Page 5 of The Poison Within

“Did you see what happened?” I asked, crooking my finger towards the innkeeper.

Nobody spoke.

“Answer the Inspector,” prompted Temper, his voice loud and clear, as stolid as ever.

“Who did this?” I tried again.

The innkeeper scrunched up his face as if about to bawl. His chin shook. “A m-monster,” he whispered.

“A monster,” I repeated evenly, glancing from the ginger to his skinny companion and back to the innkeeper. “You mean you only saw one attacker?”

The innkeeper nodded.

Interesting.

The miller banged his fist on the table. “Not a monster but a monstress. A fucking woman!” he snapped. “With”—his hands marked unambiguous half-circles in front of his chest and sides—“tits and hips and such.”

The innkeeper, too, had grown more confident. “She burst in like the end of the w-world. Torn the door r-right to chips.”

The ginger lifted his head and smacked his lips. “She was pretty.”

“That she was,” the miller agreed. “Before she started snarling at them soldiers. And fucking them up to shreds. She turned pretty damn scary, then.”

The ginger shivered and sank back in his seat.

“And what happened next?” I prompted.

“Nothing. She left.”

I exchanged puzzled looks with Temper. It all made little sense.

“It only t-took a moment. They didn’t know what’d h-hit them.” The innkeeper wrung his hands. “Inspector, about the damage… who’s going to p-pay for this?”

“Fucking non-humans,” the miller mumbled, his face reddening. “They’ve started crawling out of the woodwork. All because of those dirty, disease-spreading Nymphs. We can’t allow any scum to come here and murder us in our own homes. It’s time we took our country back. They—”

“Calm yourself, man.” Temper’s eyebrows lowered a fraction. “That’s beside the point. The Nymphs are here because of the war we started. We burnt down their forests, remember?”

The Emperor’s preoccupation with conquering the Barbarians had originated in the devastating defeat he’d suffered during the Elven War. The Queen’s Army’s triumph remained a thorn in his butt. To wipe away the memory of this humiliation, he’d sought another enemy to subdue. Sadly, fighting the wild tribes proved pricey and unsuccessful. The subject caused discontent amongst those forced to finance it through higher taxes, as well as the poor wretches whose homes got razed to the ground in the process. But peasants and soldiers alike lent their support. Pillage and plunder were one reason. The bolstered sense of national pride and the promise of making the Empire glorious again were another. Few cared about the Nymphs becoming collateral damage of the war.

“Let’s stick to the matter at hand,” I said in a firm voice. “The killer wasn’t a Nymph. Who was she? Can you describe her?”

“She looked like a vamper,” the miller replied. His breath stank of onion. “Black hair, pale. Teeth.”

No shit. A vamper with teeth. Ain’t that a first.

“The door, the tables, the p-pottery…” the innkeeper whined, finger-counting, “What about the c-costs?”

My head began to throb.

“Inspector Skaer?” a confident voice inquired from the entrance.

“Here.” I stood and approached a tall man dressed in black and greying at the temples. Six uniformed Imperial soldiers accompanied him.

“I’m Inspector Lár with the Emperor’s army. I’m afraid I will be taking over the case. These men”—he gestured towards the bodies—“were guards at the Nymphs’ settlement.”

Well, damn. Guards. That changed matters. My jurisdiction didn’t stretch to the Imperial units. I became instantly annoyed. Granted, the case showed the potential to be a bizarre headfuck. But those were the ones I most enjoyed figuring out. Not to mention that the moment it’d been taken away from me, I didn’t want anything more than to solve it.

“By all means. Have at it, Inspector Lár.” There was nothing else I could do. I forced a sour smile. ‘Kill them with your teeth’ my mother used to say. She’d taught me one thing: smile at those who wished me ill.