Kayne gritted her teeth in frustration, showing openly what Ardis was keeping hidden beneath a veneer of calm. "You do realize what you're saying? We have a murderer who knows as much about the way crimes are traced by way of magic as the constables and Justiciar-Mages do! How can we eventry to catch him?"
Tal reached out and patted her hand in a very fatherly fashion—which relieved Ardis. She'd been hoping those blushes weren't on Kayne's behalf. Not that Tal and Kayne would make a bad couple, but . . .
She lost the thought, and didn't care to pursue it.
"We catch him the way constables have always caught clever criminals," Tal said, his calm and even tones belying the tension Ardis sensed beneath his stoic surface. "Firstly, there are more of us than there are of him. Secondly, hewill make a mistake. He may already have done so, but we just didn't catch it at the time. Once he makes one mistake, he'll make more, and the consequences will begin to pile up."
"How can you be so sure of that?" Kayne demanded.
He rubbed his forehead and shut his eyes while replying. "It's the oddest thing, you know," he continued, in a matter-of-fact voice, as if he was talking about one of his fellow Guardsmen rather than a multiple murderer. "But I've never seen it to fail. A clever thief can and will continue to steal all his life—a clever sharpster continue to extract money from the unwary until he's in his grave. But a murderer—he may show no signs of remorse at all, may even claim that his victims deserved what came to them—but sooner or later he starts to make mistakes that get him caught."
"Remorse?" Kayne suggested. "Even if he doesn't realize it? Could his conscience be manipulating him so that hedoes get caught and pays for what he did?"
Tal shook his head. "I don't think so. Maybe it's contempt—when he keeps escaping the net, he starts to think he doesn't need to work so hard to avoid it. Maybe it's a feeling of invulnerability, that we can't catch him however careless he gets. After all, every bit of evidence thathe gets shows him that we simply can't find him."
"And maybe it's God," Ardis put in quietly. Tal looked at her with a brief flash of startlement. "God doesn't often act directly in our lives, but when He knows that we are doing all that we are able and are still out of our depth, He may choose to give us a little help." She felt that; she truly did. She only hoped that He would see that they were at the end of their resources and grant that help before any more women died.
I am not going to tell myself that He has reasons for letting those others die, however. God is not cruel; He is not some Eternal Tormentor and Tester. They died because they were unlucky or careless, and not because God had a purpose for their deaths.
Her Special Inquisitor looked for a moment as if he was about to challenge her to a theological discussion, then his lips twitched a little. "I'm not about to argue the point with you, High Bishop," Tal said finally. He looked for just a moment as if he was going to say something more, then just shook his head and remained silent.
I had better change the subject—or rather, get it back where it was supposed to be."The way this man treats the tools he takes over is interesting," Ardis pointed out. "Once he's done with them, he discards them immediately—within moments of the murder, in fact."
"He doesn't have much choice!" Kayne replied.
"Oh, but he does," Tal responded instantly. "At least, he does in the cases where he's killed in private. I assume he could walk around with that body for as long as he likes, but he doesn't—he kills his chosen victim, then discards the man he's taken." He suddenly looked startled. "I don't suppose we could be dealing with a ghost, could we? Or something like a demon? Something that can come in and possess the killer?"
"Ghosts can't place orders for knives," Ardis pointed out dryly. "And although I'm a Priest, I have to say I truly doubt the existence of demons that can move in and possess someone's body." She thought about the few cases of so-called possession that had been brought before her—until people likely to claim possession realized that she was entirely unsympathetic to the idea. "I'venever seen an authentic possession, nor do I know anyone who has. Sometimes it's a simple case of someone being struck with an illness that affects the mind; at other times, it is all fakery. All the accounts of what are supposed to be genuine possessions are at third or fourth hand—or else the symptoms of possession as described are such that they are clearly hysteria or the clever counterfeit of someone with an agenda of her own to pursue."
"Her?" Tal asked wryly.
Ardis shrugged. "Most people claiming to be possessed are female and more often than not young. You can read what you like into that."
Kayne snorted with contempt. "I'll read it as fools for pretending and idiots who believe them. Back to the knives. You've said it before, and I'll repeat it. I don't think the shape is an accident, but we need to discuss that in depth for a moment."
"There could be a number of reasons for picking that shape," Tal mused. "The most logical is that this fellow wants to give the Church and its mages a powerful reason not to pursue him too closely."
"There is no doubt that is why the authorities tried to prevent you from investigating back in your city, Tal," Ardis told him, pleased that her investigation had proved his own suspicions were correct. "No one wanted to be the one to uncover a killer inside the robes of a Priest."
"He could be hoping that a faction of the Brotherhood will take him for a vigilante," Kayne observed. "After all, he's getting rid of people the Church doesn't approve of. Truth to tell, Ardis, ifyou weren't the High Bishop here, I don't know if the Justiciars would even consider trying to catch him." She pinched the bridge of her nose a moment. "It makes me wonder if he might not be in the pay of someone."
"Who?" Tal asked, surprised.
"I don't know; the Bardic Guild, maybe?" Kayne hazarded, a little wildly. "They'd just as soon be rid ofevery kind of entertainer that isn't a member of the Guild."
Ardis grimaced. "A madman acting on behalf of the Bardic Guild? I'm afraid you're reaching a bit too far for that one."
"Or being too redundant," Kayne retorted.