Infernal Investigations

I was stuck outside my shop, trapped by nothing but my own thoughts.

This should be a happy moment. An ally returned, to help me finish this case and end this nightmare.

If only I hadn’t made a mess of my love life after spending years keeping it comfortably non-existent.

Well. He was here. Alice was…hopefully not? She couldn’t be healed by divine magic, so she might still be in recovery. Hopefully. That would make things easier than if they were both their, especially from what had been in those letters.

I could at least trust in social mores to mean neither of them would start trying to make out with me in front of the other?

Oh right, one was a priest of the god of bards and the other was Alice. I was doomed. Maybe I could play off getting bit by her as not being flirting if it happened?

I sighed. Standing outside my shop debating on what might happen wouldn’t actually fix anything. Arguably it was making things worse by making me a target. I knew my shop was being watched.

Opening the door, I paused at the sight. Gregory Montague, sweeping, whistling a tune to himself.

I paused, watching him work, smiling a little. I hadn’t really had a chance to clean since the chaos of the fight with the sloth devil. Intelligence had cleaned up enough that my shop wasn’t a walking hazard zone, but they hadn’t bothered with anything else.

He finally noticed me entering in through the door, turning around. “Malvia!”

“Gregory,” I said, my smile turning into a scowl. “You’re supposed to be in bed, resting.”

“Celestial healing,” he told me. “Having a muse whose friendly with you helps quite a bit with that.”

“Yes but it doesn’t mean you should do strenuous activity,” I replied. “For the sake of your health, you should take it easy for now.”

And the sake of my stress since I really didn’t need to worry about the ticking time bomb I couldn’t blame on anyone but myself. At least Alice was still at the temple, since the Muse couldn’t heal her-

“Hey, is Malvia downstairs?” Alice called from upstairs. “Could you ask her why she has an entire cupboard dedicated to different brands of tea leaves?”

I bristled. It was not an entire cupboard, I had one, maybe two, perhaps three shelves dedicated to the collection of tea leaves, at most!

More importantly, what in the hells was she doing here as well?

I looked over at Gregory, who shrugged.

“The head of the church deemed her efforts in keeping me alive sufficient to use one of our reserve healing potions on her in addition to the Muse’s efforts,” he said. “We don’t always just use Light to heal our wounds Malvia.”

“A single healing potion seems insufficient to healed injuries of that extent,” I replied.

“The muse did help,” Gregory said. “And we used more than one potion. The church deemed it proper repayment for helping keep me alive when the Queen of Masks attacked me.”

I breathed out. On the one hand, it was very good they had done so, and I didn’t want Alice injured. I was just horribly terrified of what would happen with both her and Gregory awake and in the same house as me.

“She also said if she ended up feeling more injured than she though, we could always raid your stores for additional healing potions,” Gregory mentioned casually.

“She what?” I said, glaring at where Alice was probably making a mess of my tea shelves.

Barely a few days after a kiss and she already thought my possessions were hers again? Oh no, I was going to set the rules on that. For the second time, infuriatingly. At least it wouldn’t be as destructive as the first time. I hoped. Well, there was less for her to destroy by ‘borrowing’ my concoctions.

“I’m assuming they’re somewhere,” Gregory said. “We couldn’t get into your lab, but we checked the first floor and didn’t find anything. I didn’t want to go through your own rooms but Alice uh-”

“Invited herself,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Yes,” Gregory admitted. “She claimed you probably kept some emergency potions near your bed.”

“The rarer materials are kept in the lab,” I said, walking over and joining him leaning against my counter. “Along with the tools of my trade. Like Hells was I keeping them anywhere near my main floor. But yes, there are a couple near my bed.”

Unless you had no other options available, the lab was always to be kept in the most secure room. And as far away from paying customers as possible.

“We would have compensated you for anything,” Gregory said lightly. “If it actually matters that much?”

“It doesn’t,” I said, and paused for just a moment as his shoulder touched mine. It took the edge off the anger. “Just frustrated. I lost a lot of product, and I know this was allowed as part of my recruitment as a hound for Intelligence and a cover, and both of those are increasingly likely to become smoke. I’m not on the hook moneywise for any of it, but it was a way to make some money for myself.”

Being a hound didn’t pay anything.

Gregory nodded. “Yeah, I can..sympathize. Although unlike you, I’m still existing on the charity of others. Just now it’s not the coffers of someone I hate that end up being emptied. I’ve ended up learning, but it feels cheaper when I’m entirely surviving on the kindness of my church.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” I told him, lightly bumping his shoulder. “Most people who would have taken that fall don’t have that kind of self-awareness. At least not the ones I’ve met.”

His hand settled on my shoulder, arm settling hesitantly on my back. Oh fuck.

I did my best not to go very still, which just resulted in me tensing up twice as hard.

“Is this okay?” he asked me carefully.

“..It is,” I said, after a second of hesitation, letting the tension out of my shoulders.

Stupid. Alice could be down at any moment! But for now she wasn’t.

“You two got here okay?” I asked.

“Carriage,” he said. “After what happened last time, walking seemed like a poor choice.”

That was putting it mildly.

“Alice seemed pretty keen on getting back on the case again,” Gregory told me. “She insisted we wait for you of course.”

Keen on getting back on the case? More likely to be keen on getting into my pants!

Not that I necessarily had a problem with that, I thought. Just not now. Not at any time when Gregory Montague was within ten miles of us!

“Are you okay?” Gregory asked, looking intently at me. “You seem a bit out of breath. And flushed.”

“Had to hurry here from the most recent crime scene,” I said. “And it was a grisly sight over there. The Priestkiller has given up on restraint. And they get closer to their goal.”

He nodded. “Things rush around so fast, we lose track of them. I do hope the chaos hasn’t meant you lost my letter?”

The thought of what had been in that was probably making my situation worse, not better.

“I did not,” I told him, unable to meet his haze. Fool of an Infernal, you were just almost elbow deep in a corrupted corpse, how was this so damn difficult?

“Good,” he said. “I’d hate for you to not know about Holmsteader’s involvement in all of this.”

Oh! Oh, he meant that part, not the other things. I breathed out, feeling steadier now. “No, I saw that. And something about having severed the Queen of Mask’s tongue?”

He nodded. “It’s at the temple, but now that I know it got delivered-”

I looked up, and he was close, so very close, eyes soft and warm and suddenly I couldn’t look away. Nor did I want to.

“Everything else that was in there,” he said softly. “I want to assure you of its truth.”

My mouth suddenly felt dry. “And how do you intend to do that, Mr. Montague?”

“Will you let me show you?” he asked, suddenly even closer.

Oh hells, I was actually considering this, wasn’t I? With Alice and whoever else might be in the house nearby? The word didn’t form for a second, and even as I forced it out I wasn’t even sure what it might be-

Taken from NovelFire, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Malvia, do you still have any of that pig we killed left?” Alice said as she came down the stairs.

I didn’t know whether to laugh, scream, or start crying. I did move away suddenly from Gregory, and he in turn backed off.

Thank the hells, Alice hadn’t seemed to notice. Or at least did me the mercy of not asking why we’d been so close. Barely ten minutes with both conscious and nearby and I’d already nearly bungled it.

“Should be downstairs,” I answered. “Alive, since I haven’t had time to butcher it yet.”

Varrow’s very public spectacle delivering the hog meant that I had to buy a second one to keep up the charade. It currently was unhappily awaiting its fate down below. Loudly, until the sanctity of my sleep made me force feed it a sleeping draught.

“If you want bacon, you’ll have to make it yourself,” I said, keeping my tone even as as pouting Alice made her way around the counter-top.

“You couldn’t do it yourself?” She said, leaping up on to my countertop, nearly sending some papers flying. “What have you been doing all day instead?”

“Pursuing the lead you two gave me,” I said. “It’s definitely kept me busy over the last several hours.”

“You didn’t do anything stupid out there did you?” Alice growled. “Nothing likely to end up with us finding your body somewhere?”

“No of course not,” I said, mostly truthfully.

I was quite sure even if discovered I could have gotten out of Holmsteader’s territory relatively unharmed. And next to that, trusting my life to the Thieve’s Guild had been a relatively safe risk. As for heading into the corrupted boating shop, well-

Alice grabbed my hand and I forced my tail to not start flailing in response as she looked up at me.

“You are not dying with me nearby,” she said roughly. “I don’t care how many foolhardy risks you throw yourself at, I forbid you from dying while I’m still with you.”

Oh hells. My mind was going back to that first time, when she’d found me in that building, made me swear the same thing. I tugged just a bit but she refused to let go of my hand and I was definitely blushing.

She wasn’t, and there was something challenging in her gaze and hells if that didn’t just make the flush deeper.

Why did she have to do this less than ten feet from Gregory! Don’t bring my hand to your lips you little gremlin!

“I uh, yes, of course,” I said, finally managing to tear my gaze away. One of my hands grabbed my tail to try and keep both of them still.

She nodded a little before relinquishing my other hand. “Of course you will. And I’ll hold you to that. Mind helping with me, noble? I need this one alive.”

“Ex-noble,” Gregory said casually. “And of course, I like having her alive as well.”

Please let neither of them ask why to the other.

At least the threat of imminent destruction could be counted on to distract them from asking those questions.

“Two more priests are dead,” I say, and talking about said imminent doom actually made me feel steadier. “Lareran and Tildae, the later very publicly and violently. We have only three priests left until their ritual is complete.”

Or until they attempted their ritual, it failed due to lacking Mourner Kelson’s soul as a component, and they started again on finding a new suitable candidate from among the clergy of Zaviel.

That was the main issue with resting on our laurels. Even if Kelson went undiscovered, the conspiracy would find out sooner or later. And at that point, for them it would be a case of creating a new candidate. Difficult? Certainly. Time-consuming? Yes. But however they did it, they could pick any priest in the city to trick, coerce, or torture into practicing diabolism before feeding their soul to the ritual and desecrating their church.

We might not even have a clue until the moment the ritual opened the hellgate under our feet.

“Now, in terms of support, standing with everyone is unknown,” I said. “The various churches are all suspect, although I have some new information. Slayer Derrick had me for a chat on my way here in her carriage.”

“Really?” Alice said, the casual tone hiding her sudden interest, if you hadn’t spent years around her like I had. “What kind of chat?”

“It was friendly enough,” I said, and Alice snorted.

“She threatened to kill you, didn’t she?” Alice said, with a gleam in her eyes that I immediately needed to squash.

“The topic was brought up, and quickly abandoned,” I said, desperate to not have Alice trying to go after everyone on my behalf. Definitely not Derrick, who could kill her. “Don’t take an interest. It’s fine.”

“It’s fine?” Gregory repeated incredulously. “One of the highest ranking priests in service to Zaviel threatened you and that is fine?”

“It’s not a form of negotiation I’m unused to,” I said.

“True,” Alice admitted. “Productive?”

“Third person leading the program, and the one who suggested it in the first place is a Baltaren priest,” I said. “I met him, I don’t think either of you have. Timme.”

Gregory grimaced. “The name is familiar, but for if I’ve met him? I know that for sure as much as any other Baltaren. Most I’ve met love using those tricks of theirs so you can’t know which of them you’re talking too.”

“Well, it’s a start,” I said. “As for the rest of the conversation, nothing concrete. I’m inclined to think she’s been used by the other two from the start. Nothing for certain yet. And in terms of our other allies-”

I finally took the package out, facing away from them while I did so. I’d been through quite a bit with both, but some decorum had to be maintained while I parted my skin like parchment.

“That was disturbing,” Gregory said, looking pale.

“You couldn’t even see what happened,” I said, idly patting myself to make sure the skin had sealed properly.

“Hearing that was enough,” he replied.

“You get used to it,” Alice said.

“Anyway,” I said firmly. “Voltar and Dawes pretty much told me that someone further up the ladder has noticed the perhaps lackadaisical nature of Intelligence’s handling of this and has put the proverbial boot on the organization’s neck. Even so, they didn’t feel comfortable giving me these openly.”

I opened up the package, then pulled them out. Round cylinders made of steel, they’ve been carved into, arcane inks on their surface, a glossy green. Extensive inking as well, there was hardly any part of the cylinder lacking engraving or ink. The cylinder wasn’t solid, one half slightly smaller than the other, and pressing gently against it it moved towards the metal. I stopped when I felt just a sliver of resistance. Whatever magic these contained would likely activate when you pushed all the way in.

I unfolded the note that had been in there with them.

For handling a certain friend the note said, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. You’ll find them quite adept at getting past certain defenses

To be as fair as possible, they might feel this level of double talk was needed. Still, be plain and easy to understand.

Then again that might not be in Voltar’s nature.

“What are they?” Alice whispered, reaching for one.

I intercepted her hand with my tail, pushing it back. “Nullifiers for an arcane shield. If I had to speculate, made on a rush job ordered by a certain detective to the maker of the Priestkiller’s shield. He told me earlier they’d tracked the mage down. These should be capable of nullifying it, but they’ll have limited uses.”

I assumed. Better to be pessimistic as opposed to optimistic. The archmage could have designed ones precisely made to fully nullify any arcane shielding, but given these were likely a rush job? They wouldn’t have the same effects as something she’d had days or even weeks to work on. They also could only carry so much magic themselves, assuming they brute-forced the shield’s own magic instead of utilizing a built-in weakness.

With enchanted items the norm was always to take them to another enchanter to have them checked for any weaknesses the creator might have left in. The best defense against that was to be a good enough customer that no one would be willing to make anything designed specifically to neutralize whatever your enchanted items were. But just to be safe, have it taken to another enchanter to check for specific weaknesses and even modify to reduce them.

Or so I’d heard. My own history with enchanted items was usually short and resulted in them getting lost, sold, or broken in short order.

And the chance of the conspiracy finding another archmage willing to look these over…well, better safe than sorry.

“How many uses, do you think?” Gregory asked, keeping his hands away from the devices after my tail twitched.

“Not listed,” I said bluntly. “Could be one. Could be twenty. Could be I’m wrong and they’ll permanently turn it off. They’ll give us a shot at handling the Priestkiller at least. Reduce his defenses to just the diabolic, and we have methods to handle those.”

“Methods that I’ll be handling,” Gregory said. “No more melting your face off. No more carrying substances that could kill you inside your pockets.”

I paused, glancing between him and a vigorously nodding Alice. “Where did you two hear about that?”

“Your weird Intelligence friend visited,” Alice said. “Wanted to make sure we’d help keep you from making fool choices likely to end in your death.”

“I resent the implication I make foolish choices,” I said while the two of them had the temerity to smirk.

Weird intelligence friend could be any of the members of Intelligence I’d ever interacted with, but from context I assumed it had been Tagashin.

“Coutermeasures work best spread among multiple people,” I replied.

“So?” Alice said. “You got Intelligence and the churches. Plenty of folk who don’t get injured when holy water touches them. Seriously Mals, your insistence on carrying that stuff around was nonsense when it was just us on our own. Now that you have a whole host of non-Infernals who can carry it? Even more nonsense.”

I looked between the two of them, both of them not wavering in the slightest. “You do realize that me carrying acid around has the exact same effect?”

“Yes,” Alice said with an eye roll. “We did discuss that, among other things.”

Oh hells, please let ‘other things’ be the weather or how many times I’d nearly threatened either with bodily harm.

“I did talk with a few of the senior-most priests of Tarver,” Gregory said, moving towards the door. “Places where our known traitor priests are known to haunt. Bards are almost as good at ferreting out information as worshippers of Lareran. Back in a jiff!”

And like that, he was out the door.

“Finally,” Alice muttered. “I thought he would never leave.”

She whirled around, pushing against me, pulling my head down. Taken off-guard, I pulled back but that glare in her eyes quelled resistance.

“I’m saying it again,” Alice said furiously, our faces only inches apart. “You aren’t dying. You hear me? Or maybe I need to communicate that in a different way.”

“Alice, wai-” my one attempt at a protest was cut off very effectively by her, and pretty soon the thought of protesting further was gone. Everything was just…nice for what felt like hours as I gave up any efforts to fight.

Okay. Maybe I could have struggled more. But for now, no.

Luckily the sound of Gregory’s boots on the floor outside broke me out of it, and I quickly pushed away from a smirking Alice, and slammed my hoof into the side of the table. My eyes watered immediately.

“Got it,” Gregory said triumphantly, then paused. “Malvia, are you alright?”

If I looked how I felt, the answer was both fantastic and also extremely compromised.

“Fine,” I wheezed, trying to force myself to breathe normally. “Hit my hoof on the table. Still sore from jumping between rooftops last night.”

Alice raised an eyebrow but thankfully said nothing, just leaning back against the table. “So next step is-”

“Answering the door for whoever is on the step,” I said, blinking tears out of my eye.

Someone was approaching the front door, boards creaking with every step. I shoved the shield nullifiers back into my pocket and started upstairs.

I’d kept my outside lantern set further away from the door for a reason. From the general height and shape of the person, it was likely Melissa, although she seemed slightly smaller than normal. Body language, her shoulders were more slumped than normal.

I got the door open before she could even start knocking.

Melissa looked like shite. One eye was black and swollen. Scrapes and cuts dotted her face. A rag had been wrapped around her hand, turned crimson on her palm from blood. More bandages were visible under tears in her clothes, one leg trembling as blood traveled down it.

“Someone went dancing tonight,” Alice said, almost inaudible.

“We need to talk,” Melissa told me, taking a shuddering breath in. I had the very uncomfortable feeling that despite the aura of strength, even the slightest push would make my half-sister collapse. “About our half-brother. Now.”

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