The Paladin Short Stories

The Nightingale Chapter 3

Sleep didn't help. They were primed to work, and as the morning progressed, Vinders tried to talk himself into being excited by working with a Paladin. A living relic of a time that people these days were trying to turn into a glorious fight against the Empire. Liberation Day was celebrated across the continent, although most of the city states had their own individual days to celebrate. The Empire moved out of each of them at different dates, being forced back inch by inch as the Mist advanced.

Those were the stories, anyway. Mist and the Paladins, fighting for liberty. There were still abandoned spots on the continent that the mist remained in. The paladins still being alive was probably not that surprising either.

Vinders was most of the way to convincing himself that it was an honor too, right up until he saw Cal walking up to the door of their car, climbing into the back. All those feelings returned, and Vinders looked away quickly.

The man calmly strapped into his seat and looked ahead as neither Wolmark nor Vinders moved from their seats.

"Got a lot of work to do, gents," Jormund announced in an icy voice. "I suggest we get moving."

Vinders wasn't sure if he was just being crazy or maybe his prejudices were working against him, but even the paladin's voice was annoyingly unsettling.

But he was right. They did have a job to do.

"Sure," Vinders commented, and Wolmark started the car up. "What do you think, should we get some coffee first?"

"Probably best if I don't have any," Jormund grumbled as they pulled out of the police station garage. "You never know what they make the stuff with, and it could interfere with some of my runes. I only ever eat or drink what I make. You boys do as you like, though. Wouldn't want to get in the way of an officer of the law and his caffeine."

"Way to bring the whole room down," Wolmark complained. They continued to drive until reaching the coffee place. Vinders at least knew what he meant by the runes being interfered with. Those that he'd gotten were the type that would be sent into a panic if he ever downed the wrong kind of painkiller. It wasn't going to be lethal, but the crafter did warn him that he could end up sleeping for days.

The kinds of runes that the paladins were known to have had to be the kind that blew up a couple of city blocks if they interacted with the wrong substances. Vinders really did want to ask, but there was still something about the man that drove the possibility of looking him in the eye out the window.

As they continued moving, the paladin started rubbing his eyes gently, like he was in some kind of pain, which further reduced the possibility of engaging the man before they reached the first shop that had been marked for them to check.

Sure enough, as they pulled up to the front, Vinders could see that they were advertising the skills of a technomancers on a large, colorful, hand-made sign.

"I have to say," Wolmark muttered as he put the car in park. "If you need to advertise your work through a window like that, you're probably not that good at your job."

"You'd be wrong," Jormund answered, and Vinders couldn't help stiffening up in his seat. "Have you read the file on this one?"

"We... we were going to do that," Vinders lied, looking around quickly. "But if you have the cliff notes version..."

"Suffice it to say that Mr. Hendricks was one of the most skilled technomancers almost a decade ago. A rock star, really. Right up until his guild found out that he was breaking one of their core rules."

Vinders scowled. "Let me guess, building mechagolems?"

"Yes, and selling them out of the country. There aren't a lot of members willing to break the rules like that, but those that were willing to do so would have their services very much in demand. A lot of money in the underground market for that kind of work. I guess I should have known that just a slap on the wrist wouldn't have put him off the kind of money he would be making."

"Dropping him from the guild and keeping him from the work that he clearly did his entire life cannot be letting him off easily," Vinders muttered as they all climbed out of the car, walking over to the entrance. There was no sign that the place was open for business, with all the lights still off and no sign of anything or anyone moving inside.

"All things considered, while most of those that made the same mistakes that he did were executed for the crimes, he did get off with what could only be described as a slap on the hand," Jormund explained, leaning in a little closer to the building and inhaling slowly.

"He could have been killed, but due to the services that he provided to the realm, he was offered his life and a banishment from the Guild instead."

"I get the feeling that you think that was a mistake," Wolmark commented as they looked around the building, trying to find a way in.

"Well, if he was involved in the k********g of Carina and the murder of her bodyguard, I would say that my feelings on the matter are irrelevant, wouldn't you?"

Neither detective was given the chance to reply as Jormund stepped in closer to the door, gripping the knob and twisting it. His moves were tentative, but sure enough, the door opened.

"You think we should wait?" Vinders asked, making sure that nobody was watching them enter the shop. "We'd need a warrant to search these premises."

"That's the good thing about having me around," Jormund commented, motioning for them to come in. "I am your warrant."

Vinders wasn't sure he liked that. Even if they needed to clear as many suspects from their list as quickly as possible. Besides, there wouldn't be anyone questioning them for warrants with Jormund with them. That was the impression the Paladin gave them, anyway.

They stepped inside the shop, hearing a soft bell sing across the whole of the shop as they stepped inside. The song was one of those jingles that were unutterably catchy, the kind that were hummed around because people couldn't get it out of their heads. He couldn't blame the sirens for looking for extra work like that, but it was still annoying as hell.

Jormund stepped inside, his eyes flickering quickly across the room, and moved quickly over to the bench behind which a worker could usually be found. There was nobody in, of course, but he was still moving, unlocking the barrier that was keeping the customer section sealed away from the back.

"There's something in the back," he announced, motioning for the two detectives to join him as they stepped into an area that normally would have been restricted to them.

Most of these stores were filled to the brim with second-hand bits and parts that had been picked from devices that people had sold for literal pence. The people that operated these kinds of shops were generally the kind of unsung geniuses that could improvise pretty much any computer, screener or surveillance device just from the parts that had been taken in.

In this case, it looked like the shop had been similar, but was not anymore. The shelves that should have been heaped almost to capacity with bits, bolts and converters were tossed and broken, with their contents spread haphazardly across the ground, making it a little dangerous for them to make their way across the surface.

"Someone was pissed right the f**k off," Wolmark muttered under his breath. "Or really wanted to find something."

Jormund shook his head. "The destruction seems a little too chaotic for it to be a search, and yet, if you'll notice, nothing of value is on the ground. All are decades old, rusted through and likely not even worth what could be made from selling it for elements. Someone made a large mess but took everything of value before destroying the place."

"A robbery then?" Vinders wondered. The Paladin was right, of course, but that didn't really answer any questions on its own.

Jormund didn't reply immediately, scanning the room over and over again, looking as confused as Vinders felt.

Wolmark tugged gently at his beard. "I'll call some backup, see if we can't get some more details about what happened around here."

The backup arrived quickly, having been on call, expecting there to be trouble, but all they needed to do was isolate the site, allowing for investigators and empaths to have a clean view on the crime scene.

Vinders spent little time watching any of his fellow officers working. His attention was instead spent watching Jormund as the man studied the crime scene closely. The detective had no idea what their new partner was looking for - or at, even - but he doubted that the man would be wasting his time.

Jormund finally moved from where he had been watching the whole room from a corner, moving to where some of the crew were already starting to clear the clutter out of a couple of spots.

"What do you see?" Vinders asked, but the paladin didn't answer, immediately moving through the space like he was following a trail. Something was clear to him, but Vinders couldn't see anything until they stepped out the back exit, where the ground was a little softer.

Tracks. Large ones, and from the depth that they had left in the mud, came from something incredibly heavy.

"Were there tracks inside that we didn't see?" Vinders asked.

Jormund shook his head. "Indentations. Hard to pick out, especially when the concrete has been supporting a lot of different weights which make it uneven and hard to see, but once I picked them out from the rest, it was hard to see anything else."

"What do you think made this?"

"If I were to guess, it might be our mechagolem, likely carrying the weight of the more expensive items that our technomancer wasn't willing to part with."

"But if the mechagolem left tracks that you could see here, even on the hard concrete, why didn't it leave similar tracks back at the crime scene?"

Jormund looked up at Vinders with a half-smile playing over his face. "That, detective, is an excellent question. Do you think we could find any security footage of this area? See if we can't find out what exactly it was that happened?"

Vinders nodded. "I'll get some uniforms canvassing."