Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City

Chapter 22: Natalina

"If you don't mind, Mrs Casper," Coraline said, just as they stopped in front of Inspector Effran's precinct building.

Natalina turned to see Coraline stopping near the steps, unselfconsciously shuffling backwards and glancing towards the train station.

"You'd rather go see your sister now," Natalina said.

"Yes. If you're still in danger once you step inside, that isn't the kind of danger I'm allowed to protect you from," Coraline said, holding up her hands.

"Madam Crafter, thank you," Natalina said, offering her hand. "For my family, for escorting me to the Undercity, for all of this. Burn brightly."

Natalina had tears in her eyes as she spoke, and her voice quivered. Part of her, child and mother both, wanted to hug the doughty, gentle woman who had saved her life twice in a single day.

But you don't take such liberties with a woman who could command stone to burn and your blood to boil.

The crafter shook her hand, and offered a smile. "Good luck, Mrs Casper."

Natalina turned away and marched towards the entrance, only willing to look back just as she reached the door, and was sure the crafter was on her way.

Natalina stepped through the doorway, and wove through the usual throng of activity at an Orderly precinct. Dozens of people waited in lines that terminated in front of a bored looking uniformed constable with a pad of paper. Nearly as many sat on chairs, hands in chains, guarded by angry looking officers with truncheons and scowls.

Natalina eventually made her way to one of the lines, and skipped them as she pushed her way to the desk and set herself next to an elderly woman speaking with a distinctly bored looking orderly.

"I'm here to speak to Inspector Effran," Natalina said. "It's about an ongoing case of his."

"Mrs Casper?" The orderly asked, as she detached herself from the conversation she was in.

Natalina nodded.

"Go on through," the woman said, gesturing to the back door with her thumb. "Head to the back of the hall, keep to the right side. Inspector's offices are along that wall, names are written on the door."

"Thank you," Natalina responded, as the constable opened the waist-high gate and stepped back to let her pass.

Natalina walked through the doorway to a large hall, nearly an auditorium in size, that was crowded full of desks. Uniformed officers flowed around the desks like water rushing around levee walls, and the cacophony of human activity blended together into a single, endless note.

"The sound of justice and order in action," Natalina reflected to herself as she made her way to the wall the constable directed her to.

She tried half a dozen doors until one of the read 'Arnold Effran, Inspector'. She rapped hard on the door, and has to wait only a moment before the scowling inspector threw the door open and glared at her.

His hard expression softened, when he saw the sword in her hand. "So, you've come back."

"I made contact with the Porters," Natalina said, as she followed Inspector Effran back into his office.

"I suppose it's too much to expect a witness or two?"

"Coraline Estoban will corroborate my story," Natalina insisted. "We took this from a gang called the 'Coal Oven', who gloated that they were working with the former Secretary Cavilla. They confirmed murdering Colonel Darrower. I could not have brought back this sword otherwise."

Arnold Effran nodded, with a small smile playing on his lips. "Coraline Esoban will give forceful testimony. No jury would believe a story from a Crafter to have been coerced. No one threatens a Crafter."

Arnold whisted softly, and extended his hand. "You've done the City an enormous service, Mrs Casper."

"So, what happens now?" Natalina asked. "I mean, can you arrest a colonel?"

"I believe I can, yes. You've returned with that sword. Combined with a Crafter's word, the doctored reports, the confession from that undertaker, I believe I have a case that will stick. I might not be able to pull her into civilian courts, but a military tribunal tends to be harsher in its judgements," Inspector Effran said.

Natalina sat down at the chair in front of Inspector Effran's desk, and began to read through the collection of evidence. She glanced at the examination of the doctored reports, saw the testimony of the undertaker. Something at the corner of the desk, an after-action report from the Bureau of Oversight, pulled at the back of her mind.

The other dead colonel. Farthington, who had died in the Foundry the same night Colonel Darrower was killed.

Natalina glared at him, and asked, "does this seem convenient to you?"

The inspector scowled, and shook his head. "Not at all. It seems like a year of my life that I'm going to spend on this."

"None of this explains Colonel Farthington's death in the Foundry."

"That might have just been an accident," Effran said.

"I'll believe that when the Bore freezes over," Natalina said. "You remember that I interviewed Theo Ratterson? The lead Crafter in Research? He was given the night off the same night a pipe-rupture kills the Colonel."

"An odd coincidence," Inspector Effran admitted.

"All within a day of the Lord Captian's death. It stinks, inspector," Natalina insisted.

"And we have a suspect. We have Cavilla on Darrower's death," Arnold Effran insisted. "We'll take her in, and see what else we can find."

But Natalina's mind was swimming back to the earlier hours of her time in the Undercity. She recalled Madam Ghally, and her bungling of Colonel Darrower's death. How blunt, straightforward it looked.

If the Foundry Incident, Burning Night as it was now coined in the papers, were to be blamed on someone, it would have to be someone subtle. Someone clever.

Someone clever enough to cut the a gang boss' power apart with a single bribe and a pair of knives in the dark.

"Burn me! It's not-" Natalina began, just before someone opened the door.

A young woman stormed into the room, nearly kicking the door open as she marched up to Arnold, and asked, "Inspector Effran?"

"I am," Arnold replied, hesitantly.

The woman handed her note to the inspector, and turned around to leave. It was only when she turned that Natalina noticed the armband on her arm.

Brown.

Arnold quickly opened the note, and scanned through it twice. He face twisted in rage, and the look he fixed Natalina with made her stomach twist and her legs shake.

Arnold saved to the still open door, and a pair of uniformed orderlies stepped inside.

"Take Mrs Casper into a holding cell," Arnold Effran said. "At the request of the military, she in under arrest for conspiracy and fraud."