Smits ran a hand through his blond hair, lost in thought.
This was going to be bad. Recently, several attacks had been made against the Empire, all to send one message: a powerful resistance still lived. They worked in the shadows, sowing doubt in the sanctity of the Empire. Explosives had been set off in crowded city streets. A shooter had walked into a market within the very capital, and with the help of unknown conspirators, massacred dozens. Last month, four priests of the Ministry of Faith had been lynched on their own land. This all fits the rebels’ bloody pattern.
“Smits,” Khlid said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“When we get back to the precinct, I need a report on our theories. Mark your missive top priority and confidential, and send it to the Ministry of Defense.”
Smits nodded and turned toward the manor, but Samuel grabbed his arm. “No word of this to the other officers. Not until we know more.”
Smits hesitated, as if he took offense at the order. “Of course, sir.”
Samuel released him.
Khlid drew her husband's attention. “That wasn’t necessary. Smits knows to keep quiet.”
Samuel grimaced. “I just know how officers can fucking gossip.” He gestured towards Smits’ receding figure. “The new ones might as well grease their lips every morning.”
“Hey.” Khlid pulled Samuel’s chin towards her. “What’s gotten into you today? You love the fresh recruits. I’ve seen you put your reputation on the line to back even the freshest recruit’s theory.”
Samuel met her gaze with his black eyes, a rare genetic trait that accompanied equally dark hair that clashed with his pale skin in a stunning way. Wrinkles now creased his face, and his hair showed the slightest thinning at the edges. But Khlid loved that. Those lines were the fulfillment of his promise that they would grow old together. Besides, Khlid now sported a few wrinkles of her own.
Samuel grabbed her hand from his chin and kissed it. He leaned down, and their lips met for several thumps of her heart.
“I’m not sure. Just something in the air today.” Samuel backed away and adjusted his coat. “The case in the country was about stolen chickens.”
Khlid had to process what he said, then burst out laughing.
“The local sheriff asked for an inspector for a case about stolen chickens?”
Samuel smiled at the absurdity as well. The letter the precinct received from the sheriff had been oddly cryptic. The chief had debated for an entire afternoon whether the case was worth sending an inspector. Clearly, he had made the wrong choice.
Samuel reached into Khlid’s coat pocket for a cigarette. “Over thirty birds, gone without a trace.” He lit a cigarette.
Khlid lit up her own. “How the fuck do you steal and hide thirty birds?”
Samuel blew out a puff of smoke and said, “I left my second there to figure out just that.”
Khlid, in the middle of a drag, coughed it up with laughter. “You left your apprentice there alone to deal with farmers?”
“He's a bright kid.” A mischievous grin sprouted on his face. “I'm sure he can handle it.”
* * *
Once they arrived back at the manor, any trace of humor had left them both. The steel chain had finally been cut and the boy was being placed on a stretcher. The chain had been locked tightly around a support beam inside. It had taken two officers and ruined several tools. Men from the medical team now worked to get the boy’s injuries documented and his cause of death confirmed. Due to the amount of trauma to the body, Khlid doubted it was the hanging that had ended his life.
They watched, only a few meters away, as the examination was conducted on a table brought by the medical team. Several moments passed before Samuel said, “Did you order him down?”
“Yes,” Khlid replied.
Samuel was silent.
“I know it—” She inhaled. “It might mess with some evidence. But I can’t leave a ch—”
“You made the right call,” Samuel cut in. “We can’t be animals like them.” They stood apart now, but Khlid reached out and squeezed her husband’s hand, just once.
A member of the medical team, dressed in an all-white uniform, came from the house with a tray of what looked like body parts. Samuel whistled and caught the man’s attention, waving him over.
“The boy’s?”
The medical man wore a mask, but his voice alone conveyed rattled nerves. “We believe so.”
Samuel reached into his pockets and put on a pair of leather gloves. He began his own examination of the body parts, lifting one from the tray of the medical man in front of him.
The man began to protest, “Sir, do you really—”
“Yes.” Samuel did not even look up. “No offense, but once you start with those preserving agents, a lot is lost.”
As Sam went over a portion of an arm, a foot, and something Khlid could not recognize, she stepped over to watch the examination of the hanged boy more closely. The two medical men rolled the boy over on their table, revealing several puncture wounds on his back. More notably, the child’s head lolled at an unnatural angle.
Khlid’s stomach heaved at the sight, forcing her to look away. I can do this with adults, but Almighty...
Averting her gaze from the brown-haired child, she decided to simply ask one of the two working what they had found so far.
The woman maneuvering the child's body answered Khlid's questions. Khlid scribbled furiously—some of the medic’s insights were actually decent. The cause of death was almost certainly the puncture wounds on the boy’s back. They bled the most, and were messier than the rest. His arm had been severed at the elbow. Chunks of flesh, ripped away from the stomach and left calf, while gruesome, were not as bloody as might have been expected.
“And the eye?” Khlid asked.
“That we don’t know.” The woman’s voice remained cool and smooth. “No one’s found it yet.”
“Thank you.” Khlid meant that in multiple ways. Medical teams were dedicated to saving lives. Being called to a scene like this was, she knew, doubly painful for them.
She walked back over to Samuel. “What did you see?”
“You’re right. This was for us.”
Khlid couldn’t help but look back at the boy. “What confirmed it for you?”
“That arm was ripped from its socket, not cut.” Samuel removed his gloves and dismissed the man with the tray. The medical man walked over to a chest filled with ice and began carefully placing the pieces inside. “One sick freak might do that for pleasure. But the whole family was done like this, or worse. You’re right, Khlid. This was the opposite of a crime of passion. This was a whole night’s work for a team of people.”
“I saw the same on the trunk of the body. He was probably killed quickly from being stabbed repeatedly in the back.” She finally decided to button her coat completely to fight the chill. “I suppose calling that a blessing would be inappropriate.”
“Yes, it would.” Samuel sighed and then did something they’d both been avoiding: he walked toward the entrance to the manor. Khlid let out a long breath of her own and followed him in.