ACT FOUR

Of Local Murders and Foreign Detectives

 

The child sniffled and Liu beckoned it towards her. “Come here, come. Nothing to be afraid of anymore.” Liu said, her mouth set tight in her grimacing smile.

The child retreated further under the bed and asked, “Who are you?”

“Friends,” Sun said, and Liu repeated, “Friends. Don’t worry, we’re here to help.”

The child crawled from its hiding place. Liu guessed it was a girl from her hair and clothes, though the clothes were dark with the blood that pooled across the whole floor. Liu had seen and smelled and even tasted quite a lot of blood in her line of work, but had never gotten used to how much blood a human could contain. It fascinated her. Liu said, “Here,” and patted the top of a wooden crate that was set at the foot of the bed, and the child climbed atop and sat, crying. “I need you to tell me what you saw last night.” Liu said, squatting in front of the girl.

“Who are you talking to?” Pestrikates asked.

“A potential witness.” Liu said, turning back to the child seated on the crate.

“Our witness is…a box?”

“Can’t he see me?” the girl asked, her voice rising a bit.

“No, you’re a ghost.” Liu replied.

“A ghost?” Pestrikates approached, “Can I…question it?”

Liu replied, “That’s up to her.” She was struggling to force her smile.

“I’m a ghost?” the girl shrieked, “I’m dead?”

“Yep, you were ripped to shreds.” Liu said, lifting up the thin mattress to show the girl her mutilated corpse; her glassy eyes were turned up to the ceiling while her body lay prone on the floor, her head twisted almost all the way around. “See, your body’s under the bed where you were hiding—”

“I’M DEAD!” The little girl screamed, fat ghostly tears pouring down her cheeks, falling away into nothingness when they dripped from her chin.

“Nonono don’t cry,” Liu began to panic, holding her hands up. She didn’t like children for this exact reason.

“Gods Liu, you can’t just tell someone that they’re dead like that.” Sun said, kneeling to the girl’s side and taking her shoulder. Hạnh joined her, embracing the young ghost and cooing softly, comfortingly, and Liu felt a strange pang of jealousy.

“I told you that you were dead like nine hours after you died and you were fine!” Liu’s voice began to rise to that tremulous high point she hated, where it went when she was becoming upset.

“I was not fine, Liu!” Sun shouted over the girl’s wails “More to the point, she’s a child. You need to be more delicate!” The child was sobbing under her and Hạnh’s embrace, heaving with imaginary, shuddering breaths.

“I’m really confused, who is talking now?” Pestrikates said, waving off a curious Khryboea, who had peeked inside, attracted by the noise.

“Ugh, no time,” Liu groaned, standing and popping her knuckles, “I’ll have to bring you in. Hạnh?”

“Right.” Hạnh said, standing up and aligning her fist with Liu’s, spirit and body overlapping locally in Liu’s arm.

“What’s going on?” Pestrikates asked, watching Liu curl her fist into a striking claw.

“It’s called the Mountain Monk’s Death Punch. Don’t worry, Hạnh never perfected it, so it should only half-kill you.”

“HALF?” Pestrikates yelped.

“That’s the idea. A little spike of spirit magic with it to nail your soul to your body, it should make you dead enough to see the spirit world. I really ought to sell it as a service, you know how much training it takes otherwise?”

“I’m not sure I want to be half-dead.” Pestrikates edged away from Liu a bit, backing slowly towards the walls.

“Don’t worry, there shouldn’t be any adverse affects, and your spirit will realign itself after a few days of rest. Probably.” Liu said, judging her angle.

“PROBABLY?”

She struck, and with Hạnh’s help her hand moved like lightning, hitting Pestrikates’ core, knocking his soul out of place before sending a spike of energy through him to pin it to his body, basically binding his soul to himself. If given perfect laboratory conditions, Liu might have used it to save a dying person, even her sister if she had known how at the time of Sun’s murder. Oh well, wishes aren’t fishes, as her mother had always said.

The detective doubled over, and was immediately, lavishly sick, stumbling over to a nearby pot and puking up whatever he had for breakfast, and along with the drying blood, made the room reek even more.

“Oh gods, Liu, I’m gonna puke.” Sun said, holding her hand up to her mouth. Liu already felt the nausea in the back of her throat, the weakness in her knees.

“Don’t you dare,” Liu said, desperate. “If you throw up I’ll end up having to puke for both of us. Just hold it.”

“That’s my dad’s!” said the girl, pointing at Pestrikates’ shaking back. “You’ll have to pay for it if you’re gonna use it to barf!”

“I’m sorry kid, but—Liu!” Sun shouted, covering her mouth, and Liu was already on her way to a corner of the room, to throw up this morning’s tea and whatever Sun had when she ate with Aetas. Sun only vicariously threw up; the only consequence to her nausea was embarrassment, while Liu shook as she emptied her stomach contents onto the floor. She didn’t go for one of the open pots or urns in the room—Liu wasn’t willing to owe money to anyone, not even a ghost.

When they had finished retching, the only two living people in the room looked at each other, sweaty and pale. Pestrikates wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, and Liu used her sleeve. “You could have warned me…” he said, heaving for breath, “…about the projectile vomiting.”

“Sorry…” Liu said, gulping down air, trying to command her knees to quit shaking, “…the reaction varies, from person to person.”

Pestrikates turned, and startled to behold a room full where it had been empty to him just moments ago. The girl, covered in her blood and her tears, shaking but finally not screaming. Hạnh, patient in her simle tunic with her arms crossed, the neat little gunshot wound that had killed her boring a visible hole through her chest, just over her heart. Sun, in her cheongsam, bloodied from the neck down where her throat had been slit, looking sheepishly up from where she had vomited a bit of quickly-fading ectoplasm onto the floor, and Lykomedes, uncharacteristically quiet in the corner, the cornflower blue of his patrician’s toga now blackened with the blood of the wound that had taken his life. “Uh…hello,” the detective said to the ghostly congregation, mopping at his sweaty brow. “I’m…my name is Pestrikates, with the Civil Authority.”

“We know,” Sun said pulling herself back up to sit next to the child on the crate. “We’ve been here the whole time.”

“Oh.” He wiped his sweaty palms next, on the front of his uniform. “Forgive me, I’m…new at this.”

“Take your time,” Hạnh said, “Being dead is something to get used to.” This made the little girl start crying again, and Pestrikates swept across the room to kneel in front of her. Liu followed, belatedly, angry that Hạnh had suggested the searchman take his time. Time was of the essence—she needed to seal the phantom before it killed again. Pestrikates reached forward to touch the girl’s shoulder, but his hand passed through her body, and he retreated. Hạnh embraced her in his stead, until the child’s sobs began to slow down. “Alright…” he said, “It’s going to be okay. My friend here,” he looked up at Liu, “is going to help you.”

Liu did not enjoy her services being promised by others, but she grit her teeth. The schlubby detective seemed to possess a soothing quality that she did not, because the girl stopped crying, with Hạnh rubbing soothing circles across the child’s back. Pestrikates said, “Why don’t you tell us your name, child?”

The child hiccoughed, and said: “Arkesta.”

Pestrikates raised his bushy brows and smiled. “Arkesta? That’s a strong name. Your parents must have known how strong you’d be.” Arkesta just nodded slightly, rubbing at her eyes. “Arkesta, can you be strong for me? I know it’s terrible, but can you tell me and my friend here what you saw last night?”

The child’s voice wavered. “The thing that killed my dad and me?”

The line of the detective’s mouth tightened. “Yeah. Did you see it?”

Arkesta nodded. “It had horns like a deer, but it walked on two legs. It had hands like a person, but they were big, and,” she made flexing motions with her palms, “It had really long nails on its hands. That’s what it used to…” Tears began to well up in her pale ghostly eyes again. “Where’s my dad? Why am I here, but he’s not? I want my dad…”

Pestrikates reached forward to comfort the girl again, but caught himself this time, and looked pained as the child sobbed into Sun’s shoulder. Liu had her thumb against the bottom of her chin. “I’ll find him, I just need to know what it was that took him. Keep going. Do you remember anything else about the specter?”

Arkesta looked down at the floor, and said, “Its whole body was like a shadow, besides its eyes. It was bleeding into the air the whole time, like bits of it were falling apart. It was crying…it sounded like the woman across the street when they brought her son’s body back from the war…I think when I heard her cry, it was the first time in my life I was really really afraid. I hid under my bed when my dad got up, but…I remember, the only parts of it that weren’t the color of smoke were these ribbons hanging down from it. White ribbons were on its horns, and they had black stuff on them in the shape of boxes and crosses.” Liu tensed up. “And she had more ribbons, tied around her waist, and they were red. Her stomach was opened up, and it had teeth like a mouth,” Arkesta demonstrated a mouth opening and closing with her hands as she finished finished, and Liu moved her hand from her chin to down the front of her shirt, retrieving a small drawstring bag on a string around her neck. She opened it, fishing around the small items inside; a mummified fingertip, a broken little ball of lead, a clipping of a rune on bloodstained blue silk, a human tooth. Finally, she produced a thick iron needle, and squatted in front of the child, before scratching some runes into the blood-soaked stone floor. “The crosses and boxes, you said…did they look anything like these?”

The girl leaned forward and studied them for a moment. “Yes, I think so. What are they?”

“Spell runes,” Liu said thoughtfully.

“They’re not any runes I’ve seen,” said Pestrikates.

“They wouldn’t be,” Liu said, standing up. “They’re Imperial. Right out of the academy. The description of the spirit matches one from the land south of where I grew up, too…Hạnh, have you ever heard of a Stillmother spirit in your country?”

Hạnh looked up at Liu. “I think so? Never directly, but there was some local folklore about a woman’s spirit. She’d lost her baby, and went around looking for its ghost, by putting other people’s souls in her open belly. Never heard anything about antlers or ribbons or spell seals, but it sounds pretty close to Arkesta’s description, from what I know of it.”

“But why is an Imperial spirit in an Aeolan city?” Pestrikates asked.

“Why indeed, detective?” Liu played at her lip with her thumb in thought. “Can you take me to the imperial consulate here in the city? It seems I’m not the only foreigner with an education in the spiritual arts here.”

“Yes…” Pestrikates mused, “What are the chances of two Imperial necromancers to come here, though?”

Liu sighed. “First of all, do not call me a necromancer. Necromancers are perverts and crackpots. I am a spirit medium, a dukun, a professional in ghost-talking and soul-binding. I am the inheritor of a hundred forbidden arts, I have crossed to the other side and lived, I am a master over death!”

Sun said, gently: “She’s still salty about getting kicked out of the Imperial academy.”

“They don’t appreciate or foster genius there. They think all of magic has been explored, and any undiscovered territory is heretical and perverse,” said Liu, bitterly.

“I see. So what do we do at the consulate?” Pestrikates asked.

“I’ll handle that part. Just meet me there. And bring food, that’s important.” Liu said.

“Important how?”

“She doesn’t want to pay for it.” Sun declared.

“What about me?” Arkesta asked plaintively. “Are you going to bring me and my dad back to life?”

Liu sighed deeply, and bit the inside of her cheek hard to will herself into telling the girl, “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I can send you to your afterlife, whichever one your family believes in, to wait for him. Do you have a household god I can talk to?”

The girl grabbed at Liu’s leg. “No, no! I can’t go without my dad! I don’t want to…I don’t want to have to be alone! Please, lady, I can’t!”

“You can’t just leave her in the Underworld alone!” Pestrikates shouted. “What kind of monster are you?”

“I don’t know what your afterlife is like! If it’s so terrible, why do you believe in it?” Liu struggled.

“Liu, you can’t just strand a child alone in a place she’s never been.” Sun said, sounding very much like her mother in a way that Liu did not appreciate.

“What would you have me do? I can’t exactly bring her with us.”

Everyone seemed to shout “Why not?” at the same time, and Liu decided that it was not worth sticking around if everyone was going to be yelling at her and asking for things she couldn’t do. “Just…one moment, please.” Liu said, and she was gone.

 

Sun staggered back up in her sister’s body. “That little shit!” she said, slapping herself, hard. She didn’t care about the sting, but hoped that Liu would have to deal with the bruise.

“What just happened?” The little detective man asked.

“She’s—my sister is a bit like a turtle. Whenever she wants, she can put her head back in her shell, and I have to move her around.”

“Or one of us.” Hạnh said calmly.

Sun nodded. “But usually she leaves me in charge. She uses it to leave awkward conversations or to have me eat for her, but dammit, not now, you weasel!” She slapped herself again.

“That sounds…convenient.” The man said.

“For her, yes. Not for anyone else in the world, but she doesn’t really care about anyone else. I guess we just have to wait for her to finish whatever she went into the shell for. Sun sat down on the box next to the girl (Arkast?) and crossed Liu’s legs, huffing. The detective and the girl both looked at her quizzically. “What?”

“It’s just…” Pesticles-whatever began.

“You look like her, but you don’t…move like her. It’s very weird.” Arkaset finished.

Sun smiled. “She has bad posture. I’m doing what I can to save her spine.”

The detective continued to pry. “So are you…possessing her? Are you technically alive right now?”

“Technically, although…” Sun trailed off. She felt different. Alone. She didn’t feel bound to Liu’s body, she just felt normal. Alive. Kind of itchy. “Huh. She’s not in the body anymore.” Sun announced.

“What do you mean?” Hạnh said, panicked.

“I mean, she’s not in my—her—our brain right now. She’s gone.”

“Is this…normal?” Whats-his-name asked, wringing his hands together.

“No…it’s only happened a few times. I think it means she’s…talking to something, in the Breach. Something nasty. She’s striking some back-room bargains she can’t risk me walking in on, if I only knew how…paranoid as always.”

“That can’t be good.” Arka-something said.

“No, it can’t be…” Sun began chewing on her sister’s nails. “But there’s not much we can do from here. Sorry, I haven’t really introduced myself. I’m Sun Jin. Bukian—I think you say the family name last in Aeolan, yes?”

“Correct.” Pestricedes said. “Although, I wasn’t born noble enough for a family name, so it’s just Pestrikates of Karkadi on paperwork.”

Pestrikates. Sun repeated the foreign name in her mind. She was trying to get better at remembering names. “Seems a bit strange, but if your family name is where you’re from, I suppose that makes sense.”

“We have a family name. Mine is Arkesta Astratha, and my dad is Felio Karrides Astratha” Arkesta said. Sun swore she was getting worse and worse at remembering names, the longer she was dead.

“Excellent. This is Hạnh,” Sun gestured to Hạnh, who smiled at the girl warmly. “And skulking in the corner is Lykomedes.”

Pestrikates caught sight of Lykomedes, who had been curiously quiet since passing the Civil Authority’s perimeter. They stared at one another for a while, before the detective said, “Have we met?”

“Hm? Oh, no. But if you were trained in Glaukaria, you may have seen me at the agora during one of my lectures.”

“I was trained in Tilphousea. I was at a conference at Glaukaria last year, though.”

“Ah, well then you may recognize me from my bust. Although, how could you not,” Lykomedes said affably, “I had the biggest bust in the college.”

“Oh...I suppose.” Pestrikates said slowly.

“Oh come now, modesty is for meek men. When I left the college I had the biggest, shiniest bust in the entire entry hall.”

“And how big was your bust, oh great mage of Glaukaria?” Sun asked coyly.

“Oh, big. True to life, I suppose, not one of those cheap little marble joints they do for morosophs and dullards who invent some niche new spell for their thesis. No, this was a big, bronze, oily bust fit for a king! Or in my case, the youngest astrologer to ever become a school magus, which is perhaps a greater accomplishment than royalty, because I’m the only one who’s done it.”

“Ah! You’re Lykomedes!” Pestrikates, over the sound of Sun and Arkesta’s laughter. Lykomedes ignored the two mouthing the word bust at each other and approached the detective, bowing in mock humility. “Yes, I am the one and only Lykomedes of Glaukaria, magus of the domain of thaumaturgy at the college, at your service.”

“Well, not anymore. I only remember when your works were, um…disproved as fraud by Magus Aleksandyr of Arrakea, and it was a huge scandal, about twelve years ago.”

Lykomedes forced a strained smile that looked painfully constipated. “Is that so? Every new thing I learn about my legacy is…very interesting, yes.” He cleared his throat, and continued in a very even, quiet tone. “Well, if you ever see Aleksandyr, please tell that philandering, murdering slut that he’s let Aeolan magic languish so terribly it’s a miracle that our sorcerers even held back the first wave of ships during the war, and that this armistice with the Imperials where they basically own our country in everything but name is his fault, and if he had a morsel of character left in his body he would jump ass-first onto the statue of Arkaedes in front of the college—the one with the spiky hat—and flop onto the ground and choke on his own blood and feces for three hours while the entire college board watches him. You’ll tell him that, from me, alright?

“Uh…sure.” Pestrikates said. “Can I assume then that he’s untrustworthy?”

“Just know that if he invites you to a private bath, the sex won’t be worth getting poisoned, stabbed, and your entire legacy stolen and defiled.”

“Can we watch our language around the kid, please?” Sun said. Hạnh was holding her hands over Arkesta’s ears, which Sun didn’t even know if that worked. “You imperials are always such prudes,” said Lykomedes. “There’s no way she hasn’t heard…” his words slipped away, and Sun heard the telltale thrumming of a heartbeat drowning out everything else. She braced herself for the sickness and the cold, vaguely grateful that she wouldn’t have to listen to Lykomedes.

 

Liu caught herself from collapsing. She’d forgotten how different it was, going to her shelter within herself versus fully leaving her body and coming back. “You alright?” she asked Sun.

“I’m fine,” her sister said. “Just next time, slower. It’s been a while.”

“You’re telling me.” Liu popped her neck. She always felt so stiff coming back from the Breach. Before anyone could question where she was, she cut them off. “Alright, I’ve spoken with the household spirit. I can preserve Arkesta in this world for three days here without consequences.”

“Pretty good deal, given how greedy our house gods tend to be.” Lykomedes said. “You must be pretty good at negotiation for someone with no people skills.”

“Well, when you ask for something, that’s called negotiation. When you ask for something with a big fuck-off tiger on a leash, that’s called persuasion.” Liu said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about sometimes.” 

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Sun said. “Nobody does.”

“So I get to go with you?” The girl asked.

“Yes.” Liu said, pushing the bed aside to reveal the crumpled corpse of Arkesta. “To the wind temple, where I’ll leave you in the care of Aetas. She’ll probably have me owe her another favor for it, but it’s better than having you chasing my ankles the whole time I’m trying to work. Pestrikates, you hold off on burning those bodies for three days, I don’t care if you have to falsify a report, hold them in the morgue or my deal doesn’t mean diddly-squat.”

“Are you giving me orders on how to conduct an investigation?” Pestrikates asked, affronted, but Sun shook her head. “She’s in the zone. Can’t stop her, just go with it.”

Liu sunk her needle into the cold arm of Arkesta’s corpse, and drew it back covered in an inch of tacky dark blood. She pricked her own tongue with it, and then returned it to the pouch on her neck. “That’s gross.” The girl said. She seemed to have at least come to grips with being dead, which was good.

“It’s what’s going to let you leave. As long as you stay a certain distance from the needle, you can move around the world. I’ll give it to Aetas and you’ll have the full run of the temple and the surrounding buildings. Haunt some people, go for walks, talk to the local ghosts. I don’t care, not my business, but I’ll have your dad back within three days, and then the two of you can go to your Underworld from there.”

“Hold on. I didn’t want the sea witch to be involved with this investigation. Now you want her to babysit our main witness?”

“I’ll swear her to impartiality.” Liu lied. “I have a deal of sway with her that I’m not certain I can explain or even fully understand.” This was much more truthful. “It’s either that or let the poor child sit next to her own rotting corpse for three days.”

Arkesta began crying again, and Hạnh held her while Sun repeated the routine of shouting at her for making the child sad. Liu closed her eyes and considered returning to the Breach just for the peace and quiet of that final desolate oblivion, when Pestrikates said, “Fine. But I’d like to talk to Arkesta further during her stay.”

“Good. Fine. I’ll tell the temple guardians to let you pass, then I’ll meet you in front of the consulate in the foreigner’s quarter. Remember to bring food.”

“Alright then.” Pestrikates said. “I’ll see you there, Liu Bukian.”

“I’ll leave you to clean up.” Liu said, walking towards the entrance of the house. “And remember—no burning them for three days.”

Arkesta looked back at her twisted corpse, and then at her father’s, and then at Pestrikates. She wiped her face and managed, “Good luck, Pestrikates,” before following Liu out of the house.