The high iron gate marking the entrance to Mage Consul Blan's estate loomed threateningly over Constable Allen. A ruddy light illuminated the area, cast by the flames burning in the mouths and eyes of the stone beast-heads capping the gateposts. It might have just been a fancy lantern, the kind of thing any aristocrat on Argentine Way might have, except that they'd been dark as Allen's cab had approached, only coming alight as the watchman came across the street.
Magic.
Allen didn't care what the law and even some of the priests were saying about magic just being another area of human knowledge. It frightened him down to his boots, ghosts and devils and whatnot. Ordinarily he'd have chewed nails rather than be sent to fetch the kingdom's chief witch.
Tonight was different, though. No matter how much dealing with magicians bothered him, he was sure it was a more comfortable experience than looking at whatever Inspector Ballatore had gone out to see. To Allen's way of thinking, every minute he was at this job was one less minute he had to spend at the crime scene.
By the beasts' flames, Allen could see a brass knob set in one of the gateposts. He pulled it. A moment later, a servant in predominantly green livery approached the gate. He took in Allen's uniform with a quick glance.
"What's your business here, Watchman?"
"I've been sent by Inspector Ballatore to see Mage Consul Blan."
"All right. Stay on the path as you go up to the house."
Some nobles protected their estates with man-traps or spring-loaded crossbows. Allen had a feeling whatever Lillet Blan used to keep out thieves would be considerably more effective. Even though the path was a broad road, wide enough for two carriages to pass side-by-side, he still stepped gingerly as he walked up to the house.
Allen's uniform and the Inspector's name won him admittance at the door as it had at the gate. He was shown to wait in a front parlor that wasn't in the least creepy or magical, but elegantly and tastefully furnished, or at least he imagined it so.
He wasn't kept waiting long before a young blonde--almost a girl, as she couldn't be more than a year or two over twenty--came in to greet him.
"You have a message from the Inspector, Watchman?"
"Mage Consul Blan?" Allen asked hesitantly. It was hard to believe someone this young could be such a powerful magician.
"Yes."
"The Inspector says there's been another murder." He swallowed nervously. "He'd like you and Miss Virgine to come to the crime scene, to assist us."
"Another murder? But it's not closing night! Amoretta didn't even sing!"
"I don't know about that. The report came in to the Old Quarter Watchhouse. The Inspector was going to investigate, but he sent me to bring you, if you were willing to come."
"We'll go, of course. I'll have my carriage brought around."
"I have a cab waiting, Mage Consul."
Lillet shook her head.
"You can pay him off. My carriage will be much more comfortable, and a crested coach will clear the way and save the time we'll lose in hitching it up. Where are we going?"
"The City Theater, ma'am. Apparently the body was found outside the stage door."
Quite a crowd had gathered around the side alley by the City Theater, from well-dressed upper- and middle-class theatergoers to the denizens of the district. A row of watchmen formed a barricade across the mouth of the alley, holding back the press of the worried and the morbidly concerned. Cries and shouts rang out, and rumors buzzed through the crowd like the mad thoughts of a diseased mind.
Lillet and Amoretta followed as Constable Allen pushed his way through the mass of spectators. Shouts and cries went up as Amoretta was recognized by many of those familiar with the theater, and Lillet by a few. There were surges against the constables; the crowd seemed like it was one massive organism made of many parts. There was anger, too, anger at the criminal who had committed the act but also anger being directed at the Watch who were supposed to protect the city from violence.
Lillet didn't like it. That the crime had been committed here, at one of the capital's major social institutions, was bad, because it struck hard at people's illusions. The sheer foulness of the act, if it was anything like the others Ballatore had described, only made it worse. It was that sense of violation that turned people's minds towards wrongness and hate. There was a real danger of a riot.
Deciding that action was necessary, she reached up and brushed back her hair, then rubbed her thumb across the pearl drop in her right ear. Even at her level of mastery, casting Runes and summoning familiars took time, and in an emergency she didn't always have that kind of time. Lillet used an old magician's trick to prepare for that by summoning familiars and binding them to an object in advance, so that with a simple expenditure of mana they could instantly be called forth.
Lillet's ear-drop bound a Morning Star, a powerful nature spirit whose summoning was a mark of a master of glamour. It appeared in the shape of a beautiful woman with a body of translucent blue light, cradling a blazing orb between her palms. At Lillet's command it hurled the starchild once, then a second time into the air over the crowd to detonate harmlessly but spectacularly with bright flashes and loud booms. Lillet cried out at once into the stunned silence.
"All of you, go home! The Watch is here and trying to investigate, but they can't do anything if you don't disperse and let them do their jobs! The killer isn't here, so a mob isn't going to do you any good!"
"They won't do anything!" someone shouted. "The law doesn't care about people like us!" No doubt a political agitator, the kind who always seemed to show up to turn any unrest to their own advantage.
"It most certainly does!" she shot back. "If Inspector Ballatore didn't care about keeping you safe he wouldn't have hauled me out of bed to come help out, would he? I'd say that means he cares quite a lot!"
That didn't mean much to the opera crowd, but to the locals it was a telling point. Most of the time when they saw aristocrats it was because they were slumming among the arty crowd, or as customers for some disreputable pleasure.
"Now go away; we'd like to try and solve this crime."
Lillet spun on her heel and walked past the line of watchmen and down towards the building. She left the Morning Star behind, just in case someone decided to get creative or stupid, but it seemed she'd done the trick. A mob was kind of like a herd of animals and about half as smart; the key was to get them under control and following your lead before the stampede began.
Come to think of it, her father the farmer wouldn't have been a bad politician, at that.
Amoretta and Constable Allen fell in beside her as they walked up the alley, which was almost broad enough to be a side street in its own right. Ballatore, who could hardly have missed the fracas at the alley mouth, had come up a good thirty feet to meet them.
"I brought them, sir," Allen greeted his superior.
"I see. Thank you for coming, Mage Consul, Miss Virgine."
"No, thank you," Lillet said. "If this monster is after Amoretta in any way, then I appreciate you letting me work with you at every step."
"It's not a matter of courtesy, but a matter of information. I need to know what you can tell me."
"Constable Allen said that there'd been another killing?"
"Yeah, it's back up there. One of Miss Bacardi's more persistent suitors all but tripped over the crime scene when he went around to see if he could bribe his way backstage."
"Are you sure it's the same killer?" Lillet asked. "It's not a closing night; Amoretta didn't even sing!"
A shadow seemed to pass across Ballatore's face.
"Oh, yeah. It's the same." He sighed and cast a look up the alley to where the crowd was thinning out. "It's going to be all over the broadsheets tomorrow. The first three crimes are all the talk through the Old Quarter already but murder in the slums doesn't raise eyebrows down your way no matter how horrible."
"That's not--" Lillet protested at once, then admitted the truth. "Actually, you're probably right. I've met too many people that figure that's only to be expected from the poor, or simply don't care if it doesn't affect their corner of the world."
"Yeah, well, a mutilation killing on the doorstep of the capital's biggest entertainment venue is going to impact their corner of the world hard. Tomorrow's broadsheets are going to set off a firestorm, and we're no closer to an answer than we were after the first murder. We've spent all day questioning and cross-questioning everybody connected with the theater, from staff to performers to crew to recent part-timers like carpenters and artists and plumbers and no one remembers anything or can point to anything suspicious. There isn't even anyone who's been mysteriously absent that might point to an opportunity. Well, except her, today." He nodded at Amoretta, then took a second look at her. "Miss Virgine, are you all right?"
Lillet glanced at Amoretta, then realized with a sudden stab of fear that she was trembling, and that her eyes were flicking from side to side as if she was trying to catch sight of something that flitted at the edge of her vision.
"Amoretta, what is it?" Lillet yelped.
"I...it's just...the feeling here is so strong."
"What feeling?"
"Of devils and sorcery. I first felt it almost as soon as we were getting out of the cab. It started to get a little better once we got past the line of constables, but...the further we get up this alley, the worse it gets."
"What's she talking about?" Ballatore asked.
Lillet slipped her arms around Amoretta, hoping that being held would help calm her. She started to stroke Amoretta's hair before answering.
"Amoretta is sensitive to the presence of the diabolic, whether it's an actual devil or the presence of active or recent magic. She felt it today when we visited last night's crime scene."
"Sensitive? You mean, because she's a homunculus?"
Lillet's head snapped up and whirled to face Ballatore almost of its own volition.
"How did you--oh, Ms. Riesling must have told you." She wasn't happy about it and her tone reflected the fact.
"I didn't realize it was a secret."
"It's not, but we don't advertise it, either. There are plenty of bigots who'd want her off the stage or worse because she's not human." She glanced meaningfully at Allen, who was giving Amoretta a look of, though not hate, at least wide-eyed disbelief and shock.
Ballatore followed her gaze and had the good grace to say, "I see. I'll be more discreet in the future. So, she can sense the presence of--wait a second. Miss Virgine, did you say that you felt whatever it is you feel when you were pushing through the crowd, but that it got better when you got into the alley?"
"That's right."
"Bloody hell," Ballatore swore loudly, making everyone jump.
"What is it, sir?" Allen asked.
Lillet understood.
"Is it possible, Amoretta? Was the sorcerer one of those people in the crowd?"
"It could be. There was something strange about it. Usually sorcery itself isn't distinctive, not even among different types of Runes. And even minor devils don't really stand out from others of their type, except as greater or lesser expressions of power."
Lillet wasn't quite certain she understood, and supposed it was the problem of trying to explain color to a person who had been blind since birth.
"What's strange about what you feel today?"
"It's like Mr. Advocat."
"Mr. Advocat? But how could he be involved?"
"No, not him." Lillet was surprised at how relieved she was to hear that. While she in no way trusted him, she genuinely liked and got on well with the devil teacher. "It's like him, though."
"I'm sorry, Amoretta; I don't quite understand."
"Mr. Advocat is such a strong devil that his presence, even his magic, have their own individual force about them. This is like that; the sorcery has its own...I guess you could call it a scent, though it has nothing to do with the smell. I felt the same scent in the crowd as I do now."
"What about earlier?"
Amoretta shook her head.
"If you mean at the other crime scene, then no. It had been too long, and the subtle differences fade faster than the overall impressions do."
"But he or she was here just now?" Ballatore quizzed.
"I'm not sure. That would explain it, but there are other possibilities as well. If there had been some other spell performed out in the street, perhaps. For example, if the sorcerer had summoned his or her minions there at the alley mouth, then sent them in here to commit murder, that would explain it."
"Minions?"
"Devil familiars, imps and demons," Lillet explained. "That's how the killer can physically overwhelm the victims. These murders are sorcery, but they also use sorcery."
"How do you know that?" Ballatore said dubiously.
"That's what I was checking on when I visited the scene of last night's murder." She summarized her findings for the Inspector, who seemed intrigued but not convinced.
"That's a lot more detail than Janice gave, with a considerably fresher look at things." His eyes flicked to Amoretta, suggesting that he'd been listening when she'd talked about how magical traces faded rapidly over time.
There was a straightforward answer to that question, but as she always seemed to, Lillet had to make an effort to say it, which gave Amoretta a chance to say it first.
"Lillet is a better magician than Ms. Riesling."
Ballatore gave Amoretta a long look, but made no sign of what he was thinking.
"All right, then," he finally said. "Let's see if she can make something of this mess that we couldn't."
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NOTE: Allen's name is taken from Allen's Coffee Brandy, which is unaccountably popular in my neck of the woods.
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