Shadows of Self (9 page)

“The fight here involved multiple parties,” Waxillium said, pointing. “If this was an unexpected hit by someone external—and Lady Colms is right, that would have made the most sense—one would expect the victims to have died from a barrage fired by the enemy who burst in. The corpses don’t tell that story. This was a melee. Chaos. Random people firing one at another. I think it began when someone started shooting from the
middle
of the group outward.”

“So it
was
one of the attendees who began it,” Aradel said.

“Maybe,” Waxillium said. “One can only tell so much from the fall of the bodies, the sprays of blood. But something is odd here, very odd.… Were they all shot?”

“No, strangely. A few of the attendees were killed by a knife in the back.”

“Have you identified everyone in the room?” Waxillium asked.

“Most of them,” Aradel said. “We wanted to avoid moving them too much.”

“Let me see Lord Winsting,” Waxillium said, standing, his mistcoat rustling.

Aradel nodded to a young constable, and she led them out of the ballroom, through a doorway. Some kind of secret passage? The musty stairwell beyond was narrow enough to force them to walk single file, the constable at the front carrying a lamp.

“Miss Colms,” Waxillium said softly, “what do your statistics tell you about this kind of violence?”

Oh, so we’re using last names now, are we?
“Very little. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times something like this has happened. The first place I’d look is for connections between the people killed. Were they all in smuggling, Captain Aradel?”

“No,” he said from behind. “Some smugglers, some extortionists, some gambling tycoons.”

“So it’s not a specific attempt to consolidate power in a certain type of criminal activity,” Marasi said, her voice echoing in the damp stone stairwell. “We need to find the connection, what made these specific people targets. The one most likely behind it is dead.”

“Lord Winsting,” Waxillium said. “You’re saying he lured them here, planned an execution, and it went wrong?”

“It’s one theory.”

“He ain’t that kind of slime,” Wayne said from near the end of the line.

“You know of Winsting?” Marasi asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Not specifically, no,” Wayne said. “But he was a politician. Politician slime is different from regular slime.”

“I find myself agreeing,” Captain Aradel said. “Though I wouldn’t put it so colorfully. We knew that Winsting was crooked, but in the past he kept mostly to small-time schemes. Selling cargo space to smugglers when it suited him, some shady real-estate deals here and there. Cash in exchange for political favors, mostly.

“Recently, rumors started that he was going to put his Senate vote up for sale. We were investigating, with no evidence so far. Either way, killing those willing to pay him would be like blasting your silver mine with dynamite to try finding gold.”

They reached the bottom of the stairwell, where they found four more corpses. The guards, apparently, all killed with bullets to the head.

Waxillium knelt. “Shot from behind, from the direction of the saferoom,” he whispered. “All four, in rapid succession.”

“Executed?” Marasi asked. “How did the killer get them to stand there and take it?”

“He didn’t,” Waxillium said. “He moved too quickly for them to respond.”

“Feruchemist,” Wayne said softly. “Damn.”

They were called Steelrunners, Feruchemists who could store up speed. They’d have to move slowly for a time, then could draw upon that reserve later. Waxillium looked up. Marasi saw something in his eyes, a hunger. He thought his uncle was involved. That was what he thought
every
time a Metalborn committed crimes. Waxillium saw Suit’s shadow over his shoulder each way he turned, the specter of a man whom Waxillium hadn’t been able to stop.

Suit still had Waxillium’s sister, best as they could tell. Marasi didn’t know much of it. Waxillium wouldn’t talk about the details.

He stood up, expression grim, and strode to the door behind the fallen men. He threw it open and entered, Marasi and Wayne close behind, to find a single corpse slumped in an easy chair at the center of the room. His throat had been slit; the blood on the front of his clothing was thick, dried like paint.

“Killed with some sort of long knife or small sword,” Aradel said. “Even more strange, his
tongue
was cut out. We’ve sent for a surgeon to try to tell us more of the wound. Don’t know why the killer didn’t use a gun.”

“Because the guards were still alive then,” Waxillium said softly.

“What?”

“They let the killer pass,” Waxillium said, looking at the door. “It was someone they trusted, perhaps one of their number. They let the murderer into the saferoom.”

“Maybe he was just moving very quickly to get past them,” Marasi said.

“Maybe,” Waxillium agreed. “But that door has to be unlocked from the inside, and it hasn’t been forced. There’s a peephole. Winsting let the murderer in, and he wouldn’t have done that if the guards had been killed. He’s sitting calmly in that chair—no struggle, just a quick slice from behind. Either he didn’t know someone else was in here, or he trusted them. Judging by the way the guards fell outside, they were still focused on the steps, waiting for danger to come. They were still guarding this place. My gut says it was one of their own, someone they let pass, who killed Winsting.”

“Rusts,” Aradel said softly. “But … a Feruchemist? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Wayne said, from the doorway. “This wasn’t a speed bubble. Can’t shoot out of one of those, mate. These fellows were killed before
one
could turn about. Wax is right. Either this is a Feruchemist, or somebody figured out how to fire out of speed bubbles—which is somethin’ we’d
really
like to know how to do.”

“Someone moving with Feruchemical speed explains the knife deaths up above,” Waxillium said, standing. “A few swift executions in the chaos, while everyone else was shooting. Quick and surgical, but the killer would be safe despite the firefight. Captain Aradel, I suggest you gather the names of Winsting’s companions and staff. See if any corpses that should be here, aren’t. I’ll look into the Metalborn side—Steelrunners aren’t common, even as Feruchemists go.”

“And the press?” Marasi asked.

Waxillium looked to Aradel, who shrugged. “I can’t keep a lid on this, Lord Ladrian,” Aradel said. “Not with so many people involved. It’s going to get out.”

“Let it,” Waxillium said with a sigh. “But I can’t help feeling that’s the point of all this.”

“Excuse me?” Wayne said. “I thought the point was killing folks.”

“Lots of folks, Wayne,” Waxillium said. “A shift in power in the city. Were those upstairs the main target? Or was this an attack on the governor himself, a sideways strike upon his house, a message of some sort? Sent to tell Governor Innate that even he is not beyond their reach.…” He tipped Winsting’s head back, looking at the gouged-out mouth. Marasi looked away.

“They removed the tongue,” Waxillium whispered. “Why? What are you up to, Uncle?”

“Excuse me?” Aradel asked.

“Nothing,” Waxillium said, dropping the head back to its slumped position. “I have to go sit for a portrait. I assume you’ll be willing to send me a report once you’ve detailed all of this?”

“I can do that,” Aradel said.

“Good,” Waxillium said, walking toward the door. “Oh, and Captain?”

“Yes, Lord Ladrian?”

“Prepare for a storm. This wasn’t done quietly; it was done to be noticed. This was a challenge. Whoever did this isn’t likely to stop here.”

PART TWO

5

Wayne tugged on his lucky hat. It was a coachman’s hat—something like a wide-brimmed bowler, only one that didn’t have three ounces of fancy shoved up its backside. He nodded to himself in his mirror, then wiped his nose. Sniffles. He’d started storing up health the day before, just after finding all those corpses.

He already had a nice cushion of healing he could draw upon, tucked away in his metalmind bracers. He hadn’t needed much lately, and always spent days when he had a hangover as sickly as he could manage, since he was going to have an awful time of it anyway. But the way things smelled, with all those important folk dead, warned him. He’d soon need some healing. Best to expand that cushion as he could.

He went light at it today, though. Because it was today, a day when he was going to need some luck. He was tempted to call it the worst day of his life, but that would certainly be an exaggeration. The worst day of his life would be the one when he died.

Might die today though,
he thought, looping on his belt and slipping his dueling canes into their straps, then wiping his nose again.
Can’t be certain yet.
Every man had to die. He’d always found it odd that so many died when they were old, as logic said that was the point in their lives when they’d had the most practice not dying.

He wandered out of his room in Wax’s mansion, idly noticing the scent of morning bread coming from the kitchens. He appreciated the room, though he really only stayed because of the free food. Well, that and because of Wax. The man needed company to keep him from going more strange.

Wayne wandered down a carpeted corridor that smelled of polished wood and servants who had too much time. The mansion was nice, but really, a man shouldn’t live in a place that was so big; it just reminded him how small he was. Give Wayne nice, cramped quarters, and he’d be happier. That way he’d feel like a king, with so much
stuff
it crowded him.

He hesitated outside the door to Wax’s study. What was that sitting on the stand beside the doorway? A new candelabra, pure gold, with a white lace doily underneath.
Exactly
what Wayne needed.

He fished in his pocket. Rich people didn’t make sense at all. That candelabra was probably worth a fortune, and Wax just left it lying around. Wayne fished in his other pocket, looking for something good to trade, and came out with a pocket watch.

Ah, that,
he thought, shaking it and hearing the pieces rattle inside.
How long since this thing actually told time?
He picked up the candelabra, pocketed the doily underneath, then put the candelabra back in place with the pocket watch hanging from it. Seemed like a fair trade.

Been needing a new handkerchief,
he thought, blowing his nose into it, then pushed open the door and wandered in.

Wax stood before an easel, looking at the large artist’s sketch pad he had filled with intricate plans. “Up all night, were you?” Wayne asked with a yawn. “Rusts, man, you make it hard to loaf about properly.”

“I don’t see what my insomnia has to do with your laziness, Wayne.”

“Makes me look bad, ’sall,” Wayne said, looking over Wax’s shoulder. “Proper loafing requires company. One man lying about is being idle; two men lying about is a
lunch break
.”

Wax shook his head, walking over to look at some broadsheets. Wayne leaned in, inspecting Wax’s paper. It held long lists of ideas, some connected by arrows, with a sketch of the way the bodies had fallen in both the ballroom and the saferoom.

“What’s all this, then?” Wayne asked, picking up a pencil and drawing a little stick figure with a gun shooting at all the dead bodies. His hand trembled as he drew the stick gun, but otherwise it was a right good stick figure.

“Proof to me that a Steelrunner is involved,” Wax said. “Look at the pattern of deaths in the ballroom. Four of the most powerful people in the room were killed with the same gun, and they were the only ones up there killed by that weapon—but it’s the same one that killed the guards outside the saferoom. I’d bet those four above were shot first, dead in an eyeblink, so fast that it sounded like a single long shot. Thing is, judging by the wounds, each shot came from a different location.”

Wayne didn’t know a lot about guns, seeing as how he couldn’t try to use one without his arm doing an impersonation of a carriage on a bumpy road, but Wax was probably right. Wayne moved down to start sketching some stick figures of topless women in the center of the picture, but Wax stepped over and plucked the pencil from his fingers.

“What’s that?” Wayne asked, tapping the center of the sketch pad, where Wax had drawn a bunch of straight lines.

“The pattern the killer used baffles me,” Wax said. “The four people in the party he shot, they all fell while in random conversations—look how they were lying. Everyone else who died was part of the larger shoot-out, but these four, they died while the party was still going on. But why did he shoot them from different directions? See, best I can guess, he fired first here, killing Lady Lentin. Her dropped drink was stomped on many times over the next few minutes. But then the killer used his speed to move quickly over here and fire in another direction. Then he moved again, and again. Why four shots from different places?”

“Who was standing where he shot?”