Claude received a rude awakening that evening. He was used to his Father returning home late, sounds coming from the kitchen as he prepared himself a late meal or settled down at the dining table for an extra session with his work. He was happy to write off that noise while he lay in bed, at least until it became obvious that it wasn’t just his Father and Mother running around the house.
But the noises coming from outside the thin windows of their countryside cottage were much more than that. At least a dozen distinct voices were creeping through, along with the sounds of horse hooves meeting the dirt along the road. He hopped over to his bedroom window and peered through the curtains.
Dozens of handheld lanterns illuminated the garden and the road behind it. Policemen, all booted and suited and ready for action, in numbers that were far too large to be a passing seasonal migration. They lived in a quiet area, mostly surrounded by other rural dwellings and a handful of sprawling noble estates. Whatever could have happened to bring them all to his door?
“Claude, Claude!”
Claude grabbed his slippers and walked to the door. His Father, Victor, was waiting for him in the hallway, still wearing his coat and cap. His face was bright red from the cold.
“What’s going on?”
He sighed, “Sorry about the fuss, but can I bother you with something important? There’s been an incident, and I need someone to keep an eye on Max.”
“What happened to Max? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine - thank the Goddess. I’ve got to run and coordinate this mess though. Keep him company for me, will you? We don’t have anywhere to keep him right now.”
“You don’t need to ask. Is he downstairs?”
“Aye. Wear something warm. It’s cold tonight.”
Claude hurried to dress himself and move downstairs. When he got there, his Father was gone to bark orders, and Max was pacing back and forth in the dining room like a chicken with no head.
“Max, what’s going on?”
“It’s total mayhem!” Max fretted, “They’ve attacked a dozen different estates and kidnapped people from all of them! There’s blood and bodies... What are the police doing?”
Claude stepped in and tried to calm him down, “Just take a seat and breathe, Max. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
A visibly flustered Max followed his orders and sat at the table. It took him a minute to collect his thoughts and explain why a squadron of police officers was in front of Claude’s home.
“I think your Dad said it was okay for them to launch from here. There are police all over the damn place. A gang of bloody lunatics just ran through and started killing whoever they could get their hands on. I overheard that it was here, at the Escobarus place, and it happened at our estate too.”
“Did you get out before anything bad happened?”
Max nodded, “We have private guards. They couldn’t stop all of them, but they warned us before they showed up. Dad... Dad wouldn’t leave until all of the staff were taken care of, said it was his responsibility as the head of the family. Now he’s gone. They have no idea where they went either.”
“That’s crazy. The sun only just set – and they launched an attack that brazen?”
Max clenched his fists, “They must have been planning this for ages. They waited until security was loosened, for when everyone got bored of worrying about what happened to Felipe and the Roderro lot.”
Claude couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. The scale of the disaster unfolding was beyond his worst estimation. For every family that hired private security, there was another that relied entirely on stone walls and a remote location to fulfil their safety needs. If these attackers were so ruthless as to massacre the people working there – it must have meant hundreds of dead victims.
It made his stomach turn thinking about it, but the imagery was too intrusive to be forgotten. Max was never one to exaggerate. Every word he spoke was the precise truth of what he saw and heard. There were a lot of noble estates in the area. Now the huge police presence made sense, covering that much ground was going to be impossible with their usual patrol officers.
“Are you okay? You look really shaken up.”
“Well, I am,” Max explained, “I didn’t see the worst of it, but they were out for blood. I kept my head down and got out of there as fast as I could. My hands won’t stop shaking.”
“A cup of tea will do you some good,” Claude concluded. He moved into the kitchen and prepared a pair of cups for them to drink from. Heating up the water felt like it took even longer than usual. He was out of his depth. Claude had no experience with being a reliable shoulder for someone to use as support. Even he was liable to admit that he often only worked people up rather than calming them down.
He ferried the drink into Max’s hands and sat next to him.
“Thanks.”
The two sat silently for several minutes, only moving to take sips of their respective beverages. They could still hear the sounds of the police mustering outside. Carts and horses were being used to move them in large numbers from their posts to sweep the entire district in fine detail. Normally, Claude would be filled with confidence, assured in the fact that his Father would direct an effective effort to locate the culprits, but this time was different. His faith in the systems designed to protect others had been tested time and time again.
He could only reach a pessimistic conclusion; the culprits were already gone.
Max finished his drink, “Why do you look more distressed than I do?”
Claude let out a weary chuckle, “You saw right through me. My Dad keeps telling me that I have a face that tells all. Not a good trait for a detective to have.”
Max knew that well. He always believed that Claude was doing it on purpose. His entire face would crease and emote with a certain level of comic openness. It was really easy to tease him for whatever reaction he desired because his face led him right to the most sensitive points of his psyche.
“Stop worrying so much about me. I’m thinking about Dad, that’s all.”
“Afraid he’ll get hurt?”
“Dad never gets hurt. I have a bad feeling about their odds of catching them. I don’t mean to be a downer, but a lot of terrible stuff has been going on lately and it doesn’t seem like the people responsible are ever impeded.”
Max nodded, “It sure feels that way, I agree. The only thing we can do is hope that nobody else gets hurt. I think some of the staff from the estate were killed in the confusion.”
“Goddess above. They sound even worse than the monsters who tried to kill Felipe.”
“They must be. Those guys were only trying to kill Felipe because Roderro was paying for it, this lot – they’re a bunch of animals. If it’s even half as bad as what I overheard on the way here...”
Max and Claude remained seated in the dining room into the early hours of the morning, occasionally peering through the front window to see what was happening outside. Aside from the policemen giving out orders and coordinating the search, two guards were placed in the garden to ensure that the criminals didn’t make another attempt at snatching Max. As the hours stretched on – their remaining confidence in this matter being resolved quickly started to wane.
It was evident to Claude that the criminals had already made their escape. The police would now be going through the crime scene with close attention to detail to find any clues that they left behind. As much as they wished to distract themselves with a book or study, the ongoing investigation dominated their attention.
After passing the point at which they both ceased to feel tired, Claude’s Father finally emerged from the darkness and entered the house again. Both young men waited in the landing to see what he had to say.
“Dad, what’s going on?”
Victor approached Max and laid a firm hand on his shoulder, “I’m afraid that your Father has gone missing. We’re confident that they haven’t harmed him directly, but there’s no sign of him at the estate.”
Max was expecting bad news, but it still took the wind from his sails to hear it first-hand.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. There are reports of similar attacks all over the countryside. Keep this between yourselves, but the damage is even worse at the Walston-Carter estate.”
“Maria’s house?” Claude gasped, “Is she okay?”
“According to the responding officers, she’s fine – as are many of her family’s employees. It’s an almighty mess we’ve been left with. Picking through all of the rubble is going to take weeks of non-stop work, never mind what the detectives are going to have to do to find out where they ran off to.”
“Thank goodness. I suppose we should celebrate the small miracles,” Max said.
Victor removed his cap and held it over his chest, “I promise that we’ll find your Father, Max. Mastfa has been a close friend of our family. It’s not only my duty as a police officer but also my chance to repay the many favours he has given us.”
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Max smiled, “I hope you’ll give an equal amount of consideration to the other families too.”
“The other Captains are going to do their part. This investigation is too big for the likes of me to handle alone, but that’s very selfless of you to say. I see that he’s been instilling the right values in you.”
“It’s nothing special,” Max insisted. His modesty was appropriate, but also rare.
Victor heard a handful of horror stories from some of the other affected families. He understood the despair they felt at the moment, but some were taking it too far and levying insults on the working men of the police force. That was the type of stress that the rank-and-file were not expected to deal with. One thing was for certain, he and the other Captains would be bowing their heads in apology a lot more over the next few days.
It was a security failing of massive proportions. The implications of the breach would be wide-reaching and long-lasting. How did the intelligence service fail to notice and act on such a large criminal conspiracy? What were the police officers on station doing when the attacks occurred? And who was going to take accountability for those failings when it came time to reckon with the fact?
Victor dreaded it. It was the kind of politicking that he avoided like the plague. Nothing more than a pack of vultures sticking their claws where they weren’t wanted, looking for the next big scapegoat to place the blame on. It would impede their investigation. It was not a matter of ‘if,’ he’d seen it play out before a dozen times over in different scandals.
The world would be a better place if they allowed the police to focus on the job, instead of juggling public relations and damage control on top of that. A lot of the public didn’t understand that the police were not infallible, they could not be everywhere at once, and they could not see the future.
Nobody suffered the guilt of those mistakes like the officers. Victims could be aggrieved and struck with grief, but the officer was the one who felt remorse. Victor knew some bad apples who thought themselves above it, but he always emphasized how important it was for each officer to take responsibility for their work. They were deciding the future of thousands of people on both sides of justice.
“You can stay with us until the estate is cleaned up and properly investigated. Are your Brothers away from the house at the moment?”
“Yes. It’ll be rather difficult to contact them without a telegraph link.”
“I’ll see what we can do to inform them of the developments,” Victor assured him, “The police have been utilising telegraph messages more often lately, thanks to parliament getting off their bums and ponying up the money for them. Anyway, I’m rambling on and there’s work to do. You two should try to get some sleep. Nothing exciting is going to happen for the rest of the morning.”
Max was unsure of how much sleep he could really get given the circumstances. He was putting on a brave face but he was terribly worried about his Father. The only reason for that gang of butchers to keep him alive rather than murdering him on the spot was that they intended to do something much worse to him instead. His body had been flushed with adrenaline for hours.
“Let’s go back to my room.”
Claude escorted Max upstairs and out of Victor’s sight. Claude didn’t know what to do or say to his best friend. His condolences would do nothing to assuage to concern that was boiling beneath the calm and collected visage he wore. He did not want to sound like he was making light of the situation like he tended to do on accident.
“I’m not going to be able to sleep like this!” he complained.
Max exhaled, “True. I’ve never felt this awake before, as much as I wish I was not. Perhaps a night’s rest would help alleviate this anxiety I feel.”
Claude went through the motions, retrieving an oft-used sleeping roll from beneath his bed and unfurling it on the floor. An extra pillow was taken from his bed and offered to Max so he had somewhere to lay his head. Max had left the estate in such a hurry that he was still wearing his evening clothes.
Both boys crashed down onto their respective beds and stared at the ceiling through the darkness. The occasional glimmer of a policeman’s lantern sent cascading patterns across the room, diffused by the branches of the tree that stood tall in front of the house. Both were highly aware of the sounds coming from outside. The rattle of a chain, the wind against the windows, and the discussions being held between the officers charged with picking through the carnage.
“This doesn’t feel real,” Max mused, “Like it didn’t even happen.”
“Really?”
“I’d normally be in my bed right about now. I get so attached to my schedule that having it disrupted feels like the whole world is ending.”
“I’m thinking about Maria.”
“Why?”
“They said that those blokes attacked her estate too. What a mistake that’d be. Like jumping into a half-hawk’s cage after letting it starve for a week.”
“You really see her as some kind of lunatic, don’t you? I doubt even the mighty Lady Maria could stop them.”
“Wanna’ bet on it?”
“No thanks. Your stupid predictions always have a way of being technically true.”
“If they come true, then they’re not stupid. You just can’t accept when I’m right about something.”
Sinking into the doldrums of another inane argument with Claude was exactly the kind of firm ground that Max was looking for. They did this all the time, and it served to remind Max that not all was lost yet. There was still hope that they’d find his Father and bring the culprits to justice.
But on the outside, beyond their eyes and ears, there was a spreading belief that this investigation was not going to be simple. Victor was there in the cold, rubbing his hands together while one of his detectives studied some of the graffiti left behind on the Abdah grounds.
“Is this from any gang that you recognize?” Victor inquired. He used to be up to date on all of the iconography before he became a Captain.
Detective Klaus, who was always a steady hand, shook his head.
“I can’t say I do recognize this symbol in particular, but I have a sinking feeling that it belongs to the Scuncath. These forms and characters are distinctive. Part of me cannot reconcile that idea with this incredibly bold attack, though.”
“Scuncath, like that Thersyn fellow?”
“Yes. They tend to act in small cells. A group of three or four, committing violent murders in a fruitless attempt to summon demons and the like. Their handiwork is gruesome, to say the least. You’re lucky you never had to work one of these cases yourself, Captain – they stick out in the mind.”
Victor’s brow furrowed, “A large-scale Scuncath raid on the estate of just about every noble family from here to the coast, and we have no idea where they’ve taken the hostages. I assume this is different from their usual modus operandi.”
“Very much so,” Klaus rumbled, “It’s worrying. The Scuncath have always been violent offenders, and fairly large in number, this is an example of the damage they can cause with a minimum level of coordination. They were using weapons, blunt, bladed, firearms – they rolled through here and left this destruction behind. They want to strike fear into us and every well-meaning citizen of this nation.”
“But why target these nobles?” Victor pondered, “A majority of them are private citizens. It won’t inhibit the inner workings of the government in the slightest.”
Klaus stood at his full height. He was well known for his tall, willowy figure.
“There have been a lot of interesting developments in the field of criminal psychology recently, Captain. I’d recommend that you read some of them, but to save time, we can assess this kind of attack based on a handful of different factors. The most important one is the risk associated with it.”
“I’d say it was risky.”
“But not as risky as targeting MPs, who are presently under watch after the Clemens incident. They launched this attack because it offered them the largest impact with the least risk of being caught. The risk of being caught is the most important factor in determining if a criminal decides to commit an offence, more than the potential punishment for being caught.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Victor objected.
“Think about it from their perspective Sir. Why worry about the sentence when you believe that there is no realistic chance of being caught in the first place? What good is a rule when there is no enforcement to back it?”
They walked through the garden and approached the house. Several bodies were hidden, concealed beneath white blankets until a carriage could arrive to take them to the morgue. Detectives had already searched them for clues. Victor couldn’t divert his gaze. He stared at them as he passed.
“But we also have to consider their own, personal motivations. Scuncath don’t commit crimes out of passion or a desire for wealth. The overriding meaning behind their murders is to pay tribute to the Dark Goddess, or at least, their version of them. That motivation may be difficult for us to understand or deduct.”
“There are no past reports to go by?”
“Scuncath do not speak of their intentions, and unfortunately public records about them were heavily censored under the Van Walser’s rule.”
“Nothing can ever be easy, can it?” Victor griped. He used to think that concealing dangerous information was the best way to protect people, but years of working as a leader in the police taught him a harsh lesson about how wrong that perspective was. Moments like these reinforced his view that an open public record was valuable to crime prevention.
The damage to the estate was severe. Windows were smashed, furniture upturned and burnt, valuables and paintings torn from the walls. Similar markings were sprawled onto every reachable surface in a morbid combination of red paint and the victim’s blood. Pools of the stuff were everywhere – located in spots where the unfortunate working men and women were killed with no recourse.
It was a butchery. Victor’s outrage was so incandescent that it was almost enough to ward away the night’s chill. He had seen many heinous crimes in his decades-long career, but this was something else entirely; a systematic massacre of innocent people who were just trying to make a living and go about their business.
Victor couldn’t understand what drove them to violence like this, and he didn’t want to. Gazing long into the open maw of the mad was not going to provide him satisfactory answers. He silently feared what the hostages were going to go through if they weren’t rescued soon. To be killed like this was brutal enough, he shivered imagining what they would do given time to prepare first.
“This is grim,” Klaus stated quietly, “It’s like they pulled the scene right out of the history books.”
Victor frowned, “The Civil War isn’t history for a lot of us, Klaus. Back then a sight like this was what happened when you walked to the shops to try and buy food for your family. No police to be seen. I still think about that from time to time. I’m not going to let these people go without answers, or without justice.”
“I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You didn’t. You’re right. I thought that this kind of mess was behind us, behind Walser, but it appears that I was mistaken.”
Klaus shadowed Victor while he moved between the responding officers to get a summary of their findings. The attackers did not leave any room for doubt about the order of events. They bust through the back gate with a hammer, stormed through the garden and forced their way into the house through the back door, while some of the group split around each side to prevent people from escaping.
From there they started to kill and maim whoever they came across using a variety of means. Some of those weapons were left behind in the chaos. Axes, knives, other sharp instruments, some blunt force injuries – and a handful of firearms. Since their primary objective was to kidnap the head of the estate, they didn’t waste time creating elaborate means of execution.
This same process was playing out in dozens of other houses across the West side of the country. It was a veritable who’s who of influential nobles, snatched from their homes over a few hours, so quickly that the police were unable to organize a response and stop them in the act.
Victor and Klaus stepped aside as another body was rolled through the hallway on a cart. They’d be finding them for some time still yet.
“This house is huge,” Klaus commented, “They haven’t finished searching every room yet. The point man only just found the keys.”
“Tell them to be careful, who knows what they left behind to surprise us.”
Victor walked past one of the doors and hung his head. The stress was getting to him. He was hoping for a quiet evening at home, not co-ordinating a search and investigation of this scope. His eyes wandered to the left where the door was left ajar. A thin strip of visibility allowed him to see into the room beyond.
And the pair of bloodshot eyes that watched from the dark.
Victor stepped back, but it was too late to open a gap now. The stranger burst through with a knife in one hand and charged at him. Victor felt the pain shooting through his body as the blade slipped into his abdomen and forced him back into the wall. There was no remorse hidden between those glossed-over orbs, just the intent to kill one last man before the game was up.
“Shit!”
Klaus acted fast. He drew his pistol and fired twice, dispatching the man with two accurate shots to the chest area. He tumbled to the ground dead, but the knife remained embedded into the Captain’s stomach. Victor groaned and held the knife in place to prevent any more bleeding. Klaus turned back towards the lobby and yelled as loud as he could, “The Captain’s been hurt, get the medic down here!”
Victor’s mind wasn’t on the injury. Not only was he doing overtime - but he’d also fallen victim to such an amateurish assault.
He’d never hear the end of it.