Lillet was late.
The performance had gone beautifully. Despite--or perhaps because of; humans were perverse, sometimes--the grisly murder the night before, Goldenlake had played to a packed house, with customers literally standing in the aisles to watch. Amoretta had tried her best on stage, knowing that the role was one well-suited to her limited skills and hoping that she could do it justice in more than just the music.
She'd been honestly pleased with how it had gone; Maestro Terne had been effusive in his praise and perhaps just as tellingly Maria Bacardi had been shooting her angry glances since the first act. Amoretta had hoped Lillet had finished her work soon enough to be able to watch at least some of the performance, but apparently she hadn't. That wasn't all that surprising, but when Lillet did not appear in the greenroom after the show, Amoretta started to worry.
When the crowds had gone, Amoretta had removed her stage makeup and changed out of her costume, and Lillet still hadn't appeared, worry crystallized into fear.
"Are you certain that you haven't seen Lillet or our coachman?" she asked Pops, the doorman.
"No, Miss Virgine, I haven't," he said with an indulgent smile. In his years on the door he'd seen many relationships come and go, many a doting lover cease to dote so carefully and probably also many a fit of temper at real or imagined slights. Of course, he didn't know that the killer who'd displayed a mutilated corpse outside his door had fixated on Amoretta and that Lillet's absence was more likely related to that than a lover's neglect.
More importantly, he didn't know Lillet.
Lillet's never broken a promise to me, not once. She wasn't perfect or saintly--they'd had disagreements and quarrels over the years, some over important things and some embarrassingly silly, but not once had either gone back on their word.
Lillet hadn't come to pick her up, though. It was made doubly worrying because she hadn't offered out of courtesy or because she wanted to spend extra time together, but because she was concerned for Amoretta's safety--indeed, had only agreed to be apart because they each had separate work to do.
No, if Lillet wasn't there Amoretta was sure it was because she couldn't be. Yet, if something had come up, some emergency in the investigation, why hadn't she sent a message? One of the watchmen could have brought it, or if she didn't want to commandeer a law officer as an errand boy Lillet might have sent a fairy or other familiar, or even hired a messenger the way an ordinary person without magic could have done.
Lillet wouldn't forget, Amoretta thought. She just wouldn't, knowing how Amoretta worried. The truth was, Amoretta disliked to spend even the few hours each day their jobs demanded apart from Lillet. If life had allowed it, she'd never have left her beloved's side, working or sleeping, for even a minute. Amoretta knew that in a human that kind of desire for closeness would have been...unhealthy...but she couldn't help it. Being away from Lillet caused pangs that almost rose to the level of physical pain if it went on long enough.
Amoretta didn't want to be so clingy--she knew it wasn't natural for a human and she was afraid, sometimes, that she'd overwhelm Lillet with her neediness. But she couldn't change it. Her best supposition was that Lillet's love sustained her artificial existence in place of what God's love gave to creatures that were natural parts of creation--and while God was everywhere, in everything, Lillet was human and her presence restricted. Too long apart, and that coldness that she'd felt in that first hundred and six days of life began to steal back over her, the despair of the unloved.
She knows that, though! The thought was almost a scream in her mind. Why wouldn't she send word?
There was really only one conclusion possible. Lillet would never have been forgetful or failed to realize what Amoretta would feel, she just wouldn't. Therefore, if she was late and hadn't sent word it was because...she...
"Couldn't," she said the last word aloud, so softly as to not even be a whisper.
"What's that, miss?" Pops asked.
Amoretta shook her head.
"Nothing, Pops; I'm sorry to bother you."
She went to the stage door and opened it. Outside, one of the Inspector's watchmen was waiting.
"Excuse me, Constable?"
"Yes, Miss Virgine?"
"Could you send word to Inspector Ballatore? I'm certain that something has happened to Lillet; she's half an hour overdue and she's never late. I'm going to go home and prepare, and then I'm going to go find her."
"If you say so, miss. I'll see the Inspector gets the message."
"Thank you."
She stepped back inside and turned to the doorman.
"Pops, could you please have a cab summoned for me?"
"Are you sure, Miss Virgine? If your Miss Blan comes by and finds you've left, she won't be happy."
Amoretta shook her head.
"That would be a relief, compared to what I fear."
Pain.
Footsteps punctuated the surging throb in her skull, the sharp click of hard-soled boots off a plank floor. Lillet felt nausea rise, but with some effort managed to control the reaction: a gag had been jammed in her mouth and if her stomach rebelled she would be in danger of suffocating on her own vomit. She lay on her right side, her arms behind her and her legs drawn up and bent at the knee. A few attempts at movement soon told her that her wrists and ankles were tightly tied, even her hands swathed in some kind of cloth to keep her fingers from moving.
Someone was taking no chances that she'd be able to use any magic or even trigger one of her charms.
Slowly, trying to ignore the pain, Lillet opened her eyes.
She wasn't in a cell; that was something at least. The room looked to be a kind of studio or atelier, a large room which by its angled opposing walls was an attic just under the eaves of some building. The ceiling was bare beams and pierced only by a couple of small windows, the kind of thing which suggested the common construction of the Old Quarter.
The room's contents were more interesting to Lillet, and not in a good way. A long bench under the windows was set up as a kind of crude laboratory, with glass jars set out in rows, some stoppered. In the center of the room a symbol looked to have been chalked, some kind of magic circle for ritual sorcery, surrounded by half-burnt pillar candles. The rain was loud, drumming on the roof above and making Lillet's head ache with the percussion.
"This one is dangerous."
"No, no, don't you see? She's perfect!"
"She is a threat. You should kill her now."
"I can't kill her, not now. We need her. She'll be perfect for the final sacrifice."
It was Calvert. The artist was pacing up and down the room, carrying on a conversation with himself and yet not with himself. The one voice, pleading, cajoling was similar to how he'd spoken to Lillet in the street, but the other voice was quite different. It came from the same throat and tongue, but the sharp tone, the words snapped off precisely, the curt simplicity of the sentences were all different, as if a second person was taking turns speaking through Calvert's body.
More likely than not, that was the truth.
Possession.
She'd seen it before, a devil come up from Hell in spirit alone rather than in body and needing a human form to occupy. It would suppress the mind of its host, take control of the body and express its power through it. It explained how Calvert had shrugged off Lillet's personal wards; no simple ward could match the power of a high-ranking devil.
Yet obviously the possession wasn't complete. Calvert's own will still had some influence.
"She's awake," the artist snapped. "This has gone on long enough." He stalked over to the workbench, pushed aside several items and picked up a hook-pointed skinning knife, still spattered with rusty stains of dried blood. Lillet felt her stomach knot in terror; despite all her power she was in a helpless position and she couldn't help but think what it would feel like to have the knife cutting away at her, peeling back her flesh.
Calvert took a couple of steps towards her, then suddenly convulsed, a twitching and shuddering running up and down his entire body. He flung the knife down on the worktable; it shattered a beaker and spilled out a noxious green powder.
"No!" he squealed. "No! We finish with this one!" The trembling subsided, and he turned to face Lillet directly. "You're her lover, you see. I didn't neglect that. Two nights ago we used a woman for Artur because of that. We end each role in blood sacrifice. Tonight, though, with you in our hands, we can finish it! You're a great magician, so I'm sure you can understand perfectly. Symbolism will merge with reality. We enact the ending of Amoretta's greatest role, her life as your lover, but with the real you in place of a substitute! I will not only depict the truth, but create it!"
He smiled beatifically.
"And then, Malphas will give her to me."
The first thing Ballatore thought when he saw Amoretta was that she was still wearing her costume from the opera; it was the only context he could place her outfit in. Her lower belly, hips, and thighs were enclosed in a close-fitting white garment like a child's short pants. Over it she wore a sleeveless black leather dress or coat, calf-length. Coat was probably the better term for it, for it was open down the full length of the front and only held together across Amoretta's bare chest by a series of cross-laced cords running from the rows of large, decorated silver buttons. Silver-gray sleeves of soft linen, slashed to reveal a good deal of the skin beneath, covered her arms without being attached to any other garment. Black leather boots came to just below her knee. Most importantly, a sword hung at her hip, the bright crimson of the sheath matching the color of the hilt and quillions exactly. There was an exotic, almost barbaric magnificence about her.
She is exotic, though. She's not human, he thought, and then the outfit seemed almost natural for her.
Her face lit up at the sight of them.
"You made it!" she exclaimed. "I'm glad; I was about to go looking for Lillet by myself. Do you know anything?"
"How did you know she was in trouble?" Ballatore answered with a question.
"She didn't send word that she'd be late."
"That's all?" Ballatore was momentarily incredulous, for if that was a reason to worry half the couples in the capital would be calling the Watch to find their mates after an extended shopping trip or a bistro night that ran long. Of course, the circumstances were different--and she was right, besides--but he still found it hard to imagine trust in a lover's courtesy being so absolute that a lapse would be grounds to assume as a first reaction that she was in trouble.
If Lillet Blan treated her homunculus with the kind of consideration that justified that trust, then it challenged a few of the assumptions Ballatore held about their relationship.
"Isn't that enough?"
"Not for most people, but as it happens, you're right. She's been abducted."
Amoretta gasped.
"What happened?"
"Apparently, the man just approached her on the street. He talked to her for a bit to put her off-guard, then attacked her. Constable Bartlett tried to help and he was killed for his pains, gutted and left to bleed out in the street." He hadn't meant to say that; his rage at the butcher was getting the better of him. Getting himself back under control, he continued, "He flung your coachman down on the street, put Lillet in the carriage, and drove off."
"Is he all right?"
"The coachman, you mean? He has a broken shoulder, a concussion, and substantial bruising, but his life's in no danger. He gave us most of the details, including a description of the abductor and the name he gave: Gaylord Calvert."
"The artist?"
"You know him?"
"We've never met, but I've heard people talk about him at the theater. He does some of the advertising work. If I had met him, I would have sensed the sorcery on him."
Ballatore nodded.
"We went to his rooms, but he wasn't there, and there was no sign of the kind of ritual magic paraphernalia Mage Consul Blan's told us about, so he must have another location, possibly kept under an assumed name, for working magic. The carriage was found abandoned a few blocks away, but the streets are such a rat's warren in the Old Quarter that he might have taken her six blocks from there and ended up twenty feet as the crow flies from where he started. We're getting the handbills out and canvassing the neighborhood, but time could be of the essence."
If they ended up losing a high-ranking Palace minister it might mean disaster. Forget any thoughts of his own career; this was the kind of thing that could lead to a top-to-bottom reconsideration of the Watch itself. Agitators like Pinot would shout to the masses and factions at Court opposed to the Watch and its supporters would use it as a rallying point, to say nothing of the greater problem of the sorcerer being free to continue his deviltry.
"That's why we're here in person," Riesling said. "I know that you should be able to find the Mage Consul faster than we could. We have to use mundane methods, but you can use the bond between magician and familiar to track her down."
When they'd received Amoretta's message Ballatore had been going to send the watchman back to her with a note that amounted to "stay home and wait," until Riesling had told him about the magician-familiar link.
"That's exactly right, but how did you know?"
"We know you're a homunculus, remember?"
Amoretta tilted her head to one side in an air of curiosity as she looked at Riesling.
"I'm a homunculus, Ms. Riesling, but Lillet is not my creator."
Riesling gaped at her.
"How...how can that be possible?"
"Lillet loves me," she said matter-of-factly, without a hint of embarrassment or discomfort at discussing the topic with near-strangers. "My creator did not. Did you genuinely think that Lillet created me?"
"Who else would a familiar be with than her summoner or creator?"
"I am not a familiar," Amoretta said with a trace of offense, "and this doesn't matter anyway."
Ballatore found a couple of his assumptions about the Mage Consul shifting radically. The new picture of Lillet and Amoretta's relationship fell into place with surprising ease, though, because it meshed with how the two of them were together. The things that had jarred against their assumed master-familiar relationship instead made perfect sense for an as-good-as-married couple.
He glanced over at Riesling, whose expression suggested that she was still struggling with the whole idea. Probably, he concluded, it was a combination of being more involved personally, as a magician, and because she knew enough about homunculi to have preconceived ideas.
"You're right; it doesn't matter," he said, because ultimately the two women's relationship had no bearing on the case. "What matters is, how are you going to find her?"
"With this ring." She held out her hand, showing the plain silver band. "Lillet gave it to me...so that I could call her if I was in trouble." She rubbed her finger along the band, a pensive look on her face. A moment later, a fairy appeared in midair, a two-foot-tall blonde woman in miniature, with rapidly flitting dragonfly wings iridescent in the light, wearing a green shift.
"I'm here," she chirped, then did a double-take as she looked at Amoretta. "Hey, you're not my summoner."
"No, I'm not, but you are bound by your contract to obey the one who calls you through the ring."
"I know. What do you want?"
"I want you to take me to your summoner--but be careful. The place may be warded, and there will almost certainly be devils there, so don't allow yourself to be seen."
"Okay, fine. Thanks for the warning!"
"Shouldn't we call for more men?" Ballatore asked.
"This is a sorcerer we're going after, one who is in contact with a greater devil," Riesling said grimly. "A troop of constables would just be a fresh round of sacrifices."
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