The Cold Goodnight, Part 1

[Ender101]

The following in the first part of a long story I've had in the works for some time. It was inspired by old pulp noir thrillers and is a genre I've always felt would be right at home in the world of Malifaux.

The Cold Goodnight

Part 1

Downtown Malifaux was already bustling, despite the early hour and in defiance of the heavy rain turning the cobblestone streets into slippery hazards. Masses thronged through the boulevard, thousands of people soldiering on towards their day of work. Guild guards rubbed elbows with union miners, barbers and business men while pick pockets slipped between the bodies like ghosts in a forest of meat.

From the window of his office Samuel Rayvn watched the drenched denizens, thinking about nothing in particular as the rain rolled down the glass in fat droplets, washing the smeared dust and dirt from the pane. He absentmindedly rolled a cigarette, his thick fingers slowly pinching the paper together before he brought the package up to his lips and licked the edge. Almost sleepily he struck a match against the cool wood of the wall, a bright orange flame leaping to life in the gloom.

He sat heavily behind his desk and lazily blew a plume of smoke into the air. It was only eight o’clock on a Thursday morning, rainy and cold, a miserable morning on this side of the breach. He could see the silhouette of his secretary approaching the frosted glass of his door, and he was only mildly surprised to see her holding an envelope, a queer look on her face as she handed him the damp parcel.

“What’s the plot darling?” He spoke softly, the tone carrying across the room with practiced ease.

“I’m not sure Sam,” the woman smiled down at her boss her young features almost boyish with her short hair. She leaned on the side of table and began to assemble another cigarette. “That was slipped under the door not two minutes ago, I had just finished watering the plants,” she couldn’t help but glance outside the window, “when I turned and saw it lying there, soaked through. When I opened the door I saw wet footprints leading down to the stairs. I tried to dry it for you, but . . .” She shrugged and watched Sam reach for an antique letter opener, a curved Arabian knife.

“Thank you Anna, you’re an angel.” He snuffed his spent cigarette and smiled as she held out more neatly rolled one. He held it in the corner of his mouth, tilted it towards her with his lips as his eyes scanned the page; she lit it for him and worried her lip in her curiosity.

“Well don’t leave me hanging in suspense boss, what does it say?”

He didn’t answer her right away, he was engrossed in the letter, and he didn’t look to care one way or the other about what he was reading. The lines of his face were smooth but for the crinkles around his eyes, two brown orbs behind half squinting lids which saw too much whenever they looked at anything at all. There was no excitement, no surprise and no urgency as he folded the paper and returned it to the envelope. “It’s an invitation Anna.” His cigarette joined its deceased cousin in the glass ash tray.

Her eyes glittered as she looked down at him. “An invitation from whom?”

He stood and grabbed his duster and broad brimmed hat from the coat rack by the door, slipping the envelope into the inner pocket. “An invitation from six million script.” He heard her soft gasp as he closed the door behind him.

Rayvn made his way to his apartment before heading towards his meeting. The rain was still falling, and the streets were still slippery. He could hear the gurgling storm drains as he walked quickly past them, pushing the distractions from his mind as he thought about the letter, its message and just how he figured into it. Instead of cuffing the pick pocket who reached into his coat he merely shoved it away, barely looking back after hearing them crash into some piled up trash. It wasn’t every day that one of Malifaux’s wealthiest sons called on his services, especially one with Mr. Malcolm Malloy’s reputation.

He entered his hole in the wall apartment and grabbed a towel from his washroom, drying his hair and face before changing into his Sunday’s best. He shaved, combed his hair and slid into his good boots. He looked at himself in the mirror and nodded as he reached for his broad brimmed hat. He looked exactly like a guild investigator turned private detective should look; professional, clean, and hungry enough for the work not to ask too many questions.

Rayvn took a bottle and glass from his desk drawer and filled it with the liquor. His face barely registered discomfort or pleasure as it burned its way down his gullet. His eyes were distracted as he looked out the window to see a bright tendril of lightning arc across the sky.

To keep his clothes respectable he paid the young boy from down the hall to hail him a buggy, no use showing up for a talk with a potential client looking like a drowned version of the city’s oversized vermin. The cabbie didn’t care that he was going towards the outskirts of the city, nor that the mansion he was heading to was supposedly haunted, possessed, or worse. That suited Sam just fine, he didn’t care either. It wasn’t that there were no such things as ghosts or goblins, after living so long in the city he’d seen his fair share, and put down and drank down more than a handful of spirits. Death wasn’t such a mystery in the city of soul stones; it was just how horrifying and final death was that was the kicker.

The buggy rattled and lurched to a halt outside of the wrought iron gates and Rayvn stepped off, pressing a script note into the hand of the driver who couldn’t be talked into waiting for him to come back out. He supposed that it was one thing to head out to who knows where in ungodly weather, and quite another to sit in it for an undetermined amount of time with only the dark rumors of the place to keep one company. He looked out at the desolate grounds and felt a pang of envy as he watched the buggy loudly vacate the area.

Sam pursed his lips as he looked up at the mansion, easily as large as his five story apartment building and thrice as ritzy. He tugged his slick duster tighter around himself and pulled on an ancient looking chain. He couldn’t hear the sound of the bell, he hoped that it was because it was covered up by the rain, not that it hadn’t worked at all.

The gate opened by itself, the metal squealing in protest as it left a gap just wide enough for Sam to fit through. He couldn’t quite bring himself to run up to the manor, there wasn’t much he could do about showing up drenched any more, but he could avoid looking as though he’d run the whole way here from his office in Malifaux. He was hungry for the work, not starving for it.

When he reached the stoop he banged on the ancient wooden door, drops of rain leaping from the sleeve of his coat with the motion. He looked around at the décor surrounding the door as soft foot steps approached from within. A horned demon grinned down at him slyly, as if guessing something unpleasant about him while on the other side an angel looked away as if disgusted by his very presence. He didn’t care much for her either and instead looked to the door.

It finally opened a crack to reveal a shard of butler, peering at Sam with small, beady eyes. “We’re not interested in solicitors.” The voice spoke in a polite, yet condescending drawl. Sam nodded, seemingly uninterested in the butler’s little game. He knew that he was expected, that this was probably the man who’d delivered the message to begin with. He just stood there, looking expressionless and dumb as the water dripped from his wide hat. He produced the letter and the butler reluctantly admitted Master Malloy’s guest.

“Would you like a change of clothes sir, or a towel perhaps.” The butler was cataloguing him, measuring the cut of his clothes and the weight of his gait, judging and weighing his every move. When the detective didn’t answer him or treat him as anything other than the furniture, the butler reluctantly gave up his little game. “Shall I take your coat and hat, sir? I mustn’t have you leaking all over the floor.” Sam glanced down at it and thought that it could use a good mopping anyways.

Sam slipped out of the dripping duster and handed it and the hat to the butler before being directed into the waiting room. There were French doors at the back of the house, he could see clean through as if rooms between the front and the back had been all but gutted over the years. Through them he could see a gloomy hill covered in brown grass, and several dead trees, swaying in the wind. There was a staircase to his right as well, tiled marble leading upwards to the higher levels of the house, covered in an old, barely serviceable rug.

He paused and stared up at the ceiling. Hanging above was the most wasteful, ostentatious display of wealth he’d ever laid eyes on. A chandelier festooned with a hundred pale soul stones glittering with otherworldly light, he couldn’t help but suppress a shiver as several of the stones appeared to sway. There was no breeze, and Sam hoped that it was merely a trick of the light, and not something more sinister.

In the waiting room he found himself face to face with a large portrait, it was too old to be his mysterious host. The old coup was wearing an Earth-side military uniform from before the first breach closed, from before the guild had risen to restore order to a world threatened with the loss of its greatest commodity. He didn’t recognize the insignia on the uniform or the color of the badges. They were meaningless today. He couldn’t help but stare at the angry moons that served as the man’s eyes, the painted gaze a smoldering judgmental stare. He had the overall look of a man who was used to getting his way by crushing everyone else who got in it.

Sam turned his eyes away from the portrait to the other artifacts around the room; an old saber crossed with a long cavalry carbine sat prominently on the wall. A pair of worn leather gloves, the same the old man wore in the portrait were under glass, and horribly stained with the rusted brown of century old blood. There was a fireplace that had not been lit in some years, decades he guessed. Near the barred window sat a neglected grand piano, it was probably thirty years past its last day of grandeur.

On the dust free but lonely mantle sat other photographs of men and women from the same line as the cantankerous soldier, a young man stood on the hull of a warship in navy regulars with an officer. Next to it was a faded photograph of a shadow faced father with two children. One of the more curious photographs was what could only be his host rubbing elbows with the Governor General and his secretary, the smooth mask devoid of the film’s grain. The film or development must have been bad however, as the Guild’s lead representatives in Malifaux had eerie distortions around them. Sam stepped away and took in all the trappings, photographs and antique knick-knacks. The room he decided had the general look of a forgotten or ignored tomb and Sam wanted nothing more than to breeze his way out.

“Master Malloy will see you now Mr. Rayvn.” The butler’s voice was slightly strained, as if being in the vicinity of the room made him uncomfortable; the coldly polite servant avoided looking at the picture or ancient instruments of death and song, choosing instead to sweat a little and stare at Sam’s muddy boots. Sam didn’t try to engage the man in small talk and merely followed.

The room that Sam was led to was on the second floor. He tried not to look at the chandelier, suppressing a chill at the thought of so much trouble just hanging in the middle of the room. Halfway up the steps it changed the ambiance, it gave the stairway an unearthly green tint, the light bending around the antechamber as it touched each sculpted surface of the graceless gems turned gaudy ornament. It wasn’t hard to imagine someone slipping on these very stairs and breaking their neck, their soul sucked into the pretty ornament. Sam briefly wondered if anyone had ever died here. He pushed the thought away after making a mental note to check with his contact at the Malifaux Record to see just who he was getting involved with. They passed more portraits filled with members of the Malloy family, more sunken, serious eyes smoldered at him, and he shrugged off the oppressive feeling that they were following him. He was glad when the mahogany door slid open to reveal another waiting room. His comfort was short lived as he took in his new surroundings with more distaste.

This room wasn’t sinister at first glance. It was the first bright room he had seen in this brief tour of the manor. The waiting room was bedecked in a hundred shades of white, but instead of giving an air of innocence or comfort it look reminded him of a bled out corpse. The cream of the curtains looked dingy and dirty like old funeral linens next to the white satin of the couch, and the couch looked bloodless and corpse like next to the ivory of the carpet and cushions. There were pearl lamps and a fireplace made of white marble, cruel cherubs grinned at the top corners. The stairway had been uncomfortable and creepy, this room hurt to look at. He couldn’t fathom how terrible it looked when the sun was shining instead of the gloom of the mid-morning. It reminded him of when he had interviewed a witness at the insane asylum, the padded walls and straight jacks were just a few paint chips away from matching his surroundings. He hoped his host was more pleasant than the asylum’s abusive Dr. Morrow.

It made his scalp itch just standing in the room, he was impassive as he imagined little giggles running around the corners of the room like gnawing rats. His stay in the white room was mercifully short as the door leading into Malloy’s study swung open.

The wizened creature sat in a winged chair beside a roaring fire. He wore a heavy, well-worn robe and had a thick, richly embroidered blanket draped over his lap. The room was a furnace and Sam could feel the sweat beading on his brow and trickling down his back. One of the richest men in Malifaux more resembled a lizard than political power house. His leathery hide was old and dry, giving it the appearance of a salamander, and two claw like hands rested on the arms of the chair. The old flesh beneath the nails looked like blood as he closed the distance.

The room smelled of old books and scotch, and he detected the coiling scent of long cold cigars. He saw no ashtray near the hunched over millionaire and deduced that the man merely reeked of old vices. “Mr. Samuel Rayvn, thank you for accepting my invitation. Giles thought that the mysteriousness and vaugness of the note would drive you away, but me,” the old man grinned like one of his fireplace cherubs. “I knew that your detective’s curiosity wouldn’t let you rest until you’d come to hear what I have to say.”

The old man guestured with his drooping nose and patchy mustache at the chair across from him, his thin, bloodless hands seemed to grip at the chair a little harder. Sam nodded and sat in the chair, his smile unobtrusive as he leaned slightly forward, the tone of his voice one of measured patience and infinite understanding. “I’ll admit that my curiosity got the better of me today Mr. Malloy. A man in your position doesn’t regularly come to someone in my line of work.”

“Curiosity. That’s the trouble Rayvn, curiosity killed the cat.”

“Yes.” Sam nodded, his voice keeping its patient resonance. “What seems to be the trouble Mr. Malloy?”

The old man chuckled sickly, his breath a quiet wheeze. “But satisfaction brought it back, eh? Good for the cat, fool things have nine lives, we just have the one. But to business. I like a man who gets straight to business. At my age I can’t afford to waste time on the pleasantries.”

“I know a great deal about you Rayvn. I know that you were a guild investigator, a specialist called in by all three of the main charters to help solve an assortment of crimes. You hold a letter of recommendation from Sonnia Criid, and were recommended for commendation by Lady Justice, and there’s a rumor that that old bag of an Ortega tried to force you to marry one of her granddaughters. You’re a smart man, but you rankled your supervisors with a superior attitude and insubordinate attitude.”

Sam nodded as if he knew where all this was going, and what it had to do with him.

The half corpse sneered at the a downturned picture frame on the small table next to Samuel’s chair. “I’m an old man Mr. Rayvn, and before I die, I want you to find out what happened to my son.”

Sam half turned and picked up the photograph, the young man in the naval uniform gave a crooked grin to the detective as he stared back impassively.

“What was the manner of his disappearance Mr. Malloy?”