Title: The Broken Mirror
Author: DareDelvil
Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine.
Rating: PG-13 for swearing. And Calbren's still dead.
Spoilers: Ending! If you haven't finished the game, DON'T READ IT!
Pairing: Still none in this chapter.
Words: c. 2,400
Summary: Post-game. Skeed and Vallye go over their findings from the crime scene, and discuss their next move. Vallye figures out what day it is.
Author's Notes: This chapter's taken longer than I would have liked, partly due to a gift piece I still haven't finished but mostly due to stress and coursework. However, here it is now: shorter than the last, I'm afraid, and full of more dialogue than anyone can sensibly stomach at one sitting. Gah, I have to stop writing this kind of fic and get into the film industry. XD

Dedication: As Chapter One, with special thanks to Pumpkin for beta work. You're all wonderful.

The Broken Mirror

Chapter Two – Candyman, Candyman

It was Wednesday. Just. Tired but resolved, Vallye collected her findings from the scene of Duke Calbren's murder. Skeed had been right to wake her, much though she hated to admit it – this wasn't just a murder, it was an odd one. She'd never seen a wound like the one that had killed the Duke in her life before. He'd been shot, that much was clear, but by what? The widespread bruising and ruptured organs that would have indicated a sonic pulse were not present, and neither were the burns characteristic of a plasma wound. Two holes, entry and exit, but that was it. High-speed solid projectile. She was ashamed to admit to herself that her best guess was some sort of catapult. And even that did nothing to explain the shards of a broken looking-glass that were scattered liberally across the carpet – all along one side of the room, just behind a table covered in unfamiliar objects – it must have been standing there, she supposed. She recalled the Duke's people bringing the unframed mirror off the ship along with his other personal effects. Why the one on the dresser hadn't been good enough for him was beyond her.

"Aha."

She looked up from her examination of the splintered glass. Skeed was holding something in one gloved hand – ah, he'd managed to get the whatever-it-was out of the back of the door. "Success?"

"Hmm. Yes, of a sort."

He held out the object. Vallye peered at it. "…Oh. Is it…is that a bullet?"

"It is indeed," Skeed answered, examining it thoughtfully. "From some form of projectile weapon – explosive powder based system, almost certainly."

Vallye was baffled, and not just because she'd forgotten such firearms existed. Alfard had never used them. Sonic and plasma weapons had made them obsolete before they were ever developed. "What a bloody stupid way to kill someone."

"What makes you say that?"

"The simple fact that I could think of half a hundred better methods, Skeed. Can't you?"

"Must've used it for stealth," Skeed said. "Think about it – you fire off a sonic rifle and the whole neighbourhood knows about it."

"But plasma automatics make less sound than most projectile firearms anyway, and they're far easier to get hold of – just about every household had at least one in the last Imperial years. Why use one of these archaic constructs to kill someone when a plasma shot's virtually untraceable?"

"A plasma shot makes a flash, Vallye. That'd get you some attention, especially if it was dark. No flash from a projectile weapon like the one we're dealing with."

"…No flash? Seriously?"

"None."

"What about the explosive powder?"

"All contained within the chamber."

"Hm. Not bad for a barbarian contraption. But still, how the hell would anyone've managed to get close enough to take the shot? The whole place was guarded, or should have been – "

"Was," Skeed confirmed. "I checked up on that much. Everyone showed up for duty. The place was guarded. How well is another matter."

"Right, but there were people around the whole time. Surely someone would have seen or heard something." Wasn't that what they were paid to do?

"Maybe so, but when? The blood on the back of the door was dry, long dry – if those three idiots in the cells did it, they didn't do it just before we found them – but beyond that, we've no idea when the killing took place. From what I know so far, it could've been any time between about four o'clock when I left him and midnight."

He was right. Vallye sighed, rubbing her eyes with one hand. "Skies, this is going to be a bugger to follow up. We'll have to question all the guards for the whole evening."

"Added to which we know virtually nothing about the weapon itself," Skeed added, "so we can't know exactly how close the killer would've had to be in order to get in a shot. Two shots, for that matter."

"Two shots?"

"Two shots," Skeed repeated. "One to break the mirror, and a second to kill."

Ah, the mirror. "Definitely broken with a shot, then?"

"Mm-hm. See that dent in the wall?"

She saw it. "Of course – another bullet."

"Right. Better get that one out as well, come to it. Can you get past the glass?"

She took the forceps from his unresisting fingers and stood on tiptoes, resting one hand on the table to avoid having to step closer and tread on the glass. "So, two shots. Why not the Duke first? Why the mirror first?"

"If you can think of a good reason for shooting an unarmed mirror, let's hear it."

Pick, pick… "Got it. All right, fine." She dropped the bullet into the paper bag Skeed offered with his free hand. "So the mirror breaks before the Duke gets shot. He must've known what was happening. Why didn't he get down or flee?"

"…That, dear sister, is a damn good question, and one that requires answering fairly soon."

"Some background reading required, then?"

Skeed nodded. "On all counts. The significance of the mirror, the possible weapons, the man himself with particular reference to any potential enemies. I'll go through what I can for the firearms, but a lot of it was lost during the occupation. Never used a projectile rifle in my life."

"The daemon army didn't have much patience for paperwork of any sort, did they?"

"No, they didn't," Skeed answered, rising from the floor with the two wrapped bullets in hand, "and some days I wonder if they had the right idea."

The siblings left the building some minutes later, just before the Duke's body was carried out. Vallye was unusually quiet and subdued as they boarded the small craft, even when Skeed managed to catch his boot on the side and leave another small nick in the paintwork. She barely even rolled her eyes at him.

"…oh, shit. Bloody metal clodhoppers. Do I have wait for the storm to break, or can we get it over with now?"

She didn't rise to the bait.

"…Vallye, this isn't normal. We deal with murder cases every other week – what's troubling you about this one in particular?"

Slowly, starting the engine, she shook her head. "It's not that. It's…listen. About what I said…about the guards…"

Catching on, Skeed waved the rest of the sentence away. "Don't. You were right. The place should've been secure, but it wasn't. Duke Calbren's dead, on our soil. And part of the fault for that, at the very least, is mine. The best I can do now is to find out who did it, how, and why."

"And then shoot the bugger."

Skeed settled into the craft as Vallye pulled away. "With extreme prejudice, my dear Vallye," he said firmly. "With extreme prejudice."

Vallye decided to take them the long way home. She needed the air, and the time to talk. "We'll have to comb the base and check the duty rosters for opportunities," she began, thinking to sort through tomorrow – no, the rest of today – before it had a chance to beat her about the head.

"And question everyone who was in the area," Skeed added, not averse to this idea. "Someone must have heard the shot."

"That's what's bothering me the most," Vallye confessed, "though this whole situation is as baffling as all hells. Someone should have heard it, and I don't care how quiet you think this explosive weapon of yours is. I begin to wonder how many someones were paid not to, and how much."

Skeed snorted. "Tch. I begin to wonder how many someones wouldn't need paying."

"That too. If money's involved, it has to have come out of someone's pocket. Someone has to have a motive that isn't money."

"Which brings us to the question: who on earth would want to kill the Candyman?"

…oh, well, wasn't that cute. "They called him the Candyman."

"Yes – he was a chocolatier."

On any other night, Vallye might have thought she was still dreaming. She raised an eyebrow. "And not a Duke."

"Oh, he was the Duke all right. He just didn't like to be idle."

Another flight of fancy caught Vallye up. She could imagine Calbren standing amid a crowd of laughing children, handing out sweets and tender smiles. Silently she wondered whether she could have been one of them, in another place and time. Aloud, though, she said, "Good grief. Bloody barbarians don't even know how to be rich and carefree."

"Hm, exactly. But nonetheless he was a good Duke, not to mention a good man, and whoever's killed him could be bloody anywhere by now."

Vallye guided the craft higher to avoid a rooftop. "Almost anywhere. I've called out to the fringes to increase the border patrols – no one enters or leaves this country without our say-so."

"And if they try?"

"They get shot down. Whoever the killer may be, if they're reckless enough to kill the Duke of Mira then the time for talking is long, long past."

That got her an eyebrow, and a well-deserved one. "Innocents?"

"Should know better," Vallye said firmly, not without some satisfaction. "And if they don't, it's their own damn fault for not listening."

Skeed smirked. "Criminal stupidity. I like it."

"And about time too. The law's far too lenient, 'far as I see it."

"Mm. What about that bullet, though? It can't be a case of wading through books until we – excuse me, I – turn up something likely. Someone has to have the information closer to hand."

"Or brain."

"Exactly."

"But therein lies the problem," Vallye pointed out. "If someone does have that kind of information, as in 'why the hell would someone use a whateveritis to kill the Duke instead of a plasma rifle', then doesn't that put them…"

"…Right on to the list of suspects," Skeed finished, sinking further into the craft. "Bugger."

"Quite."

"We're not get'n any help on this one, th' way I see't," came the tired voice from around Vallye's waist-level, slightly muffled by the sides of the boat. "Not fr'm inside Alfard, anyhow."

"Everyone's a suspect."

"Mmf. 'Cept us."

"If we play our cards right."

"Might isn't gonna give us right much longer, is't? Not with th' gangs tryin' to get a foothold right n' left – "

"Oh, get up here where I can hear you, idiot."

" – fine – " Skeed scrambled out from under the dashboard. "They could very well decide to 'take over the investigation' and pin the blame on us."

Vallye nodded. "Right. The sooner we get some decent equipment and some trained recruits the better, but the council's too busy dithering over the poor little Azhani to worry about Mintaka. Hey, our infrastructure's still in one piece – so what if we have no police force to speak of and the gang wars are tearing the population apart?" She rolled her eyes. "Skies."

"But they get away with it because they're the only authority we have," Skeed carried on, "and they're protected by barbarians who don't know the first thing about running and policing a civilisation with a modern mentality."

The house was coming into view. Even the long way wasn't much of a trip. "By which you mean dishonest."

"Essentially, yes."

Vallye smiled mirthlessly. "Hm. Of course, the otherwise surprisingly helpful barbarians haven't a clue what's really happening, and those of us who do know – and know the first thing about how to fix it – haven't the manpower, or the skilled personnel, to enforce the law…which doesn't help matters."

It sounded dire. It was. Skeed chewed his lip, something he did increasingly when he was thinking about something difficult. "…I might be able to put up with some of Ladekahn's knights, you know," he said at length.

Vallye chuckled. "Mm-hm, I bet. If all the chivalry doesn't make you ill."

"Grarg, shaddup."

But at least he was smiling now. It didn't happen often these days. Vallye, watching her brother leap skilfully out of the craft to close the boathouse doors behind her, still remembered when he used to laugh. The boy who had hated pears and loved playing with model battleships was gone, long gone, but sometimes the man she now saw closing the sliding doors, now saw again as he flicked on the little light and approached her, could still be her brother. If you turned your head sideways and squinted.

"Well?" she prodded gently, once the engine was off and the boathouse was quiet. "Where do we start?"

Skeed mulled this over as his sister slipped out of the craft. At length, "Mm. Probably best for me to start with the possible witnesses, since A, they might forget things, and B, I want to oversee that personally. You're going to have other things to handle – we'll have to inform Mira post-haste, particularly his family. I'm not happy about sending word when we've made so little progress, but covering it up is only going to be counter-productive. Can't have the world thinking we're dishonest, despite the fact that most of us sadly are."

He still held doors open for her. It almost warranted a smile – would have done, if she hadn't been too busy mulling over his words as she stepped into the house. "…Does he have any surviving relatives?"

A moment of quiet. Skeed followed her inside. "…Just the one," he said.

The sentence was punctuated by the door slamming shut. Vallye hardly heard it. A sudden, sharp snatch of the dream had engulfed her – the pale hand, the snap of pear skin against flesh, the sugar-coated madness in the smirk as it crept out from beneath the brim of the top hat – Calbren's top hat –

"Just the …"

– and a vision of youthful perfection, were it not for the incongruence of colour: hair, eyes, skin, clothes, everything, all red and white, like fresh blood on marble; that same sweet lunacy lingering at the corner of the cherry-lipped mouth, four of eight perfect fingers clasped gently in her grandfather's hand – Calbren's hand –

"…one…"

– and the sound of a voice, a woman's voice, a madwoman's voice issuing from a girl-child's lips – "Kill them…kill them all, my darlings…show them the wrath of Malpercio!" –

"…oh, no – "

Skeed walked past her and into the kitchen. "Yes. That one."

Vallye closed her eyes, trying – and failing – to shake off the dread. That one. Melodia. The destroyer of cities, the temptress and traitoress, the mouthpiece of death, the horror in white. Melodia Calbren.

Duchess Melodia Calbren.

As if she hadn't been enough trouble without the title.

There was a faint thud as Vallye's head found the wall.

"…Bugger."

"Something like that," Skeed said vaguely, dropping the stray pear on the table into the fruit bowl.

To be continued in Chapter Three – The White Lady…

Reviews/concrit/suggestions, please, clickity-click, it only takes a minute and it encourages me to write faster.