Kedi patrolled the streets for three nights to no avail. Speaking to the Steward had proved unhelpful as the man seemed to be an idiot, blissfully unaware of the happenings in the city he was employed to keep a watchful eye on.
On the second night, the murderer had managed to evade Kedi and strike again. The young Dunmer girl had been found sprawled on one of the stone crypts in the lower graveyard with several strange stab wounds in her belly and chest. Tonight, Kedi had to step up her efforts, although she presumed she had a few nights before he would strike again.
She had been to visit the Aretino boy that morning, after finding the Dunmer corpse. He hadn't heard, or at least had played the part very convincingly. He had turned a paler shade when she brought the news up and seemed genuinely grieved over the girl's death. Kedi was also certain he was starting to worry over her suspicions that he might be the culprit. She was finding it harder to believe with each passing day that she had to ponder on it, though.
The guards had been eager to accept her help at first, but had gradually grown suspicious of her efforts until they stopped sharing information with her and began sending her on fool's errands instead.
She had sent a letter to Veezara by raven to let him know she would be a few more days, but she had yet to receive a reply.
Small blood drops had led Kedi through the snow on the second night, from the graveyard and crime scene, to a house near the town walls. This evening, she had been granted access to that house, and she headed towards it as the late sun passed behind the walls and the town was cast into the shade.
A guard eyed her from the corner of the street as she produced the rusted key and let herself in. The steward had claimed the house was abandoned, and had been for years. From the looks of it, he was right.
Cobwebs dominated every corner and dust motes hung in the shafts of dim light that came in through the dirty windows. Broken bottles littered the floor next to an upturned table, and a chest lay open and empty against the left wall. A door to the right led to a room which proved empty except from a few pots and pans piled together on the floor. Stairs led upwards in the main room, but all the rooms there proved equally empty, which odd pieces of furniture stacked or piled together in an odd fashion, or broken.
Kedi was about to leave, her brow furrowed at having discovered so little that could help her in her search, when she noticed a cupboard pushed against the back wall in the main room, half hidden behind the staircase. A quick look at it told her something was off – it was the only object in the house that was still in good condition; there was no reason for it to have been left behind. It was also locked and seemed fairly secured to the wall.
She produced her lockpicks from the satchel that hung around her waist, and within a few moments she heard the satisfying click. The cupboard door swung open to reveal more emptiness. With a frustrated shout, Kedi kicked the door. The kick caused the back panel to rattle and the young Breton paused.
Wrapping her hands round the edges of the cupboard, she tried to pull it forward but it refused to budge. It was definitely secured to the wall, so why was the back panel rattling? She kicked it again for good measure and found the same result. She ran her fingers round the edges of the panel, and near the bottom she found her fingers caught on a small hole.
Dropping to her knees, she peered into it but found nothing except blackness. She bit her lip for a moment, before drawing her dagger from its sheath at her hip. Poking the tip in the hole and twisting proved to have little effect, till she withdrew the blade and heard a familiar click. As she stood up, the back panel slid open and revealed a secret room.
With a smug smile, Kedi wrenched a torch from the wall and lit it with a flick of her fingertips. Flames were a simple destruction spell that she'd managed to master at an early age, though she still wasn't practiced enough with magic to keep it up for any longer than a short burst.
The flames caught, and the torch illuminated the small hidden room. Bones were piled in the corner, next to a table that held an incomplete skeleton surrounded by candles and various other apothecaries' ingredients, much like the ritual used to call upon the Dark Brotherhood of old. It was said the Night Mother, wife to the Dread Father, used to deliver news of a ritual to the Brotherhood, but the Mother's voice had been lost for years after distant Sanctuaries had been destroyed, and there was no one to listen to her anymore. Kedi's Sanctuary was the only one left now, and Astrid was their matron.
A chest lay shut in the corner, and hundreds of sheets of paper spilled out when Kedi lifted the lid. Upon closer inspection, they looked to be leaflets warning Windhelm's citizens of the serial killer. At the bottom lay a small leather bound journal, which Kedi quickly opened once she threw the leaflets on the ground. She was eager to have the job done with so she could get home to Veezara, and she wanted to know who this elf killing bastard was. She wanted to kill him and be done.
Within its pages were sketches and paragraphs on the ritual displayed on the table. The sketches depicted a bloody human heart, harvested on the full moon, in the middle of the skeleton, which was missing from the table – evidently the killer's work wasn't yet done. It seemed as though he was trying to reanimate a person long dead. According to the journal, if you had the person's skull, you could recreate the rest of the skeleton from other bodies and the ritual would bind the bones together and regrow the flesh. A useful ritual… But the fact that it belonged to the killer of young elf girls made it feel dirty in Kedi's hands. She found it hard to fit in with anyone, but she related more to elves than humans, or even Bretons. She appreciated their natural skill and agility, and thought they possessed a beautiful magic that other races just couldn't achieve. It was also a personal rule to never kill the young or defenceless.
She flipped through another few pages of the journal, until something slipped from the book and landed with a soft clank on her lap. Kedi lifted it with her fingers and examined what seemed to be a strange amulet hanging on a length of leather. Set in a disc of some black metal was a circle of jade, and a silver skull outlined by some red gem, like ruby. She'd never seen anything like it, but it seemed the sort of object that would belong to a necromancer. Given the circumstances she found it in, that was definitely likely. Now she just had to figure out who it belonged to – perhaps the steward or Aventus had seen something like it.
Kedi slipped the journal and the amulet into her satchel and left the abandoned house, the secret room hidden once more.
