by Hans Bezdek
“So we shouldn’t use the safe room, then?” asked Grayson.
“No idea,” admitted Anselm. “We have no way of knowing for sure what Phantom will do until he strikes.”
“Lovely.”
“The good news is he has no idea we are here,” smiled Anselm. “So no matter what he does, we’ll be a surprise for him.”
“Sounds like it will be surprises all around, then,” said Grayson, glancing around and digging into a pocket. “Speaking of which…”
The elf produced a small vial and handed it over to Anselm.
“What will it do?” asked Anselm, turning it over. The clear liquid swished around in its container and didn’t look much different from water.
“Put that on your blade and it will paralyze Phantom,” grinned Grayson.
“That could come in handy,” said Anselm, about to uncork it with his teeth and prepare his dagger.
“No, not now!” hissed Grayson, pushing Anselm’s hand away from his mouth. “We don’t even know for sure Phantom is coming tonight! You’ll waste it!”
“Then you can cook some more up for me,” shrugged Anselm.
“The stuff in there is super expensive,” said the elf, shaking his head. “Unless you want to try and rob Demarcus’ vault, we won’t be able to get any more of it for a while.”
Anselm had no desire to ever go near the Storage Burrough ever again. He pocketed the vial and nodded his thanks to Grayson.
“Why not just a regular poison that will eventually kill him?” asked Anselm. “That stuff isn’t too pricey for you, right?”
“Don’t you want to interrogate him before he dies?” asked Grayson.
“Uh… Not really.”
“He’s working with a group of assassins, though,” argued the elf. “And one of them already knows what we look like! If we don’t find him first, he might come looking for us one day!”
Anselm thought about it for a moment. Chaos did accuse them of killing Demarcus, which meant his people were going to keep looking for them. Anselm also was concerned that they already had deadly run-ins with two of the group’s members. Who was to say the others wouldn’t eventually pose a problem?
“Okay,” nodded Anselm. “If I’m able to, I’ll try to interrogate Phantom. No promises.”
Grayson turned to follow after Calina but paused.
“Hold on…” he said slowly. “You said you’ve only seen Phantom wearing his mask, right?”
“Correct.”
“What if he shows up without it?”
Anselm sighed and nodded. “That’s definitely a possibility. All we can hope to do is keep an eye on the Grand Duke and approach him if we see anyone suspicious looking talking to him.”
“So long as you’re thinking about it,” shrugged the elf. He took another step away but stopped as Calina walked briskly toward them.
“You already checked on all of the rooms?” asked Anselm, surprised.
“Hardly,” she said, glancing over her shoulder and messing with her glasses. “There’s someone strange that just entered. I thought you should know.”
Anselm and Grayson followed her eyeline to the front entrance. While the Grand Duke’s house was starting to rapidly fill, there was a distinct gap of space near the front of the door. A single man with a badly broken nose was in the open area, hands in his pockets as he walked around and examined the room and guests.
“Nice place, huh?” he called loudly to a woman in a yellow dress a few feet from him.
Her face turned red and she hurried away without a response.
“What’s Chaos doing here?!” hissed Grayson.
“He’s the one that killed Demarcus and blamed it on us,” Anselm informed Calina.
He was trying to stay calm, but this was bad. They hadn’t considered the other assassins in Phantom’s group would come try to kill Jaspar. Would it just be Chaos here? That meant Anselm wouldn’t get his chance to fight Phantom. What if there were also some of the other assassins, the ones that they didn’t know? There could be any number of people in here trying to kill the Grand Duke.
“Should we go fight him?” asked Grayson. “Kill him before he can hurt any of the guests?”
“Woah, slow down,” said Calina, shaking her head. “I agreed to killing Phantom since he killed my master, but I don’t think we should start killing just anyone.”
Anselm and Grayson looked at her like she was speaking a different language.
“I get that you’ve had some experience killing assassins,” she said to Anselm, “but I think killing should be avoided at all costs unless it’s absolutely necessary. Phantom is one of those cases. This Chaos person we can just detain and then let the authorities deal with him.”
Anselm really didn’t like that idea, but now wasn’t the time to get into an ethical debate with her.
“Fine, I don’t care how we get rid of him,” said Anselm, not taking his eyes off of Chaos.
While the man was certainly standing out for all the wrong reasons, he wasn’t making any hostile moves toward anyone. Anselm watched as Chaos casually glanced over at Grand Duke Jaspar, then walked in a different direction. Even if the assassin was there to kill Jaspar, it looked like they had some time before Chaos would do it. It seemed even he wasn’t crazy enough to try to kill a target in the middle of a large crowd.
“Shall we go detain him right now?” asked Calina.
“Not in front of everyone,” said Anselm, shaking his head. “We can’t risk Phantom knowing we’re here. We’ve got to get ahold of Chaos when he is out of sight, in case Phantom is here right now without his mask on.”
“Why don’t Grayson and I trail him while you keep watching the Grand Duke?” offered Calina. “If Phantom shows up before we get back, hopefully you, Sten, and Chloe can stop him.”
“Er, do I really need to come with to stop Chaos?” asked Grayson, clearly not happy with this plan.
“It’s too dangerous for one of us to go after him alone,” said Anselm. “I think Calina’s idea is our best option. That is, unless you’d rather have to fight Phantom with only Sten and Chloe as back up?”
Grayson sighed and waved for Calina to follow him. “This party is the worst…”
Chapter 14
Grayson and Calina moved their way through the crowd as carefully as they could. Grayson kept his eyes on Chaos, turning his head away whenever the assassin glanced in his general direction. While Chaos had no clue who Calina was, there was always the chance he’d recognize the elf.
Grayson was so focused on where the assassin was headed that he practically tripped over a pair of dwarves in deep conversation.
“Oi!” shouted one of them, shoving Grayson off. “Watch it!”
“Terribly sorry,” smiled Grayson, keeping his head low in case Chaos heard the commotion. “Won’t happen again.”
“See to it that it don’t,” grumbled the other dwarf, and the two of them left to another part of the room.
“Are you okay?” asked Calina.
“Of course,” said Grayson, dusting off his pants. “Takes more than bumping into a couple of smelly dwarves to hurt me.”
Some humans near him scoffed at the racism.
“Calm down, it was just a joke!” said Grayson. “I’ve got plenty of dwarven friends! They’re okay with it!”
“Come on,” growled Calina, dragging him away before he could say anything else insensitive.
They kept their distance from Chaos, who didn’t appear to be going toward anything in particular. He paused to ask some people where they got their food, then made for the dining room.
“Let’s stay by the door but not actually go inside,” cautioned Calina. “People have been filing in and out of there since the party started. It’s too risky to try and trap him in there with so many bystanders around.”
“Good call,” agreed Grayson. “Maybe we could-”
“Ah, an elf of refined taste!”
Grayson turned to see an elven woman app
roaching him. She was wearing a flowing red dress that hung lightly from the edges of her shoulders. Her golden hair was tied nearly straight up, with strands braided in a spiral coming down to the back of her neck.
“I love those red rights,” she continued. “Very bold. It takes someone with a lot of confidence to pull it off.”
“That’s what I was going for,” smiled Grayson, pulling his cloak back so she could better see his outfit. He bowed to the woman. “Grayson Atersby, at your service.”
“Grayson, you say?” she repeated, tapping a finger against her lovely chin as she thought. “I’m afraid to say I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing that name before. Are you an Earl or Baron?”
“Um…” said Grayson, trying to decide how deeply he was willing to lie at the moment. Out of his peripheral, he saw Calina narrowing her eyes at him. She’d potentially call him out immediately which would do more harm than good. “Neither of those, actually.”
“Oh,” said the woman with blatant disappointment. “Surely a court official, then?”
“We’re actually both bodyguards for Grand Duke Jaspar,” said Calina, taking a step up.
“Guards?!” gasped the elven woman, taking a step back and looking at Grayson like he had leprosy.
“I-It’s just a temporary gig!” said Grayson, trying to salvage the situation. “It’s not like I’m going to be a guard for the rest of my life!”
“That’s what everyone says,” sighed the woman. She shook her head and walked away.
“What was that about?!” Grayson shouted at Calina.
“She was trying to guess who you were,” she shrugged. “We didn’t have all day for her to work her way down the ranks.”
“But I could’ve ended up with her!”
Calina blinked. “And how exactly was that going to happen?”
“It’s simple,” said Grayson, rubbing his eyes in frustration. “I continue to avoid giving her a straight answer for the next hour or two. This builds up the mystery around me. She thinks I must be someone very impressive since I won’t come out with it. I eventually say we have to go, but she can’t get me out of her head. We arrange to meet up for lunch tomorrow. One thing leads to another, and we end up married. I’ve inherited her social status, and she is too embarrassed once she learns the truth to ever tell anyone that I was a nobody before we met.”
“That…” said Calina, eyes wide as she shook her head and searched for a response. “That… It’s… It’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Oh, please,” he scoffed. “Like you know anything about how these things work.”
“I’m going to be the Alchemist! I sort of do know these things!”
“Eh, you lucked into it,” said Grayson, folding his arms. “Not everyone’s master gets assassinated.”
“Wow.”
Grayson grimaced. “Okay, that might have been a bit too soon. But you were being mean first!”
“Can we focus on Chaos?” she said, scanning the crowd for the man.
She and Grayson slowly worked through the crowd and toward the dining room. Right before the reached the door, Chaos came out of it with a plate of food. Grayson jumped back, quickly turning to the side and putting a hand up to block Chaos from recognizing him. This was the opposite of being sneaky and caused several people around them to turn and stare suspiciously at the elf.
Thankfully for Grayson and Calina, the assassin was too focused on his food to notice the spectacle and walked past them.
Calina pulled Grayson’s hand away from his face once Chaos mixed back in with the crowd.
“Could you try being a little more subtle?” she asked. “We don’t need him noticing you.”
“That’s why I hid my face,” he replied.
“Yes, everyone saw that,” she sighed. “And I thought I was going to be bad at this…”
“Anselm’s the one that does the field work, not me,” said Grayson, crossing his arms again. “I thought I was coming here to be a guest, not a blasted guard.”
“Why does Anselm partner with you if he does all the work?” she asked, walking slowly after Chaos.
“Hey! I’m a vital member of the team!” said Grayson defensively. “Anselm wouldn’t be nearly as successful as he is if it weren’t for me.”
“So what is it you do for him?”
“Pretty much everything,” shrugged the elf. He kept the details vague so she wouldn’t connect the dots and realize they were assassins. “I check out the location, figure out who’s going to be there and when. I make potions, work on his weapons, and give him whatever equipment I think is going to be best for the job.”
“Ah, so you’re his servant,” nodded Calina.
“No!” snapped Grayson. “We’re equal partners! If anything, it sounds like you were the Alchemist’s servant!”
“I pretty much was,” agreed Calina. “Almost everything I learned I had to do in secret.”
“Oh.” That took some of the wind out of Grayson. “Why stay? Surely there were other people you could apprentice under.”
“My parents died when I was young and he was my godfather,” she shrugged. “I never really felt like I could leave. He never wanted an apprentice and made sure he mentioned that nearly every day, but he felt that it would look bad if he kicked me out. He was the kind of person that really cared about how he was perceived socially.”
“I see,” said Grayson, feeling his ears turn red. She probably didn’t think highly of him after hearing his rant about moving up in social rank.
“It’s kind of strange with him dead,” she continued. “I don’t want to sound like I’m glad he was killed, because I’m not, but… I feel free for the first time in a long time. I don’t have to hide my studies anymore, and maybe I can actually help some people.”
“That sounds noble,” said the elf. He liked hearing that she wasn’t extremely upset about her master being killed. He hoped she’d never find out what Anselm and him really were, but maybe she wouldn’t be super mad if she could see the positives.
“My master was always more interested in how to make money and move up the social ladder with his inventions,” she sighed. “I’m sure he’d be furious if he knew I just gave that arm away to Anselm. Especially with it’s potential.”
“The arm’s potential?” asked Grayson, now very interested.
“Oh, look!” exclaimed Calina, pointing up ahead. “Chaos has gone into the library!”
The elf whispered a curse. If there was something more to Anselm’s arm, he wanted to know. He’d have to wait until after they got rid of Chaos to ask her more about it.
“I haven’t noticed anyone head into the library yet,” said Grayson. “This might be our chance to take him out!”
“Detain him,” corrected Calina.
“Right… detain,” said Grayson slowly. “How do we intend to do that, exactly?”
“We place him under citizen’s arrest,” she said matter-of-factly.
Grayson fought back a cruel laugh.
“What if on the off, and I mean very off, chance he decides not to comply?” asked the elf. “I’ve seen him fight before and he’s no pushover. He killed an ogre without getting so much as scratched.”
“Did you bring any weapons?”
“A dagger and a couple of darts,” he shrugged.
“Then we’ll both be armed,” she smiled. “We’ll fight until we incapacitate him, then get some city guards to haul him away.”
Grayson didn’t like this plan. He had half a mind to wish Calina good luck and track down that gorgeous elf again. Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly an option. He couldn’t let down Anselm. His friend had done too much for him, and if the assassin needed Chaos out of the picture so he could fight the man that took his arm, it was the least Grayson could do.
The elf nodded begrudgingly and followed Calina into the library. Grayson pulled out his dagger as his companion pulled out one of the sticks on her waist, and the two glanc
ed around the library. As Grayson thought, no one else was in there. To their surprise, however, they couldn’t see Chaos either.
“We’ve got to be careful,” whispered Grayson as they inched their way further into the room. “He could be hiding anywhere in here.”
“Can he turn invisible?” she whispered back.
“Dunno.”
“Can he use any kind of magic?”
“Dunno.”
“Really helpful,” she sighed as they reached the center of the empty library.
There was a firm bang as the door closed behind them.
Grayson and Calina hopped back as they turned to the room’s entrance.
“Well, well,” smiled Chaos, leaning back against the door. “I thought I was being followed...”
Chapter 15
Anselm lost track of Grayson and Calina shortly after they began their hunt for Chaos. There was a nervous excitement flowing through him now. There was always the risk that the assassins wouldn’t try to kill the Grand Duke at his party, which would’ve made the whole night a waste. Since Chaos was there, that must mean Phantom’s group was planning on taking out Jaspar without any more delays.
The only problem would be if it was just Chaos here, or Chaos and some other members of the group that Anselm hadn’t met. While he was perfectly happy getting a piece of Chaos, his real goal was Phantom. There were plenty of people that had tried to kill him over the years, but Phantom was the only one that took something from him.
Anselm glanced down at his fake arm. He was thankful that he had something as a replacement but knew it would never be the same. The arm wiggled slightly as he tried to lift it, but fell limply again after a few seconds of effort. It looked real enough under his armor, but anyone that had been watching him for a while would realize he never moved it.
Sooner or later, word would get out that he had lost his arm. That had the potential to bring some old enemies back into his life.
That was a problem for another day, though.
Anselm spotted the Grand Duke in the crowd and moved to get closer. He wasn’t going to warn him about Chaos, at least not yet. If he got him into the safe room too early, it might cause Phantom to call off the assassination, assuming he was here and watching. Anselm wanted to be close in case any moves were made, but he’d keep some distance.
