The Stranger

Melamori didn’t even smile. It was as if the brave General Boboota had never even been her favorite butt of jokes. Rather, she looked as though she were about to cry. I put my hand on her shoulder and was about to make some lighthearted, offhand remark, but I didn’t get a chance. When I touched her I understood everything. I can’t imagine how the secret mechanisms were set in motion, but now I knew exactly what Melamori was feeling as well as she knew it herself. Our Master of Pursuit was temporarily out of order. The unsuccessful attempt to trail me had upset the delicate balance of her dangerous gift.

She needed time to put things to rights again.

It’s like the flu, which, thankfully, is unknown to the people of Echo. Whether or not you want to admit it, getting better takes time. And now Melamori was going to the scene of a crime as though to her own funeral, for she already sensed what the outcome would be—failure, and a new blow to her self-confidence. But she was going anyway, because she was not used to backing down, even before insurmountable obstacles.

And however foolish, I would most likely have done the same. I was starting to like the damsel more and more.

I sent Juffin a call.

Melamori can’t work today. She won’t be able to do her stuff. And she knows it. Why did you call her here? To teach her a lesson?

Juffin stared at me intently, then at Melamori, and suddenly smiled his blinding smile:

“Go home, on the double! March, my lady!”

“Why on earth should I?”

“You know why. Your gift belongs not to you alone, but to the Secret Investigative Force of the Unified Kingdom. And if there is something that endangers your gift, you must take measures to protect it. That’s also a talent, like all the rest of it. And no shifting your problems onto the shoulders of a tired old boss, who will inevitably forget about them. Is that clear?”

“Thank you,” Melamori murmured. It was painful even to look at her.

“You’re welcome,” Juffin snorted. “Go home, Melamori. Better yet, drop by to see your Uncle Kima. He’s a great Master. He’ll patch you up in no time. In a few days you’ll be right as rain. The sooner the better.”

“How will you find the murderer?” she asked uncertainly.

“Sir Max, this lady is insulting us,” the chief said with a grin. “She considers our intellectual faculties to be on the wane. She thinks that we’re good-for-nothing nincompoops who can only cling to the skirt-tails of the Master of Pursuit, hot on the trail of the criminal. Shall we get offended, or kill her on the spot?”

“Oh, please, I didn’t mean it that way,” said Melamori, and a timid smile spread across her face. “I’ll get better. I’ll bring you something from Uncle Kima. And please forgive me, won’t you?”

“I will forgive you, of course,” Juffin assented. “But Sir Max, here—they say he’s terrible when he’s angry. General Boboota completely lost his bearings!”

“I’ll make it up to Sir Max somehow,” Melamori assured him.

Understandably, I was beside myself with joy.

The darling of my demise graciously retreated and disappeared around the corner, toward the parking lot for official amobilers.

Her parting smile was the last pleasant moment of the day. The rest of it was too lousy for words.

A woman had been killed a few steps away from our favorite pub, the Glutton Bunba. Young, beautiful, though not quite to my taste. A rich brunette with large eyes, generous lips, and broad hips. In Echo, this kind of female beauty is particularly prized. But this woman had had her throat slit—a second horrific grin that reached from ear to ear.

If Juffin is to be believed, this is not how people are killed in Echo, neither women nor men. No one. As a matter of fact, murder of any description is exceedingly rare (unless, of course, one of the banned Orders of Magic is involved—then anything can happen). But this didn’t smell like magic, whether forbidden or permitted. No magic at all.

“To be honest, the thing that surprises me most about this whole mess is the location of the crime,” I said when Juffin and I returned to the office. “It’s common knowledge that the Glutton Bunba is your favorite haunt, Juffin. Not even a crazy paranoiac would get up to no good within a dozen blocks of the place.”

“Well, whoever it was sure did,” the chief said with a sniff.

“Maybe it’s a newcomer?”

“Most likely. In Echo, even in the Troubled Times, damsels weren’t treated like that. How inconvenient! We need Melamori now more than ever. She’d solve it in an hour. But here we sit, dwelling on every little piece of nonsense.”

While we sat, a second murder occurred, this time not far from the Street of Bubbles. The same bloody “smile,” but this time the Mona Lisa was a bit older (three hundred years of age). She was the local wisewoman, old Xrida, whom everyone on the street consulted for toothaches or all manner of bad luck. She was still youthful, energetic, and, in contrast to many of her colleagues, a very sweet lady. The residents of all the neighboring quarters had loved her, and the Echo Hustle and Bustle published letters of gratitude several times a year from people she had healed.

I should add that neither of these murders was carried out with the goal of robbery, since no valuables belonging to the victims had been touched. As for money, the women probably didn’t have any with them. Here in Echo, it is thought that touching coins cools off love. For this reason, no woman will ever take money into her hands, and only the boldest consider gloves to be sufficient protection. Men, too, prefer to take precautions; but ladies are especially superstitious in this regard.

By the way, this is why the inhabitants of the Unified Kingdom gradually introduced the custom of using various kinds of bonds and IOUs. Several days at the end of the year are set aside for clearing these debts. I myself prefer to pay with cash, and have occasionally gotten into awkward situations because of this. You hand your money to the bartender, and he glares at you because, you see, he’s left his gloves in the kitchen and now he has to run hither and thither all on account of you.

Thus, in the space of an hour, we had two corpses on our hands. And very few fresh ideas. The night was generous: we received five more “smiles” that were the spitting image of each other, while the victims differed significantly in age, appearance, and social standing. They even lived in distant regions of the city. The criminal seemed to be mixing work with pleasure—grisly murders cum nocturnal excursion: “Echo by Night.”

Close to morning we had a breathing spell. The murders seemed to have ceased. Most likely the protagonist was exhausted and had decided to take a nap. Juffin turned the matter over to Melifaro and Lonli-Lokli for the time being. Sir Kofa Yox went to gather information about the murders in the pubs, and our Venerable Head ordered me to stay right by his side. So far I had been of no use to him whatsoever. Maybe I provided him with inspiration—his muse, so to speak? In that case, I was a pretty lame muse; Juffin hadn’t been visited by a single interesting notion the entire night.

The seventh murder was bequeathed to us at noon, with the same “signature” and no return address.

Strictly speaking, this was what we knew: the killer was probably a man (the tracks he had left in the dust had all but disappeared, but the size was impressive); he was in all likelihood a newcomer (quite unconventional behavior); he possessed a knife of extraordinary size by local standards; he was indifferent to the property of his victims; and he seemed to have no connection with the rebellious Orders, since he didn’t even practice traditional magic in his own gruesome kitchen.

Moreover, he wasn’t insane, since madness in this World leaves behind a weak but distinct stench. Sir Juffin Hully detected no trace of it at any of the crime scenes.

“Max, you seem to be present at a historic moment,” Juffin said, putting aside his pipe, which he had been turning around and around in his hands for the last five hours. “This time I am absolutely baffled. We have seen seven corpses in the past twenty-four hours, a slew of clues that don’t add up to anything, and no magic to speak of, whether outlawed or permitted. It’s time to give the case back to Boboota’s department and try to live down our shame.”

“But you yourself know that—” I began cautiously.