No gods for drowning, p.3
No Gods For Drowning, page 3
“Arcadia!” Alex strode near with a giant’s smile. “What are you doing out here?” His arms squeezed tight around her.
Arcadia gave him a ferocious hug. “It’s been too long, Lexi.”
The hug broke, and so did Alex’s smile. “Please don’t call me that around—”
“Lexi?” The wild-haired man popped up beside Alex. “That your codename back when you were in the police? Did everyone call you that, or just her?”
Alex clapped the other man on the back. “This apology counts for all further interaction you two will have, so I’m only going to say it once—I’m sorry about him. Meet Detective Cecil Gillion. The other half of Ace Investigations.”
“Lovely.” Cecil whipped a paper card from his coat pocket to Arcadia’s hand.
“Ace Investigations, Agents in Matters Public and Private, Civil and Criminal,” Arcadia read aloud. This didn’t make sense. “Don’t your type spy on covenant traitors, cheating spouses, business deals?”
“Not much care for witches, cheaters, and cutthroat dealings these days,” Cecil said. “We’re Thale’s dogs now. His fault for not having detectives of his own.”
Arcadia slid the card into one of her belt’s pouches. “It wasn’t his decision. Logoi wasn’t interested in investigations.” The goddess of reason had only wanted her sacrifices in criminal blood, no questions asked.
“Well, if she wants to gripe about it, she can—” Cecil’s expression faltered. He bowed his head to Arcadia. “Apologies, love. Meant no offense. I’m not all that properly versed on your city-state, and Alex here, he’s not one to tell tales. Not to me, at least.”
“Let’s say I left the badge for a reason,” Alex said. “Several reasons. Hard to forget the last time I tore off the uniform.”
Arcadia knew the feeling. She never wanted to wear blue again. Not after Shah.
“Anyway, Cecil, meet Arcadia Myrn,” Alex said. “The best friend you could ever have.”
“Thought I was your mate,” Cecil said, but his smile was back and aimed at the steps. “Arcadia, the love, the wonder, anything we can do for you?”
Arcadia thought neither would ever ask. “I want to see inside. With you.”
Alex glanced to the dark doorway. “You’re sure?”
Cecil clapped his hands. “Terrific. I’ll lead. We got four of these troubles tonight, and this is only number one, so let’s not keep the dead boys waiting.” He slipped up the steps past Arcadia and pressed open the front door.
Alex followed him. “Broken into, huh?”
“Evac team did that,” Arcadia said, trailing them inside. “Our discovery. Thale kept the exact addresses for the other sites to himself, but I knew someone would come eventually. Thankfully, it’s you.”
The house better resembled how Arcadia had found it before the fire, its secrets hiding in darkness, until Cecil sidled along one wall and thrust open the curtains.
Dusk’s frail light cut through the gloomy house in orange-yellow slats, enough to show Arcadia the furniture, the walls, and the bodies. Red-tinged, charred in places, their torso cavities gaping open in ugly dripping mouths. She missed the darkness already, but the site lay calmer than it had this afternoon. If only sunset could get rid of the burnt-flesh smell.
Cecil gagged into his coat sleeve. “I’m thinking knife wounds, but what scraped the rubbish from their guts?”
Alex tipped a chair, glanced at a corpse’s head, and then set the legs in place on the damp floor. “Calling it now, a team effort.”
“Yes, they surely died as a team,” Cecil said.
“I mean the murderer.” Alex stroked his jaw. “Or murderers.”
Cecil knelt over a body slumped against the wall. The skin had melted into the blackened stone. “One man could do this.”
“One man did this in four places, in one day, in different parts of town?” Alex asked. “I don’t think so. Limited time and energy.”
“It’s a big stretch of neighborhood, but it’s all on the west end.” Cecil grimaced at the body. “It’d be tiresome work, but it could be done.”
Alex turned to Arcadia. “What’s your impression?”
Arcadia looked over the still bodies, their charred skin and clothes. “They’re dead.”
“Makings of a true investigator,” Cecil said. He opened one palm and held it an inch from the body beneath him. “Don’t expect I’ll feel anything off them. Stabbing says emotional involvement, but fire is cleansing and messes everything up.” He lowered his hand and winked at Arcadia. “Know what I mean?”
She shook her head. Cecil seemed an oddball; that was the best she could gather.
“Cecil’s what we in the detective business call a cheater,” Alex said. “Mildly clairvoyant. A descendant.”
Arcadia studied Cecil again as he stood. He seemed too carefree for a descendant, but then, how was a god’s mortal child supposed to behave? Red dashes stroked his light hair, the color a sign of godliness—it was possible.
“Which god?” Arcadia asked.
“See that?” Cecil asked, grinning. “Bring a fine gent to a lounge, a lady to a murder scene, dainty or stuffy or a big muscly beauty like yourself, they always want to know which god. Imagine I said Tychron, huh? No one would show me a good time then.” He adjusted his fedora. “Poke the branches of my family tree, you’ll find Lyvien, God of Instinct. I try to stay humble.”
“Except when you’re asking those gents and ladies to dinner,” Alex said.
Cecil waved a hand. “It’s nothing, really. Descendant gifts aren’t a leaf to the great tree of a god’s holy power. Special enough to be full of myself, but mortal enough to die.”
“He’ll get emotional resonance, event fragments, sometimes a person’s thoughts.” Alex neared Cecil and clapped his back. “Occasional thoughts of his own, too.”
Arcadia couldn’t help laughing. Cecil seemed good for Alex.
Cecil laughed, too. “She don’t believe us.”
“I believe you,” Arcadia said. “But I thought descendants would’ve left Aeg with the gods.”
“How long ago?” Cecil asked. “Grandfather Lyvien popped off from the Holy Land way ahead of the others. Abandoned Aeg before it became a fad.” He reached out to Arcadia. “Here, love. Your hand.”
Alex sighed. “I wouldn’t do that.”
If Ace Investigations didn’t work out, these two should start an act, head to Dialos and get into the talkies. Arcadia’s mirth faded as she remembered no one sent films of any kind out from Dialos anymore—for all she knew, the Sunshine City was gone. She held out her hand.
Cecil pursed his lips in thought, and then said, “I see true love in your future.”
Alex tugged Cecil’s arm. “That’s enough. We have work.”
Cecil bowed out of Arcadia’s reach. “Now you see what makes me the greatest detective in the Holy Land. Descendant, optimist, romanticist—”
“Arcadia, I don’t think you’re here to learn the finer points of investigation.” Alex pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his coat. “And we have better places to catch up than over a trio of dead bodies. What did you need?”
Good old Alex, always sharp. Arcadia had worried she’d have to dance around her request another hour. “The other murder houses.”
“Planning to visit them ahead of us?”
“I have someone I might ask about them,” Arcadia said. “She’s quick, like you. My only job is to make sure this area’s empty before the dry season ends, but I want to help. She could offer that.”
Meager sunlight shifted. Somehow the room’s gore had grown more grotesque as dusk deepened. Arcadia had already seen too much of knife wounds, nine-pointed stars, reminders of Shah—useless things. Locations would help more, accounting for time, distance, and human ability.
“I’d bring the info to her,” Arcadia went on. “Rather than bring her here. This is dangerous.”
“Is it?” Cecil asked. “Oh dear, I might be in the wrong line of work.”
Alex drew a small notebook from his trench coat, flipped between two pages, scribbled on one, and tore it out. “Thale gave me the addresses.”
Arcadia gripped Alex’s shoulder. “I appreciate it. And you might, too.”
“I’d love that.” Alex pocketed his notebook. “We really need to catch up. Barring bad weather or murder calamities tomorrow evening, we should head out for dinner. I might have Cecil in tow, but I’ll keep him on his best behavior, for what that’s worth.”
“It’s fine. I might not be alone, either.” Arcadia managed a smile against the gloomy room. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Beautiful.” Alex fitted gloves over his hands. “Now, if you have what you came for, might be a nice time to leave.”
“Unless you want to see this get intimate.” Cecil drew out his own pair of rubber gloves.
Arcadia turned from the living room of horrors. “Have a good night, Lexi. See you tomorrow. Catch up.”
She told Cecil it was nice meeting him and he would make a fine detective someday, which made Alex laugh. She then stepped out the front door, back into a world that made a little more sense.
But only a little.
Chapter 5
M
urder was tiring work. Lilac blamed her sluggishness in turning over these last couple hotel rooms on running up and down Valentine’s west side with a dagger and a prayer. She’d spent the day nervous, hiding, dragging, tying, cutting, crying, pushing, piling. Hotel maids had to hide their exhaustion, which meant she was failing basic professional housekeeping. The blood she’d drained during the rituals should have kept her from this bone-deep weariness, but her arms moved like truck tires in Oldtown mud.
She thought about her orations to now-dead men and wondered if their killing weighed on her spirit instead. How much power did the soul have to drag on muscles? Nothing she’d heard in Logoi’s temple covered it, not for descendants. If she weren’t a goddess’s child, she could spill her veins in buckets and cleanse every wrong from her soul, but no such luck. Descendant blood was useless to the gods. And it wasn’t like they were here anyway.
Mother Logoi hadn’t returned.
This hotel room’s tenant, Mr. Barrow, tapped his foot and checked his pocket watch, again and again. If he wanted Lilac to leave, she could, but the room wouldn’t turn itself over. She was halfway crawling through a sheet change when another maid popped through the room’s doorway.
“Visitor,” Marcy said. “Aren’t you off-shift anyway?”
“After this hall,” Lilac said. “If it’s Cecil again, he’ll have to wait.” Even the words went snail-slow off her tongue. She had little strength for work, let alone for friends to drop by unannounced.
“She’s definitely not Cecil.”
Lilac perked up. She was here.
Marcy elbowed Lilac away from the bed, her dull black uniform swishing at each jab. “Go on, I’ve finished mine. I kept a lady waiting once, and she wasn’t there when I got around to her. Don’t make my mistake.”
Between room swaps, shift switches, and every convenient rescue from hotel guest royalty, Lilac owed Marcy a couple dozen favors. She gave quick thanks, promised Mr. Barrow he was in good hands, and slipped out the door.
Another maid, Bristol, passed in the hall, adjusting her hair’s white kerchief. “What’s that smirk?” she asked, matching it.
“Marcy is a goddess in disguise,” Lilac said. She hadn’t realized she was smirking; her lips felt as heavy as the rest of her.
Bristol winked and then disappeared around a corner. Her shift was only beginning.
Before Valentine began to crumble, Radiance Hotel had catered solely to wealthy travelers. The vaulted ceilings, vibrant gold-colored carpets, and silver sconces had been for their benefit. With the gods gone ten years now, travel having shriveled to nothing between Aeg’s city-states, and the government’s State House having fallen apart, the elegance was shown largely to the occupying forces from Logos: police officers, admins, and agents of the flood fighters.
Agents such as Captain Arcadia Myrn, who waited outside her room. She loomed over Lilac, her tan eyes bright with wonder as if Lilac were as precious as one of the movie stars whose photos lined the lobby walls.
As if Lilac wasn’t a murderer.
She freed long tangles of auburn hair from her white kerchief. “Evening, Captain Myrn. How can I help the powers that be today?”
Arcadia scratched at her bristly scalp. “I don’t have a clever answer,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I do.” Lilac stood on her toes and kissed Arcadia’s soft lips.
Warmth spread through Lilac’s face and lightened the spiritual weight from her muscles. If she returned to Mr. Barrow’s room, she could feel rightly annoyed like usual. Arcadia had broken through the numbness with her slight smile, the awkward shifting of her big lovable figure. Ultimately, each bloody sacrifice meant keeping her and everyone else alive a little longer. Her nervous, earnest demeanor made all the day’s work worthwhile.
“What did I do to deserve a sweet distraction like you?” Lilac asked.
Arcadia held up a large, rolled-up paper. “I need your help.”
So, Lilac hadn’t earned Arcadia’s attention yet, but she would. She took Arcadia’s arm in both hands and let Arcadia pull them into her hotel room. She lived in a half-suite, furnished with a bed, bathroom, and table like the others, but also a sitting area, its own telephone, and small kitchenette, perks of a flood fighter captain on a long-term stay.
Her determined footsteps rattled the furniture as she approached the table. Unease and worry haunted her posture. Fine, there was business, but there was also a woman who needed a break.
“Get out of your greens and I’ll run a bath,” Lilac said. “While you’re in, I’ll set the stove.”
“Lilac.” The stoic way Arcadia said it grabbed Lilac’s attention. This was near the end of a rough day, but not yet the end.
Arcadia unrolled her large paper across the tabletop, revealing a map of Valentine. Oldtown took the west and southwest sections, Bay Ridge to the northwest, the middle column formed the North, Central, and South Temple Districts, Lee Village the east and northeast, and neon-lit Merchant’s Field opened the city toward farmland in the southeast.
“I need your help,” Arcadia said again.
“You’ll relax after?” Lilac neared the table. “Let’s get you helped then. What is it?”
“Can you find these addresses?” Arcadia pulled a torn notebook page from a belt pouch and laid it on the map’s corner. “You know the city better.”
Most wanderers from Logos had only come a year ago or less, after Valentine’s government collapsed and someone had the bright idea that Valentine needed assistance from their southern neighboring city-state. Lilac had left Logos a decade back, its purpose gone when her divine mother abandoned Aeg with the rest of the gods. She hadn’t run straight to Valentine, but the city had become her home in time.
She’d had nowhere else to go.
“The city’s hard to read, all the streets kind of narrow,” Arcadia said. “I need an overhead on these crime scenes.”
The map seemed vast if you looked close enough, but was intimate to Lilac. These weren’t words on paper. They were Marko and Flip at Bay Ridge, the Montey Brothers on South Chambers Street, on and on, blood spilling, organs piling, the stink so strong even in memory, Lilac had to press a hand against her nose here in the hotel.
And the needling thought came: Does Arcadia know? Is this a trap?
Lilac avoided Arcadia’s eyes by closing her own and shutting out the world. The moments stretched the way Logoi had taught her, giving Lilac time to jam together puzzle pieces of information. No, Arcadia was unaware. Yes, Lilac could help without helping. She opened her eyes and smudged each site with a pencil, as close as she could tell when the map only gave street names.
“Do you see a pattern?” Arcadia asked.
Lilac only ever saw patterns. She guessed that was really why Arcadia had brought this work to her. Without knowing Lilac was a descendant, Arcadia had picked up on this meager gift of fitting pieces of the world together.
“If you mean why each location’s important, I have no idea.” Lilac slashed pencil across map, connecting the dots. “But overhead view? I see an X. But you could see that when I put the dots down.”
Arcadia’s finger traced the lines. “The place between them? I thought it might be more complicated.”
“It might.” Lilac planted her thumb at the X’s center. “The distance between seems similar, maybe deliberate, but put a bunch of dots on a map and it’s easy to make an X, a diamond, triangles, spirals.”
Arcadia placed her hand on the small of Lilac’s back. “That’s why I brought it to you. Your smarts always impress me.”
“I don’t know smarts, but the patterns show clear.” Lilac tucked her chin in one hand. “One spot might be crucial, buried in the others. I would need to see crime scene notes, photographs, whatever your police know.”
“I don’t even know what the police know.” Arcadia stood away from the map. “The evac team isn’t officially involved.”
“Then why are you unofficially involved?” Lilac asked.
“I found the South Chambers site. Thale will put money toward this, for the good press, but he won’t really try.” Arcadia looked away. “We could do more for Valentine than pretend to care.”
Lilac hadn’t meant for any of this to land on Arcadia’s shoulders. She reached for Arcadia’s face. “No wonder you quit. You’re too good for that man.” She pulled Arcadia down into a gentle kiss and then slipped back. “You can relax now, yes?”
Steel nerves eased from Arcadia’s frame. “Yes.”
