Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [64]
Jeryd stepped inside her fragrant home, drawing his tail in behind him so that it didn’t get caught in the heavy door. The house was intensely dark, the smell of lavender powerful. He’d been here several times before, and on each visit he wished they had put in a window to let in some daylight and fresh air. Colored lanterns burned, as did a small log fire. There were several women ranging from young to old, all wearing black, gray or white fabrics. They were sitting on chairs placed randomly throughout the house. All of them had similar gaunt faces, similar mannerisms. Some were reading or studying, others were weaving material. There was a claustrophobia here among these women, maybe sisters and mothers or something closer still, as if they were suffocating in unison, tightening their bonds on each other as they suffered. He never understood, nor commented on their situation.
“Please, be seated, investigator,” the woman said. “I’ll go and fetch Mayter Sidhe.”
She left the room.
Jeryd sat himself down on a simple wooden chair. The furniture here was rustic—as if they couldn’t afford anything else. It seemed out of place for a home so near the Astronomer’s Tower and the richer irens, but maybe it had been here from generations ago. A few of the women hummed gently, rocking back and forth in their chairs as if mildly insane: not a comforting noise, more an eerie lament. Paranoia forced him to wonder vaguely if this meant he would die at any point soon, as if just being around them was putting him a step closer.
Mayter Sidhe suddenly arrived, the banshee who had been present at the scene of Ghuda’s murder, and her wail had declared his death to the whole of Villjamur. Black-haired, white-gowned, young looking, too, but with that same haunted expression that the other banshees possessed. Blue eyes, with a strange distance within them that he could never understand. As with the others he had encountered her before, because whenever there was a death in the city, they were always the first on the scene.
He stood up as she appeared.
“Good morning, Investigator Jeryd.”
“Morning, Mayter.” He sat down again.
“So this is about Councilor Ghuda?” She pulled up a chair, sat next to him, and unnerved him a little, this close presence. This air of death.
“Yes,” Jeryd said. “Just the normal procedure. But this has to be considered an extremely high-profile murder. The victim, as you know, was a very senior member of the Council.”
“We’re all the same, once we’re dead, investigator. Our titles do not follow us.”
“Right. But while the rest of us are still alive, there’s work to be done that can make the whole … predeath concept a little easier to deal with.”
“Point taken.”
“So,” Jeryd said, “I take it as usual, you knew he’d be killed.”
“Yes, but not until he was.”
Whatever the hell that means… “And it was too late by that point?”
“It always is. We’re not lifesavers.” She drummed her slender fingers on the table. For a moment Jeryd was distracted by the rings adorning them that caught the dull light of the room.
“No one suggested you were. So you were … in the area then? Or at least on the scene pretty quick.”
“Yes, I was, as you say, in the area. I was merely buying some vegetables. Then came the vision—and you know what happens after that.”
“Right,” Jeryd said. “Up until that point, you saw nothing?”
“No more than any normal person would.”
“What about after?”
“Again, no more than other people who came on the scene afterward. I got there in reasonable time, but I saw nothing strange.”
Jeryd straightened. “Okay, so tell me about the vision you experienced, if you don’t mind.”
“It was like any other—the same glimpse through the eyes of the victim at his final heartbeat. Except … well, all I saw was a shadow, but it was like … like nothing I’ve seen before. A wild creature of some kind, I’d say. And then it seemed to disappear into the light—upward.”
“Go on,” Jeryd said. This was the first concrete statement he’d received so far. If you could trust a banshee.