“Can you smell something, Isobel?”
“Yeah ... something. Can’t tell what it is, or where it’s coming from, though.”
The nearest door suddenly flew open, slamming back against the passageway wall with a deafening crash. Hawk and Fisher moved quickly to stand on guard, weapons at the ready. At first Hawk thought the figure before them was some kind of beast, and it took him a moment to realise it was a man wrapped in furs. He was barely average height, but bulging with muscles, overdeveloped almost beyond reason. His furs were dark and greasy, covered with filth and dried blood. There was blood on his face and hands. He was grinning widely, his cheeks stretched near to distortion. Even so, Hawk had no trouble recognising the face Dr. Jaeger had shown him in the pool of blood. The killer was carrying something in his right hand, and Hawk darted a glance at it. It was a severed head, held by the hair. Hawk concentrated on the killer’s face. The unnatural smile didn’t falter and the eyes were fixed and wild. His bearing was savage and menacing, but he made no move to attack them. Drugs? Possession? Crazy? Hawk took a firm hold on his axe. He remembered what the killer had done to the body in Silver Street with his bare hands.
“We’re Captains in the city Guard,” he said evenly. “You’re under arrest.”
“You can’t stop me,” said the killer, his voice breathy and excited. “I’m the Dark Man.”
He swung the severed head viciously at Hawk, and he stepped aside automatically. The head crashed into the wall and rebounded, leaving a bloody smudge behind it. Fisher stepped forward, her sword held out before her. The Dark Man slapped the blade aside with the flat of his hand and swung the severed head at her. She ducked, and the Dark Man darted back into the room he’d come from. Hawk and Fisher charged in after him, but the room was empty. Fisher swore briefly.
“How the hell did he manage that? He was only out of our sight for a second or two.”
“Place is probably full of sliding panels and secret passageways,” said Hawk. “He could be anywhere in the house by now.”
“Or out of it.”
“No, I don’t think so. We’ve seen his face. He has to silence us, and he knows it. He’ll be back. In the meantime, let’s take a look round these rooms. Maybe we’ll find a clue, or something to explain what’s going on.”
“Optimist,” said Fisher.
The room they were in was a small, cosy bedchamber. The bedclothes had been pulled back, but the bed was empty. The bedclothes felt cold and faintly damp to the touch. There was a light covering of dust over all the furniture. Hawk and Fisher poked around for a few minutes, but there was nothing significant to be found. They went back out into the hallway, keeping their weapons at the ready.
The next room turned out to be some kind of laboratory. There were glass instruments and tubing, earthenware bowls, and stacked phials of chemicals. The room looked neat and undisturbed, but once again there was a layer of dust over everything. At the back of the room there was a simple desk with two locked drawers. Fisher opened them. Inside there was nothing but a handful of papers, covered with complex equations that made no sense to either of them. Hawk put them back, and then paused and sniffed the air. The smell seemed somewhat stronger, and he had an uncomfortable suspicion he knew what it was.
The third and last room was a study. Small, compact, and tidy. Bookshelves covered one wall, packed with leath erbound volumes of varying sizes. There was a broad, functional desk, its top covered with scattered papers. The smell of death and decay was very strong. Posed limply in the chair by the desk was a dead man dressed in sorcerer’s black. He’d been dead for some time. His head was bowed forward, his chin resting on his chest.
“Well, at least now we know what happened to the sorcerer Bode,” said Fisher. “And why there’s no magic in this place. His protective spells must have collapsed when he died.”
“I don’t think so,” said Hawk. “Protective spells don’t work like that.”
“They couldn’t have been very good spells. They didn’t keep the killer out.”
“Yes,” said Hawk. “Interesting, that.”
“So, how did he die?”
“Good question,” said Hawk. “There’s no obvious wound.” He put the lamp down on the desk, gingerly took hold of the sorcerer’s hair, and tilted the head back. When he saw Bode’s face he almost let it drop forward again. The sorcerer had the same face as the Dark Man.
“That’s not
p
ossible,” said Fisher. “It can’t be him. This man’s been dead for days.”
Hawk nodded, and let the head fall forward again. “So what did we just fight? A ghost?” He started to wipe his fingers on his cape, and then stopped as he realised what he’d just said. They looked at each other for a moment.
“This house is supposed to be haunted,” said Fisher.
“Ghosts don’t usually try to bash your brains out with a severed head,” said Hawk firmly. “Not unless it’s their own. And they’re not usually built like weightlifters, either.” He looked back at the body as a thought struck him. “Relax, Isobel. This definitely isn’t the Dark Man. The build’s all wrong. This guy’s about as well-developed as a sparrow. I’ve seen more muscles on a Leech Street whore.”
“The face is still the same, though,” said Fisher. “Maybe they’re brothers. Twins.”
Hawk frowned. “Too obvious. Nothing’s. ever simple, where magic-users are concerned.”
He leant forward, and steeling himself against the smell, he searched the body carefully for the cause of death. It didn’t take him long. There was a narrow puncture wound just under the sternum. Someone had stabbed Bode through the heart. Hawk readjusted the sorcerer’s clothing, stood back, and frowned thoughtfully. One thrust, right through the heart. Very professional. Or very lucky. But even so, how had the killer got close enough to do it? Even a low-level sorcerer like Bode should have had more than enough magic to deal with a common assassin. Even assuming the killer had somehow got past the house’s magical defences. Bode had to have had some defences, or a rival sorcerer would have wiped him out by now. Sorcery was a very competitive business. Particularly in the Northside.
Maybe Bode knew his killer, and invited him in. That would explain a lot. Including why the sorcerer had died sitting quietly in his own study.
“Hawk,” said Fisher suddenly, “I think you’d better take a look at this.”
Hawk looked round. Fisher had been studying the papers on the desk and was flipping through half a dozen sheets, frowning intently. He moved over to join her.
“Most of this is routine,” said Fisher. “Reports on experiments, memos to himself not to forget things, dates and addresses and stuff like that. But this is ... something else.”
Hawk listened intently as Fisher read the pages aloud. It seemed Bode had to travel a lot, to acquire certain ingredients for his experiments. Which meant leaving his house unguarded, apart from the few magical defences he’d been able to put together. Bode was a better alchemist than sorcerer, and he knew his defences wouldn’t keep out any really determined sorcerer. Being more than a little paranoid where his work was concerned, he put a lot of thought into protecting his home while he was away. He did think briefly about acquiring a familiar of some kind, but that meant dealing with some very unpleasant Beings, most of which were well out of his league. So he made his own familiar. He used his knowledge of sorcery and alchemy to reach inside himself, extract all the hate and rage and violence, and place them inside a homunculus; a sorcerously created duplicate of himself. The Dark Man. The familiar was bound to the house, and couldn’t leave without Bode’s permission. It made an excellent watchdog.
Fisher stopped reading, and looked at Hawk. “Like you said, the Northside brings out the worst in people.”
“It does explain a lot,” said Hawk. “Presumably the Dark Man was out of the house when Bode was killed, and it’s been running loose ever since. Hating and killing because that’s all it was ever designed to do. And now there’s nothing left to hold it in check.”
“We’re going to have to kill it, Hawk,” said Fisher. “We can’t reason with something like this.”
“We’ve got to find it first. Or wait for it to find us. Dammit, what was a low-level sorcerer like Bode doing, messing around with homunculi? Those things are strictly illegal.”
Fisher looked at him. “This is Haven, remember?”
“This stuff is heavy, even for the Northside. The creation of a homunculus carries a mandatory death penalty, if they catch you. Research into making homunculi has been banned for centuries. In some places they still hang, draw, and quarter people just for owning books that mention the damn things.”
Fisher frowned. “What’s so important about homunculi?”
“Like a great many other things, it all comes down to inheritance and bloodlines. How are you going to keep the Family bloodlines pure, if exact physical duplicates keep popping up all over the place? Homunculi make a mockery of inheritance laws. On top of that, there’s always the possibility of someone important being murdered and then replaced by a duplicate. Not to mention how easy it would be for some sorcerer to create his own army of homunculi, and hire it out to anyone with a grudge against the established order.”
“You’ve been reading up on this, haven’t you?” said Fisher.
“It wouldn’t do you any harm to spend a little time in the Guard library. You’d be surprised at some of the stuff they’ve got there.”
“Can we get back to Bode’s murder?” said Fisher. “These notes aren’t just about his research, you know. I saved the best for last. Take a look at this.”
She handed Hawk a sheaf of letters from the desk. He looked quickly through them, his frown gradually deepening. Someone had hired Bode to investigate something to do with the Street of Gods. The details had been left deliberately vague, as though the writer hadn’t wanted to commit anything incriminating to paper. Presumably he and the sorcerer had known what they were talking about, at any rate.
“Whatever Bode found out, someone didn’t want him passing it on,” said Fisher.
“This is crazy,” said Hawk. “What was a low-level sorcerer like Bode doing, messing about on the Street of Gods? They’d have eaten him alive. Literally, in some cases.” Hawk shook his head slowly. “I’m starting to get a really bad feeling about this case, Isobel.”
“You always say that at the beginning of a case, Hawk.”
“And I’m usually right.”
“That’s Haven for you.”
The door behind them flew open, and the Dark Man filled the doorway. Hawk and Fisher spun to face him, weapons at the ready. The Dark Man’s hand snapped forward, and the severed head flew through the air and struck Hawk on the forehead. Hawk had a brief glimpse of the staring eyes and gaping mouth and then he was staggering backwards, pain blinding him, his thoughts vague and muzzy. Fisher quickly stepped forward to stand between him and the Dark Man. She kicked at the head, and it rolled away across the floor. The Dark Man charged forward, and Fisher thrust at him with her sword. He dodged the blade with inhuman speed, darted inside her reach, and grabbed her by the arm. She struck at him with her fist, but he didn’t even notice. He threw her against the wall with sickening force, driving the breath out of her. She started to slide down the wall, but the Dark Man grabbed her by the throat with one hand and lifted her into the air. Her feet kicked helplessly inches above the floor. He was still smiling. And then Hawk stepped forward, swinging his axe double-handed, and buried it in the Dark Man’s side.
Ribs splintered and broke under the heavy blade, and the Dark Man staggered to one side, dropping Fisher to the floor. Hawk jerked his blade free, and blood flew on the air. He and the Dark Man stood facing each other for a moment, each judging the other’s condition. The Dark Man was bleeding freely, but otherwise showed no weakness from his wound. Hawk had a huge bruise forming on his forehead, and his hands weren’t as steady as he would have liked. The Dark Man’s smile widened slightly, and he threw himself at Hawk, hands reaching like claws for Hawk’s throat. Hawk buried his axe deep in the Dark Man’s chest, but he just kept coming.
And then he froze suddenly, and all the hate and savagery went out of his face, to be replaced by something like surprise. He turned his head slowly to look at Fisher, who was leaning against the wall, and then he fell forward onto his face and lay still. Hawk looked at Fisher. The suppressor stone was glowing brightly in her hand like a miniature star. Hawk grinned at her.
“Told you it would come in handy.”
He leant over the Dark Man and pulled his axe free. Fisher came over to join him, and they leaned on each other for a moment.
“I should have worked it out before,” said Fisher. “If he was an homunculus, he was a magical construct. The suppressor stone took away his magic, and there was nothing left to hold him together.”
Hawk nodded slowly. “I’m going to have to pay more attention to morning briefings.”
2
THE GOD SQUAd
Hawk and Fisher were snatching a late breakfast at a fast-food stall when the sound of a struck gong filled their minds, followed by the dry acid voice of the Guard communications sorcerer. Hawk nearly choked on his mouthful of sausage, and Fisher burnt her tongue on the mustard.