Heartbreaker Read online

  «Detective Stonehand, how come you are honoring me of your visit?» the doctor asked once she had let Shim in and made him sit. The two officers were left standing close behind him.

  Shim looked at her for a second before answering, trying to assess the tone she had used. She had untied her long blond hair, just as she did every time. Shim had never been able to understand whether it was an attempt to seduce him or plain simple ostentation, although he was inclined to believe in the latter.

  «I am here to ask for your advice, doctor», he explained. She didn't say anything, just propped her elbows on the desk and her chin on her joined hands, slightly leaning forward as if to ear better. «Is it possible to take the heart of a man with necromancy?» asked the detective. «Leaving the body intact?»

  The woman straightened her back, moved back her torso and left her hands fall.

  «Don't insult my intelligence, detective. You know more than enough about this matters, you don't need my answer», she said in an arrogant tone. «If what you are trying to ask is whether I used necromancy to remove a heart, the answer is yes, I did. Three times last month. Three perfectly successful and duly recorded transplants, I am willing to deliver you a copy of the clinical file and save you the time for an official request.»

  «That is not necessary», Shim replied with no alteration, as if the conversation had never left the tones of formal courtesy. «What I need to know is why someone would want to do something like that.»

  She gazed at him with a crocodile smile. When she spoke again, she was oozing with courtesy, not a bit more genuine than her grin. «To make room for a new heart. Or to transfer the heart to its new owner. In which case we would be speaking about an organ donor. A dead one.»

  «What if the heart was in the chest of a living man?»

  «That would be homicide.»

  «Thank you for the information», he said with just a slight ironic tilt. «There are many ways to kill someone, and this didn't seem the more straightforward to me.»

  «It is undoubtedly straightforward, if you do that to someone who doesn't have a spare heart and cannot make it grow back. But yes, I think there are more straightforward ways. Not with as much scenic effect though. Given there is someone to appreciate it; I don't think the victim would have any time to.»

  «Scenic... effect?» The idea that someone could be killed that way just for show made a wave of disgust raise in him.

  «You have no idea how many try to secretly record my surgeries to resell them to some weird fetishist, or maybe just spread them around, who knows?»

  «Can't you think of any other reason?»

  «Don't know. Organ racket maybe.»

  «Could be.» Actually it was quite unlikely. Why just the heart, if that were the case? «I suppose», Shim started again «that some expertise is needed for this kind of feat.»

  Grace looked at him with a loathing note in his eyes. «It doesn't require much power, but I admit it takes some knowledge, especially unless the victim is willing or incapacitated.»

  «Would you be able to make a list of people who could do that?»

  «Another question you need no answer to», she answered bitterly. «I am the only one here with enough knowledge to perform something like that. And it was not me who did, for sure I don't have any spare time to rip someone's heart out if not in my operating room, neither I have any reason to do such dirty work in my position.»

  Shim believed at least one of the two things she said. The doctor was a ruthless social climber, suffering of omnipotence delirium, and for sure she would not hesitate to kill someone if she had a good reason to, but she would never do that in a way that would allow to connect the homicide to her so easily. She wasn't going to throw her career out the window just like that.

  As per her statement that she was the only one who could succeed in doing that, well, that was sheer presumption. Maybe she was the only one among publicly known and officially authorized necromancers to have such power and expertise, but that didn't make her the only one in general.

  Several hours and several useless visits later, Shim and his escort were walking through the alleys of one of the poorest areas of the city, a concept that had anyway to be seen from the right perspective and the correct point of view. In reality, the worst neighborhood of Tejarak was probably on the same level as the upper side of some neighboring towns.

  They came in view of a shop owned by the last name in the list of official necromancers that the detective had found in his archives. After that, he would have to start looking for the names of his personal black list, people who were suspected of performing necromancy illegally, but against whom there were no proofs.

  The shop had been made so macabre that it went all the way to ridicule. It was a small place, whose windows had been painted a dull dark grey, so that their contents could barely be seen. Above the door there was the name, "Death do us parts", in a blood-red paint – actually too red to really seem blood – artfully smeared to make it look as if had been written by someone about to die, or something like that. Right below it there were samples of anatomical parts, mainly legs of chickens and some other unidentified beasts, while on a side of the door two fairly underfed live chicken were clucking, each into its barely large enough cage. A poorly placed sign over the door, announcing "Supplies and accessories for voodoo, necromancy, spiritism", was maybe the only thing which prevented the shop from being mistaken for a crossbreed between an exotic souvenirs store and a cattle seller.

  The owner – a tall and wiry man with a sharp face and eyes constantly moving from one side to the other, as if he was afraid that someone would leap from the shadows and attack him if he just hadn't looked in any given direction for more than ten seconds – came to meet them before they were entirely through the door. He kept his bent elbows upwards and his hands, held at chest height, were writhing continuously, as if they were quarrelling with each other for some unknown reason.

  «Whatever happened, it wasn't me who did it», he said in a shrill voice to the detective.

  Shim was slightly astonished.

  «I didn't say anything happened.»

  «But something did!» he insisted, speaking so abruptly that it was hard to single out the individual words. «When someone of your lot comes here, it is always because something happened, and because you think I did it, but I have a business to manage and I have no time to... to... to do what you think I did, whatever it is.»

  «You have a license for necromancy...» the dwarf tried to say, hoping for the chance to complete his sentence. His hope was shattered.

  «Yes, and for this reason you all think that I have to do mischief, but I have the license! ... not for doing mischief, I mean...»

  «I know what you mean, I just need information, OK?»

  «Information? Which kind of information? I don't think I have any. If anyone did anything bad I don't see why I should be informed.»

  Shim sighed, «If anyone performs necromancy, it is likely they need supplies...»

  «Yes, it is likely. But they ought to have a license to buy those. I don't sell anything to people without a license. I abide to the laws, I do.»

  «I'm sure you do. And should anyone come here asking for necromancy supplies and fail to show their license...»

  «I would not sell them anything. And I would write it into the monthly report.»

  «That you would send me at the end of the month.»

  «That I would send you and the end of the month», he repeated.

  «And that thus you haven't yet sent me.»

  «The month isn't over. If it were over I'd had sent it.»

  «Yes, right, but I need to know now if there were any strange requests this month.»

  «Ah. Why didn't you say that right away. Let me check. If there were any, I will tell you. I only have to check», he kept muttering as he went behind his counter and bent to check something he kept under it. Shim kept an eye on him for the whole time. He seriously doubted that he was goin
g to pull out a weapon or try and cast a spell at him, but this wasn't reason enough to disregard elementary safety rules.

  Eventually, actually, he didn't pull out anything, he just straightened with a more nervous expression on his face, if that was even possible.

  «Indeed, some fifteen days ago someone requested a large quantity of vampire ashes.»

  «Did you sell it to him?»

  «No. I didn't have so much, it is rare. Also because you need to kill a vampire to obtain it. And anyway he had no license.»

  «So?»

  «So I told him I couldn't sell him vampire ashes, even if I had any, and to come back with his license, in which case I would place an order for him.»

  «An order?»

  «Do you think I would go around hunting vampires?»

  «I think hunting vampires is illegal.»

  «That depends on the vampire. Depends on the vampire, yes. But almost no one buys vampire ashes these days, especially not in large quantities, this is why it seemed weird to me.»

  Shim would have liked to ask him why, if it had seemed that weird, he hadn't immediately informed the department of the visit. Being quite able to imagine the answer, and deciding he just didn't want to stay there and listen to it, he preferred to choose another path for his interrogation.

  «What is the use of vampire ashes?»

  «It's used to cure vampirism. Before you become a vampire, I mean. Or to raise the dead.»

  «I didn't think anything like that was needed to raise the dead.»

  «That depends on the dead. If you want some dumb walking corpse, well, you just need to know how. But for big and nasty things you need a little help.»

  «Vampire ashes.»

  «Vampire ashes, bones dust, ghoul hearts, there are many ways. Vampire ashes are for the worst things.»

  «And in such quantities?»

  «A lot of worst things.»

  CHAPTER 5

  The sun had almost disappeared by the time they left the shop.

  As he left the alley leading to it, Shim took his communication crystal from a pocket. He was going to call Owlfeather and ask him to check whether there were any traces of vampire ashes on or inside the homeless body. He still didn't know whether the two things were connected, but he was going to find out.

  The sudden apparition of something big and dark at the edge of his vision made him abandon his purpose for the time needed and jump backward, a move that proved useless when two huge black horses stopped – in a sudden and quite unnatural way – about one centimeter before reaching the place in which he had been standing. Behind them there was a couch, steered by a burly men whose skin was as black as the incoming night, so that he almost melded into the background of the coach itself.

  «I would not have run over you», he remarked, turning his head by a fraction of an inch.

  Even though he had never seen the couch or its driver personally before, Shim already knew who the passenger was. There weren't many people who moved in a coach in the early twenty-first century. Actually he knew only of one, and that one was the first name on his list of probable necromancers: Vivienne Blanchard.

  The door of the coach opened slightly and a charming voice came from within.

  «Detective Stonehand, this is an unexpected and pleasurable coincidence.»

  «Miss Blanchard I suppose», he replied.

  «Madame Blanchard, please. Or even just Vivienne, if you deem it appropriated. Only please refrain from using miss or Mrs., gently.»

  «As you wish. Your...» now, what was the word for someone who steered a coach? «... coach man should be more careful about where he's going.»

  «Ashton is a very clever coachman detective, I am afraid I might have involuntarily diverted his attention when I saw you coming down the street, but I can assure you that you have never been in any danger from him.» She paused briefly, then added, «Do you not think that this is not a proper way of carrying on a conversation? Please, come on in.»

  Shim looked at the coach, unsure. He wasn't expecting such an invitation, and wasn't sure about how to react.

  «Do not be afraid, detective, for sure I have no intention to bite you», she urged him, with a vaguely lustful tilt in her voice.

  Shim shrugged. For sure he wasn't about to be scared by a fake old-fashioned aristocrat, not when she was only one civilian and they were three armed police officers. He gestured for his men to follow and together they got into the coach, which seemed wide enough from the outside and proved to stand to the expectation from the inside.

  He sat, one officer on each side, opposite the woman, looking at her a little bewildered. She wore an odd white shirt radiating from a metal ring at waist level and ending into two large sleeves, which narrowed around her wrists. A similar ring, just under the base of the neck, held in place what seemed to be a cloak, even though there was no way to be sure it was as long as she was sitting. Her legs where wrapped into a black skirt made from some glossy and heavy fabric, apparently made of several layers, under which her boots could be seen, these too black and with a heel that should have required a carry permit.

  «It is a pleasure for me to meet you in person, detective», she welcomed him. «I have always heard people speaking of you in, I must admit, mixed terms.»

  Shim didn't stop to wonder which was the meaning of that definition.

  «I too have heard people talking about you mis... Madame Blanchard.»

  «I can well imagine you have. And most likely most of the times it happened after you had explicitly requested those people to, am I right?»

  «I don't know what you're talking about.»

  «Do not be elusive detective, I know well what are the reasons for which you nourish interest in me. I am a necromancer and you are perfectly aware of this fact. In spite of this, I do not contravene to any low simply for being what I am, it is the practice of necromancy to be forbidden, not the simple knowledge of it. Neither I could have had any way to cease being what I am when your code was promulgated.»

  «You don't seem old enough to have already been a necromancer back then», Shim remarked, examining the quite youthful features of that woman who had just asserted to be more than fifty years old.

  «Neither you seem to be a centenarian, detective, which does not mean that you are not. Appearances can be misleading more often than not.»

  «Do you always speak like this?»

  «What are you referring to, pray tell?»

  «I'll consider that a yes. You mentioned a coincidence before, what did you mean?»

  «Oh, certainly.» She let go an odd sound which could have been a light laughter. «For sure it was a pleasurable coincidence to meet you, as I believe that it allowed both of us to save some time. I would have come to look for you myself, and I am more than sure that you had the intention to come and look for me in the near future.»

  «Why should I?»

  «I believe for the same reason for which you spent almost all of today interrogating well known practitioners of necromancy.»

  «It seems you know a lot of things.»

  «More than you imagine, detective.»

  «Then I imagine you know the reason behind my investigations as well.»

  «You are looking for a necromancer who supposedly used his knowledge of the art to commit a crime. A crime of some severity, otherwise you would not be leading the investigations in person.»

  «Do you know any?»

  «If your question refers to any individual who committed a crime, I have to give you a negative answer. If that were the case, it would have been an obligation for me to denounce him to the authorities, is it not so? Though, if what you desire to know is whether among the people I am acquainted with there is any necromancer who could possibly have committed a crime, my answer would have to be different. And this is exactly the reason for which I do believe that you could be in need of my assistance.»

  «Meaning you would help me finding the one I'm looking for? Why should you?»


  «Because I am a good citizen.» She smiled a quite disturbing smile.

  «I'm glad to hear that, but...»

  «Listen to me, detective, I know that you probably believe that it would not be appropriate to accept my help for your investigations, but I pray you reconsider it before you decline my proposal. I can lead you in places in which you would never be able to go alone, let you speak to people that would never accept to meet you otherwise, and be aware that I have as much interest as you do in ascertaining who is hiding behind these events, and the reason for which he is having this kind of behavior, so I have no reason to deceive you.»

  «So you would help me, asking for nothing in return.»

  «I do not believe I have said exactly this, detective. However, what I do ask you in return is simply to disregard what you will see, aside from, of course, whatever is related to your current investigations.»

  «I'd never do that. If I should see a crime being...»

  «You will not see any kind of crime. You will only meet people who maybe, one day, might commit one, but that so far are only sharing a common interest.»

  «Necromancy is a dangerous interest.»

  «But not illegal, as long as it is kept strictly theoretical.»

  «Is it so?»