Con & Conjure

Chapter 12

I ran to the doorway.

A broken bottle of wine and a pair of shattered glasses were on the floor at the feet of the source of the screaming.

A girl wearing a robe so sheer she shouldn’t have bothered was standing in front of the open door to a bedroom, hands that had been holding the wine and glasses now clenched in front of her mouth. The screams had died to whimpers.

Mago came up behind the girl, took one look at what was in that room and swore.

Rache took one look, saw Mago, shoved me out into the hall, slammed the door behind me, and threw the deadbolts. A few seconds later came the sound of a window being wrenched open.

Dammit.

I turned and pounded on the door. I knew it wouldn’t do any good, but I did it anyway. I’d rather have been pounding on Rache. Those deadbolts could only be opened with a key. And Madam Camille would be the only one who had them. I wasn’t even going to bother trying to get them.

Rache was gone, and I didn’t know much more now than I did before, other than he’d taken one shot at Chigaru, and taken no shots at Mychael. I believed him on both counts. I didn’t think Rache was lying, at least not this time. So basically the only thing I’d gotten from all that was one more question without an answer. Who was trying to kill Mychael?

“You’d better look at this,” Mago called down the hall.

I did, and what I saw was something I really didn’t want to see.

A dead goblin. A mage. Chatar. Previously under suspicion for trying to poison Chigaru Mal’Salin. Presently dangling from a small iron chandelier set in a ceiling beam, a chair kicked out of the way beneath his gently swaying legs. He was naked.

I didn’t want to see that, either.

“Damn.”

Mago nodded in agreement. “And then some.”

The watch would be here soon, and while Symon Wiggs wasn’t wanted by the watch, they’d wonder what an elven banker was doing snooping around a newly dead goblin, because that was exactly what I was about to do. Obviously, Chatar had escaped the hotel fire, and what was equally obvious was that he’d decided he needed some consolation afterward.

Or maybe his motives weren’t so obvious.

We were here to hide out, get news, and kill some time before a clandestine meeting. Perhaps Chatar had been here for similar reasons. We drank brandy and smoked cigars to pass the time; Chatar decided to get naked and do something else. A matter of preference, nothing more. Besides, the goblin mage didn’t strike me as the desolate type. He’d said he wasn’t guilty and he’d stuck to it. I wasn’t buying the “overcome with guilt and hanged himself” story that was sure to come. There was more here than met Symon’s beady eyes, and I’d better find it before the watchers got here.

Mago knew what I was about to do and gave me a quick nod.

He put an arm around the girl’s shoulders that were now shaking with barely contained sobs. “My dear, come sit down.” He guided her to a settee at the end of the hall, and away from seeing what I was about to do.

I had two minutes at the most and I took full advantage.

Windows were locked from the inside. There was no sign of forced entry on the door. The girl had probably only been gone for a few minutes at the most, but I could confirm that by asking her some questions, though Mago was probably taking care of that right now. I studied the body, but was careful not to touch anything. The city watch had seekers, too. I’d rather not be added to their list of suspects, though it wouldn’t be me, it would be Symon.

Chatar’s fingernails were clean, the knuckles unscuffed. No sign of defensive wounds anywhere on his body, and I do mean anywhere.

No sign of an assailant, either.

I heard the sound of voices coming up the stairs. I looked at the goblin’s neck. The noose was red silken rope. I glanced at the bedposts. Matching rope was tied around three of the four bedposts. Kinky. Someone had put the fourth rope to another use. I said someone, because there was no way Chatar had died by hanging. He was killed and then strung up to look like he’d done it himself. I’d only seen a few hangings, but I’d been given a tutorial at a crime scene by my old friend Chief Watcher Janek Tawl back home in Mermeia.

Chatar’s feet were only about a foot off the floor, not far enough for the weight of his body to break his neck when the chair was kicked out from beneath him. There was a reason why gallows had a trap door and a long drop. Weight and velocity broke necks. When suicides tried to hang themselves using the chair and rope method, they often died from slow suffocation, probably not the quick death they’d planned on. If Chatar had strung himself up, he’d have strangled, and his face and neck would have been dark red and congested with blood.

Neither body part was in either condition.

It was murder, dressed up to look like not-murder.

I got out into the hall before Madam Camille and her bouncers cleared the last few stairs. I went to Mago and the girl.

“She was downstairs for ten minutes at the most,” Mago told me. “Came back upstairs and found him like that.”

“Did he lock the door behind you?” I asked the girl.

She looked up at me with wide blue eyes, the scent of wild roses wafting from her pale, spun-silk hair, her full young breasts pressing firm and taut against the gauzy fabric of her—

I shook my head to clear it of the flood of images that followed. How the hell did men get anything done when everything made them think of sex?

“I . . . I don’t know,” the girl stammered.

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Your question. Did he lock the door behind me?”

I cleared my throat. “Oh, yes. That question.”

“I guess he could have left it unlocked,” she said.

And a murderer had let himself in, killed Chatar, made a half-assed effort to make it look like a suicide, and made his escape.

“No one was in the hall while I was here,” Mago said. “And if anyone had gone down the stairs, he’d have been seen.”

I looked down to the other end of the hall, more specifically at a blank wall that I knew wasn’t so blank. I stepped away from the girl and motioned to Mago to follow me.

“Not if he didn’t go down those stairs,” I told him.

“There aren’t any others.”

“Oh, yes, there are.”

I told him about the hidden staircase on the other side of the wall that emptied out into the street behind the bordello next to a perfectly respectable bakery.

Mago raised an eyebrow. “There’s a story there.”

“There is, but not now.”

Madam Camille looked in the room and had much the same reaction as Mago and me. One distinct word that summed up her feelings perfectly. Prostitution was legal in the city. Murder was not. Suicide was bad for business—so was murder. Either one meant the law would soon be crawling all over this place. And if Camille didn’t notify them now, she’d be sorry for it later. An investigation into a death meant losing business for a night; covering up a crime meant losing business permanently.

She half turned to one of her bouncers. “Notify the watch.”

Camille was smart.

Mago spoke up. “And the goblin embassy.”

“What?” Camille and I asked at the same time.

“The victim was one of Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin’s mages. Whether suicide or foul play, he’s a subject of the goblin crown and has diplomatic privileges. The prince’s chancellor and the acting goblin ambassador must be notified.”

That would be Tam and Imala.

I bit my lip against a smile.

My cousin was smart, too.

The goblins would know a murder when they saw one; the watch may or may not. I could find out exactly what happened in that room, but only if I dropped my glamour. But if I dropped it, it would take who knew how long to get it up again. No pun intended. As I’d experienced before, frayed nerves equaled no glamour. It’d happened before, and I couldn’t risk it happening again with watchers on the way—watchers who had been told to arrest Raine Benares. I was stuck as a short, woefully unendowed, mild-mannered banker until we could get out of here. In the meantime, Symon Wiggs’s identity was the only protection I had.

A pair of watchers arrived first. That made sense considering that next to the entertainment district, the red-light district was one of the heaviest patrolled in the city. They did little more than secure the room and wait for their superiors. This was the Satyr’s Grove, the most exclusive bordello in the city. A crime here would have repercussions up the watcher chain of command and the Conclave. Prostitution may be legal, but that didn’t mean that certain high-ranking officials wanted their names on a police report as possible witnesses to a murder or suicide of another high-ranking official. I imagine Camille had conveniently neglected to ask her clients to stay for police questioning. In five more minutes, we’d be the only people in the house.

The murderer could possibly be one of the horde of high-class clients pulling up their trousers or pulling down their robes and hightailing it out of here, and there was nothing I could do to stop them—or identify them—as long as I was wearing a banker glamour. I’d give every coin of Symon Wiggs’s ill-gotten gains for one spark of magic right now.

Mago and I were doing what people who were the first on the scene of a murder do—stand around, then stand around some more waiting to be questioned. The girl had already told them that the hall was empty and that when she screamed, Mago came out of one room and I came out of another, but seeing that said murderer was in the Satyr’s Grove, these two watchers weren’t about to potentially put their badges on the line by letting anyone leave who’d seen that body. At least not until their superior told them they could. And that the victim was a goblin made it even more of a career-risking move. The watchers weren’t just playing it safe, they were playing it paranoid. I didn’t blame them, but I didn’t like it.

Mago leaned his head in close. “You could track him?”

I nodded once.

Mago knew the source of my frustration. Unglamour and I could find a murderer. Unglamoured would also get me a pair of magic-sapping manacles and a trip to watcher headquarters—until I could be transferred to either a citadel containment room or Taltek Balmorlan’s specially built cell.

I glanced down the hall to Rache’s room and stifled a growl. He was gone and I had nothing to show for finally cornering the bastard except a denial and a now-empty room.

I stopped and thought. Maybe that room wasn’t so empty. Rache said he was a jack-of-one-trade. That trade wasn’t dressing in the dark and climbing out a window. I’d be willing to bet he’d left something behind. Something he’d worn, something with his essence that I could use to track him.

I had to get into that room.

There was a ring of fancy golden keys hanging on Madam Camille’s belt. It was the only practical thing about her entire outfit.

“Mago,” I said on the barest breath.

“Um-hmm,” Mago responded without moving his lips.

“I have to get in Rache’s room. Keys are on her belt. Charm your way in?”

The look my cousin gave me said that question wasn’t worth dignifying with an answer.

Mago sauntered over to Camille, and bent his head close to her ear. A question, a nuzzle, and a discreet grope later, Mago walked back over and gave me the keys. I pressed my lips together against a smile. Not everyone in the family used cannons to get what they wanted.

Most of the clothes on the floor in Rache’s room were the girl’s. I guess she figured she could get them later. Rache just wanted to get out; he wasn’t worried about leaving anything behind.

He should have been. I found just what I needed.

A glove.

If I’d been wearing my own skin, I could have determined that it was Rache’s by using my seeker skills, but as it was, I recognized it as Rache by the scent. He still wore the same cologne, and it was on his glove.

At least one thing had gone right tonight.

“I’d like to interrogate—excuse me, I mean interview—any witnesses.”

I froze. Mago froze. And we both looked out Rache’s door and down the hall.

A goblin. Black armored and armed with enough bladed weapons to discourage anyone from asking any questions—and to encourage everyone to give him answers.

Oh crap.

“I’m certain that Masters Peronne and Wiggs would be glad to give you a statement,” Madam Camille told him.

Oh, hell no, we wouldn’t. I shot a glance to the window and thought that a three-story drop wouldn’t be all that bad. A turned ankle would be the worst that could happen, right?

“Recognize them?” Mago whispered.

“Nope. You’re the prince’s personal banker. Fix this,” I hissed.

“I manage the prince’s money, not the murders of the prince’s officials.”

“Money, murder—they’re related.”

The big goblin spotted us and smiled until his fangs showed, and in no way, shape, or form was it friendly. He had good reason to smile. His witnesses were a pair of elven bankers. Easily intimidated, easy pickings. Give him half an hour and he’d have us confessing to murder. I could read it off of him as clearly as if he were saying it. Symon was good at reading people. Nice gift to have. To this goblin we were just two elves who had been in close proximity to a newly dead goblin courtier. We were suspects. I could smell his suspicion from here.

“Gentlemen,” the goblin said, his voice deep and silky soft. “If I might have a few minutes of your time.”

Mago straightened his doublet and strolled down the hall to the goblin. I had no choice but to follow.

“But of course, we’d be glad to help in any way we can,” Mago said. “But first I need to know your name and rank.”

“I will be asking the questions . . . Master Peronne, is it?”

“Yes, it is. But I cannot answer any questions without first knowing to whom I am speaking,” Mago said, his tone cool. “When I report this to Prince Chigaru, I want to be certain that I can correctly recall any names.”

“Report?”

Mago bowed from the waist. “Mago Peronne, personal banker to His Highness Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin. I’ve come from D’Mai at the prince’s express invitation to oversee some pressing financial matters. We were to have our second meeting tomorrow morning. I gather that His Highness is unharmed after the tragedy at the hotel?”

“His Highness is well.” The goblin wasn’t happy with this little turn of events. Not only did he just lose his interrogation fun, now his name would be mentioned directly to the prince.

And to Tam and Imala.

The goblin responded to Mago’s bow with one of his own, though his was stiff and clearly reluctant. “Captain Sokanon at your service, Master Peronne.” When his head came up there was a sparkle in his eye that had nothing to do with being at anyone’s service. “Did you have the misfortune of staying at the Greyhound Hotel as well?”

“We did. A tragedy.”

“They’re going to stay here for the evening,” Madam Camille chimed in, “until they can make other arrangements.”

“I thought as much.” The gleam in his eyes said he knew a pair of bankers couldn’t be here for women. As a puny banker I took great offense at that.

The gleam in the goblin’s eyes turned into a grin on his lips. I knew what was coming. Oh crap, crap, crap.

“Then on behalf of His Royal Highness, Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin, I would like to extend the hospitality of the goblin embassy to you both.”

Crap and dammit.

I knew what this guy wanted, I knew that goblins hated Raine Benares with a passion, and I knew I couldn’t hold this glamour much longer. In fact, I’d never held one for this long. Yes, Tam and Imala were probably at the embassy, but they just as easily could still be at the hotel, or what was left of it. I knew for a fact that the elven embassy had subterranean levels with prison cells where the bureaucrats upstairs wouldn’t be bothered with any unseemly screaming. I let Mago know in no uncertain terms exactly how I felt. I pinched him. Hard. He stifled a yelp.

“I thank you for your generosity, Captain Sokanon, but Master Wiggs and I will be quite content here.”

“We’ll have to close the Grove for the night,” one of the watchers told us. “No overnight guests allowed.”

The big goblin clapped his black leather-gloved hands together in undisguised glee. “The prince would not want you turned out on the streets at this time of the night. Since you have a meeting scheduled with His Highness in the morning, I must insist.”

Yeah, I was sure he must.

The goblin addressed the watchers. “And should you have additional questions for these gentlemen, you will know where to find them.”

The street in front of the Satyr’s Grove was packed with people. I guess a murder dressed like a suicide made an interesting change from the entertainment offered in the district. Some of the finest restaurants in the city happened to be in the red-light district. I guess a man—or woman—could work up one heck of an appetite there.

The goblin captain had left some men behind to investigate and to bring Chatar’s body back to the embassy. The captain and his men would escort us to the embassy. It was obvious which coach we were expected to get into. Black and sleek with matching horses with coats so black that they absorbed the lamplight. I tried not to be obvious about it, but I was looking for some way, any way, any reason to avoid getting into that coach.

I spotted a reason. A reason to dive under the coach.

Taltek Balmorlan and Carnades Silvanus were getting out of a coach at the front door of a restaurant directly across the street. Mago and I were in the company of goblin embassy guards, being treated with exaggerated courtesy, and being helped into a goblin embassy coach.

They saw us.

Oh no.

Mago and I had run out of the Swan Song, never shown up at the tavern for Balmorlan’s Saghred demonstration, and now we appeared to be the goblin embassy guards’ new best friends. An embassy that the alive-and-well Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin controlled.

Our cover wasn’t just blown, it was royally screwed.