they recovered in between hunts underground."

Another mistake. Adventurers weren't usually lightweights, but they were practiced at hunting monsters, most of them not very intelligent, through underground caverns and tunnels. Not protecting people from the ones doing the hunting.

"That's all of them?" I asked, looking over the scattered limbs and pieces of armor.

"He had a human companion, Miss Hailey Sanderson," Walston said. "Neighbors have a fair bit of gossip about them. I assume it isn't relevant?"

"Probably not," I said. I had no idea if marriage between dwarves and humans was legal, and that was something I could learn later.

"The desecration of the church wasn't as tightly paced in this case as in the other?" I asked Walston as the priestess continued her work.

"Yes," the Captain responded gruffly, sounding like even answering was causing her actual pain. "The other case, both the desecration and killing were within minutes of each other. This case? Nearly two hours passed between them."

Clearly unorganized then, with one part of the group hurrying to capitalize on the work of the other.

Further evidence that elements were going rogue among this group

Okay. This was something more I could bite into, and even better, it would help with one case of thread-pulling I had planned. I even had an identity that would work for what I had planned. Now I just needed the right priest. We only had one left on the list that would do, and I was in luck, even. I needed to bury two people still, so I had to talk to one of Zaviel's servants anyway.

"If you're about to say it's evidence they aren't coordinating, you're about five minutes behind Voltar," Walston said

"Well, I could hardly claim to be better than him," I said, packing my satchel. "Well, Captain, that should be everything. We'll get out of your hair. Pleasure as always."

She gave me an ugly grin. "May you find the culprits, Harrow. Very soon."

Well, I couldn't promise that. But by the end of today, I did plan on ripping the guts out of their plan.