Clearing Pawns

Helena had only gotten a few pages into her research when someone knocked at the door of the office she was currently living in.  She looked up to see Chris, carrying a few pillows.  “We finally managed to get a shipment out to the office.  Figured you two might like something better than couch cushions.  Wish we could get real beds somewhere but this is all still ‘unplanned overtime.'”

“Oh, thanks!”  Camila hopped over to grab the pile.  “So you guys are doing a lot of overnight shifts then?”

Chris sighed.  “There’s a gang war.  And the regular scum don’t stop committing crimes just because the Triads are murdering each other.  There’s a lot of work to be done.  Even the paper pushers in the big building are helping out.”

“Enough to get the captain to act?” Helena asked.  She hoped so.  The waiting was interminable.

“From your lips to God’s ears,” Chris said as she stretched.  “Until then we’ll just have to keep building a case.  Arrest the people we can build a case on and hope that the Triad’s lawyers and magic tricks are tied up in the war.”

Helena perked up at that.  “Magic tricks?  What exactly are they doing?”  It seemed strange that the Gold Rat Wizard would commit crimes himself.  That was what underlings were for.

“Yeah, whenever one of the people we pick up manages to spit out a confession somehow every tape recorder breaks, the notes catch fire, and everyone in the room forgets what the suspect said.  Which leaves us empty handed.”  She grimaced.  “Never happens to the Inspector, but the rest of us mortals can’t even talk to the bastards.”

“Interesting.”  That sounded like a very complex spell.  One that would be difficult to trigger remotely.  “Aren’t your cells warded against magic?”

The policewoman waved her hand noncommittally.  “We’ve got some protections but they won’t buy us the stronger wards.  We have to rely on blessed handcuffs, but you can’t just keep people shackled if you aren’t holding them for magical crimes.”

“How do you keep magicians in jail at all?” Camila asked.  “Like, if they can just magic themselves out whenever they want.”

“We send them upstate.  They’ve got fancy jail cells in the big prisons.  But we don’t rate.”  Chris shook her head.  “Those toys are for the rich bastards across the river.  Not us.”

Helena put down her pen.  “I’m curious as to how the Triads work the spell to begin with.  That sort of magic is difficult.  And the Gold Rat Wizard isn’t the type to openly interfere with an investigation like that, so they’d have to be relying on a lesser mage.”

Chris grinned.  “Well we might have a cocky bastard in custody right now.  We’ve been waiting for Kilduff to get a free moment to question him, but if you’d be willing to lend a hand, I could do it myself.”

“Trying to get as much help from the witch while she’s still around?”  Helena chuckled.  Well it was a reasonable request.  And did really want to know the trick.

“Ha!  Looks like you got played, Helena.”  Camila waggled her hands.  “Can I watch too?  Kinda interested myself.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to watch from outside.  Can’t bring two civilians in the room.” Chris said as she led them down the hallway.  “This is technically legal, but I’m pushing the limits of internal policies.  It’s just we need to press this guy now.  There’s nothing we can book him for, so can only hold him for another six hours before he walks out with just a ticket.”

Helena stared at the policewoman.  “You’ll just let him go?  Why?”

“Do you want to live in a city where the police can just keep people in jail as long as they feel like?” Chris asked.

“It kinda sucks, and it doesn’t actually get rid of crime,” Camila said.  “Trust me.”

“I’m well aware,” Helena said.  “I’m just not used to places where the people in charge see unlimited power as something to be avoided instead of a goal.”  She shook her head.

Chris gave a grim snort.  “The true fantasy inside the Immigrant Realm.”

They stepped onto the main floor, Chris heading towards the counter that held beverages.  The place was louder than before, police calling across the floor the exchange information on suspects.  Helena hung to the sides to try to avoid the worst of the noise.

“A few rules before we head in,” Chris yelled over the din as she grabbed two cups of coffee.  “Don’t ask any questions.  In fact it’d be best if you didn’t talk to the suspect at all.  Just tell me what he’s doing.”

“And stop any magic I assume?” Helena added with a smirk.

Chris nodded.  “Please.  And make sure the recording equipment doesn’t break.  I want to have ironclad proof we didn’t so much as raise our voice at him.”

The policewoman led them to a side room.  Camila leaned on the wall opposite the door and waved.  “Have fun.”

“I’ll try to make it interesting,” Helena said as Chris opened the door.

The room was simple.  A featureless white cube with a table and four chairs.  The light was just a little too bright.  The man sitting down across from them was Chinese, wearing a black buttoned shirt and trousers.  He was thin and wiry, bearing none of the fat merchants of every domain seemed to acquire.  As they entered he turned his gaze towards them both, then dismissed Helena and Chris with a snort.

Helena slumped in one of the chairs while Chris sat across from the man.  The policewoman offered one of the cups of coffee to the man.  “Sorry about the wait Mr Cao.  We’ve had a lot of murders recently.”

“Well I know nothing about them,” Mr Cao replied.  “I’m just a businessman.  I have nothing to do with murders.”

He idly fiddled with his kirin pin, and Helena took a closer look at it.  It had the feel of magic, but there weren’t any active spells.  She peered closer, ignoring the world around her as she focused.

There was no magic on the pin itself, but it was connected to something else.  Probably an identical statuette linked with taoist ritual.  Something that would let a ritualist with access to the other statue cast spells through the pin as if they were present.  A clever trick.  Hsu must have set it up so his underlings could do all the dirty work for him.  She’d run into something similar recently, but this connection was much weaker.

Helena reached out with her power and blocked the link.  That should keep any magic from flying through.  She would have liked to see if anyone was monitoring the statuette still, but leaving a conduit like that open was dangerous.

She focused back on the room just in time to hear Chris start her interrogation in earnest.  “We’ve found opium in your warehouse.  You aren’t going to get off this time.  Maybe if you talk a little about your bosses we can keep you out of jail.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mr Cao replied.  “Obviously one of my newer workers was hiding it there.  And I no longer work for the trade consortium.  I’ve joined with a few other businesses to create a new trade group.”

Helena couldn’t help but snort at that.  Chris gave her a look before continuing, “So you’re working for Long Zhou Di then.  Well isn’t that good to know.  No lawyers coming to save you, and no magic to muddle my head.”

The man laughed.  “You’ll find the Living and Undead Dragons are far greater magicians than the Gold Rat Wizard.  But then, you should know that already from the corpses in your morgue.”

“So you do know something about the murders,” Chris said with a grin.  “Please, go on.”

Mr Cao frowned, then grinned again as he twisted the kirin pin.  “I forgot.”

“I cut his connection to the Living Dragon,” Helena said to Chris.  She smirked as horror slowly slipped over Cao’s face.  “They won’t be able to hear any codewords, and no spells will be coming through.”

The man collapsed back into his chair.  He shakily grabbed hold of the coffee and stared into its depths.  Chris cleared her throat.  “So, about your new contacts…”

With a sudden jerk the man threw the cup of coffee into Helena’s face.  She closed her eyes tight but searing heat still splashed across her face.  She fell to the ground trying to wipe away the burning liquid.

She’d cleared her eyes just in time to see Chris falling down.  The woman dropped right on top of Helena, cushioned only by Helena’s wards.  As she tried to get up, Mr Cao threw open the door and rushed through.

Only to stagger back as he ran face first into Camila.  The Brazilian woman caught the man by the shoulders and frowned at him.  “Hey, ya can’t just cut and run y’know.”

Mr Cao screamed in horror and fainted.

“Uh, whoops.”  Camila let the man fall to the ground as Helena and Chris picked themselves up.  “Wasn’t expecting that.”

“You’re a nightmare come to life for him,” Helena said, wiping the last of the coffee off her face.  It felt like she’d gotten a sunburn, but fortunately the damned liquid had cooled physically before she’d gotten it splashed on her.

Chris shook her head, then pulled out some cuffs.  “Well any confession we get out of him today’s just gotten ruined.  But attacking a police officer and resisting arrest is going to put him away.  So it’s something.”  She moved over to restrain the unconscious man.  “Thanks for the assistance.  And sorry I didn’t react in time.  Didn’t have him pegged as a runner.”

“Neither did I.  Stupid of me,” Helena admitted.  She looked at the stain on her light peplos.  “Fortunately I got away with coffee stains instead of blood.”

Camila blinked then nodded.  “Yeah.  Be really sad if you fought me to a standstill just to get stabbed by a smuggler.”

Stabbing might have been safer.  Out loud she said, “Take that kirin pin off him and lock it in a safe box.  That’s the magical link they’ve been using on you.”

“Aha.  Good to know.”  Chris quickly removed the ornament.  “Thanks for your help again.  Sorry we didn’t get more, but any bit helps.  I’ll drag him back to the cells and tell the Inspector.  See if that helps our warrant along.”

“Good luck,”  Helena frowned at the stain.  “I’ll head back to my room and look into cleaning my dress.”

Helena hurried up the stairs poking at the stain.  As she feared, the stain resisted her attempts to just magic it away.  She was only mediocre at cleaning magic, and the material was naturally resistant.  “I’m going to need some soap,” she muttered.

Camila coughed lightly behind her.  “So your bane is actually coffee?  Like, that’s the only reason I can think of that someone could hit you in the face with it.”

A shiver ran down Helena’s spine.  She didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing her bane.  But she forced the fear down.  Camila had figured it out fairly.  And Helena trusted the woman.  The bond between them wasn’t one between master and servant, but it was still a bond.

“Yes.  But don’t tell anyone about it.”  Helena poked at the stain again before pulling off her hat to summon her cleaning supplies.  “The flowers are the only part that grants immunity, but any part of the plant resists my magic.”

“My lips are sealed,” Camila said.  “Need any help with the stain?”

“Keep anyone from blundering in while I’m changing so I can give this dress a good soaking,” Helena replied.

Camila grinned.  “No problem.”