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The market stall looked
exactly like the others surrounding it, covered in small
trinkets and cheap antiques. It was an unlikely place to
find what Niamh O’Dowd was looking for but, nevertheless,
there it was; and the trader held it out like an offered
sacrifice, for all to see.
“Well?” he asked, his
hazel eyes bright with excitement
“Give me a moment to
verify,” Niamh said softly, as she peeled off a glove. The
artefact was round and small, and the colour of yellowed
ivory. It fitted snugly into the trader’s palm. It looked
authentic but there was still one test Niamh had to perform.
She placed her hand on it.
To the outside world, it
looked as if she was holding the trader’s hand. He must have
thought the same, because she felt his fingers curl around
hers, pressing the artefact into both their palms. She
ignored his touch as she felt its warmth and texture, the
almost imperceptible grooves etched onto its surface. She
took a breath, paused, and closed her eyes.
The containment spell
was old but still strong. The Sorcerer who’d created this
artefact had been powerful. She felt around its edges and
looked for a way in. A moment later, she found it, a
softening in the shell; too weak to hold a spirit tethered
to life, but more than strong enough to seize the dead. She
pushed inside, and was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer
panic of the artefact’s prisoner.
“Who are you? Are you
the one who —”
“Patience, I’ll be
back,” Niamh sent out hastily, fending the presence off. The
last thing she needed right now was to commune with the dead
in the middle of a busy market arcade.
The spirit, however, was
having none of it, and she felt it press in and smother her
with its panic. “But I’ve been here so long—”
“Sorry, I can’t, not
now.” Niamh quickly pulled her hand away and cut off
contact. She had found what she was looking for; proof that
it was the genuine article, a Soulcatcher.
“I believe we agreed on
ten?” she said to the trader, keeping the shake out of her
voice as she pulled on her glove.
“Fifteen,” the trader
countered quickly, and she glanced up and raised a dark
eyebrow.
“Upping the price at the
last moment?” she asked coolly, “Not very professional of
you.”
“But you’ll pay it,” he
said knowingly.
“You have other
bidders?” Niamh asked lightly. She knew he didn’t have any
other serious takers, nobody would be that stupid, but that
didn’t mean he hadn’t approached other people.
“I might have,” he lied.
“I see,” she said
flatly, before giving him a perfunctory smile. “Well, it’s a
good thing I came prepared, isn’t it?” She patted the
leather satchel that was draped over her shoulder. “You have
anyplace more private, where we can discuss payment and
provenance?” she asked pointedly, as she looked around at
the busy market. .
“Provenance?” he echoed,
with round eyes, and Niamh almost felt sorry for him. Her
mother had been human; she had inherited the gift from her
father’s side. She knew the trader didn’t really understand
what he held in his hand. How could he? Humans didn’t
traffic in human souls.
“You didn’t really think
I’d just hand over the money without first finding out the
artefact’s history, did you?” she asked.
He bit his lip, and
jerked his head at the curtain behind him, “Back there
okay?”
Niamh pursed her lips.
“It’ll do,” she said quietly.
He nodded and led them
into the dimly lit space at the back of the stall. It wasn’t
much bigger than a cubby hole, but it held a narrow desk and
a small stool. Both were covered in paperwork. “You want to
sit?” he asked, as he picked up the pile of papers off the
stool and deposited it onto the desk. A few random pages
slid onto the floor, but he ignored them.
“It’s okay, I prefer to
stand,” Niamh told him. Her eyes drifted to the stacked
boxes, both empty and full, against the back wall. “Let’s
discuss provenance,” she said aloud.
“Ah, right.”
He shifted his feet,
looking suddenly unsure, and Niamh felt her interest piqued.
“Listen… John, isn’t it?” The trader nodded, and Niamh gave
him a perfunctory smile. “Well, John, fifteen thousand is a
lot of money to hand over for something that could just well
be a cheap trinket.”
“But Ned said—” The
trader stopped, and Niamh felt the fear suddenly emanating
from him.
“Who is Ned, John?” she
prompted.
“Nobody,” he said.
“He doesn’t sound like
nobody,” Niamh pressed gently. “In fact, he sounds like a
person who’s in the know?” It wouldn’t be the first time
that one of the Community used a human to move artefacts
around, especially one as distasteful as a Soulcatcher.
Ignorance was bliss, as they say, and nobody was as
blissfully ignorant as a human walking around in their
world.
“He’s just somebody I
know,” the trader muttered. “”He’s not involved in this.”
“I see,” Niamh said, and
let it go. She didn’t want to spook him; it was too soon for
that. She still held out the hope that this could be
contained. “So, shall we discuss provenance?” The trader
just looked at her, silently, and Niamh sighed. “Is there a
problem?” she asked.
“What is it?” he blurted
out. “He never told me what it was, only that a select
customer base would be very interested in them, and gave me
the list.”
Them, Niamh noted
privately, before asking. “And I was on the list?”
The trader shook his
head, “No,” he said. “But your name was given to me by
someone who was.”
Niamh nodded, it made
sense. Someone on the customer list had recognised the
artefact for what it was and decided it was too hot to
handle. They didn’t want to risk getting a name for being a
dealer in dark artefacts, so they hadn’t called her
directly. Instead they had given her number to the trader,
and told him she’d be interested. That much, at least, was
true. “And who was the previous owner of this object?” she
asked, as she tried to steer him back to the point
“You’re not a buyer,
are you,” he said suddenly. “He lied to me.”
Niamh tilted her head
and studied his expression. “Let’s just say, I’m an
interested party,” she said. “One who is prepared to pay
handsomely if you answer my questions truthfully.”
“More than fifteen
grand?” he asked, greed giving him a foolish courage.
Niamh waited a beat, and
then bobbed her head. “We’ll make it twenty,” she said.
The trader’s face
wreathed into a smile. “It was part of a job lot,” he
explained. “They were selling up the estate of an old
Georgian house on Castlewood Avenue. I think the deceased’s
name was Albert Borland.”
Albert Borland, it rung
a bell. A mage with weak powers and a no issue; there were
no other members of his family in the Community, which is
how the Soulcatcher had ended up on the open Market. It
should have been caught before it became a problem but, even
so, who could have known that the old geezer had a penchant
for dangerous artefacts?
“Tell me about Ned?” she
asked again.
“What about him?” he
returned, his eyes suddenly darting away. He really was a
terrible liar, Niamh thought.
“How did you meet him?”
she asked, as she sat on the stool and tried to make herself
small and unthreatening. It wasn’t really that difficult,
Niamh barely made it to his shoulder, and with her slight
frame and bright blue eyes, she hardly looked dangerous.
“Why did he give you the list? Why didn’t he call them
himself?”
“He was just helping a
guy out, that’s all” he muttered, “I don’t want to get him
into trouble.”
Niamh leaned forward,
and laid her hand on his. “And what kind of trouble would
that be, John?” she asked.
“You know.” He shrugged,
“Telling me about you lot.”
And there it was, the
trader knew. Sometimes, Niamh really hated her job. “You
mentioned there were other artefacts,” she said. “I’d be
interested in purchasing the lot.”
“You would?” His eyes
lit up. “I don’t have them here. They’re at home….but I have
reference photos!” He pulled out a folder from the pile on
the desk and gave it to her. Niamh felt something inside her
go cold as she flipped through the pages. There were
artefacts in the photographs that she’d only ever read
descriptions of, and with good reason. All of them required
the use of human sacrifice to activate them. It was probably
for the best that Albert Borland was already dead, or she
might have been tempted to kill him herself, slowly.
She closed the folder
and looked up at the trader’s eager face. “I’ll take them
all,” she said, getting to her feet. She had all she needed.
The paperwork on his desk would give her his home address,
his mobile phone would give her the names of all those he’d
called recently - as well as Ned’s number, she had no doubt.
Niamh took the traders
hand in hers. She smiled up at his face as she sent the
energy pulse up his arm and into his brainstem. “It was nice
meeting you, John,” she said, “And I’m so sorry it has to
end this way.”
“What do you mean, end—”
His eyes widened as understanding flashed though them, and
then the brain aneurism took hold. He fell back onto a stack
of empty cardboard boxes and they crumpled under his weight.
Niamh hastily stepped to one side as he began to shake
uncontrollably. She knew of a hundred ways to kill a person,
and some of them were even painless, but this way left a
body which could stand up to the rigours of an autopsy
table, and gave his family the dignity of a body to bury.
Niamh watched him die;
she felt she owed him at least that. There were certain
people within the Community who thought her chosen path was
a macabre one, particularly considering the nature of her
mother’s death, but within months of Niamh’s promotion to
that of chief enforcer, the human death rate in the city had
decreased significantly, as it became quickly understood
that Niamh would be as quick to punish a member of the
Community for being careless, as to execute a human who knew
too much. Prevention was better than clean up, and her way
saved lives.
They just didn’t save
all of them.
At last, he grew still,
and Niamh bent down to pick up the Soulcatcher that had
tumbled out of his hand. She opened her satchel, and took
out a white silk cloth, its edges embroidered in gold with a
protective cantrip. It never hurt to be too careful.
Then, she went through
the trader’s pockets and found his keys and phone. As she
expected, Ned’s full name and number was saved into the
phone’s memory. A quick search of the desk revealed his list
of prospective buyers, and she pulled the photos of the
other artefacts from the folder.
She looked around the
room and was satisfied that she’d cleansed all traces of the
Community from the room. All she needed to do now was
retrieve the other artefacts and track down this Ned,
whoever he was. She was going to enjoy that part.
Niamh took a deep
breath, and stepped through the curtain. The market was
still bustling, but nobody had noticed the trader’s absence
yet. She twitched the curtain closed behind her and walked
away. They’d find his body in due time, and by then she’d
have already cleared out his house.
She tried to wipe the
image of his face from her mind but it didn’t work. It never
really did. She would always remember the look of betrayal
on his face, just like she would always remember his name.
It would go on her list.
John. |
