Little Gray couldn’t understand what his parents were saying in the common tongue, but he calmed down and tugged on Kari’s long hair. “Did you see the Fuzzy Man, Mama?” he asked in the rir tongue. “He has funny eyes.”
Kari chuckled and regarded Grakin, and she could see the question piqued his curiosity. Both turned to look up the stairs when Kyrie returned with Grakin’s brothers.
The priestess put her hands on her ample hips once she stood before her children. “I think your son’s imagination may just be getting the better of you,” she said, and she placed her hand on Kari’s shoulder. “I used every divination I know: There are no demons, no ghosts, nothing harmful of any sort upstairs. If there is something in this house, it’s either something Kaelariel can’t find—which is nigh impossible—or it’s something completely harmless, like one of those old spirits the humans used to call… domovoi, I think it was.” She regarded her grandson and spoke in the rir tongue. “Is the Fuzzy Man still here, Little Gray?”
The young boy shook his head. “Nope, he goed nite-nite.”
Kyrie kissed Little Gray and met Kari’s eyes, but before she could speak again there was a knock at the door. Kyrie went to answer it, and Ty and Aeligos both gave Kari comforting pats on the shoulder before returning to their reading. Kari felt a little foolish, but at the same time, the instincts that made her such an effective demonhunter warned her that all was not as it seemed. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she—and more pointedly, her son—was being watched by something insidious, and that it had something to do with foiling the demons’ plans on Tsalbrin. She wasn’t sure how or what they were slipping past Kyrie’s magic-enhanced senses, but she was hesitant to ignore her instincts under the circumstances. She had confidence in the power and integrity of Kaelariel, but much more confidence in her own experience.
Kyrie returned from the front door with a young shakna-rir demonhunter who had recently graduated from the academy. Her name was Irressa, if Kari remembered correctly, and the girl was serving a probationary period as a law-enforcement official in the city before she would receive her commission to undertake outside hunts. Shakna-rir demonhunters were a bit of an oddity, since the shakna-rir were not indigenous to Askies Island and rarely came to attend the Academy. Irressa was taller but lankier than Kari, with angular features, long brown hair she kept in a single braid, and the intense red eyes that were common among the shakna-rir. Irressa saluted Kari and then bowed politely to Grakin.
“What is it, Initiate?” Kari asked.
“I was ordered to come and find you specifically, Lady Vanador,” Irressa responded curtly. Her voice seemed soft, but she worked to give it an edge of authority. “There’s been a triple homicide, and it involves one Lord Kaelin Black.”
“You don’t mean…,” Kari started, her eyes going wide.
“No, Lady; only that he was involved,” Irressa said.
Kari rolled her eyes with a sigh and handed Little Gray over to his father. “Honestly, this took longer than I expected. And frankly, I’d rather deal with a ghost,” she muttered, which drew chuckles from her mate and her mother-in-law, but a curious glance from the initiate. “Give me a minute to get dressed.”
Kari returned to the second floor and scanned the darkness around her warily as she made her way to her and Grakin’s room. Nothing moved, and even the creaking of the house was silent, so she took her armor from the wardrobe and began putting it on. Her paluric armor, a rare treasure worth a king’s ransom, still fit her well. Even after giving birth to Little Gray, it hadn’t taken Kari long to return to the athletic physique that people remembered her for. She never went anywhere in the city without her armor, since a demonhunter was rarely safe even in the streets of a city like DarkWind—a fact emphasized by the trouble that had apparently accompanied Kaelin Black.
While she dressed, Kari felt a soft breeze blow past her again, but rather than alarm her, this one filled her with a sense of calm. She had felt this particular breeze before when she encountered Sakkrass, the deity of the lizard-folk, during her mission on Tsalbrin. After she killed a sylinth, Kari had met the czarikk deity in avatar form, and he had blessed her with the ability to speak and understand their language, both in verbal and written form. His presence manifested as a soft breeze, sometimes upon her body and sometimes only within her mind. Though it had been some time since she felt his presence, when Kari felt the cool tickle upon her skin she relaxed, knowing that Sakkrass still kept his word to watch over her.
This didn’t dismiss the possibility that there was something in the house, though. The breeze she felt now wasn’t the same as the one she’d felt when exiting Little Gray’s room; that had almost certainly been a passing body. All the same, she was comforted by Sakkrass’ presence, which would doubtless drive out any unwanted or unclean spirits or presences in the house, whether Kyrie could detect them or not. Kari mused that it was possible the first breeze had also been Sakkrass, and that she simply wasn’t expecting his touch given her alarmed mental state. It left her to wonder if her son was able to perceive the czarikk deity on some other level: whether he was more aware of the deity’s presence due to having the open mind of a child. Kari found it unlikely, though; the czarikk were lizard-people, and her son called the unseen presence “the Fuzzy Man.” Of course, she also couldn’t dismiss the possibility that her son simply had a very good, active imagination.
Kari belted on her swords and wrapped her cloak about herself to ward off the chill of the spring evening. She descended the stairs, kissed Grakin and Little Gray, promised to be home soon, and then departed with Irressa.
Aeligos volunteered to go with them. He was perceptive and suggested he might find clues Kari’s thorough but less detail-oriented coworkers may have missed. Kari guessed it also had to do with the fact that Aeligos’ mate, Eryn Olgaryn, was a member of the Blood Order, and that the assassin’s guild may have been involved in whatever happened. Whatever the case, Kari was glad to have his help once again. Something resembling an open mind would be a welcome presence when dealing with a man she hated probably more than was healthy…
DarkWind was lively even after dark, though with its heavy complement of watch patrols, the streets were unusually safe for a city of its size. As Black had indicated, the city did have an expansive assassin’s guild that ran its underground, but Kari knew the guild better than most people did. Eryn had become Kari’s friend during their journey to and from Tsalbrin, and though Kari didn’t fully trust Eryn to be honest regarding her profession, their friendship gave the demonhunter certain insights into the guild and its workings.
Foremost, the guild wasn’t a gang of murderers: They didn’t ply their trade against the common folk of the city. Instead, the Blood Order was more of a political guild, eliminating other organized crime and threats to DarkWind’s major houses and merchants’ guilds—for a price. Kari still didn’t like them; the demonhunters and the city watch should have been all the protection the people needed. Yet many of the common folk supported the guild, and if Duke Christopher Bosimar was inclined to rid his duchy of the guild’s presence, he didn’t make it obvious.