Blood Ties

by Peter David

  “With all respect to you, sir,” I shot back, “I will believe that when I hear it from the lips of the supposed master of this house.”

  “Mr. Reaver is otherwise occupied, sir, and cannot be disturbed.”

  The moment he said that name, it was as if my spine had frozen. When I spoke again, my voice was barely above a whisper, and that was no affectation. “Reaver?”

  “Yes, sir.” He now looked smugly pleased, seeing the impact that the name had on me. “And if you know of Mr. Reaver—as I perceive that you do—then you know that he is not an individual to be trifled with.”

  I was standing a few feet away from him, and I wasn’t moving. Part of it was out of strategy and the other part was simply because I was still processing the information I had just been handed. Fortunately enough, the doorman decided to fall straight into the strategic considerations by taking a few steps forward while gesturing toward the road. “So I would strongly suggest—” he began.

  He didn’t have the opportunity to finish the sentence.

  “Now,” I said.

  It was the cue that the gnome had been waiting for. He dropped from overhead and landed squarely on the doorman’s back. The doorman let out a startled yelp and hit the ground, driven downward by the impact and trajectory of the small, angry creature. Once he was there I didn’t hesitate to deliver a firm kick to the side of his head. That was more than enough to drive him into unconsciousness.

  “That was amazing!” said the gnome, hopping from one leg to the other in a manner that almost seemed like a little dance. “That felt wonderful, doing that!” He crouched low over the doorman’s prostrate form. “I think he’s still breathing. Is he breathing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cut his head off!”

  “I’m not going to decapitate an unconscious, unarmed man.”

  “Fine. Wake him up, put a knife in his hand, then cut his head off!”

  I simply rolled my eyes, shook my head, and hauled the unconscious doorman out of the way. “There will be plenty of time for such endeavors. Let’s go.” Without bothering to make sure that he was following me—which I suspected he was going to do whether I wanted him to or not—I entered the mansion, swinging the door shut behind me.

  Even as I made my way across the grand foyer, I couldn’t help but think that the damnable gnome had a point. If the doorman awoke to sound an alarm, that would cause matters to go very badly for me, very quickly. Still, killing someone in the heat of battle was one thing. Cold-bloodedly murdering an unconscious functionary was simply not something I was capable of. Sometimes I wondered if that wasn’t a deficiency in my skill set.

  The place was lush and lavish. It was filled with statuary, wall hangings, tapestries, and paintings. The statuary and such were particularly of use to me because they provided me places or objects to duck behind or in. The paintings, on the other hand, were flat-out curiosities because every damned one of them was a portrait of Reaver himself. The man had spent an inordinate amount of time sitting and posing. Even more, he was in a variety of outfits that harkened to different times in the history of Albion. Were they simply artists’ imaginings, or were they representatives of the periods in which they were actually painted? How bloody old was the man, anyway?

  I moved quickly, silently. Fortunately, the place was cavernous. The reason it was fortunate was that footsteps echoed, giving me the opportunity to hide in the event that someone should be coming my way.

  That, as it turned out, was exactly what happened. I heard rough voices talking casually with each other, and I could discern immediately that they were very likely guards or household watch of some sort. I ducked behind one of the convenient statues, and two men wearing what amounted to household uniforms of blue and silver strolled past. They had rifles slung over their shoulders, and they were saying something about “those creepy creatures down there” and not being particularly “thrilled that they were around.” If I’d needed any further confirmation that I was in the right place, that certainly provided it for me. Unfortunately, it also confirmed that Reaver was armpit deep in whatever this business was, and that wasn’t going to amount to anything good for me. Reaver was, top to bottom, soup to nuts, bad news, and that meant that whatever my brother had gotten himself into had just been catapulted from bad to worse.

  “Why didn’t you kill them?” came an irritated voice. I glanced downward to see that the gnome was crouched at my side, looking up at me with disapproval and disappointment. “They were right there, and they were armed. Now why did you hesitate?”

  I dropped down to face him and spoke in as soft a whisper as I could. After all, my voice could carry to others as readily as their noises could reach me. “Because at this point, the last thing I want to do is make a lot of noise and bring more men down on me than I can easily handle,” I said. “There’s one of me and who-knowshow-many of them.” Abruptly seeing an opportunity, I said, “You could actually be of help in order to facilitate the killing.”

  “Oh, aye?” He genuinely seemed interested. He’d also dropped his voice to match my lack of volume.

  “The fact that I don’t know what sort of odds we’re facing is impeding my ability to attack and kill people. If I knew, for instance, that those two who passed were the only two guards in the place, then I could just take their lives with no concern. But if their death cries bring a hundred men running, then I have a significant problem, you see?” He nodded, which buoyed me. “So what I could use you to do . . .”

  “Is scout around?” said the gnome. “See exactly what it is that we’re facing?”

  “Yes! Precisely! Find out what we”—and I took care to emphasize the word—“are dealing with, then report back to me. Can you do that?”

  “Of course I can,” said the gnome with utter confidence.

  Without hesitation, he leaped upward. I was impressed once again with his agility. He hit the wall and scrambled up, his fingers somehow adhering to it in a manner that made him look like an oversized spider. Yet there was something about him that made it incredibly easy to miss seeing him. I was able to follow his path because I was looking right at him, but seconds later when another guard walked past in the other direction, he didn’t notice the gnome even though the creature was right there in the upper section of the wall. It was almost as if he were capable of bending light around him somehow so that he was invisible to one’s peripheral vision. A handy attribute to have; would that I had possessed it. Instead, I was going to have to rely on more mundane means of avoiding detection.

  I found it in short order, spotting a guard emerging through a doorway while fastening the buttons on his coat. That suggested to me that he had clothed himself while in the room. I flattened myself against the wall of an intersecting corridor as he walked past, then dashed quickly but lightly toward the doorway. It was a calculated risk. If there were guards inside the room, I was heading directly into trouble. But I needed some manner of camouflage if I was going to continue to skulk around the place. Would that the doorman had been built remotely like me; I could have relieved him of his clothing and tried to blend in in that manner. But he had been much shorter and slighter than me, and also he hadn’t been carrying weapons. The guards, at least, were, so I could be packing mine and not appear out of place.

  I caught a piece of good fortune. The room I’d entered had weapons—which I didn’t require since I already had as much armament as I could reasonably carry—and uniforms of Reaver’s house guard, which I did indeed require. Within moments, I had shrugged off my own clothing and pulled on the uniform of one of Reaver’s guards. It offered me the ability to blend in that I required. I disdained to switch out my weapon for any of those in the weapons room. I was accustomed to mine and had confidence in them. I might have been taking a slight risk in being spotted because my weapons weren’t the same, but in weighing that against the possibility of being trapped in a firefight while wielding unfamiliar armament, I was going to opt for having my own guns in m
y hands.

  I found a pair of the guardsman’s boots that fit me, along with one of the tall, stupid hats they’d been sporting, and made my way out of the room. Squaring my shoulders, I acted like I was supposed to be there and walked with utter confidence. I didn’t know how well the guards knew each other. There was always the chance that they would take one look at me, recognize me for an intruder, and attack.

  That turned out not to be the case. I passed the same two that I had seen earlier. They nodded toward me in passing acknowledgment and kept walking without slowing in the least. Obviously, they assumed that I was some new hire, which meant they weren’t part of a unit that operated together regularly. That could work to my advantage.

  I made my way around the mansion, moving from room to room. The place seemed endless. I already felt as if I had covered far more ground on the inside than could possibly be accommodated by the outside. Also, time was not on my side. Sooner or later, even though I had secreted him behind some brush, someone was going to find the doorman, and the alarm would be sounded. Perhaps the gnome had had the right of it at that.

  I was hinging my entire strategy on two words: “down there.” The guards had made mention of the creatures being “down there,” and that said to me that there was some sort of basement or even dungeon where they were being kept. If that was where my brother was, then that was where I needed to get. Even that seemed as if it was going to be a challenge. It felt like there were hundreds of doors in the place and if the luck of such things ran true to form, whichever door was the last one I opened would be the one that would lead me down. But I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of asking my “fellow” guards where the dungeon was. It just didn’t seem wise to bring that degree of attention to myself.

  As I moved down one hallway, festooned with the same sorts of paintings and statues as the others, I heard an angry voice floating toward me. It was coming from a room at the far end of the hallway. There were large double doors, and they were hanging partly open. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see much of anything, but from the anger of the voices being raised—or at least of one of them being raised—it sounded like a discussion that I wanted to be there for.

  I fought the impulse to sidle over and instead simply walked toward the doorway as if I had every right to be there. Drawing within range, I placed my back against the wall in what I imagined to be a casual manner. I angled myself carefully and was rewarded with a clear view of a mirror hung at the end of the room. The mirror’s presence wasn’t surprising. Someone like Reaver doubtless wanted to have as many reflective surfaces around as possible so that he could gaze lovingly at himself at every opportunity.

  In this case the mirror provided me a clear view of the room’s inside. It was a private study, with books lining the walls and a large oaken desk at the far end. There was also a conference table that ran down the middle of it. I could see Reaver leaning against the desk, facing someone I couldn’t make out since he was facing Reaver and, therefore, had his back to the mirror. Draped around his shoulders he had a large black cape that obscured any details of his clothing, and the back of his head was shaved and decorated with a series of circular tattoos.

  Reaver sported his typical smirk, and his hands were resting lightly upon a walking stick with a shimmering, multifaceted jewel atop it. That jewel alone could probably purchase the entirety of the town that I’d grown up in, along with a considerable portion of the adjoining countryside. Yet in Reaver’s world it was simply a bauble to adorn the top of a walking stick. I knew we came from two different worlds, but seeing something like that made me feel as if we were in fact from two different planets.

  “What was the purpose of it, I ask you!” the caped man was demanding of Reaver. Even with the cape, I could see that he was trembling with outrage. If Reaver was concerned that the man would actually launch some sort of physical attack, there was certainly nothing in his attitude that conveyed any worry. “What was the purpose of paying you for the use of your army of freaks if they were no more successful than my own!”

  “No more successful, my dear Droogan?” Reaver said. “That’s not my understanding of it. From what I hear, where your own troops presented nothing more than a series of targets for the marksmen of Blackholm, my ‘army of freaks’ managed to overcome the wall and the front gate with little to no difficulty.”

  So this was the dreaded warlord. If I’d had a clear shot at him rather than simply a reflection, I could have put a bullet in his brain right then and there and ended his threat. Unfortunately, that target wasn’t being presented. Furthermore, my priority at that point was my brother, and announcing my presence in so definitive a manner would certainly not be in my best interests.

  “Yet the town is still in the hands of its people!” said Droogan with great vexation. “Whose fault is that?”

  “Whose fault indeed.” It was the first time I could recall in all the times that I’d had encounters with Reaver that he sounded at all nonplussed. “I have to admit, my dear Warlord, that it’s a valid complaint. All the more bothersome because I do not have a ready answer.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Reaver spoke with exaggerated patience, as if addressing an imbecile, which he likely felt he was doing. “Deeply ingrained into the human mind—even the transformed human mind—is a desire for survival. ‘Fight or flight’ is the term for it. Faced with something that can bring about one’s death, one either battles against it or runs from it. The first instinct of my Half-breeds is, of course, ‘fight.’ But I cannot breed ‘flight’ out of them, and obviously they wound up facing something that was an overwhelming threat. At least that’s how much I’ve been able to discern. Their Prime wasn’t entirely coherent—”

  “Prime?”

  “The leader. The strongest, most dominant of them. I didn’t make him that way, you understand. It was purely luck of the draw. He leads, and the others follow. One of them tries to defy him, he strikes him down. And if he decides that they should flee, then he will compel them to follow. Not different, really, from any typical squadron of soldiers, except there’s more snarling and teeth involved. And the Prime, in turn, answers to me.”

  “Well, he didn’t do a bloody terrific job answering to you this time, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t,” said Reaver, and he clearly was not ecstatic about admitting it. “And that bothers me. And I don’t know why he didn’t, which bothers me more. Rest assured, though, that it is simply a matter of modifying his behavior. That is being attended to even now. We will find out why he ran, and we will make certain that there is no repeat of his actions.”

  “And what am I supposed to do while you’re busy modifying him, eh?”

  “Oh”—and Reaver smiled that sickeningly smug smile of his—“I am more than certain that I have sufficient resources to keep you entertained.” He rapped his walking stick sharply on the floor twice. There was the creaking of a door from behind him although I couldn’t quite see it in the mirror from my angle. Then an extremely attractive young woman with thick, curly red hair and a dress cut all the way down to Driftwood undulated her way past Reaver, smiling coyly at Droogan. “This is Giselle. She’s quite experienced with finding new and interesting ways to provide entertainment.”

  There was nothing more to learn there, so I quickly headed back down the hallway. I was starting to worry that I was running out of time. I wasn’t sure what Reaver was up to with William. That was assuming, of course, that it was William. Part of me was still praying that I was wrong. That it was some manner of strange fluke or happenstance.

  How bizarre an attitude to have, when you think about it. I had long believed my brother to be dead, and when I was faced with the possibility that he might still be alive, death was the preferable option. Preferable, at least, to being some manner of unnatural creature serving at the pleasure of Reaver.

  One thing at a time. One thing at a time.

  As I moved quickly down the hallway, I passed wh
at looked to be a maidservant. She was carrying bundles of sheets under her arm and so was too distracted to question anything. She was exactly what I needed. Stepping directly in her path and sounding as casual as can be, I said, “Pardon, Mistress. I’m new here and a bit turned around. I’m supposed to go down to where”—and I quickly remembered what Reaver had said—“the Half-breeds are. Can you point me in that direction?”

  “I’m not your guide. Go ask your squad leader,” she said, and tried to move around me.

  I stepped right along with her, continuing to block her path, and put on my most sheepish expression. “He already told me. I . . . well, I forgot. And I’m already running late. If you’ll just help me out and save me my job, I’ll use my first week’s salary to buy you a little something—something that will sparkle ever so sweetly when it catches the light.”

  “Go on with you,” she said, but she was eyeing me with interest and even a little bit of merriment.

  “I swear I will, or my name’s not Clarence Overbrook.” I then bowed to convey the notion that I was every inch a gentleman.

  She curtsied in return. I knew I had her then.

  There was a suit of armor positioned standing off to the left, standing upright as if there were a man inside. Its mailed hands were resting upon the hilt of an upright sword. The maidservant reached over and placed her hand atop the sword’s hilt. For a half a moment I thought she was about to yank free the weapon and take a swing at me. But then I saw she was not drawing the sword; instead, she was pushing down on it. The sword point descended into a slot at the base of the pedestal upon which the armor was mounted. I had assumed that was there to keep the sword steadied. Instead, when she pushed it, there was an audible click from the wall to my right. A large panel slid open, and there was the darkness of a stairwell visible to me.

  “There’s entrances all over the place,” said the maidservant. “This was just the closest one. Excuse me.” I stepped clear to one side so that she could push past while carrying the bundles of sheets. But she winked at me one last time before she went on her way.