Before she reached him, Kari stopped and looked around again. The fact that the bodies were in the common room didn’t make sense to her; she had expected to find them near Black’s room. For them to be in the common room suggested the fight started with Black coming down the stairs. It left Kari to wonder if Black had started the fight by coming down the stairs looking for trouble—and finding it. As she considered it further, she wondered why Black would be staying here to begin with; he was an earl, a visiting noble, and regardless of his relationship with the Blood Order, Kari had expected the duke to take steps to keep Black safe. Instead, Black had come to the rougher part of the city and taken up residence at a hostel; it didn’t add up.
“This is weird,” Kari muttered. She knelt down to look at the wound Aeligos was pointing to, and he offered no argument. She saw what had caught his attention: Though it was a stab wound, there was little blood, and the edges appeared to have been burned by acid. The other wounds didn’t have the same burns, and when Kari met Aeligos’ gaze, she could see he was as confused as she was. He moved to inspect the other bodies, and Kari sat back on her heels and looked at the positioning of the body at the base of the stairs. She was fixated on the fact that the three dead men were highly trained assassins, and all three had died without inflicting even a single wound on any opponent.
“Initiate, go and get the watch captain,” Kari said. The young demonhunter nodded and went to do as she was told. “Aeligos, if you and Eryn were trying to kill someone, how unlikely is it that they’d kill both of you without you hurting them in return?”
Aeligos’ grim chuckle confirmed her suspicions, and Kari stood up and faced Captain Sul’Imadra as she approached. “Where’s the innkeeper?” Kari asked.
“I had two of my watchmen escort him to another nearby inn,” the captain replied. “He said he was in the kitchen when the fighting started, and he slipped out the back and alerted the watch when he heard trouble in his common room. He also said that having members of the guild in his inn is not uncommon.” She looked over her shoulder toward the door, then folded her arms across her chest and met Kari’s gaze once again. “I’m far from a proficient detective, Lady Vanador, but to me this looks like Lord Black started the fight.”
Kari nodded. “I’d have to agree,” she said.
“Not necessarily,” Aeligos interjected, and he pointed out the positions of the bodies. “There was someone else here, too; possibly two others. If Lord Black killed the one at the bottom of the stairs, there’s no way the other two were killed there and there. They would’ve attacked him while he was engaged with the first. They were clearly killed by someone else.”
“Very astute, though not entirely accurate,” the earl commented dryly from the doorway. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“You had best step outside and close your mouth before you spend the rest of the night in prison,” Captain Sul’Imadra threatened, pointing a finger as she approached the obnoxious male.
Kari had to suppress a chuckle, and the earl turned and walked away. “How long will it be before the guild knows about this?” she asked.
The captain turned to face her again. “They likely already do; they’re probably watching us from the shadows. They won’t interfere with us, but Lord Black is another matter.”
“Let’s take him to the Order’s campus. We’ll hold him there until we can get him out of the city safely. Have your guards bring the innkeeper there as well and keep some posted here to protect the scene until your investigators can do a thorough search,” Kari ordered, and Captain Sul’Imadra saluted her crisply before relaying the orders. Kari turned to Aeligos and added, “We’d best go with them in case any guild members get the wrong idea.”
“I doubt they’d risk endangering the captain and her guards, but you never know,” he replied. Once the guards were outside, he leaned close and whispered, “I’ll see what Eryn knows. No doubt she’s on high alert with Black in the city.”
Kari sighed as they left and fell into formation with Captain Sul’Imadra and the guards. The captain took point, with Kari and Aeligos behind her, two guards flanking Lord Black, and Irressa bringing up the rear. The earl seemed to find the protection amusing, but he offered little protest as the group made its way to the campus of the Order. Three more guards had stayed behind to keep the inn undisturbed. With Aeligos’ assurance that the Guild was unlikely to attack the guards—and, Kari thought to herself, a prominent demonhunter—her mind wandered to the scene they had just left. Something about it just didn’t make sense; her instincts warned her to stay on guard, and she flexed her fingers as the group approached the dock district.
It was those instincts that had her scimitars in her hands only a heartbeat after the guard captain’s blood hit her in the face.
Kari wiped the blood from its precarious position over her eyes using her forearm, and in the span of only another heartbeat, she dashed forward and swept the assassin away. Captain Sul’Imadra fell to the dirty street, and the guards moved to attack the assailant. Kari met the serpentine gaze of the assassin and knew the guards would be badly outclassed. Kari had only ever seen a syrinthian in pictures shown at the demonhunter academy; never before had she encountered one face to face. The creature showed her fangs in a hiss, though, and Kari knew that was what stood before her.
“Protect Black!” Kari ordered, though she felt foolish saying so for more than one reason. It hardly seemed likely Kaelin Black needed protection given the grisly scene they had left only minutes before. Even still, Kari knew she faced a demon—a minor one, perhaps, but a demon nonetheless—and she wanted the guards to stay out of harm’s way.
The seasoned demonhunter stepped between the assassin and the fallen captain, but the syrinthian woman seemed more interested in Black. Kari gained her full attention by pressing the assassin with a combination. The syrinthian woman’s white, semi-scaled face contorted oddly and she dodged Kari’s attacks, but then she scowled. From the folds of her cloak she produced a second long, straight blade. She deftly parried Kari’s attacks and countered with a measured but vicious combination of her own that forced Kari back a few steps. Three years removed from field duty, Kari was no less polished a swordsman, but it had been a while since she’d been in a truly life-or-death battle.
Fortunately, Kari was far from alone: Irressa came around to flank the syrinthian assassin and tried to drive her in towards Kari.
“That’s the killer from the inn!” Lord Black said from behind Kari. “Look at her weapons!”
Kari ignored him. She wasn’t sure what he meant and assumed he was lying anyway, so she focused more on the fanged grin of the assassin in front of her. Kari moved to capitalize on Irressa’s flanking maneuver, but the assassin sidestepped and drove the younger demonhunter away with a vicious double swipe at her neck. Irressa wasn’t as well-armored as Kari, so she dove backwards to avoid the decapitating blades and then scrambled away on her backside.
Kari moved to regain the assassin’s attention. She checked briefly over both shoulders to be certain no one else was attacking, and she could see the guards were warily defending Black. Aeligos knelt beside the guard captain, his face a tight grimace as he used his cloak to keep pressure on her wounded neck as best he could. Kari shrugged her shoulders to work her cloak back between her wings and, throwing her wings out behind her to cut a more imposing figure, she approached the assassin warily.