Chapter XVI: Investigation

 

“What the hell was that?” I asked, words flowing uncontrollably out of my jaw, which had dropped.

“Kid, I should ask you the same thing,” said Doctor Charcharias, scanning the alleyway anxiously. “I should ask you a lot of things, like why you’re even out here getting mauled by… that thing.”

I quickly told her the whole story, from why I was out so late to everything that I had done to try to get away from the monster. I talked quickly, a little too quickly, missing a few details here and there. When I finished, Doctor Charcharias looked down, pensive.

“Well, this raises some questions.”

I nodded. “Uhhhh, yeah. You could say that.”

“That woman you saw, the tall one in white… do you think that was Nemesis?”

“I didn’t hear her voice, she didn’t say anything, so I don’t know for sure,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure that was her. She was standing on top of the Archopolid that Nemesis had taken control over, and I don’t know why anyone else would even know about that.”

“That makes sense.” Doctor Charcharias backed up into the wall of the alleyway. It looked like her adrenaline was wearing off after the fight. “You said this whole thing started at the Edsel Archopolids workshop?”

I nodded.

“How the hell did you get over here? That workshop is over a quarter of a mile away.”

“I just ran. I ran as fast as I could, because that thing was trying to rip me in half.” Had I really run a quarter of a mile? It didn’t feel like I had been running very long at all, but then again I also knew that adrenaline could distort time in strange ways. Or maybe I was just really fast.

“Do you have any idea what that thing was?” I asked.

“No clue. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She opened her mouth, showing her rows of shark teeth once more, and started feeling around inside. I started getting an idea. “The damn thing made me break a tooth.” She yanked out one of her teeth, a tiny little triangular dagger, stained with blood.

“I don’t think that’s good. Do you need a doctor? Another doctor, that is.”

Charcharias raised her eyebrow at my stumble. “No, it’s fine. I lose teeth all the time, I’m constantly growing new ones. Want a souvenir?”

I tentatively reached out my hand. She handed me the tooth, and I shoved it into my pocket. “Do you think it was like you?”

“Excuse me?” said Dr. Charcharias. It sounded like I had struck a nerve. To be fair, I wouldn’t like to be compared to that monster either.

“I mean… You said that you were an experiment, a fusion of human and shark. Do you think that it was the same kind of thing, but with wolf instead of shark?” I started looking the way it had gone. Maybe with the two of us working together we could track it down?

“No, not the same,” Charcharias said, closing her eyes for a moment. “The flesh tasted wrong for someone like me. This thing was bitter and sour, like undercooked vegetables.”

I paused, frowning. “How do you know what that should taste like?”

“You saw how I fight. I’ve taken chunks out of a lot of different things. I don’t eat sapients on purpose.”

“Oh, I get it,” I said, starting to walk out of the alleyway. “You’re a ‘spit, don’t swallow’ type, huh?”

“Oh no, I swallow all the time. I just don’t if it tastes like shit,” said Charcharias, completely deadpan. I was really not sure if she got the joke or not, and I almost didn’t want to find out.

“So… want to get out of here?” I said. I gazed out into the main street, checking to see if anyone had passed by. Not hearing a response, I turned to look back at Doctor Charcharias. “You could probably use a band-aid or something, that fight looked rough. Are you coming or not?”

Amina was kneeling down on the ground, looking at something. I doubled back to check it out. At first, it just looked like random trash. Then, as I got closer, I realized that it was a piece of paper with something written on it.

“It’s a notice, written for a Mrs. Kavanaugh, asking for 600 doses of lapicillin. Why would anyone need…” Charcharias stood up, still holding the paper. Then she stopped, her eyes wide. “Wait a second, wasn’t lapicillin the drug that Nemesis used to stave off infection in her Mechanodrones?”

I stumbled a bit, trying to remember. After a few seconds of thinking, the name started to sound familiar. “Yeah, I think it was. Where did this come from?”

“I remember tearing one of that… thing’s pockets open during the fight. Probably saved its skin, too. This must have fallen out.”

I had been too busy being scared for my life to pay attention to anything like that, but it made sense. “So what’re you thinking? Is this how Nemesis got her supply of lapicillin, by sending her pet wolf out with a shopping list?”

“She’s a madwoman living in a secret lair and trying to turn people into machines. I don’t imagine she got it legitimately,” said Charcharias, folding up the note and putting it in her pocket. She walked towards me, and the two of us started walking shoulder to shoulder out of that damn alley.

“Do you know who Mrs. Kavanaugh is?” I asked.

“I do, actually,” she said, shrugging. She’s a grey marketeer, not technically illegal but a great place to buy medical supplies and drugs if you need them cheap and slightly shady. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t bought a few things from her in the past.”

“Do you think maybe we could do some amateur investigating? I bet if she’s been selling Nemesis all of these drugs, Mrs. Kavanaugh might know a thing or two about Nemesis,” I said.

Charcharias chuckled. “You’ve been reading too many detective novels, kid. There’s at least a dozen ways that trying to get information out of her could go wrong and get our asses kicked. Obviously, I’m all for it.”

From there, Charcharias showed me the way to Mrs. Kavanaugh’s shop. It was a decently long walk into the shadier parts of town. Normally I’d be frankly terrified to be walking outside at night, but the combination of the gun in my pocket and the assuring presence of Amina besides me did a lot to assuage my nerves.

We stopped in front of a completely nondescript building. It looked like it was made by cobbling together spare parts left over from other buildings. There wasn’t any signage or other indication that I could tell as to what this building was. I wasn’t even sure that she had found the right place. Then again, I suppose that a grey marketeer probably wouldn’t want a great big “DUBIOUSLY LEGAL GOODS FOR SALE” sign on the front of her store. Amina walked right on up to the door and rapped against it, as if she did it every day.

“Are you sure she’s going to even be here? It’s kind of late,” I asked, looking around behind us.

“She opens at dusk and closes at dawn. Makes it harder for people to find her.” Just as she finished speaking, the door creaked open.

On the other side was a short, stout woman, about the same height as me. Her hair was close-cropped and densely curled, mostly deep black but with a bit of greying around the edges. She looked slightly dirty, with ruddy wrinkled skin and ink on her fingers. She was wearing a practical dress and an apron that bulged out over her generous stomach, looking somewhat like a cross between a cook and someone’s cantankerous aunt. 

“Who is it?” she said in a rough and screechy voice. “Oh, Amina! Come in come in. It’s been too long.”

“Nice to see you too, Mrs. Kavanaugh,” said Charcharias, flashing a warm grin. She beckoned me to follow her into the shop, which I did.

For all that the outside looked like the lair of a steampunk goblin thief, the interior of Mrs. Kavanaugh’s shop was meticulously neat. There wasn’t much to get dirty or out of place, at least in the front, but the dedication to cleanliness was impressive. Even the floors were all but spotless. I glanced around, taking in the posters, paintings, and a couple of photos that decorated the walls. It was a very different side of Bluerose culture that I had only gotten a glimpse of from the Halflance’s manor. There was a painted ad for some kind of dance hall, a photograph of two women sitting down in formal attire, the torn-off cover of a pulp magazine promising a fight between a woman and some kind of boxing robot. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to read that last one.

Mrs. Kavanaugh hustled over to the back of the room, sitting down at a small desk, as meticulously neat and organized as everything else there. She picked up a small fountain pen and a leaf of paper, looked up at Dr. Charcharias and asked, “Now then, what can I help you with? I’ve gotten in fresh shipments just two days ago, so I’m sure I’ll have whatever it is you need, dear.”

“Actually, the supplies you gave me last time have carried me very well since then,” said Charcharias, casually resting her elbow on the desk. “I’m here for a bit of information.”

Mrs. Kavanaugh smiled disarmingly and looked up at Dr. Charcharias. “I’m sorry, but that’s really not my field. I’m sure I could get you in contact with someone who knows rather a lot about rather a lot of things, if that’s what you’re looking for. Certainly your business has been worth a favor such as that.”

“Actually, you’re exactly the person I need for this. The information is about a client of yours,” responded Dr. Charcharias, pulling the wrinkled leaf of paper from her pocket.

Mrs. Kavanaugh chuckled. “I’m sorry, darling, you know I can’t just hand out information like candy. I’ve spent years earning the trust of my customers, and that’s something that money simply can’t pay for.”

“Really now? You couldn’t possibly tell me anything about why someone might need to have 600 doses of lapicillin?” Dr. Charcharias raised an eyebrow. “That seems like quite a bit for just one order.”

Mrs. Kavanaugh went slightly pale, and her gaze dropped from Charcharias’s face. Something had struck a nerve. “I really can’t tell you anything. And if you’re going to pester me about it, I’d prefer if you simply left.”

Dr. Charcharias, not being one to follow orders, did not do that. “Are you sure you can’t say anything? Lapicillin… that’s not a common antibiotic. It’s very peculiar that someone would buy so much of it, considering it’s so rarely used.”

Mrs. Kavanaugh stood up out of her chair. Although she scarcely bothered to raise her voice, her force of will was impressive. “Please leave me be.”

It was about then that I, who had been standing around looking like an extra who had forgotten to go off-camera, decided to make a play. “You know, it’s a really funny coincidence. Just recently, this insane criminal mastermind has started cutting people up, doing all sorts of messed-up things to them. and using an inordinate amount of lapicillin to keep her victims alive as long as possible,” I said, taking a step closer to Mrs. Kavanaugh. “Of course it’s just a coincidence I’m sure, but it’s one that the police might be very interested to hear about.”

Mrs. Kavanaugh opened and closed her mouth several times before she picked her voice up and dusted it off. “You wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“I mean, I hate the cops as much as the next man, but I think I would. And that note is addressed to you, if you take a look, which is a pretty strong clue. If you just tell us now, we could pass it off as an anonymous tip.” I grinned at her. I have to admit, it was a rather clever move. 

Mrs. Kavanaugh, for her part, was about to lose her composure. She grabbed at the note Dr. Charcharias was holding out, eyes scanning down the whole thing. Neither party let go of it for several awkward seconds. “Alright, fine. I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Thank you very much. Go right ahead,” I said, winking cheesily at Dr. Charcharias.

“She was a rather… unusual customer,” began Mrs. Kavanaugh. “I guess that would be one way to put it. She never let me see her face, always showed up with a bag of money and very specific instruction for how I was to deliver her goods.”

“What exactly did she look like? Tall, short, fat, skinny? Did she have an unusual accent or anything?” asked Charcharias.

“Erm. She was rather short, skinny.” Kavanaugh paused to think. “Sounded like anyone else in Amrinval, really.”

I stepped over next to Dr. Charcharias and tried whispering into her ear. It was really difficult because I was so much shorter than her, so she had to bend over a bit while I stood on my tiptoes. “That doesn’t sound like the woman I saw at the Archopolid workshop. She was tall, really tall.”

“Maybe Nemesis works through intermediaries, as an extra layer of security,” Charcharias whispered back. “It would make it a lot harder to do exactly what we’re doing now.” I nodded, and went back to listening to Mrs. Kavanaugh’s account.

“She never wanted me to just hand her the materials either,” said Kavanaugh, gesturing conspiratorially with her index finger. “She asked that I put everything in crates, and place the crates on a specific street corner not far from here, then leave them behind. Somehow the crates would always be gone by morning, because nobody’s ever complained about them.”

I held up my hand. “You’re telling me that she was buying entire crates of drugs? And you never got suspicious of what she was doing with those drugs?”

Mrs. Kavanaugh looked almost offended at me. “First of all, getting suspicious is not my job. Second, she wasn’t just buying drugs. There were bits of pipe, tools, all kinds of little mechanical bits.”

My face sank. “Bits that she then used to make her Mechanodrones…”

Charcharias nodded. “Well I think that’s about all of the information we need. Do tell, what was the intersection that you left all of these supplies at?”

“Only if you promise to leave me the hell alone.”

“Of course,” Dr. Charcharias said, grinning.

“The corner of Greystoke Avenue and Almpasser Road. Now shoo,” Kavanaugh said, complete with the proper shooing motion.

With that, the two of us immediately left, getting the feeling that we had long since overstayed our welcome. As she had described, the corner wasn’t too far away, only a couple of minutes’ walk. To my shock and horror, we arrived at the corner to find… a completely average and unremarkable intersection. Two cobblestone streets met at perpendicular angles, lit in chiaroscuro by flickering gas lamps. For those of you who don’t remember art class, “chiaroscuro” means that the light was bright and the shadows very, very dark.

“Are you sure this is the right corner?” I said, turning to Charcharias.

Charcharias walked forward, standing on the street corner and looking at the ground around her. “Kid, I don’t know what you were expecting. Nemesis’s entire base, you think? Normally when I do this she’d be sitting right here playing cards and listing off her entire criminal history on a loop.”

I gave Charcharias a very unimpressed expression. “So what is the plan then?”

She crouched down, hands on her thighs. “We look for clues. Start detective-ing.”

And so I detective’d. For the next few minutes, I stared at my feet, touched a lamppost, and generally tried really hard to look for things. It didn’t go particularly well, as for the most part it just looked like a bunch of worked stone, a rusty lamppost, a manhole cover. Or was it a womanhole cover? Charcharias made one discovery, that being a series of drag or scratch marks just under the lamppost, marks that had probably been left behind by heavy crates getting dragged off. Unfortunately, the scrape marks didn’t carry far, and lead us nowhere.

I eventually started getting a little desperate, and wandered a little ways off. None of the nearby buildings had any suggestion that they were being used as Nemesis’s base, or had any association with her whatsoever. I ended up standing out in the street with a puzzled expression on my face.

Then I saw something. The entire environment was dark shades of grey, black, and brick-red. But off to the side was a small patch of something… blue? There was definitely something blue near the curb. I walked closer. It was some kind of powder, or maybe a slime, or something between the two. A powdery slime. Whatever it was, there was only a little bit of it, smeared against the stones right at the edge of the street I squatted down in front of it, not sure if touching the stuff was a good idea. I took a quick sniff or two. Smelled like mold.

“I think I found something. Not sure what it is,” I said.

Charcharias jogged over to where I was, and her eye was quickly drawn to the blue substance. It definitely stood out. “Nila mold. It’s more common further south, but not unheard of or anything like that. The spores can get all over the place.”

My face fell. Only one clue and it amounted to nothing. “So this is natural?”

Charcharias nodded. “Completely. Useful as an analgesic if you dry and powder—“

Charcharias was stopped by the sound of someone clearing their throat. Both of us turned around. I was shocked into silence, while Charcharias had the presence of mind to start smiling.

“Well, hello there, Margaret, what might you be doing out here tonight?” said Charcharias, taking a step back.

Sir Margaret Halflance was indeed there, wearing a long dress with extra layers of warm wool cloth to ward off the cold. Her mass of hair was pushed down by a large and fancy hat, complete with a translucent ribbon. She looked very fancy for someone who was apparently wandering the city streets at night.

“Considering that you’re out here in the cold and dark wearing a jacket with claw marks in it, I could ask you exactly the same question,” said Sir Margaret, smiling playfully. “Wait a moment, is that Emma as well? Now this really is a complete conundrum!”

I half-heartedly waved at her. This was just awkward. “We were just, ummm…”

Just when it seemed that my powers of persuasion were at their limit, Dr. Charcharias stepped in. “Emma was returning the Archopolid tape that she borrowed at the attack, when some really bizarre and scary things happened. She might have been in serious trouble had I not been in the area returning from some business downtown. I think that just about covers it, no?”

“Uhhh… yeah. Yeah, it does.” I wasn’t sure why I expected that we were going to lie about it. I guess I had just sort of assumed based on my understanding of sitcoms and thriller novels that this was one of those things that you were supposed to keep a secret. I stood back up.

“Fascinating; you absolutely must tell me more about this. Perhaps on the way back to the manor? It’s too cold out here to stand around talking about things when we could be somewhere else not freezing to death,” said Sir Margaret, looking over her shoulder, presumably towards home.

“Of course, of course. Let’s go.” With that, Sir Margaret and Charcharias started walking off, leaving me standing there confused. “Emma, is there anything else we need to do here?”

I paused for a moment. I briefly wondered if Margaret might know something else about the blue mold, but I could ask her later. “No,” I said, breaking into a jog to catch up to the other two. When I caught up with Charcharias, I whispered into her ear.

“Are we just going to tell her everything?”

“Of course we are, there’s literally no reason not to,” she said. “Don’t worry, I trust Sir Margaret. Mostly.” With that, the three of us set off towards the manor. 

“Amina, you wouldn’t mind not informing Sarah that I was out here, would you? I don’t want her to worry,” said Sir Margaret.

The walk back to the Halflance manor was long and mostly quiet except for Charcharias relaying the story of that evening. Margaret, though attentive, was definitely more tense than usual. She was keeping something secret. I could probably have pried a little further. I didn’t. It was not the only mistake I had made that night, and I blame exhaustion from running for my life earlier. Either way, I definitely didn’t want to break Margaret’s confidentiality, given that she was basically shielding me from Lady Halflance’s anger. Perhaps I should have told Lady Halflance, given what happened a couple of days later. 

 

 

 

Author's Note: Hey, I'm back! Finally! Sorry to keep everyone waiting after the small cliffhanger last time (I promise the next cliffhanger will only have our standard two-week waiting period), but like I said I was running low on motivation and needed to work on some of my other projects. I have a small buffer built up, and am in a place where I should be able to post every other Thursday, as usual. As always, thank you so so so much for everyone who leaves comments, favorites, ratings, all of it is so important for keeping up that motivation. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and see you in two weeks.