Free Iron and Blood by Gail Z. Martin Page B

youth was more a product of being a vampire or a witch—or both.
    “How can you be sure?” Jake challenged. “Someone in London wanted that urn enough to try to kill us—twice.”
    “My regrets.” Thalberg said, walking into the room. “That was… unfortunate and unforeseen. But I don’t believe the would-be assassins had any connection to the urn, or I would have taken additional precautions.”
    “If the urn isn’t behind Father’s death, then what is?” Jake snapped. “And if it is, will whoever wants the urn stop trying to kill Rick and me once we’ve turned it over to you?”
    To Jake’s surprise, Andreas chuckled. He glanced toward George, and nodded. “Yes. I see why Thomas wanted this one as his heir. He has the spark, doesn’t he?”
    “Do you know who killed my father?” Jake asked, refusing to be sidetracked.
    All traces of humor drained from Andreas’s expression. “No. I do not. I assure you, I am making my own inquiries into the matter. But I do believe that Thomas Desmet’s death was caused by magical means, and it is quite likely that whoever killed him did so not because of my urn, but because of something your company has handled recently—or that the killer feared you would handle soon.”
    George frowned. “To my knowledge, the urn is the only magical item we’ve handled lately.”
    An ironic smile touched Andreas’s thin lips. “The urn is not magical. It has other value, but no magic. Do you assume that everything I commission is magic, and that none of your other cargo is? You would be mistaken on both counts.”
    Jake gave Andreas a hard stare. “The real question is—if it isn’t the urn someone wanted, what were they after? Have there been any unusual purchases or shipments—even if they weren’t magical?”
    George and Andreas traded a look. “Likely, since whoever ransacked the office and shipping room was obviously looking for something,” George said. “But other than a few shipping ledgers, nothing’s missing, so odds are it wasn’t here.” He held up a sheet of paper. “I made a list of the most recent shipments and the people who commissioned them. We keep duplicates of all our ledgers, so we know which ones were taken. Andreas recognized a couple of people who may have been dealing in magical items. He will look into those. The others, I’d like you and Rick to check into, see what you can find out. Maybe something will lead us to Thomas’s killer.”
    “Glad to do it,” Jake said, reaching across the desk for the paper and tucking it into his jacket pocket.
    “After the funeral,” George continued, “I’m going to drop out of sight for a while. Mark Kovach thinks that’s wise. We’ve had a couple more incidents, attempted break-ins, here at the office and it seems prudent to be careful. I’ve already sent the rest of the family over to the Continent to visit relatives. And as a precaution, I’ve moved our files about the ‘special acquisitions’ to the house where I’ll be staying. That way, they’re less vulnerable—and so am I.” He sighed. “And as if we didn’t have enough to deal with, those Department agents have been around again, trying to recruit us. Doesn’t seem to matter how many times we tell them to go away, they still come back again.”
    Jake folded his arms. “Could the Oligarchy be involved?”
    In the chaos after the Great Quake and the Conflagration, civil government had fallen into anarchy and the city’s industrialists had used their private armies and the Pinkertons to take control and maintain order. Although the government was eventually restored, the industrialists had no intention of relinquishing their newfound power. It was well known, though not spoken of aloud, that the city had a shadow government, the Oligarchy, which influenced the city’s leaders from behind the scenes.
    “I don’t know—yet.” Andreas seemed to choose his next words carefully. “That’s one of the reasons George engaged