Vampire Mist: Ballad of the B-Team, Book One by Adam Thomas

Author:Adam Thomas [Thomas, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-22T22:00:00+00:00

twenty

The Missing Socialites

Chief Inspector Ronin Nar of the Emerald Spire Guard had no sense of humor. This was the conclusion of more than one potential paramour over the years and was always offered at the moment such potentiality turned into rejection. So these days, Nar threw himself wholly into his investigative work. After all, he did not need to be funny with witnesses and suspects. At the moment Nar had two cases going. The first was a search for a distributor of illegal pipe weed from the Falling Leaf Islands. The drug itself was not illegal to possess, but bypassing customs was another matter. The city of Thousand Spires would take its cut. So far the inspector had come up empty, and he chafed at what he saw as a worthless assignment. Nar suspected he had pulled this case as a punishment from his superiors after the debacle at the Emerald Orphanage. Apparently, the Lord Mayor of the Emerald Spire thought his law enforcement should know about evil hags in disguise.

But now that same Lord Mayor had requested him personally to spearhead the second case: the disappearance of the Lord Mayor’s own wife. On that account, at least, Nar had been more productive, and now he sat across a wide desk of dark-stained cherry from Lord Pelagius Sindar.

“I have good news and bad news,” the chief inspector said. “Which would you like to hear first?”

“No games, Nar. Just tell me plainly.”

Sindar was usually more polite than this, Nar noted. Even when he was excoriating you about secret hags. Sindar looked haggard, anxious. The disappearance of his wife must have been causing him much distress. Unless...he had made Serafina disappear and called on the inspector to deflect attention. Nar narrowed his eyes as the wheels turned in his mind. No, he did not suspect Sindar. He actually rather liked him, which was odd when Nar considered the nobility. Of all the nobles in the city, Sindar was the closest to a working man, in that he built his fortune from nothing. This kept him from thinking he was above the law.

“The bad news is that I haven’t found your wife yet,” Nar said. He spoke plainly, without a hint of sympathy or consolation.

Sindar let out a restrained sigh. “I figured as much,” he said. “I sent a party of sellswords after her, and they haven’t checked in yet either.”

Nar leaned forward, his eyes alight with interest. “This is news to me. Can you give me their descriptions?”

Lord Sindar rattled off a general accounting of the looks and heritages of the members of the B-Team.

“Eclectic group,” Nar said, tapping his pencil to his cheek. “And you say they came to see you after Serafina vanished?”

“That’s right.”

“And when we first met, you told me you thought your wife’s best friend had kidnapped her. Rosamund Steele of the Diamond Spire?”

Sindar steeped his fingers beneath his chin. “You think these sellswords were in on the kidnapping?”

“I think it was awfully convenient for them to approach you in your vulnerable state.

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