The driver brought the captain to the Quay Barco in less than ten minutes. Locomotive expected to see signs of panic and destruction, but the street was quiet and sparsely populated. Still, that didn’t mean anything in the case of a magic attack. A policeman, meeting NZAMIPS cars, waved his hand, inviting them to turn toward the docks.
The situation at the docks was peaceful and sort of ordinary. A police officer questioned a company of drunken fishermen, and a criminal police van was parked to the side, meaning there were victims. The cops pulled a striped ribbon around a large boat hangar and chased the curious away. Locomotive went inside, not stopping for talk.
Well, the hangar consisted of nothing ordinary. There was neither blood on the walls, nor a cadaveric stench, nor traces of fire, nor damage, except for an overturned barrel. And piles of dust were all around. Magician-criminologists were rummaging there, too, but of a lower rank, local from Redstone. One of them habitually saluted: subordinates respected Locomotive.
“Amulets of instrumental control recorded an outburst of magic of level eight, no less, at 2:32 pm. There appear to be human remains—ashes. I cannot say yet how many people died. I’d like to show you something interesting.”
Carefully avoiding forensic specialists, rustling with their brushes, and stacks of boxes, the magician-criminologist took the captain into the back room. A seasoned professional, Locomotive whistled in surprise: against the wall there was a rank of crossbows, cocked and ready for firing; three or four more in the process of assembly were laid out on a long table; two uncovered boxes labeled “Hardware” predatorily gleamed with familiar parts. Boards on the far wall were pierced with bolts: the assembled weapon was tested in action.
“Search from floor to ceiling,” the captain ordered. “Do you have enough people?”
“The office has sent all people who haven’t been taken by Mr. Satal,” the expert shrugged.
“Okay, I will get you some of the coordinator’s people!”
“One more thing, sir,” the expert stopped him. “The imprint of the aura at the crime scene is very unusual. I have not been able to identify it, but it’s nothing like I’ve ever met.”
Locomotive nodded and went out into the fresh air, the smell of smoke and ashes followed him closely. It seemed inconceivable that the otherworldly, even with a carrier, managed to get from the College of St. Johan to North Creek unnoticed, but two cases with fire and strange aura in one day… The timing of both events was appropriate. The frightening word “quarantine” slowly appeared in the captain’s mind. Redstone was much bigger than Nintark; in order to put a cordon around it, one would need a lot more than four thousand people. Rumors would start panic and result in victims. Soldiers would have to shoot into a mob mad from fear.
On the waterfront a young officer reported to the senior coordinator; troopers jumped out of a truck with NZAMIPS logo. Locomotive quickly approached them; he wasn’t going to let the dark magician terrorize his subordinates.
“I know what you think,” Satal quickly said, “let’s step aside.”
The word “quarantine” was left unsaid.
“Please, wait!” the coordinator muttered quietly. “I know I cannot order you in this case. But the situation is not so obvious.”
“The creature walks around the city.”
“Listen, witnesses say the suspect had talked to them. Do you understand what that means? The supernatural cannot talk! The otherworldly are capable of thinking in their own way, but they cannot articulate words: it’s a known fact.”
“What do you suggest?” the captain interrupted him coldly.
“Give me a day! The quarantine will sow panic in the city; the artisans want exactly that. We would play right into their hands!”
“What will change in a day?”
“The carrier is likely the very same victim; there were no more people on the spot. We’ll find him before he reaches the point of breakage, I promise. The pump-sign retained the imprint of the original Source; we’ll find the name through the crystals and catch the carrier before the monster will completely suppress his will. Trust me!”
Trust the dark mage? Again?
“Probably, the last victims are somehow related to the sect,” Locomotive noticed, trying to gather his thoughts. “There is a large batch of illegal arms in the hangar.”
“We need to search the hangar!” the coordinator came to life.
Captain Baer frowned: did Satal doubt his professionalism?
“Twenty-four hours. You have exactly twenty-four hours. After that, I will inform the center that we have lost control of the situation.”
Chapter 24
The artisans could burn half of Redstone and conduct long-lasting battles with NZAMIPS, but my lecture on alchemy began at 9 a.m., and I was on time for it—albeit battered and not fully awake.
The dim fall sun filled the world with moderate contrasts of heat and cold; golden leaves in the University Park established a lyrical mood. What should be done to the dark to draw him to the lyrics? A silly question! A couple of insignificant things would do the job: fleeing through the city on an empty stomach for a whole day, being enchanted (so that all of my magic turned inside out) and almost killed twice—nothing special, in short.
Quarters met me at the door (was he waiting?) and immediately began to dump on me the accumulated news. Where had he managed to learn so much?! By the time I took a seat in the auditorium, I already knew how intense the last weekend happened to be in Redstone. The police banned the rally in support of Melons, and nothing terrible occurred. Someone set fire to the abandoned huts on the island at the northern end, and the mayor had lost around a million crowns worth of burned real estate. Though nobody would pay him so much money anyway—the place was thought to be cursed. There were persistent rumors that NZAMIPS had ruined the artisan’s nest (NZAMIPS, indeed!) and found such nasty things that battered cops refused even to whisper about them. Two mutilated bodies, found in the river, were certainly the work of the same gang, and now the townspeople wondered if there would be a third corpse. I nodded melancholically and pondered how many attempts the sect needed to make things right. And they were called “artisans”, those idiots?! If they always acted like that, no wonder that so many people were killed in Nintark.
“…and the mayor’s horse gave birth to a three-legged calf.”
“What?!”
“I thought you weren’t listening to me.”
Entering the classroom lecture stopped me from beating the tar out of Quarters. Yes, that day I was in no mood for humor!
The lecture went awfully. I couldn’t catch the meaning of the subject and had to scribble stupidly word for word. Even in the hospital I hadn’t felt like that—I was weak, but not stupid. My mind was like jelly: the professor’s speech was heard as if through cotton wool in the ears, and my eyelids needed matches to keep them open. If I found that those bunglers messed up my brain, I would devote my life to the extermination of their kind! You couldn’t do things like that with dark mages! In the end, I managed to pull myself together to focus on principles of building electric machinery, and the lethargy receded.