A New Star Chapter 39

Watching the group go over the ground, and my mother leave to check on the estate (and likely Marianne) for a moment, I had to shake my head. They weren't total amateurs, and I was no legendary sleuth, but they were bumbling about a bit too much. Likely, it wasn't necessary to preserve all the footprints or evidence on the ground any longer, but the way the group was tromping all over everything had me shaking my head. I rolled my shoulder yet again, feeling the ache of the wound, but it was dulled now, my regenerative affinity having done considerable work. I was tired, hellishly tired, considering I was still weakened from the Tribulation and had had a long day before having to fight off four assassins stronger than myself and destroy an entire gang.  

I watched the work for a while, noting when my mother in this life came back from the estate with several more guards and another of the guard captains, all of whom formed a perimeter around the clearing until the investigation was done. The count approached my perch after a moment and gave me a signal to descend, which I accomplished with some aplomb. He gestured to me, indicating whether I wanted him to carry me with his affinity as we returned to the estate. When I simply stared at him coldly for a few moments, he cleared his throat and moved on, leading the way through the woods.  

We returned to the estate, and I was ready to finally go to bed, but that was not to be. Before I could deviate too far, I was herded over to my parents' office, where a large group was gathering. I moved over and sat on the front edge of my father's desk, earning several frowns, but I ignored them. The next time one of these useless scrubs did half of what I, at nine years old, was doing, they could take issue with me sitting on the desk. We had some time to wait as people gathered, more and more involved parties showing up, or being forced to muster. As the room was getting fairly full, a set of guards showed up with Pietr, and then one of the captains showed up with Marianne. My father returned, frowning at my position on his desk, but I also ignored that as people took seats or leaned against the walls. 

"Is this everyone?" my father asked. 

"I don't know, do we want to just invite the whole county?" I asked sarcastically, getting more frown. 

"Alexandra," my mother reprimanded, but I gave her a blank look and she turned away with a sigh. 

"The mayor is dead," my father took back over the meeting. 

"Should have just let me do it," I scoffed. 

"He was dead when we walked in," he responded succinctly. 

"Oh boy, that's not suspicious," I commented sarcastically from the back. 

"He was still rather warm," my father continued. "We estimate the time of death as less than an hour, which was backed up by two affinities that are quite accurate. It appears that Alex's little, ahem, demonstration was quite effective, in more than one way." 

"I have my own suspicions," I said coldly. When everyone in the room looked at me, I said, "He died nearly an hour before you got there? That means he died even before I kicked open Pietr's door, which means he took his own life right before I got to town. Did he have some way to detect my approach? That makes little sense, especially considering I have been to town plenty of times. I would guess he was either killed to tie up loose ends, or he took his own life shortly after I killed the assassins, meaning he had some way to monitor their progress." 

"His office is under lockdown and we've taken all his books," my father said. 

"Alex," my mother said. 

"Yes, that's me," I replied. 

"Tell us what happened," she said, crossing her arms as she leaned against her own desk. 

"I was working, or attempting to," I stated. "I was alerted that there was a problem when captain Mina entered my lab and asked if I had seen Marianne. I told her I had not, which was true, but then quickly packed up for the day and began to search myself. I noticed the increased activity about the estate, and searched several areas I believed she could be. It became apparent quite quickly that she was not present, so I left the estate to attempt to pursue." 

"Why was it clear?" the count asked. 

"What do you mean?" I asked. 

"Why was it clear that she wasn't here?" he clarified. 

"Multiple signs, including that she sticks to certain areas and routines, which likely worked against us in this case. Then again, performing counterespionage routines in your own home is a bit excessive, or so I'm told. Is that sufficient?"  

"Yes," the count nodded. "Continue." 

"Despite their need for stealth, whoever took Marianne would have had a great need for speed. I knew that meant they would likely use the trail leading toward Umberton, or one of the other similar tracks. My thinking was proven correct almost immediately, as I quickly found signs of the recent passage of a group of people. I followed that trail until it turned from the main path, continuing deeper into the woods. Likely they were trying to skirt the town and either meet a train on the tracks or a truck on the southern road. I caught them before that, however," I explained. 

"When I caught up to them, I observed them for a time, identifying that they had Marianne and that their intentions were not just a simple snatch and grab, but an assassination attempt. When they got ready to move again, I struck. The best time to take an enemy unaware is often when they are in a transitory state, such as breaking camp or setting camp. I slit the throat of the man dragging Marianne along and then fought the other three; if I were a bit stronger, I could have subdued them, but it was an uphill battle and I went for fatal strikes where and when I could. I managed to kill all three of them, confirming all four kills before starting to treat Marianne. I loosely searched the bodies, finding evidence that they had been assisted in passing through Umberton and on to the estate. I returned Marianne to the estate, administering further treatment before moving into town. I confronted Pietr to determine his involvement, having the knife stuck in my shoulder removed in the process before learning that it was definitely Robert that was involved in the attacks. 

"The rest you witnessed, but to summarize, I attacked Robert's whorehouse immediately, not giving him any time to realize something had gone wrong. I entered through the front door and eliminated his enforcers; the element of surprise is quite a powerful thing. It also helps that even mid-rankers often don’t have particularly tough flesh; my spear can easily penetrate such fighters throats if they're not alert. I made my way up to Robert's office, throwing him to the ground and taking a look at one of his ledgers, which confirmed several things, including that he had far more involvement, and far more shady deals, than I had even suspected. I dragged him from the building and read his list of crimes and violations before summarily executing him." 

"Wait, you did what?" asked James, the second oldest of the boys. 

"I threw him against the old oak in the center of town and then drove my spear through his twisted and corrupt heart," I replied stoically, giving James a hard stare. That was enough to quiet him right down.  

"What is that spear, anyway?" asked the commander. 

"You mean this?" I asked, holding out my hand. Everyone looked at my hand before starting to give me strange looks, but before they could all process that my hand was empty there was the sound of thunder and a quaking in the air. With an explosion of lightning and electrical discharge, Gungnir appeared in my outstretched hand, the blood of Robert already gone from its length. 

My parents and the count, who was the other one most active in getting to the bottom of what happened, questioned several of the others. The Royal Guard and others, including Pietr, confirmed the story as I had told it, though only part of it was witnessed by anybody else. Marianne hadn't exactly been in a great state, and she had essentially passed out after scrambling away from the fight that I was engaged in with her would-be assassins. The proceedings took over an hour, and several people were taken aside to be questioned individually by the Royal Guard or the count, who was acting as interrogator for my parents. Pietr was given what was essentially a slap on the wrist for a few things and told that he needed to be available to the further Royal Guard investigation.  

People started be dismissed, or in many cases, sent away as they were getting underfoot, but I had no such luxury. Nor did Marianne, but I had pumped her full of restoratives, and she had gotten most of a night's sleep on top of that, so I couldn't bring myself to feel much pity for her situation. I had not gotten any sleep and, as a consequence, was become short with my answers; well, even shorter than I normally was. It reached a point where I realized it was down to bickering and paperwork, so I excused myself, namely by walking into the Dark, sure that only the count and Silver Lady had any way to pull me back out of it. In fact, I was pretty sure they didn't, but I wasn't worried about anybody else being able to stop me in that mode.  

I returned to my room and dismissed Gungnir, the spear able to blend into the mana around me, shadowing me without making its presence known to others. I took a quick shower, careful of my wounds, or what was left of them, before I retired to sleep for the night, or morning, as the case may be. I was out as my head was still approaching the pillow and didn't wake again until a pounding on my door late in the afternoon. I rose from my bed at that, stretching and feeling only a bit of a dull ache in my body that wasn't much different from what I had been feeling as I recovered from the Tribulation.  

My presence was being requested by my parents, who were likely still handling the aftermath of the night before, so I dressed quickly and casually and made my way to their office. The guard outside had been doubled, not that I thought that it would do much, but I supposed it was the thought that counted. Marianne was in the office already, or perhaps she had never left, but I simply gave her a nod and sat in one of the armchairs to wait. She stood from the couch and walked over, bending down, but not by much, to give me a hug and press her head against my shoulder. I returned the gesture, or the hug, at least, before letting her go and urging her to return to her seat.  

What followed was extensive and exhaustive and I was just glad I wasn't being forced to do any of the paperwork itself. My parents had many more questions, some of which I answered, and some of which I didn't or redirected onto other topics. It was not the most subtle of things, but then I had always been about as subtle as a brick to the face, so this was nothing new for me. I had to suffer through this for another hour before I was free to go, with strong admonishments about my behavior, going off on my own, fighting higher-rank people, and so on and so forth. I basically ignored all of it, as little of it applied and that which did I understood rather better than the people lecturing me. Not that I was trying to sound or be particularly arrogant, but I had many, many long years of experience that everyone around my lacked or didn't quite match.  

The next week was a blur of activity as things had quite heated up around both the estate and in town. My parents had a series of announcements made about the situation, or what little they could tell the regular citizens about it at this point, before refocusing on the investigation. They spent plenty of time squirreled away with the Royal Guard personnel that had come up here chasing the assassins, which I personally thought they had done a rather bad job of, but I wasn't going to say anything antagonistic to those who guarded the heart of the nation. Well, nothing too antagonistic, anyway.  

The captain of their unit was a bit of a mystery to me, as well. She had questioned me rather extensively the third day, taking copious notes, which I quietly found rather amusing. She was, however, unfailingly polite and quite respectful of both my humble personage as well as my opinions and thoughts. I had the impression that her team had some experience with tracking down criminals and various hidden, though small, factions throughout the kingdom. I also had the impression that this case was a bit above their regular paygrade, though the presence of so many powerful and competent individuals should have made things easier. While it did, in a sense, it also added a lot of complexities and additional considerations. The count, for instance, was a foreign national, though he had a writ of permanent citizenship for all five countries of the Settled Lands. Dealing with the old reprobate seemed to greatly puzzle and confuse the Royal Guard, to mention nothing of their very timid and respectful interactions with the Silver Lady. 

After a week cooped up in such disastrous circumstances, I had decided that that was enough for the time being. I didn't exactly sneak out of the estate grounds, but I certainly didn't trumpet my intentions from the rooftop. I noticed that the count had been keeping an eye on things in the area, though it was more assessing threats. He had also been on a bit of a tear as he had tried to identify how the assassins had snuck into the estate grounds in the first place. The running theory was a very powerful, one-time use item that they had used to cloak themselves, allowing them to bypass the defenses in their entirety, and had also allowed them to avoid capture while wandering the halls and looking for their intended target. And make no mistake, Marianne was very much their intended target; their instructions said so, to be totally pedantic. Why their instructions had said such, and exactly what they had been intending to do with my sister to act as a misdirection of the blame and our investigations was still under, well, investigation, but I was pretty sure I could get to the bottom of it within a few weeks.  

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