"It's not unusual. Slavery was formally abolished long ago, but the demand for slaves never stopped — so human trafficking simply moved from open markets to hidden ones. Every year there are ships coming up from the Roselle Archipelago and the Southern Continent carrying slaves, but those ships can't dock at any legitimate port or pier openly. So every country — Loen, Intis, Feneport — all have these secret docks and passages specifically for transporting slaves."
"I see."
Could this be connected to the rumours about the Loen king trafficking people to build mausoleums? Vincent thought. If it was, he had to admire just how powerful the law of Beyonder convergence truly was. I'm just acting as a Prosecutor, and somehow I've 'converged' straight into the orbit of the Loen royal family again.
If this thread was followed to its end, it would almost certainly lead to MI9, and after that to the royal family's own lawyers and arbiters — demigod-level Beyonders — and beyond them to the royal angels, and eventually straight to King George III.
Too early for any of that.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Oh, nothing — just that the person who originally opened the sea route to the Southern Continent and sparked the age of colonisation and the slave trade was... your father, Emperor Roselle, wasn't it?"
"More or less."
Bernadette was entirely candid. "Which is why I've never denied that beneath all of Father's celebrated achievements and his grand reputation, there was another side — a thoroughly contemptible one. A man who could plagiarise another world's literature without a flicker of shame, and record his own despicable acts in his diary without blinking."
"But what can I do? He's my father."
"..."
After a beat, Vincent said, "Right. Let's get out of here first."
Tap tap tap tap!
A rapid drumbeat of footsteps filled the tunnel, coming from a distance. Vincent stepped to the side and activated his Invisibility. A moment later, seven or eight officers came sprinting past with lanterns held high. When they reached the dark, empty dock at the tunnel's end, the captain in charge stared in disbelief. "There's an actual dock in here?"
"Captain, there's nobody here. You think they swam out?"
"Fan out and search the area."
"Yes, sir!"
While the officers searched the dock, Vincent slipped around them silently and made his way back down the tunnel, passing a few more scattered officers along the route until he finally emerged through the hidden entrance and out of the Conris factory.
By now the factory grounds were swarming with officers conducting searches and questioning anyone they could find. It was all too clear — this had been set up from the start by whoever was pulling the strings. They'd used Dall Corey as the fall man, and now they were letting the whole situation terminate here.
"I just had a rather disturbing thought," Vincent said. "If just acting as Ellie's bodyguard once earned us a 'warning' like this — what about Ellie herself, who's been dogging the Conris explosion case for months? Is she in danger? And she just so happened to be absent today too."
"Let's get back to the Prosecution Office."
"Right."
A little over ten minutes later, Vincent returned to the Prosecution Office and lifted one of Ellie's used pens from her desk. He stepped into the washroom, wrote down the divination prompt:
"Ellie's situation."
He leaned back, called her face to mind, and repeated the prompt while settling into a Cogitation state. His spirituality rose, and Vincent slipped into the dream.
He saw Ellie leaving the Prosecution Office, flagging down a cab, and riding away quickly.
Was this from yesterday?
The image shifted. The cab crossed Backlund's iron bridge, then turned into the Jorwood District. As it passed down a secluded lane, another carriage suddenly surged out and blocked its path. Several figures in overcoats poured out, dragged Ellie from the cab, shoved her into the second carriage, and sped away.
Another shift — Ellie being brought into a grand manor house, the details blurred and hard to make out. Then — crack — the dream shattered, and Vincent returned to reality.
"Ellie was kidnapped on her way home yesterday and taken to what appeared to be a sizeable manor. The dream broke before I could see her current state."
"Someone must have placed an anti-divination ward. Do you remember what the manor looked like?"
Vincent furrowed his brow and concentrated. "I remember the gate well enough."
He sketched a rough outline on paper. "Something like this."
"A manor of that scale would be rare even in Backlund. If we hand this to Vivian and Xio, they should be able to track it down without much trouble."
Vincent flipped a coin. "Is Ellie still alive?"
Heads-up. Affirmative.
Good.
"Use the revolver from earlier with the Dowsing Rod method," Bernadette said. "Find the men who silenced Corey, and we'll likely find Ellie."
Following the Dowsing Rod divination, Vincent hired a cab and made several detours before eventually arriving in the Jorwood District, near the west end, on Aris Street — before a lavish villa. He took in the sweeping lawn, the broad garden, and the small ornamental fountain, and frowned slightly:
"The manor from the dream-divination, where Ellie was taken, isn't this place."
And yet the Dowsing Rod pointed here. The men who had killed Dall Corey were in this villa.
Either the people who kidnapped Ellie and the people who silenced Corey aren't the same group — or Ellie has been moved somewhere else.
"Do you know whose villa this is?" he asked the driver.
The driver chuckled cheerfully. "Why, that's the home of the great tycoon Mr. Capim, sir. People come out from the East Borough all the time to visit him and prove their worth. If you can demonstrate your abilities, he'll find a place for you in his organisation."
Capim.
Vincent was genuinely surprised — and yet, somehow, not surprised at all.
This man — publicly a philanthropic tycoon, privately an operator who ran human trafficking rings for the royal family — was the one whose downfall, in the original story, had made Klein's reputation as the "Hero Bandit Black Emperor." And here he was, crossing paths with him well before Klein had even found his footing in Backlund.
Sensing Vincent's shift in emotion, Bernadette asked, "You know this person?"
"Yes. I heard about him through Xio at some point. He presents himself as a generous philanthropist. In reality, he's been running a human trafficking operation in Backlund this whole time. He has plenty of hired muscle — Beyonders among them. And, more importantly, he has much larger powers behind him."
Bernadette gave a cold smile. "Larger powers? Not nobility, or officials, or even the royal family — whoever they are, anyone who dares to ruin that many of my clothes... is going to pay."
Heh. Care to guess? You're spot-on.
He took in the villa's courtyard — guards pacing their rounds, attack dogs tonguing the air — and slipped back into Invisibility. The Witch's Invisibility was the kind that even a same-sequence Beyonder would struggle to see through, let alone ordinary hired guards.
Using the "Open Door" ability and Shadow Jumping together, Vincent moved inside the villa and followed the corridor deep into a richly furnished sitting room. Well before he reached it, he could hear voices.
Capim had a cigar clamped between his teeth, speaking and exhaling simultaneously. "How's the new shipment coming along?"
"It was actually ready three days ago. The problem is the Conris route's gone cold. We have no way to move this batch."
"Hmph! That imbecile. I spend a fortune keeping him on retainer for one simple job, and he lets a detective sniff him out and trigger a city-wide explosion. The whole city's talking about it."
"The heat's already been pointed at Conris. Get the goods moved while there's still cover!"
"Has Dall Corey been found yet?"
"Nothing so far, it seems."
Capim frowned. "How is that possible? We've already tossed out all the evidence. The police should have shown up at his door by now. What's that woman who's been chasing the Conris case even doing?"
"She's been quiet since she went home yesterday. Hasn't shown up at the Prosecution Office today either."
One of his men hesitated. "Boss, why don't we just... deal with her?"
"Are you stupid? The Prosecution Office is still an official body, no matter how useless. Killing one of their people is the same as slapping the whole establishment in the face. Do you think I run Backlund?"
There were things Capim wasn't saying aloud: he'd received a prior warning. He was explicitly forbidden from taking any action whatsoever against that woman. After years in this business, he could read a situation — the girl's background was anything but simple.
"Once this batch is gone, we lie low for a while. The Zemangg Gang's been in a frenzy lately, poking around missing persons cases for no apparent reason. Savages."
Capim's preferred solution had been to simply have someone kill the Zemangg Gang's leader, but that felt rather too much like a confession. And unless he could guarantee silencing every last one of them, leaving survivors would be an open wound.
He ground the barely-smoked cigar into the ashtray with considerable force. "Damn it all. Why is everything going sideways at once."
Invisible in the corner, Vincent took in the entire exchange and felt a growing unease. The 'woman chasing the Conris case' — that has to be Ellie. But Capim clearly knows nothing about her disappearance. So who abducted her? And why?
Had she been caught up in something else entirely beyond the Conris case? Or had Capim simply not been told — and someone above him had moved on Ellie directly?
At that moment, Bernadette spoke. "Perhaps take that sketch of the manor gate to Capim himself and ask."
"Good thinking."
Vincent swept a hand across his face and shifted into a woman's appearance, then activated the Blood-Drinking Bracer and switched to the Witch's Herder ability. He snapped his fingers — and spider threads fanned out silently through the entire sitting room.
The next instant, every thread snapped taut.
To be continued…
Advance 100 Chapters are up on my Patreon!
pat reon.com/AlphaSenatus