“He’s an odd bird, and quite frankly a creepy bastard,” Justinius agreed. “But he knows his business, and best of all, he’s discreet.” He inclined his head toward the body. “How many people got a good look at the general here?”
“Few, if any,” Mychael assured him. “The section of street he landed in is between lampposts. The shadows helped. Vegard throwing his cloak over the body helped the most.”
“Quick thinking,” Justinius told my bodyguard.
Vegard nodded. “Thank you, sir. I saw his uniform, and knew nobody else needed to.”
“Other than the fact that pure-blooded goblins hate any and all elves, why would Sarad Nukpana . . .” I fumbled for a way to describe what was on that table. “. . . do this or have this done to an elven general? Was Aratus a magic user?”
Justinius shook his head. “Not a spell to his name.”
Something occurred to me and I didn’t like it at all. In fact, the sudden realization made me a little sick.
I felt Mychael’s hand on my elbow. “Raine, are you all right?”
I didn’t answer. My mind was too busy running in panicked circles. I thought I’d hit on why Sarad Nukpana had killed General Aratus and then given what was left of him to me.
Mychael’s grip tightened. “The air isn’t good; you shouldn’t be in here.” It was his paladin’s voice, the one that gave orders I usually didn’t take. “Vegard, escort—”
I waved them both off. “I’m fine. Actually, I’m not, but it’s not because of him.” I indicated Aratus. “Well, it is indirectly, or it could be.” I put my palm to my forehead. “Crap. I’m babbling, aren’t I?”
Mychael’s hand stayed right where it was. “Not yet, but you’re getting there.”
I looked up at him. “What if this actually was some sort of twisted gift for me?” I asked quietly. “And a setup?”
His brows knit in confusion. I had a tendency to do that to people.
“Explain.”
“There are two elves on this island who we know report directly to elven intelligence,” I said, “specifically to Markus Sevelien—and one of them is on that table. The other one is Taltek Balmorlan.”
Part of me wouldn’t mind seeing Taltek Balmorlan’s shriveled body on a table. I’d never liked that part of me, but that part always had my best interests at heart—like survival. Balmorlan was an inquisitor for elven intelligence who had an obsession for high-powered weapons, not the steel and gun-powder variety, but people like me whose off-the-charts magical skills made them weapons. Taltek Balmorlan didn’t ask; he just took. He was still on the island, and he still hadn’t given up on getting me.
“Think about it,” I continued. “Sarad Nukpana dumps the general’s dead body at my feet in public and calls it a gift. And in the red-light district right after a raid on a cathouse is about as public as you can get. Balmorlan’s been claiming that Nukpana and I are working together.”
“Nukpana’s been stalking you since the day he met you.” Mychael’s voice was clipped with barely restrained anger. “Even being inside the Saghred didn’t slow him down. I would hardly call that working together.”
“Apparently Balmorlan has a looser definition,” I told him. “And that’s his boss on that table. What do you want to bet, he’s going to claim that I’m an accessory to kidnapping and murder? And since I’m an elf, that I should be in elven government custody, which conveniently happens to be him. He gets me locked up, which is exactly what he wants, and Sarad Nukpana gets the added bonus of knowing where to find me when he wants me.”
“He’d have to get Markus Sevelien’s approval to arrest you,” Justinius pointed out.
I jerked my head toward Aratus’s corpse. “Right now, I think he’d get it.”
Years ago, Duke Markus Sevelien had given me my first big job as a seeker. My new business was struggling. I guess potential clients didn’t trust a Benares to find—and then actually return—their valuables. I took occasional assignments from Markus that mostly consisted of finding abducted elves: diplomats, intelligence agents, aristocrats who’d gotten involved in something over their highborn heads. It was gratifying work and I was good at it.
Markus’s help got me through the lean years. I liked him; I trusted him. At least I used to. Now I wasn’t so sure. I never thought he’d betray me; but before, I’d never been the only person to wield the Saghred and stay both sane and alive.
Markus had always been up-front and honest with me. And if I’d been standing face-to-face with him right now, he’d probably still be honest—his loyalties were to elven intelligence, not to me. He’d put any friendship we might have to the side as an impediment to him doing his job. And I knew from past experience that Markus would do his job at any and all costs. It wasn’t personal; it was business.
It was the Saghred.
And since the Saghred had attached itself to me, that made me his business. I could almost understand that; the Saghred was a weapon that elven intelligence wasn’t about to let fall into goblin hands. That meant he couldn’t allow me to fall into goblin hands. Hell, I didn’t want to be in anyone’s hands.
If Markus had to arrest me to make that happen, he’d do it in a heartbeat.
And both Mychael and Justinius knew it.
The old man’s blue eyes were hard as agates. “No one is going to arrest you. As long as you’re on this island, you’re under Guardian protection and mine.”
The Guardians were protectors of the Saghred, and since the Saghred and I were psychic roommates that protection extended to me. To Mychael, I had become more than his job.
“Would any of that protection override a charge of accessory to kidnapping and murdering an elven general?” I asked them both.
The old man’s silence told me what I already knew.
“Where were you this afternoon?” he asked.
“On the Fortune with Phaelan. So I’ve got a fine alibi—a Benares pirate vouching for an accused Benares murderer.” I snorted. “That’ll carry weight in court.”
Right around my neck.
Nachtmagus Vidor Kalta’s pale, long-fingered hand hovered above the dead man’s lips. “His memories were the first thing taken, then his conscious mind, his soul, and finally what little remained of his life force. The ritual . . . the act that resulted in this is called cha’nescu, and the victim was conscious and fully aware while it happened.”
“Shit,” Vegard muttered from behind me.
Kalta nodded without looking away from the body. “Quite.” The nachtmagus regarded the general like a lab project. “A complete absence of life,” he murmured as if he were the only one in the room. “Not one flicker remains. It’s as if he never lived. Grisly work, yet truly astounding in its complexity.”
I remembered Nukpana’s “bravo.” Kalta’s comment was just as chilling.
Vidor Kalta was tall, thin, and seemingly born to wear funeral black. His dark hair was cropped close to his head. I guess when you chased down ghouls and banshees for a living, short hair was a safety precaution. Kalta’s features were sharp, and his face had the pallor one would expect of someone who worked mostly nights. But it was his eyes that gave him away. Black and bright as a raven’s, Vidor Kalta’s eyes were a reflection of a quick mind, a keen intellect, and, if what I felt coming off of him was any indication, an incredible power. Power that was all the more impressive because of his restraint. It was like the man had Death on a leash, and it was following him around like a puppy.
“Do you know how it was done?” Mychael asked.
Kalta nodded. “Everything was consumed that made General Aratus who he was.” He took a small towel from beside the table and carefully wiped his hands. “Once the entity that did this began the process, it continued to feed until there was nothing left. Pausing at any point would have negated the ritual.”
My stomach did a slow, nauseating roll. “Feed?”
“Not a pleasant procedure—nor painless. Though the act itself is said to be done through mouth-to-mouth contact.”
That did it; I was going to be sick. “A kiss?”
“Not one you would ever want to receive, Mistress Benares. Or be able to survive.”
“What or who could have done it?”
“Greater demons are the most common culprits.”
“What are the uncommon culprits?”
“A nachtmagus with enough power could have done this.” Vidor Kalta smiled at his macabre joke in a flash of small teeth, white and even. “But considering Mid’s present predicament, I believe the response you seek is a spiritual entity—one of those previously imprisoned in the Saghred, perhaps?”
“We have a suspect,” Mychael told him. “Could a spirit have done this?”
“That would depend on who the spirit was in life, and how long they had been imprisoned inside the Saghred.” Kalta’s bright, black eyes were on me. “From what Mistress Benares reported from her most enviable journeys inside the stone, most of those inside would have been too weakened to perform the ritual. Do you know the ages of the escaped spirits?”
Mychael hesitated a moment before answering. “We do. The youngest is approximately forty years old; the eldest is more than four thousand.”
“Fascinating. Since you have only captured one, may I ask how you know this?”
“We have a source.”
“May I ask—”
I spoke. “Sarad Nukpana took my soul inside the Saghred not long after he was imprisoned. Generally villains only share their evil master plan with you when they don’t think you’ll be getting away. He told me who his allies were; I gave the names to Paladin Eiliesor.”
And I’d just given Nachtmagus Vidor Kalta a bald-faced lie. Hell’s hounds could have been snapping at my heels and I wouldn’t have told anyone that a seventh soul had escaped from the Saghred.