Assassin's Noon: Ageless Mysteries - Book 4 Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THANK YOU

  Character List

  Places

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ASSASSIN’S NOON

  Ageless Mysteries - Book 4

  Vanessa Nelson

  ASSASSIN’S NOON

  Ageless Mysteries - Book 4

  Vanessa Nelson

  Copyright © 2022 Vanessa Nelson

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction.

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or in part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  Click or visit:

  http://www.taellaneth.com

  For John N - with grateful thanks for all your sage advice and insight.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thea rubbed her forehead, hoping to ease the tension there, and for the words in front of her to miraculously make sense. It had been a long, tiring day looking for answers and finding nothing. Senior Sergeant Sutter had caught her attention as she arrived back at Middlefield Watch Station and asked for her help. She had hoped that she could, at least, do this one thing. But the pencil marks - thick lines and weird curls - were beyond her comprehension. She could see why Sutter had been having difficulty with the report. It was one of the worst pieces of handwriting she had ever seen. And she had worked with some of the laziest Watchmen in the city.

  “No, I’m sorry,” she said, handing the paper back to the Senior Sergeant. “I can’t make sense of it. Have you tried Everson?” she asked, naming a junior Watchman from her previous station. One of only two Watch members stationed there to still be in service, after the former Sergeant’s disgrace. Thea was the other survivor. The pair of them had been the only honest members of that station, as far as she could tell.

  “Everson?” Sutter repeated. The Senior Sergeant knew every single member of the Watch across the city, so he wasn’t asking about the Watchman’s identity, but rather his skill set.

  “Yes. He seemed to have a knack for bad handwriting,” Thea explained.

  “That’s good to know,” Sutter said. He was a compact man, the top of his head reaching Thea’s shoulder, with close-cropped light hair and bright blue eyes. Apart from his neat appearance, he did not seem remarkable at first glance, but he was one of the most intelligent and organised individuals Thea had ever come across. She could almost see the bit of information being filed away in his brain. He might nominally be second-in-command of the city’s Watch, but the Watch would not function without Sutter.

  “This may be a silly question, sir, but can’t you just ask the Watchman?” Thea asked.

  “It’s an old report,” Sutter said. “There’s some dispute between landowners in Fallowfield that’s been going on for at least a decade. I’m trying to go through the old reports and see if there’s any help there. Sadly, the Watchman who took this report died a few years ago.”

  Intrigued, Thea was about to ask for more information, distracted by raised voices from the Watch Captain’s office.

  The captain’s door was closed, which had been happening more often over the last couple of weeks. Ever since the Watch had sent Master Merchant Kendrick off to a black ship in disgrace.

  With her sensitive hearing, she could still hear the tone and murmur of voices through the heavy wooden door, and had almost got used to the background murmur of voices. The occasional shout still got her attention. And just now, the voices had been raised loud enough to make her turn, frowning.

  Thea tilted her head, trying to catch individual words, but the volume had dimmed and all she could hear was the rumble of noise. Ware Handerson, the Watch Captain, had endured visits from a wide variety of people over the past two weeks. Many merchants, usually in twos and threes, as well as tradesmen and women from the city, and even a few of the other more prominent citizens of Accanter, the ones who lived in grand houses within the Citadel perimeter and would never normally dream of setting foot in a humble Watch building.

  Thea had not been party to any of the conversations, but the only thing of note that had happened was Kendrick’s arrest and disgrace, so she assumed that was what had brought all the attention to the Watch Captain.

  “More merchants?” she asked.

  “A whole gaggle of them this time,” Sutter answered, sighing. “They’ve been in there for a while.” He rubbed his own forehead. “Thank you for your reports, by the way.”

  “You’ve read them already?” she asked, surprised. She had only left them for him the day before.

  “Yes. Thank you. I’ve no comments,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m closing the cases and putting them into the records room.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The reports represented two weeks’ worth of work tracking down the rest of the more than one hundred people who had been recorded in Kendrick’s ledger. People who had been stolen from their lives and forced into working for Kendrick and his associates. It said something for Kendrick’s arrogance that he had kept meticulous records of his crimes, the ledger handed over to Thea by the former merchant’s former clerk.

  Forty-six of the people in the ledger had been found all together and almost all of them had returned to their families. But that had still left a lot of missing people. The ledger had shown that some of the victims were at other addresses around the city, and some of them had died before anyone had known what was happening.

  Thea had found almost all of them. In her own office, at the other end of the corridor, she had Kendrick’s ledger sitting at the edge of her desk, along with two reports that represented people she had not been able to find. One, or both, of the reports might concern a trickster who had been hiding among Kendrick’s prisoners. The creature had appeared as a frail old man on the edge of death when she had spoken to him. Thea had only discovered what he truly was after he had vanished. It was possible the trickster had managed to get caught by Kendrick and ended up on his ledger rather than another non-human, but she was not willing to take the risk. Those reports, and the ledger, would stay on her desk until she had found the answers she needed.

  She had spent too much time in the past two weeks following up reports of shallow graves, speaking to bereaved families, and bringing answers where she could. Very often not the answers the families had been hoping for. It had been exhausting, but necessary. And today had been another frustrating day of not finding any answers. Still, she was not giving up. Not when there were still people to find.

  “You did good work,” Sutter said, voice quiet.

  “It shoul
dn’t have been necessary,” Thea said, the words pulled out of her.

  “I know. But we don’t get to choose,” he said. He turned his head slightly. Unlike her, he was human, with duller hearing. But the noise from Ware’s office had grown loud enough again to carry through the station. “Sounds like the argument is almost done.”

  Held in place by pure curiosity, Thea stayed where she was, standing with Sutter outside his office. The raised voices had died to a murmur, muffled by the heavy wood of the captain’s door.

  The volume rose sharply as the door opened and a group of men came out of the captain’s office into the corridor. Even without Sutter’s cue, the floor-length robes and rich materials told Thea that the group were all merchants.

  And she knew two of them. Among the five men, two had warm dark skin and sleek black hair and faces meant for laughter. Traits they shared with their sister, Odilia Trant, who was the Watch’s Mage. The brothers, Cedd and Gordie, were only a few years older than Odilia and had each recently been granted the title of Master Merchant, which Odilia was rightly proud of. Which meant that the other three men were likely also Master Merchants, all of them here representing the merchants’ guild and wanting something from the Watch Captain.

  “We expect action. Prompt action. At once. Immediately,” one of the other three merchants said as he left the room. He was the shortest of the group, a stout, middle-aged man standing with his chest puffed out, dull brown hair blending into the shadows of the corridor. Trying to make himself look taller, and ensure he was remembered, Thea suspected, in the same way he had over-emphasised his point. He was wearing a sour expression that did not suit his slightly rounded, unremarkable face.

  “If we don’t see results, we will petition the Ageless for the disbandment of the Watch,” another one of the merchants said, the statement shocking enough that Thea felt her jaw drop. He was a fraction taller than the first speaker, with cool bronzed skin and sleek black hair cropped close to his head. In contrast to the first speaker, this man was edged with something hard and angry. He was staring at Ware and somehow managing to give the impression of looking down his nose at the captain, despite the fact that Ware was at least a head and shoulders taller than he was.

  Ware said nothing, face tight. He loomed over the merchants, broad and lean, pale skinned like most of Accanter’s citizens, with grey taking over his once-dark hair. He wore his uniform without any of the airs and graces of the merchants around him. He was also, unlike the merchants, not human but Ageless-born. Thea wondered if any of the merchants knew, or cared.

  The third stranger said nothing, which somehow drew Thea’s attention more than the fury of the other two. He was a slender man, reasonably tall for a human, with dark red hair and freckles dusted across his pale skin. He was standing with his arms folded in the sleeves of his robes, a common stance for merchants. And staying quiet. Watching. Taking everything in. Exercising restraint. Thea’s skin prickled with unease. There might be four other Master Merchants, but she had an instinct that this man was the one to watch.

  The merchants might think they had worried Ware, but Thea knew the Watch Captain better than they did. His jaw was clenched, a touch of white showing around his mouth. He was not worried. He was furious. And holding onto his temper with difficulty. Which made Thea wonder just what else had been said in the room before the merchants emerged. The threat to disband the Watch was bad enough. The Watch might be made up of different stations and hundreds of members across the city, but Ware was both its head and its heart. He had worked hard to reform it since he took it over, turning it into an honest force for order across the city. Thea wondered if the merchants knew, or cared, how much work Ware had done to reform the previously corrupt Watch, or the impact that had had on the citizens of the city. Ordinary folk in Accanter knew that they could take their troubles to the Watch and be listened to.

  “We should go,” Cedd, the oldest of Odilia’s brothers said. “The Crescent Moon is due at dock this afternoon.”

  The three merchants that Thea did not know glared at Cedd, then reluctantly agreed. The first speaker, the short one with the brown hair, sent another frown at Ware.

  “Do not ignore us. Remember our demands,” the merchant said before turning with the others and filing down the stairs.

  Ware remained standing in his office door, head tilted as he listened to the sound of the merchants leaving. The merchants’ guild had moved their headquarters to a purpose-built building only two streets away, so there were no carriages waiting for them. The merchants would walk the short distance to their offices. And doubtless start all manner of gossip if they kept talking in the same loud, angry voices as they had used in Ware’s office.

  “My office,” Ware said.

  He had seen Sutter and Thea. Of course he had, Thea realised. He had served in the Archon’s army, Conscripted into service, and even though his service had cost him an eye, he was still sharply observant.

  “Give me a moment,” Sutter said, and ducked back into his office, the unreadable parchment in his hands.

  Thea made her way to the captain’s office, finding him staring out of the window, which had been opened to let in a gust of air.

  “A difficult afternoon, sir?” Thea asked.

  Ware glanced over his shoulder, mouth quirking in what might have been a smile.

  “An understatement if ever I heard one.” He sighed, then drew in a long breath from the open window before coming back to his desk and opening a drawer. “I have something for you.” He pulled a small object from the desk and held it out to her. It was a Watch badge, but not like any she had seen before.

  The Watchmen wore plain tin badges. Watch Officers had bronzed badges, with the Sergeants and Senior Sergeant having a bit of edging around them to show their higher rank. Ware’s own badge was a polished bit of silver.

  The badge Ware was holding out to her was half bronze and half silver, split diagonally across its length.

  “That’s a new design,” she commented, taking it from him. The metal warmed to her hand, a trace of magic sliding across her skin. All Watch badges had a bit of magic in them, courtesy of Odilia. Thea stared at the smooth, perfect surface, unable to see a join between the two different metals.

  “We had to come up with something for your new rank,” Ware said. His earlier fury had gone, replaced by quiet amusement.

  Her new rank. She stared at the badge on the palm of her hand. The simple folded-over metal that would fit onto the notch at her lapel. It was almost impossibly heavy in her hand, carrying the weight of Ware’s expectations, and yet she would not turn it away. She was an Investigator now. The only one in the Watch. It had seemed an excellent idea when she had been told about it. She would be nominally stationed here, with Sutter and Ware, but free to work anywhere across the city. It meant that none of the Watch Sergeants would have to house her in their station, wondering if she might turn on them, as she had on her old Sergeant.

  But it also set her apart from the others. Like having an office on the same floor at Ware and Sutter, physically apart from the main floor of the station where most of the station’s members did their work.

  And here was this badge, which was another potent symbol of her different status.

  And those were just the obvious, outward changes. There were more changes that very few people knew about. The secretive group that Ware belonged to, which wanted her help. She was curious to know if they really were as unbiased and interested in the truth as they had claimed. And the recent discovery of her true nature, which she didn’t want to think about. Not now and not ever.

  “Can I have my old badge back?” Ware asked, still amused.

  Thea looked up, startled, her free hand automatically going to the old, worn Watch Officer’s badge she was wearing. Ware had given it to her as a temporary measure when her own badge had been stolen. And she had never thought too much about where it had come from.

  “This was yours, sir?” she asked, taking it
off and handing it across to him.

  “Yes. It saw me through a few adventures,” he answered, glancing down at it with a fond smile on his mouth before he put it away in the drawer. “And I’m sure you’ll see plenty of adventures with yours, too.”

  “Sir,” Thea acknowledged. She put the new badge onto her lapel. It fit perfectly. Of course it did. Odilia’s work was always excellent.

  “You wanted to see us?” Sutter asked from the doorway.

  “I did.” Ware sighed, and took his seat, reaching into another drawer of his desk and bringing out a familiar bottle and three glasses. “No, you’re going to need this,” he said, when Sutter lifted his hand to refuse the liquor.

  Sutter and Thea settled in chairs opposite the desk and accepted glasses of the amber liquid. It wouldn’t have much impact on either Ware or Thea, but Sutter was human and the drink was potent. Thea cradled her glass, wondering what news was so bad that Ware thought they would need a drink to weather it.

  Ware rubbed his hand across his eye. It was the false eye, and it was always a bad sign when it was bothering him. He glanced aside, as if he was wondering if escape through the window was possible.

  “The merchants’ guild wants me to drop the charges against Kendrick,” he began without warning.

  “They can’t be serious,” Thea said, the words exploding out of her. “Do they know what he did?” The reports she had provided for Sutter were the least of it. She could still remember the horror of discovering the secret room at the back of the weaver’s factory, with narrow bunk beds full of exhausted workers forced to work for Kendrick. And those were the ones who had survived. Many had not. There was more than one family across the city mourning a loss just now. They might have answers, and know what had happened to their family member, but it did not make up for the loss. Not even a little bit, in Thea’s eyes.