Infernal Investigations

“So,” I said once we were out of easy earshot of the Xangs. “How bad is this about to end for me, Tagashin?”

“Not badly enough that you should end up like you did earlier,” she said, giving me a look that mixed affection with irritation. “Drinking holy water. Really. But no, not bad enough that you should consider trying to draw your sword and holding one of the Voltars hostage. You wouldn’t win that.”

“I’m not that idiotic,” I said, just a bit of sharpness in my tone. “Besides, my saber is broken.”

We were closer to our destination, six people from Intelligence standing there, most on guard, one examining the remnants of Mourner Kelson’s carriage.

The alleyway Intelligence had holed up in further down the road was easy to spot. First, they were the only people here besides the Xangs not in Watch uniforms, which I took as a concerning sign. Even in the Quarter they had done their best to blend in, dressing like some rich merchant’s guards to fit whatever Samuel Voltar’s disguise had been. Here, no such effort at blending in.

Then again, who was here to see them?

A burnt-out husk of a coach groaned by the entrance to the alleyway. Bits of wood shifted and groaned as burnt wood tried to move and failed. Someone had driven a spike into the frame that hurt for me to look at, and I trusted that would hold the diabolically tainted creature in place. The Intelligence agent examining it looked up as I approached, a middle-aged woman with a gaunt face I recognized immediately.

“Mrs. Vesper,” I said as the other Intelligence members moved just enough to let me and Tagashin through. “I shouldn’t be surprised, should I?”

The evidence that I was on my way out of Intelligence’s good graces was a good hint they’d be searching for a more agreeable replacement. Had I even been sent to Vesper to try to set up some kind of apprenticeship, or had it been for her to evaluate me?

“Miss Harrow,” Vesper said, inclining her head slightly. “I see you’ve been busy since met earlier today?”

“Very busy,” I confirmed. “To minor success, I fear.”

That was still to be determined, with even this coach being an inconclusive sign. A bloody body lay inside, a skinless hand reaching outward. I didn’t look too closely.

Captain Malstein had promised bodies. I wouldn’t ask about the condition they were in.

Watch were gathering nearby, Malstein’s people being herded by other Watch. Very deliberately being grouped together for what was to occur afterward.

Nothing as dramatic as them being made an example of, but I figured this entire incident might drag down more than their captain. It looked like they were about to be ejected from this area by Walston’s crew.

I spotted Amna and Tommy among the assembled officers, raised a hand in greeting, and got a pair of reluctant, awkward waves in return.

Samuel Voltar was maybe twenty feet inside the alleyway, seated in a chair he’d brought along with a table, along with two others. Hawkins seemed no worse for wear than before, and the same red-haired Chronomancer I’d seen in action before was nursing a warm cup of tea and taking cautious sips.

Re-haired, Keltish, young. Younger than me, at a glance, army uniform with a major’s insignia. Major Aelderson, I guessed. More mysteries. That was not a Keltish name. And far too young for his rank, but that might just be from practicing a kind of magic that didn’t officially exist.

I wouldn’t bring that up. I was going to be dancing along a razor’s edge tonight, anyway.

“I expected the bodies to be closer to the alleyway entrance,” I said.

No one replied to that, Samuel Voltar continuing to read through the report. Definitely a prop. No one would have had time to write anything yet.

I could hear the tread of others on rooftops, boot clicks sounding like ones I’d heard in this alley on our way in. People Samuel Voltar didn’t want me to see. Fine.

“Miss Harrow,” Samuel Voltar said, staring at me as he stirred a teapot on the table. “Whatever made you think this was something you should do?”

I didn’t need to ask what ‘this’ was.

“I was never given any order not to keep acting on this case,” I replied evenly. “Without any direction, I just chose to pursue what I considered the best way of dealing with the case, sir.”

Bringing up our recent time at my home and his warning about me being soon off this case felt unwise given the current audience.

“And you assumed something like this fit inside that goal?” he asked.

“Depends on what you think I did, sir,” I told him. “I can’t tell if what you think I did bears resemblance to what I was actually doing.”

“Making a mess,” Hawkins interjected with relish in his voice, then tried to continue, only for no sound to emerge from his mouth.

He glared at Tagashin, who simply smirked, and part of his arm started to transform.

“Hawkins, enough,” Samuel Voltar said, not taking his gaze off me. “Pursue your personal grudges on your own time. Miss Harrow, I don’t think I need to state the level of disaster this has become.”

He didn’t need to, although even the worst - case scenario wasn’t the doom of the city he made it sound like. Merely hurrying along what was already happening. Personally though, I couldn’t tell if I’d broken trust or if this was a performance, which was tying my stomach in knots.

“There’s a standing offer to Captain Malstein to toss me in the Coffin,” I said. “If you think the disaster is that bad. Frankly, I think until given proof otherwise, this is far from calamity.”

His eyes narrowed as he considered me. At least some of this wasn’t acting. I had gone further than he had expected.

I didn’t doubt for a second he’d guessed the plan as I made it. Even if Tagashin hadn’t found me right after my talk with Malstein, I wasn’t dumb enough to think Intelligence wasn’t having me tailed.

The scope of it might have caught him off-guard. And how many villains showed up at once. It had for me as well. I didn’t realize the Queen of Masks knew the Priestkiller so well. She seemed comfortable enough with them to bark orders and reprimands.

His brother saved from any decision-making for a spell, having been walking down the alleyway behind them for a few minutes before finally reaching us. Edmund Voltar seemed tired, but managed a polite nod as he made it to the table.

“Edmund,” Samuel said. “Take Miss Harrow to where they dragged Mourner Kelson off to, if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll be along shortly.”

Voltar didn’t protest, grabbed a cup of tea, while I merely got a glare for inquiring about a cup.

“Utterly barbaric to deny someone tea,” I complained as I followed Voltar, a small group of Intelligence agents following behind us a dozen paces.

“You look rather different today, Miss Harrow,” Voltar said as we walked towards the alley, tone cheerful as if we weren’t both surrounded loosely by Intelligence agents ready to turn on me if I so much as twitched wrong. “I received the good Doctor Dawes’ report on what happened, but some details I admit seemed rather fantastical, even for your remarkable tendency to go crashing headfirst into chaos.”

“Is it a tendency on my end if chaos continues ramming into me?” I countered. “Where is the good doctor, anyway? Hopefully at home enjoying a good book.”

“Lending his services to a good cause,” Voltar said as we turned into the alleyway. “I must withhold the details, I’m afraid. Too many questions about your judgment in light of this. You anticipated that?”

“Just because I have perfectly valid reasons for why I’m not disobeying orders lined up doesn’t mean there the only tools at my disposal, Mr. Voltar,” I told him. “Excuse me if I say nothing besides that.”

We left it at that. He didn’t need to state the obvious that if any element of Intelligence considered my continued involvement a potential problem, I’d be tailed, dissuaded, or whatever method they thought was needed to eliminate the problem.

I didn’t react as we got closer to part of the alley, two more corpses in Watch uniforms along the way before we came to the spot. Voltar kept his distance, and even I only made it a few more feet before the heat of the charred and scorched bricks became oppressive.

Ahead of us lay the corpse of Mourner Kelson.

His aborted transformation into a devil had mangled mourner Kelson. The skin of his face split open from chin to forehead in lines, something having tried and failed to rip through his old face. A wet red eye stared unblinkingly at us, protruding past where his chin had once been.

Scraps of skin littered the alley, leftovers of his limbs. His bones had elongated, punching through his old limbs as they grew chitin, forming into the stick-like limbs of a bug, covered in rough stalks of chitin resembling hair.

They’d carved the sign of the Black Flame above the corpse, melted into the wall with Hellfire, along with my name.

My breath came out as a hiss as I stared down at the mutated corpse, nails digging into palms, teeth worrying my lip. I stumbled a bit as I walked back to Voltar.

“What,” Voltar said quietly. “ever possessed you to trust Melissa Hodgeson with this?”

‘Hodgeson’? Well, this was one way to find out Melissa’s last name. Probably her stepfather. Or her actual father. The devil that spawned us didn’t seem to have any issue changing gender as it fit it.

“Only one who could fit the suit,” I told him quietly. “I was on overwatch; Malstein had people assigned to watch her. I suppose they are dead.”

I was looking away from the body now, nails pressed tightly against my palms, my gaze focused on something else.

Mud was in the alleyway, evidence that not even the good districts could keep everything clean. It was a mess: hoof prints, boot prints, and an indented pair of parallel lines travelling from one end of it to the other.

“Before you ask,” Voltar said. “Yes, I’ve already figured that part out.”

“Hrrm? Figured what out?” I asked.

He stared at me for a moment, then let it pass.

“I dislike this,” he told me. “Using an innocent man as bait.”

“Used as bait?” I asked incredulously. “Did you not, hovering around him like you did?”

It hadn’t escaped my notice that Imperial intelligence had been on the scene extremely fast during my dust-up with the Priestkiller and the Queen of Masks, much faster than anyone had responded to the Queen of Masks attack on Alice and Gregory earlier today.

They had the list. They knew the names. I’d shown Voltar a copy the morning after Harper Metrill had given it to me.

They hadn’t been as proactive about it, but they’d been monitoring him as bait just the same as I had.

“There’s keeping a weather eye out, and then there’s being clever about it,” Voltar said. “This was far too much of the latter.”

“I don’t need to be clever,” I said back furiously. “I just need paranoid, kept in the dark minds to think they’re losing.”

Because the various groups in charge of the circles weren’t being kept in the loop, as it were. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have one group panicking already. Spending the metaphorical coin they meant to buy their gate with for devils instead. What would they do when they thought we’d ruined their plans?

Or in this case, when they tried their ritual assuming the requirements were complete, only for it to fail with no priest of Zaviel sacrificed to complete it?

The other devil-summoner was a complication, but that had to have cost. Summoning something that big in the city, even if the street had been awash in diabolical corruption at the time, would cost significantly. Blood. Souls. Perhaps both.

“Yes,” Voltar agreed. “But there are ways that didn’t need to run these risks.”

I resisted efforts to admit the point. We both had very different sets of resources at our disposal. But the general point did land, and I shed some of the instinctive desire to defend this.

“Perhaps,” I said, which was the most concession I was willing to give. “Still. Something got done. More clues to knowing who their one major threat is.”

“One major threat,” Voltar repeated. “Are you not counting the devil wearing your face in that? Or the diabolist who summoned the devil.”

“It wears many faces, not just mine,” I said. “But no, I could have handled her, was handling her before she decided to make a run for it. She’s smarter than the killer, but she’s less powerful than him. Probably even less so between dousing her in holy water and putting blessed bullets in two of her three faces. The Priestkiller is the more powerful threat. Speaking of, that’s going to be a fascinating explosion to hopefully be nowhere near when he pops.”

“He?”

“Probably male, humanoid, six foot six or under depending on if the armored outfit he was wearing had lifts,” I said. “Could still be another gender, but I put lesser odds on it. Not very used to a fight. I doubt they could fake wearing lifts to make them taller. Ridiculously powerful. I think the massive corruption at the sites aren’t because of the sheer power he was using. You were right about restraint. I just didn’t think about how much power could escape that restraint.”

“I suppose it’s too much to hope you slipped a tracer on him?” Voltar asked me.

“Far too expensive for me to own,” I replied. “Even if I did own any, he kept his distance. I don’t think he’s been in many fights before, and he’s not used to people being able to hurt him.”

“And how were you able to hurt him?” Samuel Voltar asked, having finished his tea, having made his way past the group of Intelligence agents further back.

“Blessed bullets,” I said. “An angel’s flesh turned out to be the amount of power needed to give his shield a challenge. Definitely a powerful artifact of some kind. Not the kind you’d see on the market, meaning it’s probably from a collection.”

Samuel digested that, then traded looks with Edmund.

“Useful information,” Samuel Voltar said. “If only you had obtained it more subtly. If you’d kept your activities more restrained than finding the nearest bloodbath to soak yourself in.”

I glanced between the two of them, keeping a firm grip on my rising sense of anger.

Did he want an outburst? I had one building up, just out of the sheer annoyance of accusing violence of being my only way to plan. They just always resulted in violence.

“The plan was that we fake Mourner Kelson’s death,” I told the Voltars quietly. “Ideally, no violence outside of the planned trickery. The time window was tight enough that I genuinely think they wouldn’t be able to arrange an interception quickly. Two disguised Watchmen trusted by Captain Malstein, and Mourner Kelson in a carriage, the Xangs providing protection up until the spot we’d identified as the best for an ambush. The fact that they have says a fair bit about whether it was someone in the Temple of Zaviel who sent the warning instead of someone observing the temple. Were we prepared in case one of the two killers showed up? Yes. Was placing trust in Melissa, in hindsight, the wrong move? Yes.”

The insane urge I’d had to turn myself into the Coffin didn’t resurface. I kept my complaints to that and didn’t push the man who could just have me executed right here with only Tagashin and perhaps Edmund Voltar making any kind of objection.

As is I still suspected I’d pushed too far, even if the only visible audience was the Voltars. The footsteps on the rooftops hadn’t come any closer. I couldn’t shake the feeling someone else was listening in.

Samuel Voltar didn’t seem too impressed by my speech, but his eyes did flick up towards the roofs before moving back to meet mine again.

“Consider yourself removed from active service for now, Miss Harrow,” Samuel Voltar told me, already walking away. “You are once again a private citizen of the Empire, so do keep out of trouble with the authorities as best you can. Do not interfere with this case as an agent of Imperial Intelligence. We will notify you when Imperial Intelligence requires your services again.”

I raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment on how open to interpretation some of that was. Samuel Voltar continued away, most of Imperial Intelligence already behind him, leaving me and Edmund Voltar alone in the alleyway.

That presence I felt before left, and I glanced over at the detective. His nod was so slight I might have imagined it, but I took it as a sign that it was okay to talk.

“Who is it?” I asked the detective, letting genuine weariness color my tone. “Because at this point I’m leaning towards Michael Forcreek, but I’ve hardly got any knowledge of most people in this program or associated with it.”

Voltar raised an eyebrow. “Miss Harrow, why would you assume I have anything but suspicions for you?”

I chewed on that for a moment, then snorted in dry amusement.

“More than fair. My apologies, I forgot myself for a moment. You’ll have to excuse a dog her tendency to chew on even a worn bone.”

“Easily excused,” Voltar said, having turned his attention back to the corpse of Mourner Kelson. “I’d prefer bone-chewing to this.”

“I’m not apologizing,” I noted wryly.

“A man is dead,” he said sharply. “Several people are dead as well.”

“And the people I was trying to trap have a scheme in place that would kill thousands,” I replied. “At least the people I brought in this knew the stakes and the risks, and I didn’t lead them falsely on either. That’s more than I can say for some.”

He didn’t press me on that. I got strong whiffs that Voltar’s approval of me varied depending on the day, and what I’d done. He’d inherited me from a spur of the moment thought from Tagashin pretending to be him, and had stuck with promises made in his name.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

He decided to move past this specific instance.

“Even if it was Michael Forcreek, who would hold the strings on the puppet?” Voltar asked me.

“Maybe he masterminded it all himself,” I said, then giggled at the thought of Forcreek being the puppet master of all of this.

Voltar flinched, his perfectly controlled mask breaking slightly. For hell’s sake, my giggle was not that disturbing!

“Matthew Gallaspie,” I said soberly. “You want a motive? I couldn’t name you one. If he wanted to dismantle the diabolism program as an affront to his sensibilities, he could have done that after the third death or letting his assistant and protégé be even more open in deaths. Has he finally become corrupted in his old age, seeking to evade death, or perhaps had some words whispered in his ear finally making him turn on Halspus? I can’t answer that.”

“Motive is an important part of the equation in every case, Miss Harrow,” Voltar said, composure returned. “Without it, you can’t come to the conclusions that will guide you correctly.”

I almost snarled. “If we had time, certainly. But we are facing a lot worse than another murder if this continues much longer. Kelson puts it at seven out of twelve priests dead of those needed. If they get five more, they open a Hellgate in the city. Pardon me for not worrying over the details when we are facing this.”

“It would be perhaps foolish to assume nothing is being done simply because you can’t see it,” Voltar said.

“Someone halted trains in and out of the city,” I noted. “I’m guessing because they want the lines clear to bring troops in the moment it looks like a hellgate might actually open. Other forces will gather if it ever gets close enough. I assume.”

“You might be correct,” Voltar said as we looked out over the scorched street. “An invasion we have forewarning of, are ready for, one might make the argument that a decisive blow might be struck to remind the citizens of the empire of our superiority.”

I gave him a sidelong look he didn’t react to, just continuing to look over the burnt buildings. Well, I suppose he couldn’t be too open about how he felt, but I was quite sure that he didn’t believe it. Because it was among the dumbest things I had ever heard.

“One could say that,” I said. “I’d wonder if maybe they had another motive in mind. Because that sounds extremely ill-advised.”

He didn’t respond, likely because he didn’t have his own defense. It probably wasn’t his idea. I had too much respect for his intelligence to think he supported it. And too much caution to try asking whose it was and what he thought their actual motive was .

“Any thoughts on where in the city the Hellgate might open?” I asked. That at least might ensure a slightly better chance if the worst happened.

“Mapping out the existing locations of the churches belonging to each dead priest paints an interesting pattern on the map of the city,” Voltar told me. “Not a perfect one, so trying to guess the locations of each church is fruitless. Especially in a city filled to the brim with them.”

“They have an offering they haven’t been given in a while,” I said. “Twelve priests that willingly gave up their usage of the light to instead channel the corruptive magic of the diabolic. The symbology doesn’t need to be perfect. The more you think about it, the more likely the conclusion becomes that they set the program up for this purpose from the beginning. Even if the Pantheon’s churches wanted to monitor the Hells and do research into how to counter diabolism, there’s no need to have the priests do this. Is practicing divine magic a requirement of being part of the church?”

“Of course not,” Voltar answered. “Of course, Matthew Gallaspie is not the one who pushed for the creation of the program.”

“So says Matthew Gallaspie and Lillian Derrick, the most trustworthy of sources,” I replied to him. “Still, others have attested to that. Maybe not Gallaspie. Maybe not Forcreek. Or maybe all of them together. Who is it Voltar? Your best guess if you want to continue with the illusion that you haven’t figured it out yet.”

“I prize my neck too much for that,” Voltar said simply. “Or perhaps I simply have more information than you on how others might already be handling it.”

I snorted. “Circular. Opening the hellgate would be disastrous regardless of what anyone thinks of showing off Anglean superiority. We don’t even know how big it might be. I doubt they could just drop a third of the city into the Hells. But it could be quite large. With someone waiting on the other side. Someone who's been planning. There won’t be random devils on the other side of that portal.”

There was no real correspondence between the geometry of the Hells and that of the Two Rings. Instead, when summoning or making a gate, you chose a location in the Hells and bored a hole there with diabolic magic to pierce the barriers between realities. Some parts were easier to drill a hole through than others, but you could in theory open one anywhere in the Hells with sufficient power.

I’d been over the design of the ritual circle, and I imagined they’d shown it to Vesper as well. She might have had better luck than me, because even the Imp couldn’t puzzle out where the Hellgate would open to. Having a tool for the ritual differed from having the actual pattern for the ritual. We didn’t even know the name of the devil behind this.

“Which church did you use for Kelson?” I asked Voltar. “He traveled around them frequently.”

“The one where he kept his office, of course,” Voltar replied. “The one where he was staying until you convinced him to come out of it.”

He would not give that up.

“Well, with five locations unknown still, is there enough to determine the patterns, or are we still operating off guesswork for where this thing will open?”

Of course, even knowing that might not help with it . The Hells were large. Vast amounts were likely still unmapped or just outright unknown. Could be some powerful devil unacquainted with Anglea had heard of it and decided the same forces that had vanquished its peers wouldn’t be able to stop it. Or some older, more familiar one, thinking it had found a way to get back in.

“If I did know, would I share it?” Voltar said.

“Fair,” I said, starting to walk back down the alley. The sound of the rest of Intelligence leaving had faded by now. “Tell me, Voltar, how much of that is duty and how much is genuine dislike?”

He paused. “We had this conversation before, after you dived into the portal.”

“That was before I did this,” I said. “Although admittedly weighed against my multitude of deaths, this is a drop in the ocean. I don’t mind it. Some of my best work tonight was done with a man who I’m sure utterly hates me and a gaggle of relatives I know who do.”

“I do not hate you,” Voltar told me.

I cocked my head to the side. “Why not?”

I could have expanded on that, but did I really need to? He was more acquainted with the crimes of the Black Flame than I, and I didn’t feel the need nor the want to outline every single way I’d killed or maimed on Versalicci's behalf.

“Tagashin said she’d helped,” Voltar muttered. “About this.”

I sighed. “Tagashin did help. Quite a bit. Tagashin is also trying to mend something that has been broken a long, long time ago, Mr. Voltar. To her credit, I think she’s made some effort. Unfortunately, other things have to take priority, including a Hellgate. And nothing said so far is very convincing that others are handling this well.”

“Perhaps,” Voltar admitted. “That seems a distinct thing from the other.”

I hummed. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But I get the feeling at least one person named Voltar wants that Hellgate prioritized as well.”

He didn’t say no, nor much anything else as we finally reached the street. By now the worst of any remaining fires was under control. Of Intelligence, there was no sign by now.

“I don’t hate you, Miss Harrow,” Voltar said. “Maybe it’s just waiting to see if something else comes out of what you have done.”

I snorted. “You’re not the first one today. And frankly, only I getting that chance feels like a joke.”

“Maybe it is,” Voltar admitted. “And perhaps you aren’t wrong about someone wanting an outside factor involved in this. But don’t toss the chance you're given away.”

I nodded mutely, not quite wanting to continue this conversation, then heard a clock chime out midnight. Best to go now, instead of waiting and seeing what else might slip out of me.

“Are you done planning to tweak the nose of whoever is behind this on Intelligence’s side?” I asked Voltar.

“Why would there be anyone whose nose is tweaked by this?” Voltar asked. “We are just two colleagues who are sharing theories on a problem. You have already been relieved of your status as an associate of Imperial Intelligence, so I cannot think of a way you could stay involved in this. It doesn’t mean I won’t seek out your insight if you’re available?”

I stared at him for a couple of moments, then nodded briefly. Frankly, it rankled a little, the implication that these two had caught onto my intentions and were swallowing them into their own. I should be grateful that I wasn’t being hung out to dry or measured for a coffin by whoever was above them because of that. It still nettled me that my own charted course was already being guided by others.

As I complained about a man I’d just asked to know if he hated me or not and had gotten a no from him. If I tried to eat another devil, would Tagashin shove me inside the fey realms until I started feeling better-adjusted again?

“If you have any more theories you want to debate, I’ll be available,” I told Voltar as new carriages rolled onto the street. “I believe those are my cue to start putting distance between me and this place, unless you have any objections?”

The carriages had a symbol on them, the Dawn House of Tildae. They would be here to cleanse this street of any profane influence left in it. Best to be gone before then, unless I wanted to experience a slow death.

I could already feel my skin prickling as they to a halt further down the street.

“None,” Voltar confirmed, tipping his hat to me. “Until next time, Miss Harrow, no matter how long or short it will be until then. Best of luck in your endeavors to you.”

“And to you, Mister Voltar.”

I gave a curtsy that got a raised eyebrow in response and then immediately left.

Down the street, the ejection of Captain Malstein’s group I’d seen being started had happened. They were all marching away now, heading towards the Coffin.

I moved to catch up, it being the quickest way out of the street, coinciding nicely with needing to touch base with my co-conspirator.

I got stares and the occasional scowl as I drew close, but nothing I was unused to among Malstein’s Watch officers. If anyone had some desire to bash my skull in over a comrade or a friend killed tonight, they were keeping it to themselves.

Malstein himself was further back, not moving at all yet, staring back at the street from a safe distance. His gaze seemed focused on Captain Walston, who was busy organizing the Watch that remained.

“Harrow,” he said as I got closer. “I see you live.”

“I do,” I said as I joined him, looking at what was currently going on.

Right now? Moving the bodies in sheets to a single wagon. The casualties of the night.

“How many?” I asked Captain Malstein.

“Harrow?”

“My gambit, my plan,” I said. “How many dead?”

“My people, my responsibility,” he countered. “Twelve. Less than I expected, with what happened. And again, I agreed to your plan. It is an insult for you to even suggest your responsibility might even equal my own.”

I let the point drop, moved onto another topic.

“Apologies for getting you in trouble with your superiors,” I said as I watched Walston continue to take charge of the scene. “I’m assuming you will be whenever she sends a report up the chain.”

Malstein grunted. “It won’t be the first time. Or the last. It’s hardly the worst thing I’ve ever faced.”

“Want to reconsider shoving me inside the Coffin?” I asked him.

“Tempting, but no. You aren’t riding out the consequences of this from the safety of a jail cell.”

“Safety?” I said. “Colonel Colgraves really must be losing his touch if any cell in that place you could consider remotely safe.”

He didn’t answer that, continuing to look down the street at where the Watch were setting up barricades now, sealing the street off until the Tildeans could purify it. Walston was there barking orders still, and she herself paused briefly, noticing us watching.

I waved and got a furious scowl in response.

“A problem?” I asked Malstein, receiving an annoyed look in return.

“Harrow, frankly, I don’t want you caring about my problems. At all. I already have enough of you in my life. And no, besides the occasional slip-up, I think Captain Walston is a rather fine officer of the Watch.”

“Hmm,” I mused. “I can’t agree. One of those slip-ups was trying to kill me, and while that I don’t mind, she picked a rather dumb way to do it. If you meet her before I do, tell her to do better next time.”

Malstein sighed. “Harrow. If you’re here to probe if our agreement is still ongoing, yes, it is. Until this crisis is over. Until then, go try to smooth-talk someone else.”

“Not trying to smooth-talk,” I told the captain. “But I appreciate your decision to keep the deal going, although I think your faith that you would be allowed to continue is quite high.”

“Trust that it is,” Malstein rumbled, cold eyes affixed on me again. “And go away, Harrow. I have a very small list of people I want to talk to casually. You are nowhere near that list.”

More than fair, I thought. I should be somewhat grateful he thought keeping me alive was a sufficient punishment for sawing his friend’s limbs off instead of killing or imprisoning me. And maybe slightly concerned.

“Between the Watch, the priests, and Intelligence, I think you and she are my favorite people,” I said, making annoyance spark in those eyes.

“Harrow.”

“Fine, just noting,” I said, moving down the street.

I took a different fork in the road from Malstein’s Watch detachment, making my long journey towards the Quarter. But my mind was still in that alley.

Intelligence still had it cordoned off, and it was likely among the first places the Tildaens would cleanse. But I could still picture it clearly. The mud with two straight lines pressed into it. Like wheels.

What had I said to my half-brother in our first meeting in so many years when he’d talked about Daver’s theories on communicating with the creature that spawned us. ‘Daver, a fucking drunkard who’d rotted his own leg off by accident?’

He’d needed a wheelchair after, obviously. Dead at the hands of the Black Flame diabolists who’d deserted Versalicci. Supposedly. Gone. Soul in the Hells. Definitely not here leading rituals to summon Devils providing back-up for the Queen of Masks or the Priest-killer.

Well brother. Now it was unavoidable. What are you up to?

Entirely possible Daver hadn’t died and Versalicci had decided not to admit another of his trusted people had defected by presenting a fake corpse. It’s what I expected him to say if I ever pressed him on that fact.

A weak excuse. If Daver had defected, a pretend corpse would only last as long as it took for him to resurface. Versalicci did not hesitate to use defectors like me as an example of traitors and the weak. I doubted Daver would turn, anyway.

Something to think about tomorrow. I needed sleep. I didn’t want to break from trying to get proper rest.

Besides, I’d been officially dismissed from this case. For now. I certainly wouldn’t be returning under Imperial Intelligence’s authority.

It was a slow journey back to my home in the Infernal Quarter. Both Intelligence and Malstein offered me a carriage back, but I preferred the comfort of the night sky, my own two hooves under my feet, and a host of people following me and probably cursing me for eating up even more of their evenings.

Time could keep ticking. I no longer felt the pressure to race against it. Instead, I just let myself enjoy the chill night air. Not to the point of being oblivious to any potential danger, but I let tension melt off of me for now.

By the time I reached my store past midnight, snow had started falling again. Someone with a grudge against warmth was waging a campaign against the city.

It was a little worrying. Fuel was going to be scarcer than usual for winter. I didn’t particularly look forward to negotiating for enough to keep my entire store comfortable. My new tolerance for the cold meant nights would be easier but customers expected a store that you wouldn’t freeze inside.

For anyone who didn’t have my tolerance? It was going to be a horrible winter. And I’d probably feel that same pain as well when the cold deepened.

A heightened tolerance didn’t mean immunity once the snow started piling higher. Damnations, I actually better purchase firewood before the price started skyrocketing. And before someone decided to take an axe to my store sometime I was out to get some more.

My front door opened, and there was no sign of my alarms being triggered. All the tiny little hairs were still in the same place, the snow I’d left was undisturbed, and a quick check of all my windows showed no one had touched them either.

I eventually made my way down into my basement, into my lab, shutting my door behind me. For a while there was nothing but the sound of breathing.

I restrained the urge to weep, reminding myself we needed to do this in order.

Then I let out a frustrated, annoyed scream that would carry through the door, and started to get to work smashing apart some of the leftover furniture in my lab.

I was methodical, moving glassware out of the way, not working on the tables at it, saving my acted ire for any of the nearby chairs.

I finished smashing apart one of them, then turned and gave my two guests who has been crouching here the entire time a wink.

“Have a fun trip?” I said, loud enough to hear, not loud enough for anyone outside to make it out over the sound of me wrecking furniture.

“Ha,” Melissa said drily. “I am never travelling here by the underground ever again.”

Her and the Mourner were both crouched in the corner, the middle-aged priest of Zaviel looking more than a little concerned as I snapped a chair’s leg off. Next to them was a bundled up cube of skin, flesh, horns, and other little bits I’d added to Melissa’s disguise as the Queen of Masks.

“Run into something down there?” I asked her, a mite confused.

I’d made sure the location of my shop was over a very placid part of the Underground. There shouldn’t be anything too dangerous located there.

“Has anyone told you your passageway is tiny?” Melissa hissed as I finished dismantling a now useless shelf.

I looked over at the tunnel entrance to my basement. Normally hidden behind a cupboard, I’d moved it earlier so the knee-high tunnel would be accessible. The other side was a small tunnel underground, and I’d gone to great lengths to disguise the entrance there as well.

“No,” I told her back. “It’s supposed to be tiny. It’s easier to hide. Everything went well?”

She stared at me, fists balled, nails cutting into flesh. Mourner Kelson deliberately was pretending to look away.

“Daver was there,” she whispered.

“I guessed as much,” I said, reaching for another easily forgotten piece of disposable furniture to ‘sell,’ my breakdown. “I saw wheelchair tracks. Someone besides our two killers summoned that devil. Mind you, Daver is good, but not good enough to do that with no preparation or sacrifice. At least one person’s throat was slit to bring that devil into the material.

“Can we not talk about it until tomorrow?” Melissa asked me quietly.

I nodded slightly before breaking the chair over my table. Trying to manage any of this would be a mistake. If Melissa started questioning what our brother had fed her, best not to give the impression her sister was stepping in to do the exact same thing from a different angle.

“Our deception was a success,” I said. “With a few possible exceptions, but most everyone else is going to be puzzling out if either Melissa killed Mourner Kelson or if the Queen of Masks did. Most of them will think you are dead, Mourner, and thank you for providing the blood for this.”

“You’re welcome,” the Mourner said shakily. “I’ll admit it was a bit of a shock getting inside the carriage to find a Watch officer wanting to stick a needle inside me.”

“I wasn’t sure if I could get the equipment on time,” I told him. “Luckily, I had a contact willing to part with some.”

The nice thing about having giving St. Lanian such a large sum of money and being just as generous with its staff, they became willing to look the other way at precisely the right time for things to temporarily go missing. I would return it, far after we’d concluded this.

I think having it buried in a cemetery with a recently deceased patient and then dug out by Varrow in the middle of the night along with two other ne'er-do-wells who assumed they were just exploiting an under-patrolled cemetery counted would be enough to hold up to basic scrutiny.

Either way, the blood would help add to the illusion if anyone bothered examining it. As for if determining if the person said blood to was still alive using magic, that was trickier. Depended on how far I could twist Mourner Kelson as part of his disguise.

I finished shattering the chair, tossing the fragments aside with a frustrated yell.

I was for now out of furniture without destroying any of the chairs people would be sitting on, and I needed Mourner Kelson still for this next part. I pulled the silencing charm out of my coat, let out a muffled quiet sob, then activated it.

Hopefully anyone listening would conclude I’d calmed down, realized people probably were listening, then turned on my silencing charm so I could cry in private.

A noise came from the hole at the base of the wall, and me and Melissa immediately pulled out guns while Mourner Kelson seemed to consider grabbing one of the broken pieces of furniture.

“Hells damn you, Malvia,” Tolman grunted inside the tunnel. “I’m stuck. Would it kill you to make this smaller?”

“I fit through it just fine,” I pointed out. “Here, give me a second, we need the biosculpting tools for the Mourner, anyway. I’ll remove some mass and we’ll fit you through-”

“No, I’m not having you do that, it’s uncomfortable as hell! Get the damn grease.”

I rolled my eyes. “Melissa, please help pull Tolman through. If that doesn’t work I’ll get some grease from the kitchen.”

Perhaps I could make it a little bit wider. I’d originally sized it for me.

“Now,” I said, opening up a cupboard as Melissa helped pull Tolman through. “The last part of our work this evening begins.”

“I should have come here tomorrow,” Tolman muttered. “I didn’t realize you built that thing for people as slippery as a fish.”

I frowned, looking between two very amused faces and one somewhat confused one.

“Slippery as an eel,” Mourner Kelson corrected, looking between all three of us. “I’ve heard fish used a couple times before, but why not eel?”

“Because it’s Malvia,” Tolman said with a smirk.

I scowled. “I do not- forget it. We do not have time tonight. Melissa, get the disguise. It’ll make an excellent base.”

Mourner Kelson looked at the bundled up flesh, horns, and other biosculpted parts uncomfortably. “Is this going to hurt?”

“No,” I assured him. “It will feel strange. It always does. It’s why we train people nto their alterations. We’ll do what we can with you, but the main defense will be being under everyone’s nose.”

“She can make more permanent alterations feel seamless if she has time,” Tolman said. “But that’s a matter of days if not weeks.”

“And we don’t have that timescale,” I told Mourner Kelson. “So we’ll have to make it shorter. It’ll feel strange. Don’t scratch it if it itches, and be sure to drink plenty of fluids to keep the color right. I don’t have time to do proper pigmentation changes so that’ll fade over time. Tolman can smuggle you back in here for touch ups on that, and other details that will need refreshing.”

“I still have a hard time thinking this is healthy,” Kelson noted, eyeing the loose limp flesh of the Queen of Mask disguise. “That’s dead flesh. Melding with the living-”

“It’s not melding with you,” I corrected. “I’m using it as a base for how I’m modifying the upper layers of your skin. I’m going to go deep enough to last about a week’s worth of shed skin doing manual labor, and for things like the horns I’m using dead bone and keratin. It’ll feel strange, but we don’t have the time to give you living tissue and link your nervous system properly. If someone snaps one of your horns in half? Say ow. And be careful with your tongue after I finish on your teeth, it’ll cut them if you aren’t careful.”

Melissa settled down, looking around my lab. “Do you have a book down here?”

“No,” I said. “And no, don’t go upstairs looking for one, we probably have half a dozen people watching this house tonight. No going near any windows. I’m hoping the silencing charm after breaking all the furniture is giving the impression I’m sulking and they won’t think anything when I tiredly stumble out of here in an hour.”

“Do you think we fooled anyone?” Melissa said. “Being on the Watch’s shoot on sight list again isn’t anything new, but I’d hate to have ended back there for nothing.”

“The Voltars know,” I say. “Well, one of them. Edmund-”

“Edmund?” Melissa said. “The great detective’s first name is Edmund?”

“Yes, it is,” I said. “And he wasn’t fooled.”

“Not good,” Melissa said.

“Is it not?” Mourner Kelson asked. “I could understand being upset if anyone in the churches found out, but the Imperial government seems to lack any leaks.”

I smashed another chair. I hadn’t really shared any of the doubts regarding Imperial Intelligence with him, so of course he has no doubts about them. Even my own worries might just be imagined. Simply paranoia mixed with being uninformed about their activities. I hardly was what one would consider a trusted agent of theirs.

And that conversation with Voltar, I would not pretend was me selling the idea of being depressed after seeing my ‘failure’. Something else to talk about. After this was all done.

“The more people who know, the more chances it’ll get out,” I told Mourner Kelson. “I prefer my chances kept at a minimum. Right now, the number of people who know without them is at seven, and I wish it was even smaller. The next stage will be.”

Tolman would be escorting Mourner Kelson through the tunnels to a temporary job when I finished the job tomorrow morning. He’s arranged one at the Hell’s Own, which would last until this was over. Just another destitute Infernal trying to find work.

Toman had told me Edwards would agree. He also told me Edwards would bill me heavily. He also had no idea who Kelson was, which would bring the number of people who knew down to me at Tolman.

“So Mourner Kelson,” I said. “The most important question of the evening. Straight horns or curved?”