A Secret Man of Blood

Chapter Twenty-Three

"If there have been no breaches of the fence, then whoever, or whatever, it was must have left through one of the checkpoints," Anya says.

Squad listens to Anya's voice, its implacable pace dragging his thoughts with it. He quickly turns to Captain Savastano. "How many people signed out of the port between when this ship docked and when these bodies were found?"

"It wasn't long," Captain Savastano replies, checking his records. "Eight people left the port in that timeframe, but they were all recognised by the guards."

Squad feels as if the solution is somewhere on the edge of his mind and he looks out over the vista of the port, the continual composite whisper of movement drawing his eye here and there, always searching for something. "The intruder might have left looking like someone else."

"Impossible," Anya shakes her head. "The anti-enchantment spells on the perimeter would automatically nullify any shapeshifting magic."

Squad is struck by a sudden realisation. "What if it isn't magic?"

*

The guards on the door to Indulkar's private study in the parliament of Tyria are surprised to see Section Chief Rizzi approaching their post. Rizzi is one of the higher-ups in the port and doesn't normally visit parliament unless he's speaking in front of a select committee. The lead guard lifts up her hand.

"Stop."

Rizzi stops just short of them and there's a strangeness to his posture, looking straight down at the floor.

"What are you doing here, Section Chief?" the lead guard asks.

The moment spent waiting for Rizzi's answer is packed with time and, when he does speak, it's in a soft, disintegrating whisper. The voice seems flaked and rusty, as if it hasn't been used for a long time.

"See...Indulkar."

A snake writhes under the guard's ribs. "You don't have a scheduled appointment, do you?"

The silence stands like a great heat, then Rizzi looks up, his eyes burning like two hieroglyphs; the magical barriers should have taken care of any illusions or enchantment, but the guard knows this isn't Rizzi. Before she can move, an animal grin spreads over the counterfeit Section Chief's face and he shoots forward, quick as a shadow flung across the room and with as little sound.

*

At his desk, Indulkar puts the finishing touches to a memo regarding the geopolitical situation in the Far East, then there's a knock on the door to his office.

"Come in." The head of his guard detail enters. "Can I help you?"

"We've had an alert," she tells him, getting closer. "Something dangerous has been smuggled into the port, with the intention of assassinating you."

He glances into her eyes and nods, standing up as the guard charges, her expression skinned alive by shock. A huge entity rips itself free of her body as if she's a skin suit, tearing her apart in the process, and jumps at Indulkar. The transformation is disgustingly physical, not magical, and the result is a fifteen feet tall, bright red alien-looking creature native to the Far East called a Kresh. Its elongated head is over three feet long from front to back and contains various layers of vicious teeth, its body covered in striking limbs ending in razor-sharp claws.

It leaps across so quickly that Indulkar is forced to throw himself backwards, to the ground and then, using the Kresh's momentum, kick it over his head to the opposite end of his study, slamming it into a bookcase. It spins, throwing acid from its claws on the turn and Indulkar barely raises a barrier in time, but then it's on him and he's forced to block its whipping, frenzied tearing with his forearms, feeling the acid that's in its every pore bite into his supernaturally-enhanced skin.