Chapter 108: Suspicion
A flicker of surprise crossed James's eyes before he could stop it, and it didn't escape Evan's notice. He'd assumed that even without outright suspicion, Evan wouldn't have handed him a letter this easily — was there some scheme behind it? Whatever the case, Evan going out alone the night before already told him everything he needed to know about where he stood.
He took the letter, its seal warded shut. Inwardly, he gave a cold laugh, while outwardly he remained the picture of deference. "I'll send this off right away."
"No rush. After breakfast is soon enough," Evan said, offhand, following it with another yawn. He ate quickly and went back to his room to finish sleeping.
Jessica called the two students aside, telling them she wanted to walk around town and gather information, and asked them to come along. Both were glad for the outing, and James had no grounds to object. The three of them left as well.
James returned to his room. The ward on the letter gave him some trouble, but nothing beyond what he could handle. He shut his door first, telling a servant, "Let no one in." The servant agreed, and once the door was sealed, James worked through a series of gestures, murmuring low under his breath, until the seal gave way. He read the letter carefully, and by the time he finished, cold sweat had broken out across his skin. There was no mention of him in it, nor of Lidis or Raight — but the sheer ruthlessness of what Evan had done still shook him to the core. He'd wiped out two gang headquarters on nothing but suspicion. If Evan ever turned that same suspicion on him, wouldn't he do exactly the same thing?
He steadied himself and carefully resealed the letter, only then noticing that the sweat had soaked clean through his shirt. He'd already caught wind of rumors about last night — someone had struck both gang headquarters, killing both leaders, Holred worst of all, his body reduced almost entirely to ash. Now he knew for certain it had been Evan, and the methods used had been savage, worse even than anything Fiat himself might have done. A colder dread settled over him. He ran through his own dealings — he'd never gotten deeply entangled with either gang, so there shouldn't be anything for Evan to pin on him there.
The Order Keepers were another matter entirely. He'd had an affair with Rose. It had started as two wounded people finding comfort in each other, but real feeling had grown from it over time. If Evan's suspicion ever turned toward the Order Keepers, there was no telling whether it might reach him too. He needed to warn Rose. Rose was no ordinary woman, though — beyond whatever pleasures she offered in bed, she was a Druid, one who'd nearly reached sainthood before being cast out of the order. That, James suspected, was probably the only reason Evan hadn't moved against her yet.
He dashed off a letter of his own, opened the door, murmured a few words to a servant, and handed it over. The servant hurried off. James had no idea that Evan was watching the entire exchange through a Wraith Eye — an invisible presence trailing the servant at a distance. The spell's range only reached about five miles, but for tracking a single person, it served well enough.
The servant hurried on his way, never suspecting he was being followed from above. He made straight for the Order Keepers' headquarters, roughly four miles off. The Wraith Eye held back in the air, never entering the building — it could see, but it couldn't hear, and going inside would have told Evan little more while risking exposure.
Holred's confession the night before had never mentioned James, but Evan couldn't shake the feeling that the man was involved somehow. His account and Lidis's simply didn't line up. Evan didn't believe Lidis had lied to him, and Raight's account had backed her up. Nor did he think Holred had lied — there'd been no reason to, given the circumstances, and everything the man had done since confirmed as much. That left a third party working behind the scenes, and whoever it was had to be formidable, playing both gangs like pieces on a board.
There was one visible power left unaccounted for in Burk Town: the Order Keepers. Their priestess was a woman whose history, from what little Evan knew, sounded like one long string of misfortune — but a woman who'd clawed her way to the head of a gang wasn't someone to underestimate, not for that reason alone. He hadn't gone there last night, though — not out of fear, but because nothing pointed toward her, and she hadn't touched the gathering team either. Whatever Evan claimed about not needing proof, in practice he still worked from it. If the gangs hadn't been holding Lidis and the others captive, he might never have acted at all. What drove him last night had been the need to save lives — and when lives were on the line, waiting for full proof wasn't an option.
It seemed James's ties to the Order Keepers ran deep. Evan hadn't suspected any romantic entanglement between them — but the fact that James had never once mentioned any connection to the Order Keepers in his reports told its own story. The real question remained: how had these two gangs been convinced that Lidis and her team were carrying the Fallen Angel's Tear in the first place?
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His mind drifted back to the devil-worship angle, and the altered illusion sigil at the cabin. What connected the two?
Not enough to go on yet, Evan thought with a wry smile. He'd already tipped his hand once last night; he couldn't count on the same luck twice. Better to watch quietly for a couple of days until reinforcements arrived, then move decisively and settle everything at once.
James had gotten hard confirmation of his own by then — the men he'd sent to tail Evan the night before had turned up dead in the wilderness, their bodies drained and shriveled, clear signs of blood loss. Had Evan struck some deal with a vampire? Or was he one himself? James's head was starting to ache from it.
Piecing together Evan's movements, the trail led to a tavern, where he'd flirted with a working girl and gone home with her — and from there, nothing. Which raised its own question. That woman, Feimaji, had lived in Burk Town for years, saved up enough to buy a modest little house of her own, and over the past year had taken few clients, choosing them carefully. Normal enough, on its face — until something like this happened. Was Evan using her as cover for something else? Worth looking into.
Then again, maybe not. Given how ruthless Evan had already shown himself to be, James suspected the woman was probably already dead — no body left to find at all. Across town, in the Order Keepers' headquarters, Rose sat sunk into her chair in that same languid posture, reviewing James's report alongside intelligence gathered by her own people, and arrived at the same conclusion.
A subordinate spoke up respectfully. "Priestess, should we track down this Feimaji and bring her in for questioning?"
"Don't bother. Poor thing finally scraped together a place of her own — no need to go looking for her. You won't find her anyway. That Evan's man has already silenced her, I'd wager, and there won't even be a body left." She stretched languidly. "Keep sharp the next couple of days, though I doubt he'll move again soon. He never found Lidis or Raight, which means those two idiots must have moved them beforehand. I wonder if he even realized what he saw was only an illusion."
"He shouldn't have noticed, Priestess."
"Never mind those two fools." Rose's gaze drifted, lazy and knowing, though none of her subordinates seemed to catch it. "What I'd like to know is whether those bodies really were drained. Where would a vampire come from out here? Or is it a diversion — or is he a vampire himself?" A flicker of genuine excitement crossed her eyes. "How interesting. I'd like to meet this Evan Wang myself."
Meanwhile, the woman both of them had already written off as dead lay in her coffin, very much alive, though not asleep. It was daytime, but the events of the night before had shaken her badly. She felt, once again, like nothing more than a small piece on someone else's board. She'd made up her mind not to go out for the next few days — better to stay in the coffin and wait things out. She had no idea Burk Town had already begun tearing itself apart. Neither gang had fully collapsed, but what remained of each had no idea who was responsible, and chaos had set in along with a sharp loss of strength on both sides. The smaller gangs, meanwhile, were busy convening in private, forging and breaking alliances of their own. On the surface, the town looked calm. Underneath, it was already churning.
In the midst of all that quiet turmoil, Jessica and the two students drew attention without realizing it. Jaymes and Peter had no idea how much was moving beneath the surface. They wandered along, taking in the sights, believing this was simply an information-gathering errand, as Jessica had told them. Students, after all — their minds were on finishing the assignment and what they'd trade in for at the Magic Items Management Department afterward. Jaymes already had his eye on a magic bicycle, one of the weatherproofed models built from the original design after Evan's invention went public. Students were always drawn to anything new. Peter, meanwhile, had his sights set on a hoverboard — fully magical construction, inscribed with levitation sigils, the sort of thing that turned heads when someone rode past on it.
Along the way, a few people pointed them out here and there. Jessica scanned the street and spotted several figures keeping their distance — spies of some faction or another, though whose, she couldn't say. She turned down a different street, and after a moment, the same figures picked up the trail again. None of them belonged to either major gang — just scouts from the smaller outfits, with no idea their targets connected to the previous night's bloodshed. Still, someone above them had sensed something worth watching, and so here they were.
After a while, Jessica led the two students into a café. "Do you have a good spot, somewhere we could enjoy the view with our coffee?"
"Of course. This way, please, up the stairs."
The three of them climbed to the second floor, and Jessica stopped by a floor-to-ceiling window. "We'll sit here. Three of your best coffees, please."
"Right away." The server pulled out chairs for them and hurried back downstairs. Jessica looked out through the window and spotted the abandoned house — still standing in decent order despite its neglect, a modest but well-built structure, its door locked, clearly untouched for some time.
She noticed the attic window standing open, and knew at once this was the right place. She let out a quiet breath and wished her two schoolmates well in silence.
Below, more people filtered into the café one by one. Jessica glanced down through the window and caught sight of several of their tails settling in as well. A faint, mocking smile touched the corner of her mouth.