The Murder Prophet Read online

  And then we were done, and I didn't feel any further ahead.

  Saga came into my office just as I hung up the phone. The angry line on his forehead had smoothed itself out again and he looked as serene as ever. "LemurCandy would like you to contact him as soon as possible," he said. He peered at me closely for a moment. "Are you all right, Kitano?"

  I nodded. "Same thing Kiku asked me twenty minutes ago. I'm fine. What do you want me to do today?"

  He tented his fingers, tapping them together meditatively. "Actually, Anna and I are wondering if we should remove you from this case. Now that you've caught the attention of this person—"

  "Oh, no, Saga, please!" I interrupted. "That's the last thing I want. I'll go crazy if I can't keep working—"

  He interrupted me right back. "Crazy is preferable to dead, Kit."

  "That's a matter of opinion." I stood up, not that I thought I could intimidate him in any way, but it felt like a stronger position. "Look, I'll be careful, I really will. But you've got to keep me on the case. I've got a personal stake in it now."

  Anna poked her head in at the doorway, smiling that smile that on anyone else would be a grin, but she was just too classy for that. "I told you so, Saga."

  He sighed. "Yes, you did. I still think I'm right, but—all right, Kit. For now. The first day of spring is not here yet, so we will assume that your danger is no more imminent than Mr. Coro's." He rapped his knuckles on my desk. "But I reserve the right to change my mind about this at any time."

  "Understood," I said meekly. "So, do you have an assignment for me?"

  He did not pause to consider. I expect he had everyone's tasks planned out for them already, and knew what he was going to get me to do if I balked at being sidelined. "I would like you and Glaive to visit the current wife. I have already cleared it with Mr. Coro, who does not think she will have anything useful to tell you." He made a face that told me exactly what he thought of men who underestimated what their wives might know.

  "Okay. Is Glaive waiting for me?"

  "He is finishing up a telephone call. You have time to contact Lemur before you go if you wish."

  Now, how did he know I wanted to do that? If I asked him he'd only smile enigmatically, so I didn't waste my breath. I slipped on the faceskin, logged in, and LemurCandy messaged me immediately with a link to his location. I clicked it, and my avatar materialized in another one of the mind virtuals; this one mimicked a university campus and LemurCandy stood in a virtual classroom. The blackboard behind his avatar was covered with scientific-looking scribbles that meant nothing to me. LemurCandy wore the same avatar he'd had on last night. He looked worried as he tossed a stick of virtual chalk from hand to hand.

 

  I felt a strange mix of annoyance and pleasure that he'd asked.

 

  I thought of the words again and shivered. I admitted,

 

  I frowned.

  The chalk disappeared and he stuck his hands in his pockets.

  I shrugged, and so did my avatar. I typed.

  The avatar shook its head. he said.

  Glaive stuck his head in at my door. He'd added a black jacket to his already-ebony ensemble. "I'm ready to head out anytime."

  "Give me one second."

  He went out to talk to Kikufaax and I typed hastily.

 

 

  There was a long pause before anything else appeared on the screen, and the avatar just stood there with a blank expression.

  The words finally appeared.

  I half-smiled. Like I wasn't always, or tried to be. But all I said was, Then I signed off, grabbed my gun out of the bottom drawer, and followed Glaive out to his Cloudwalker.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Of Hit Men and Lovely Ladies

  It annoys me sometimes, how a lot of things involving magic ended up with these cutesy names. I mean, you wouldn't see a non-magical vehicle ending up with a name like "Cloudwalker." Not unless it was something that could actually fly. The Cloudwalker series was just a ground-level glider that used two spells: one to recharge the matter-to-energy conversion inside the battery, and a second to give it lift, so it hovered about two feet off the ground.

  I couldn't see the point—another spell to be recharged every time it got low—but they were surprisingly popular with manly men like Glaive. Might have been something about not leaving tire tracks behind, I don't know. They still left a traceable magic signature, so it didn't make you invisible or anything.

  Men.

  I shared everything I'd found out about Coro with Glaive on our drive out to the Coros' mansion on the outskirts of the city, in an area called Alchemist's Ridge. In truth, there weren't a whole lot of alchemists living out there. The alchemy involved, as far as I could see, was the magic of turning ideas into money. Everyone who lived in the area must have been very, very good at it.

  Glaive listened impassively as he drove, interjecting a comment or question now and then. I'd been a little nervous around him when I'd first learned about his background, but apart from being the strong, silent type (a temperament which I'm sure was as much deliberately cultivated as natural), he really seemed like a normal guy. Sometimes I even wondered if he'd made up the stuff about the clandestine government-sanctioned escapades of his past, but Anna and Saga seemed to think it was true, so who was I to doubt? Kiku and I often complained to each other that he was too taciturn and overprotective of us, but we managed to work well together in spite of that.

  An ancient-looking stone wall broken by a ten-foot-tall iron gate surrounded the Coro place. The gate sported all the requisite swirls and curlicues unfurling around a massive letter "C," and the iron behemoth opened as we drove slowly up to it. No doubt we were being observed by unseen eyes. Inside the wall, tall, drooping willow trees showed branches furred with an aura of spring green as they budded out. We drove up a winding road through exquisitely manicured grounds dotted with surprising topiaries sculpted in the shapes of fantastic creatures. A dragon with widespread boxwood wings and menacing teeth. A mermaid combing viridian hair. A goat-legged satyr engaged in a static dance. I wondered if they were Coro's idea, or his wife's.

  We rounded a bend and the house came into view, a woman standing on the front steps waiting for us. The house was my first surprise. It wasn't new, as these places go; the body of the house and the western wing sported the turreted style that had enjoyed a resurgence around the time of the advent of magic. As if everyone thought we were going to start living in castles and wearing medieval gowns and armor. The east wing was more modern, obviously added once the "Nouveau Magic" period had ended. The gardens fronting the house, however, were different again, with an English country feel. A boxwood-hedged knot garden wound around a fountain in the shape of a unicorn. Even after the topiaries, that one made me blink. Water spouted energetically from the creature's horn and looked extremely unusual erupting from that part of its anatomy.

  I recognized the woman on the steps from Coro's file—his wife, Sandrine. She didn't descend as we drove up, just stood hugging herself in a moss green sweater that I would have bet a week's pay was cashmere, and a straight grey wool skirt. Worry had pulled the skin on her face a
nd neck taut, so maybe it wasn't just the cool spring breeze that was making Sandrine Coro hug herself. Long blond hair hung in loose curls down her back and wisped around her face in the wind. Glaive got out first and walked over to her, hands in his pockets.

  "Mrs. Coro?" he asked pleasantly.

  I came up behind him as she was nodding. Her gaze flicked to me but didn't linger. A woman who'd rather deal with men.

  "Your husband told you to expect us, I assume. I'm Glaive Timesi, and this is Kitano Stablefield. We're with Darcko and Sadatake."

  She nodded. "Please come inside," she said. "We'll have tea while we speak." She wasn't asking if we'd like some. She was telling us the agenda. Politely, though.

  We entered a foyer with a bright, mosaic-tiled ceiling that vaulted halfway up into the turret above it, and a floor so highly polished I was half glad my boots had non-slip soles and half mortified to walk on it with them. An elegantly curving stairway led to the upper reaches of the house, and a tree—an actual tree—starred with tiny white lights grew inside its curve, stretching green-trimmed branches to a skylight high above. Mrs. Coro led us past the stairs and into another room filled with soft-looking beige striped furniture and enormous and fragrant flower arrangements. Tastefully abstract paintings dotted the walls and a low mahogany table held a silver tea service and an assortment of mugs, cups, and glasses. She motioned us to sit near it, and lowered herself nervously onto a cream-and-ginger patterned divan.

  "Would you prefer tea or coffee, Miss Stablefield?" she asked me, "Or perhaps some iced sprakele?"

  I could see only the one pot on the table, a huge silver Victorian affair, but she'd asked, so I said, "The sprakele would be lovely, thank you." It was a while since I'd had the magically-produced drink, but as soon as she mentioned it I wanted some. "But only a small glass, please." I had to be careful since I'd taken Maginox® before my conversation with her husband, and that combination could produce a powerful intoxication.

  She nodded and took up the teapot and a crystal glass, and poured out a full measure of the sparkling turquoise drink. Handing it to me, she looked at Glaive. "And you, Mr. Timesi?"

  He looked discomfited. I knew from one of our past office parties that he hated sprakele. "Did you mention coffee, Mrs. Coro? But not if it's too much trouble..."

  "No trouble at all. And please, call me Sandrine." She took up one of the manlier-looking coffee mugs and the same pot, and this time rich, dark coffee poured from the spout. She passed him the steaming cup and indicated cream and sugar on the table. "Not much of a talent," she said ruefully, nodding at the silver pot, "But it comes in handy once in a while."

  Mrs. Coro poured herself what looked like green tea and left it unadulterated with sugar or honey. She sat with her back very straight and her hands clasped in her lap and asked, "Are you going to be able to save my husband?"

  "We're going to do our very best," Glaive said smoothly, stirring his coffee. "But we do need your help."

  He proceeded to ask her questions for the next half hour, about her husband, his ex-wives, the staff at the house, the people he worked with, their friends. It was very pleasant to sit in those lovely surroundings drinking sprakele, but it seemed more and more futile. Glaive was starting to think so, too; I could tell by the way the line of his jaw grew more and more pronounced. He was pretty much grasping at straws when he asked Mrs. Coro about her husband's activity on the Netz. "Does he spend much time in virtuals, games, alias lives, anything like that?"

  She smiled and shook her head. "Oh, no, apart from mail and things pertaining to work I don't think he spends much time on the Netz at all. We might look something up from time to time, but that's it." She leaned forward to top up my glass of sprakele and Glaive shot me a covert look. I knew we were both thinking about that blond male avatar who seemed to get a lot of Netz time. I checked, but got no impression that she was lying. So maybe she didn't know about him at all. That might be interesting. The full glass of sprakele was tempting, but I didn't finish it off. I'd had a sprakele-Maginox® headache once before, and believe me, once is enough.

  We took our leave shortly after that, driving back into the city through a perfect spring day. "So does she know, or not?" I said to Glaive as soon as we'd pulled out of the driveway.

  He flipped on the radio and a blues-jazz fusion filled the air. "Good question. We should ask LemurCandy to check Mrs. Coro's database, see if she's got an avatar who frequents the same kind of places as his. If so, it's likely some game they're just playing with each other. If not..."

  "She didn't seem to be lying about the Netz use," I mused. "Or anything else. Still, It gives us something interesting to check into, at least." I started to open my window to let in some of the fresh spring air but Glaive stopped me.

  "Do you know how easy it is to assassinate someone through the open window of a vehicle?" he barked.

  I shuddered and closed the window again. "No, I didn't. And I wish I still didn't. Don't be ridiculous, Glaive. Do you really think some nutcase is lying in wait for me in Alchemist's Ridge?"

  He grinned. "No, I don't. But you received a death threat, or what amounts to one, and you're going to have to learn how to take precautions for a little while."

  "Let me guess. You're just the one to teach me."

  "No doubt about it. Do you know anyone else who knows more about killing people?"

  I swallowed. I really didn't like thinking about that side of Glaive's old job, even though he had been an ethical hit man. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but Saga assures me that he was, and if Saga says so, that's good enough for me. I just still try not to think about it too much. "No," I retorted, "and I don't care to. You'll have to do."

  "Good. So start listening to me without any backtalk when I tell you things like that." He was still smiling, but I could hear the undercurrent of concern in his voice.

  "Okay," I said meekly, and he gave me a crash course on self-preservation that filled the rest of the drive back into the city. Frankly, it sounded like a lot of work.

  ***

  When we got back to the office, a message from LemurCandy blinked on my screen, asking me to get in touch with him. I got online, and it seemed like he'd just been sitting there, waiting for me. We chatted text-only this time.

  he asked right away.

 

  There was a pause. Oops. Maybe that had been a little harsh.

  Then,

  I sighed.

  he said again.

  I said.

  The cursor blinked in place for a few moments.

  I said.

 

 

  he said, but added a smiley face.

  I told him, and fed him the data about Coro's blond avatar and username and what we needed to know about Sandrine's online activities.

  he said.

  Trip waddled into my office just then and flapped up onto a chair.

  Before he could open his bill I said, "Don't ask me if I'm okay!"

  He looked hurt, as much as a goose could manage that.


  "Sorry," I said. "I just don't want everyone treating me like I'm about to break down in a crying fit every second. Yes, someone might be planning to try to kill me. It's not like it never happened before. It's a dangerous job sometimes."

  He tilted his head to one side. "Okay. It's just that we like you, Kit."

  "I know. But Glaive gave me a huge how-to-stay-alive lecture already today and I think I'm good."

  He waved his hands theatrically. "And I've got my killer moves," he said. "I've been practicing even more. I think I could take someone down fast with these things."

  "I'm sure you could. And if I get into trouble, I'd want you right there with me," I said as sincerely as I could manage.

  "I'll be here if you need me," he assured me, then suddenly turned and dug a hand down into the space between the edge of the chair arm and the cushion.

  If I'd told Trip the truth, I was feeling rattled. I was just trying to push it down, bury it so that it couldn't sabotage me. It was also true that I'd been in sticky situations before in this job, and instinct and adrenaline had always won out. I had to believe I'd come through this, whatever this was, okay as well.

  Kikufaax came into my office with a thick sheaf of papers and folders in one hand and laid them on my desk. Kiku would be the first to deny that she's the secretary around here, and she really isn't. She's as much an operative as any of us, and I've seen her display some killer moves of her own. But she also likes to act the part. I guess it works out for all of us, so long as we remember it's just an act.

  "Anna wants you to look these over," she said, tapping the stack with a perfectly-manicured fingertip. "See if anything jumps out at you."

  "What are they?"

  "The reports on the other cases where the Murder Prophet sent a message. At least, the ones that we know about," she said. "I've been through them myself and personally, I don't see much to connect any of them. Every pair of eyes might see something different, though."

  I stared at the stack. It would take me the rest of the day to go through them with any level of thoroughness. "Anna's not just trying to make sure I stay where you all can keep an eye on me, is she?"