Risen, p.33
Risen, page 33
part #12 of Alex Verus Series
The first one, Sigil of Porous Mind, was the most important, as it leached away the target’s certainties and priorities and made them open to suggestion. It also made it difficult for the target to remember anything that happened in the next few minutes. The next one, Sigil of Certain Authority, applied to me, granting my personage whatever importance the constable’s mind would plausibly accept. The third, Sigil of Quick Compliance, should goad him to agree to almost any reasonable order I gave next and make him feel good about it, giving him a hit of dopamine.
‘Let me pass,’ I said.
‘Right ye are, sir,’ he said, and smartly stepped to the side. There was plenty of room for me to enter now without contact and no need to say anything more. But he’d been a tad rude and I believed it deserved a proportional response, so I shouldered past him and muttered, ‘I pumpt yer gran.’ He flashed a glare at me but said nothing, and then I was in the flat.
The inspector inside did not, in fact, know I was coming. She was middle-aged and looked a bit tired when she swung around at my entrance, but she was a good deal more polite than the constable. She had decided to let her hair go grey instead of dyeing it, and I liked her immediately for the decision.
‘Hello. Who are you, then?’
There was a forensics tech of indeterminate gender taking digital pictures and ignoring both of us, an actual camera pressed to their face instead of a phone or a tablet extended toward the victim. I deployed the official ID once more and gestured at the body of poor Gordie, blue in the face and sprawled on his kitchen floor. Years of training, his hopes and mine, all spread out and lifeless. ‘Tell me what ye know about the man’s death.’
The inspector blinked rapidly as the sigils did their work and then replied, ‘Neighbor in the flat downstairs called it in because the victim fell pretty heavily and pounded on the floor—or the neighbor’s ceiling—a few times before dying. A choking accident, as far as we can tell, unless the tox screen comes back and tells us there was something wrong with the scone.’
‘Of course there was something wrong,’ I said, looking at the half-eaten remainder sitting on a small saucer. ‘It had raisins in it. Anything else of note?’
She pointed toward the hallway. ‘Two bedrooms, but he lived alone. One bedroom is full of fountain pens and inks. Never seen the like. Bit of a nutter.’
‘Right. That’s why I’m here. I need to send that stuff in for testing n’ that.’
The inspector’s features clouded with confusion. ‘He didnae drink any of it.’
‘No, no. This is part of a different investigation. We’ve been watching him for a while.’
‘We? I’m sorry, I didnae catch your name.’
‘Aloysius MacBharrais. Ye can call me Al.’
‘Thanks. And you’re investigating his inks?’
‘Aye. Toxic chemicals. Illegal compounds. That sort of rubbish.’
‘On ye go, then. I didnae like that room. Felt strange in there.’
That idle comment was a huge warning. Gordie must have had some active and unsecured sigils inside. And all his inks—painstakingly, laboriously crafted with rare ingredients and latent magical power—had to be removed. The last thing the world needed was some constable accidentally doodling his way to a Sigil of Unchained Destruction. I’d secure them and preserve them for later analysis, keeping the successful decoctions and viable ingredients, and destroying the rest.
I turned without another word and went to the hallway. There were three doors, one presumably being the loo. Layout suggested that was the first door on my left, so I went to the second and cautiously cracked it open. It was his bedroom, and there was a desk as well with a small collection of pens, inks, and papers—all for normal correspondence. I snatched a sheet of stationery and selected an Aurora 88 pen from my coat pocket. It was presently filled with a rust-colored ink using cinnabar for the pigment and a varnish infused with ground pearls, fish glue, and the vitreous jelly of owl eyes. I drew a small circle first to direct the effect at myself, then carefully but quickly outlined the shapes of the Sigil of Warded Sight, which looked like a red eye, barred and banded over with simple knotwork. Once completed, the sigil activated and my sight changed to black and white, all color receptors dormant. It was the most basic defense against unsecured sigils: I could not be affected by them until this one wore off—or until I destroyed it myself. It had saved me too many injuries to count.
Putting the pen away and hefting my cane defensively, I kept the sigil in my left hand and crossed the hall to open the door to Gordie’s study. A waft of foul, funky air immediately punched me in the nose, and I wondered why the inspector hadn’t said anything about it before. It smelled like a sweaty scrotum. Or maybe ten of them.
‘Gah,’ I said, and coughed a couple of times to clear my lungs. I heard titters coming from the kitchen and realized the inspector had left out that fact on purpose. No wonder she’d told me to have at it. Her politeness had been a ruse to draw me to an olfactory ambush.
But I’d been wise to guard my vision. Gordie had far more than a few sigils lying around. The room was full of them, warding against this and that. The walls were lined with raw wooden workbenches and chairs, and cubbyholes full of labeled inks and ingredients glinted on the left. The main bench for ink preparation was opposite the door, and it was stained with pigments and oils and binders and held stoppered bottles of yet more inks. There was also a labeled rack of fountain pens and trays of paper and cards for sigils, along with sealing wax, a melting spoon, and a box of matches. Several cards pasted on the wall above the workbench had recognizable sigils on them for selective sight and attention that should make me—or anyone else who entered—completely ignore what was on the right side of the room. That’s why the detective inspector had felt so uncomfortable. She felt something was going on in there and most likely saw it, but the sigils wouldn’t let her mind process it. My warded sight made the sigils ineffective, so I had no difficulty seeing that there was a hobgoblin grunting and straining to work his way out of a cage placed on top of the workbench. That was a sight I never thought I’d see.
Different from pure goblins and more mischievous than outright malevolent, hobgoblins were extraordinarily difficult to capture as a rule, since they could teleport short distances and were agile creatures as well, with impressive vertical leaps aided by their thick thighs. This one was trying to reach one of several sigils placed around his cage on little metal stands, like draught-beer lists placed on pub tables. His long, hairy-knuckled fingers waggled as he stretched for the sigil nearest him. If he could reach one of them and tear it up, he might have a way out, since the sigils were more of a prison for him than the actual cage was. He froze when he saw me staring at him, openmouthed.
‘Wot?’ he said.
I closed the door behind me. ‘What are ye daein’ here?’
‘I’m in a cage, in’t I? Ye must be the cream of Scottish intelligence. Cannae be anywhere else if I’m no free, ya fuckin’ genius. But at least ye can see an’ hear me. The bird who was here before couldnae.’
‘I mean why does he have ye caged?’ The fellow didn’t appear to be an unusual hobgoblin worthy of capture or study; he was short and hairy, square-jawed, his face adorned with a fleshy nose and eyebrows like untrimmed hedgerows.
‘He’s a right evil bastard, that’s why. Or was. He’s deid, in’t he? How’d he die?’
‘Raisin scone.’
‘So it was suicide, then.’
‘Naw, it was an accident.’
‘He didn’t accidentally eat a raisin scone, now, did he? So it was suicide.’
I shrugged, conceding the point. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m the happy hob ye’re gonnay set free now. Unless ye’re like him.’
‘I’m no like him. I’m alive, to begin with. Answer ma questions truthfully and no more dodges. Who are ye and why did Gordie imprison ye here?’
‘Said he was gonnay sell me. He’s a trafficker in Fae folk, so he is. Or was.’
‘Nonsense.’ I stamped my cane on the floor. ‘Tell me the truth!’
The hobgoblin stood as straight as he could in his cage—he was only about two feet tall—and placed his right hand over his heart, deploying the phrase that the Fae always used when they were swearing the truth or asserting reality. ‘I tell ye three times, man. He’s got a buyer. I’m s’posed tae be delivered tonight. And I’m no the first he’s sold. There was a pixie in here a couple of days ago, didnae stay long.’ He pointed to a slightly smaller, empty cage sitting next to his.
This information was more of a shock to me than Gordie’s death. I’d had apprentices die on me before, but none of them had used their knowledge of sigils to traffic in the Fae. Carrying away the inks and pens of my old apprentices had always been a sad affair, because they’d been pure souls who wanted to do good in the world. This situation suggested that Gordie hadn’t been such a soul. Trafficking Fae? I didn’t know such traffic existed.
‘But . . . we’re s’posed tae boot the likes o’ ye back to the Fae planes whenever ye show up here.’
‘We, did ye say? Oh, so ye are like him. Just with a twee dandy mustache, all waxy and twisted.’
I squinted at him, considering how to respond. Hobgoblins tend not to take well to naked aggression, but they have that pubescent sense of humor young boys have, which I can deploy rapidly when occasion demands. ‘It’s no twee,’ I said. ‘It’s luxuriant and full-bodied, like yer maw.’
The hobgoblin cackled at that, and I noted that his teeth were abnormally bright and straight. It wasn’t a glamour, because my sight was still warded. He’d had some work done. Since when did hobgoblins pay for cosmetic dental work? And his clothing was notable too. I couldn’t identify colors in black-and-white vision, but he wore a paisley waistcoat with a watch chain leading to the pocket, but no shirt underneath it. There was a triskele tattooed on his right shoulder, the sort I’ve seen associated with Druids. Black jeans and chunky black boots. Maybe he was an unusual hobgoblin after all. His eyes glittered with amusement.
‘Come on, then, ol’ man. Let us out.’
‘I will. But ye still have no told me yer name.’
‘For wot? Are ye gonnay send me flowers for the Yule?’
‘I need to bind ye to leave this place safely.’
‘But then ye can bind me for anythin’ else ye want in the future. I’m no letting ye have that power. Ma current situation has made me a wee bit distrustful.’
‘Well, I don’t want tae set a hobgoblin loose in a room fulla binding inks. Do ye know who’s s’posed to be buyin’ ye? Or for why?’
The hobgoblin shook his head. ‘I don’t. But yer lad Gordie had some papers over there he liked to shuffle around an’ murmur over. The bird had a look an’ said they were nonsense, but maybe they’re no to an ol’ man. Ye look like ye went tae school back when yer hair wasn’t white as lilies.’
I moved to the workbench and scanned the papers I saw there. Gordie had been preparing sigils for later use, but there was no helpful explanation of his business dealings. The hobgoblin might be making this all up, and I hoped he was, because otherwise Gordie had been an evil bastard and I’d been a consummate fool. But the fact was, Gordie had done some impressive sigil work in this room. Work that should have been impossible for him. There were sigils I hadn’t taught him yet—like the Sigil of Iron Gall—which meant he’d also crafted inks for which I hadn’t taught him the recipes. He’d obviously been keeping some secrets, which didn’t bother me, because apprentices are supposed to do that. What bothered me was that someone was teaching him behind my back.
‘I think I know who ye are,’ the hobgoblin said. ‘There’s s’posed tae be a Scottish sigil agent with a waxed mustache. Are ye called MacVarnish or sumhin like that?’
‘MacBharrais.’
‘Ah, that’s it. Heard ye were sharp. But if ye had that wanker Gordie tossin’ around behind ye, maybe ye’re no, eh, pal?’
Maybe not. On a scrap pad where Gordie had scrawled lines in different inks to make sure the flow was good before drawing sigils, he had written: Renfrew Ferry, 8 pm.
‘Ye said ye were s’posed tae be delivered tonight? Was it at eight?’
I got no response except a grunt and the sound of torn paper. I turned to see a triumphant hobgoblin freeing himself from the cage, one of the sigils that dampened his magic having been destroyed. He couldn’t have reached it physically—I saw him fail as I entered—so he must have managed to exert some magical pull on it to bring it to his fingers. That was precisely the sort of thing that should have been impossible with multiple copies of it around him. The only explanation was that their potency must have waned significantly, the magic all leached from the ink, and with Gordie dead and obviously not paying attention, it was little wonder.
Cackling and flashing those white teeth at me, the hobgoblin leapt off the table and made for the door. I was out of position and woefully slow; there was no time to even break the seal on a prepared Sigil of Agile Grace.
‘Laters, MacVarnish!’ he said, and bolted out the door. A thud and screams followed shortly thereafter, and there was a shouted ‘I’m glad yer deid!’ before a shocked silence settled in the kitchen. I emerged from the room, far too late, to see the inspector and the tech on the ground, holding their noses. The hobgoblin had leapt up and punched them for the fun of it, and Gordie’s body now lay twisted in a much different position, having recently been kicked. I could still see his face, though, a look of frozen surprise that this was his end, that his brown hair was mussed and he had a few days’ stubble on his neck and jaw, blue eyes widened in horror that he would be literally be caught dead wearing his Ewok pajamas.
‘What in the name of fuck?’ the inspector cried. ‘What was that just now, a pink leprechaun?’ She’d had no difficulty seeing the blighter once he’d exited Gordie’s room. I’d not seen the hobgoblin’s skin color with my vision limited, so I filed that information away for future reference. Her eyes lit upon me and anger flared in them as she rose from the floor. The constable from outside burst into the room, also holding his nose. I needed them out of there right away, because Gordie’s entire flat had to be scoured for clues. The official ID came out before they could lay into me and I gave them what for.
‘Clear this flat now! Leave immediately and return tomorrow. That’s an order. Go! Work on sumhin else!’
They scarpered off under the sway of the sigils and would probably return sooner rather than later when they remembered someone had punched them and they wanted answers. I needed to get answers of my own before then; Gordie had caught me napping, but I was fully awake now.
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Benedict Jacka, Risen
