There were three types of people I didn’t like—the elite rich, academics, and necromancers. Ian Barroes was all three. To make matters worse, he was the only man I had ever met that could make me feel like my blood would overheat and melt me into a quivering mass just by being in the same room with him. Mother Earth, I hated him!
Maybe hate was too strong. I didn’t know him well enough to hate him, but I had a strong dislike. Ian Barroes was the founder and head of the Necromancy Guild as well as a professor at the Academy of Magic and Science. Every necromancer in Nash was required to register with the guild. I had to admit that the guild brought a modicum of accountability to a profession that was riddled with liars and thieves, but I still thought it was too little and way too late for those who’d been swindled by so-called necromancers.
Despite my opinion of necromancers in general and Barroes specifically, they were often employed by the City Guard and Blades to assist with magical investigations. Part of the guild’s function was to work as a sort of employment agency for members. An individual or organization could contract with the guild for a job and the guild would then assign a necromancer to the position. The Blades had a standing account with a number of necromancers on call at all times. As the head of the Guild, Barroes generally didn’t contract out his skills and when he did, it was exclusively for the Blades. He spent most of his time teaching the History of Necromancy to students at the Academy of Science and Magic.
He was arrogant beyond measure and every time we worked together, we denigrated into arguments and petty squabbles. I couldn’t understand why in Hades he insisted on working with me whenever a case that needed his expertise came up. Luckily, that wasn’t very often.
I stopped on the second floor of the headquarters’ building to make a quick visit to the baths. I didn’t have time to go home and change out of my muddy clothes, so the best I could do was wipe some of the grime off my face.
The entire floor was enveloped in soap-scented steam. The morning rush on the baths was over. The washroom was empty save an attendant trying to clean up, and a couple of cadets who were rushing to get dressed and to classes they were clearly already late for. I smiled to myself as the two girls ran past me, sliding on the damp floor on their way out. I’d been in their shoes a time or two when I was a cadet.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the steamed-up mirror as I made my way over to a washbasin. My foul mood came crashing back and ratcheted up a few knots. I looked like an unwashed mountain rat! Mud was caked on my clothes and smeared on my arms, neck, and face. And were those sticks in my hair? I reached up and picked one out. Yep, mud and sticks.
“I have a tub available in the stall at the end of the row. Would you like oil or soap bubbles in the water?”
I turned to see a small woman in a light gray bath attendant uniform looking at me expectantly. “Actually, I don’t have time to bathe, and I don’t have any clothes. I just need to get some of this muck off me.”
A dismayed look crossed the woman’s face as she turned and walked away. I nearly laughed out loud. Obviously, the woman thought I was a lost cause and wanted no part of it.
I turned my attention back to the mirror and resumed picking sticks out of my mess of hair. The band I’d had it pulled back in had obviously come untied during my fight with the gang and now the raven-black locks were in a massive tangle around my shoulders.
“Here you go, dear.” The woman’s voice startled me. I looked down and found that the attendant had brought a huge stack of cloth rags and soap. “You start on your hair,” the woman said, handing me a comb.
“Thank you,” I said and did as I was told. As I picked out the knots, wincing, the attendant pumped water into the washbasin. She deftly dipped a rag in and lathered it up with soap. She held it out to me and pointed to a small chair she’d brought over.
“Sit,” she said, taking the comb.
I sat and began wiping the muck from my face and arms as the woman finished smoothing out my hair and pulled it back with a length of ribbon she’d pulled out of the pocket of her white apron. When she was through, she took another rag and scraped as much mud off my clothes as she could.
Within five minutes, I was as presentable as possible. I thanked the woman and left her two bucks. The woman smiled and blushed. Two bucks was a pretty large tip, especially since the Blades paid attendants well and one usually did not tip them as you did in a public bathhouse. However, the woman had been kind, helpful, and probably deserved more because I doubt I could have cleaned myself up as quickly or as well alone.
I was hoping to be able to go straight home after my visit to the morgue, so I didn’t bother to get Mal. I didn’t have anywhere to stable him at home, so he lived at the Blade stables. That had never been much of a problem because I lived barely a block away from Headquarters.
The sun was starting to brighten and burn off the morning fog, and the streets were crowded with people on bicycles or riding in hired rickshaws. Horses, mules, and oxen were too expensive to use for pleasure transportation and were mostly used for hauling wagons full of goods.
While convenient and faster than walking long distances in the city, the small two- or four-seater carriages pulled by a bicycle rider did not go very fast. Magic-powered rickshaws and buggies were faster, but there were few magic-powered rickshaws for hire. Most drivers owned their rickshaws and lived off the earnings; not many could afford the expensive mechanism that used water and charged crystals to power the rickshaw.
If they could save up enough to buy the water engine, the weekly cost of recharging the crystals would make it too expensive to operate. The small magic-powered buggies on the roads were owned by those rich enough to afford the upkeep. Larger, magic-powered surreys and carriages were much rarer, as the water engines in them were powered by several large crystals, thus making them much more expensive. The few large carriages on the road were owned by the elite class who could both afford the vehicles and employ a driver.
The morgue was only four blocks away. In the morning crush, I could walk it faster than a rickshaw would be able to navigate the traffic, but first I had to get across the street. Though there were stop signs at a few of the major intersections, the closest one was three blocks away in the wrong direction. So, I waited for the right moment and dashed into the street. I reached the other side just in time to avoid getting plowed down by a team of oxen pulling a cart full of crates.
I reached the morgue a few minutes later and rushed in, hoping I’d beat Ian. As I expected, my luck for the day hadn’t gotten any better. He was standing in the waiting area, looking coolly impatient.
“Good morning, Miss Moon. It’s so good of you to finally join us.” His tone was cool and formal. His lips formed a smirk as he looked me up and down, taking in my disheveled appearance.
Of course, he was perfectly groomed. His chestnut hair just touched his ears and the collar of the light tan shirt that peeked out from under his dark brown leather vest. Even the leather boots his perfectly creased khaki pants were tucked into were spotlessly free of dirt and grime, despite the fact that the streets were still muddy from the night’s rain.
Damn the man. He had his perfectly shaped nose so high in the air I wondered how he didn’t drown when it rained. He was probably afraid I’d get dirt on his spotless and perfectly creased person.
“For shit’s sake, Barroes, do we have to go through this every single time we work together? Call me Fiona, or Agent Moon, if you prefer. Don’t wrinkle your damned nose at me. Some of us actually have to work for a living. Sometimes, that means getting a little dirty. Can we just go in and see what the hell is going on so I can go home and change?”
The smirk widened into a full-on grin, and he gave me a mocking, sweeping bow. “After you, milady,” he said, gesturing towards the door to the back room.
I huffed and barely resisted the urge to punch him in the jaw as I swept by him.
The morgue attendant, Sonny, was sitting at a de
sk in the far corner of the room when we came in. He immediately got up and rushed over to us. “Agent Moon, Master Barroes, thank you for coming.”
I smiled at him. I liked Sonny. He was sweet, kind, and chose to use his power in a job that served others. He was a necromancer, all the morgue attendants were. It made their jobs easier and made it easier for Guards. Under normal circumstances, an outside necromancer wasn’t called in when a City Guard or Blade needed to question a spirit attached to a recently deceased body. Though every working necromancer in the city was required to be registered with the guild, the morgue attendants worked directly for the city. Necromancers from the guild were only called in for investigations where there wasn’t a body at the morgue or there might be spirit “witnesses” to a crime.
This didn’t seem to be either of those situations, so I couldn’t understand why Sonny, normally very competent, felt like he needed outside help. Not only that, but I felt the distinct energy of nervousness.
“Hi, Sonny,” I said as calmly and soothingly as I could manage. “What is the problem?”
“Last night, a young woman was attacked in an alley. She was able to get away from her attacker by kicking him in the chest. He was dead when the Guard brought him in. But there is a problem with the body.”
“What is the problem?” asked Ian.
“Well, sir,” Sonny fumbled, “I think you should examine it yourself and see.”
Ian raised an eyebrow, but said, “Ok. Let’s see the body.”
Sonny led us to a long table at the back of the room.