Industry & Intrigue (43 page)

On top of all of that,
there
was
also the LRC massacre. The case had gone to Imperial Branch, since
it was political rather than drug or gang related and Brenna didn’t
envy them. She had heard the scene was brutal. One of the few
socialists who hadn’t been present was screaming at the watch for
justice, but there was little they had been able to find. She hoped
that this didn’t lead to a retaliatory measure by the socialists.
Labor riots in the city would be catastrophic when they were on the
brink of war.

Brenna’s arm
slumped on her
desk. She didn’t know what to do. Inissa was as high up as they had
ever reached, but she wasn’t interested in cooperating. Snar sat at
his own desk, staring at her with his big black eyes. She was the
senior officer, she was meant to show him how to crack cases. But
if Inissa refused to give them the location of Mikono’s base of
operations, there was little they could do.

Then Selim came swaggering up
to her desk and dropped a piece of paper in front of her
face.
She
looked up, he was grinning like he had won a fortune.

“
What
is it?” she asked.

“
Messenger f
rom the hospital. The priest
woke up. Told our man everything. Once we get samples off those
barrels, we have her for tarcaine smuggling.”

“
How does that help us?”
The woman wasn’t
talking for an attempted murder charge; Brenna didn’t see why she
would suddenly change her mind when it came to a lesser charge for
drugs.

“
We haven’t tried
this on her yet,”
he replied and he pointed to the top of the paper.

Brenna looked at the title,
then quickly read further down.
How could she have forgotten about
something like this? “We have the bitch,” she said
quietly.

She stood up and looked at the
captain
.
“Captain, I believe she’ll tell us everything we want.” She slapped
the paper onto his chest and he quickly tried to read it. “Snar,
we’re going back in.”

“
Yes
sergeant.” The agorid stood and
followed her to the interrogation room. Brenna sauntered into the
room, showing the woman sitting down that she had her. Inissa
looked at her curiously. Brenna could tell she sensed something,
though she had no idea what yet.

“
Well Ms.
Renoch
, in
spite of your attempts on his life, Cleric Gall is up and talking.”
Brenna let that sink in to her. Inissa still stared back defiantly.
Brenna continued. “So that means we’ll soon have tarcaine smuggling
to add to the attempted murder charge. Anything to say?” The woman
didn’t respond. Brenna sat down on the other side of the
table.

“
I didn’t think
so.
” Brenna
held up the piece of paper and acted excited. “This is something
interesting I just learned. Officer Snar could you please read it
for me, the third paragraph down.” She handed the paper to
Snar.

He mov
ed it towards his face and read, “Any
persons found guilty of level four or higher drug crimes, will be
subject to the harshest possible sentencing. If this occurs during
war time, the sentence may include penal conscription for the
Imperial Army.”

Brenna watched with
joy as the woman’s
eyes betrayed her sinking realization of that statement.

“
You wouldn’t
,” she said, her voice barely
more than a whisper.

“
That’s right you drug bitch. We
could be at war any day now. All I have to do is keep you locked up
in our cells until it starts. Then I’ll submit my paperwork for
your charges and you can see the treatment you’ll receive at the
hands of an Imperial Army magistrate. And if you refuse to talk,
I’ll make it my personal goal that you get sent out to
Naikos.”

Brenna grinned and looked up at
Snar.
“How
would you like to face down the wild hordes of his people? No
offense Snar.”

“
None taken
sergeant
,”
he replied.

“
Or you can tell me what I want
to know and I’ll have you processed today. I’ll make sure you’re
first in line for sentencing tomorrow, before there’s a chance of a
war. What do you say?”

Inissa’s shoulders slumped
and
her
knuckles were white from gripping the table. She looked to be done
resisting. “Fine. I’ll fucking tell you,” she said, relenting. “The
main warehouse is at one hundred and seventy eight Kalbirch Lane in
the Torphin district. Barus is always there. I don’t know if Mikono
will be there or not, she tends to keep her distance from the
drugs. But with the gang war it’s risky for her to be alone at the
tojitsu academy.”

Brenna pulled out her notebook and jotted
everything down. “What will we find there?” she asked.

“
Tarcaine, I’ve no idea
h
ow much,”
replied Inissa. “More than enough to make up for what the
Stoneskins hijacked. And weapons, lots of them. Mikono has Barus on
the warpath, she’s ready to hit back against Lorek hard. You’ll
never get in there. Barus has dozens of armed men and he’s not one
to lay down quietly, even if you manage to surround the building.
The inside is like a dammed fortress, layers of
defenses.”

Good to know
thought Brenna.
“That’s our concern, not yours. Is there anything else?”

“
N
o point in holding anything back is there?
Mikono keeps a long-term secondary storage of tarcaine.”

Now s
he was getting to the choice
information. Brenna kept pushing her. “For what?”

“
Insurance. As far as I know
she’s never touched it. If ever there was time, it would be now.
And no, I don’t know where or how much there is. You’ll have to ask
her yourself, or you could tear about her building looking for it.
You watch people are so good at that.”

“
Thank you
,” said Brenna and she stood
up. “Could you draw a rough map of the inside of Barus’s
stronghold?” The woman nodded.

“
Good,
Officer Snar here will wait with you
while you do that.” Brenna left a pad of paper for her to make a
start. “I need to talk to my captain and then I’ll get you
processed.

“
Can I make one
request
?”
asked Inissa. “Wherever you send me, make sure it isn’t here or
Longhaven. Mikono can get to me in either city.”

Brenna smiled at
her
. “Since
you asked so nicely, I’ll see what I can do. Even if it did take
you so long to cooperate.” Then she exited the room to leave the
woman to map out the warehouse.

She greeted Selim and Tolov
with the news an
d handed over the details she’d written down.

“
E
xcellent work Brenna,” said Niko. “You too
Selim. This is the biggest case the branch has ever made and it
wouldn’t have been possible without all the hard work you’ve both
done.”

Brenna leaned back on her
desk.
“She’s
giving Snar a detailed sketch of the building. It’s not going to be
easy, she’s says they’re armed to the teeth and well-fortified. Add
to the fact that they’re ready for a fight with the Stoneskins, we
could take heavy casualties.

Niko
stoked his chin. “No, not easy. But
now that we have this evidence, we’ll have a lot more resources to
draw on. I’m going to send messengers to the head branch and the
Torphin station. I’ll make sure we have more than enough officers.
I also think we should have magical back-up.”

“
Magical?” said Selim.
He wasn’t a fan of
magic when it came to watch operations. Since the watch used
firearms, it could be a bad combination. A high concentration of
magic and mechanical technology inevitably led to guns jamming, or
spells fizzling out. Something about their opposing nature that
caused them to fail when near each other in concentrated amounts.
The number of officers and guns they would need for this operation
was large.

“
Relax
,” said Niko, taking note of Selim’s
discomfort. “It’s only as back-up, in case there’s an unforeseen
obstacle. I know all too well what the presence of a mage will do,
but it’s a risk we need to take. We’ll need to send someone to the
Scepters.”

Brenna spoke
up
. “I can
do that. I know one of the Scepters; she owes me a favor.” She had
not seen Zuri since the incident at Warded Spirals.

“
Alright
,” replied Niko. “You head there, we
only need a couple of mages, preferably those trained in energy or
air based magic.” As Niko walked back to his office, Brenna watched
him order a few officers to head over to the main branch and start
coordinating with them.

“
Looks like we’re
final
ly
going to get Mikono then,” said Selim.

“
Looks like
it
,” said
Brenna.

Selim put his hand on her back
and whispered. “Before you run off aga
in, don’t you want to
celebrate?”

It had been a while since she had felt his
hands on her body and a shiver went through her, but she pulled his
hand away.

“
What? Right here in the
station?” she whispered harshly. “I’m not going to swoon over that
easily again.”

The last time she had been
with
Selim
intimately; it had been late at night and they had taken over one
of the interrogation rooms, locking themselves inside for an
hour.

“
You can’t tell me that finally
breaking this
case doesn’t have you all hot and bothered.” His face was
leering at her. She gave him a smirk. He knew her too
well.

But she wanted to get this done
with before she let herself indulge.
“Right now we still have work to do. I
need to get over to the Scepters and see a mage for a
favor.”

She put her gun in her holster
and pulled her jacket on. She turned back to Selim.
“Besides, if you
think I’m all hot and bothered now. How much better do you think it
will be when we take down Mikono and Barus?” She gave him a sweet
smile.

He pointed his finger at her
and said
, “I
look forward to holding you to that promise.”

Snar appeared out of nowhere
and put the sketch that Inissa had drawn on the table.
“Here it is
sergeant.”

Brenna
jumped. She wasn’t sure how someone
so large could move as quietly as he did. “Ah, good. Thank you
Snar. Let’s have a look.”

She peered down at the sketch,
it was well-detailed. It showed every room of the two level
warehouse. Inside the main floor, there appeared to be extra walls.
Brenna put her finger
on them and was about to ask Snar, when he
answered for her, “She said those are the defensive barriers.
Wooden barricades added in to create defensive layers.”

Brenna had to admit
the Inissa had been
right. It was going to be difficult to assault. Niko was right to
bring in mages. “Selim, take that to the captain” she said and
handed him the map. “He’ll need it for planning the assault. I’m
heading to the Scepter garrison.”

Chapter 42

The symbo
ls of each of the magic
disciplines were displayed in large banners around the room. There
were sixteen in total-one for each for each of the four natural
elements, then chromatics, energy, illusions, kinetics, healing,
metallic, morphing, nature, necromancy, mind and Zuri’s own
specialty, shadomancy. The banner for that was light brown and its
symbol was a black circle with thin lines extending out of the top
half.

The final magic
discipline
was primeval and was known as the lost art. It hadn’t been
practiced in thousands of years, the knowledge lost to the ages. It
was also the most powerful and Zuri often thought that was why it
had been lost. Its practitioners having wiped themselves out, or
exterminated out of fear.

She was kneeling in her mage’s
robes in
front of the leaders of the Hydrus Scepters in the Hall of
Initiation of the Scepter Garrison building. Standing in front of
her in pure white robes was Shonna Ciar, Chief of the Hydrus
Scepters. The older woman had short, black hair, dashed with grey.
She had a lined and flabby face, making her look like a harmless,
old fishwife instead of the powerful mage that she was.

Shonna
held a thick golden staff in her
hands, a few centimeters above Zuri’s head. “The oath,” she
said.

The signal for Zuri to say the
lines she had memorized.
Zuri looked up at her and placed her right hand
around the middle of the staff.

“
In light and in dark,
by fire, water,
earth and air, and all the forces within and without, I swear to
uphold and defend the Imperial Realm of Alkos. To protect its
people, from any danger, internal or external. In the name of the
Emperor and the First Scepter, I swear.”

The First Scepter had been a powerful mage
who had served as an advisor to Emperor Magnus, three hundred years
ago and created the order of the Hydrus Scepters.