“Well, that’s going to be a problem. We’re going to have to redo our plans then.” Athos sighed. “Porthos, how did your search go?”
“First of all, I went into the dome. That place is amazing. We’ll need to come back here, just so I can visit it again. The two of you should come as well.”
Athos sighed. “Stop stalling, Porthos. Did you find someone?”
Porthos’ eyes twinkled. “I did find one. And then I found someone so much better.”
Aramis eyes widened, scandalized. “Porthos, you know that such activities are forbidden on Hunts!”
Porthos laughed. “Aramis, you dirty old rascal. I mean, I did find a perfect bit of bait. A young woman related to one of the men working as a guard at that fortress. She’d be perfect because if something goes wrong with incapacitating the guard, we can use her to dissuade him from doing something… foolish. But thanks to her, I found the most perfect bait possible. And in the process, I think we can resolve our issue about lacking those sleeping technologies.”
“Do tell,” Athos said, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice.
“I checked out the people who live in that fortress, but it seems that most of them keep to themselves, and certainly there’s nobody living inside those walls that Stark would care about. So I look up people who work there, specifically the guards. All guys, all married with kids, except one. That guy’s engaged to be married. I’m not huge on orphaning kids — I know, I’m an old softie, right? — and so it’s perfect. We can use her to get the guard out of commission too. Threaten her, he comes to her aid, and we take care of him. See what I mean? Perfect choice.”
Athos nodded. “Good plan. Did you convince her to join us for our visit?”
Porthos nodded. “It was perfect. I snooped around a bit, find out this human woman’s an aspiring actress, looking for her big break. So I go to this restaurant where she works, dressed in my mysterious-looking cloak, and tell her I’m putting a new TV show together. We hunt mythical treasure, heard about some amulet that’s supposed to blow up in a week, and we’ve proven that this treasure is inside the walls of this community where Stark lives. So, we need to get inside to dig it up, all filmed of course, and we need somebody who knows this town and the people who live here to join us and talk about how horrible it would be if this amulet explodes and people get hurt. Naturally, she’s worried about Stark.”
Aramis laughed. “Why?”
“I guess the guy gives huge amounts of money away. The humans are struggling with their economy right now. Our guy Stark is pretty much bankrolling them getting going again, and he gives people money to start businesses, bails out people who are going to lose homes, and so on. So, everybody loves Will. This woman is obsessed with saving him, and I tell her to meet us there at the wall at dusk in two days.”
“And?” Athos asked.
“So as I’m leaving, she says, and I quote, ‘It’s so good of you to be doing this to save Mr. and Mrs. Stark.’” Porthos paused, allowing the comment to sink in.
“Wait,” Athos said. “Mrs. Stark?”
“He’s married?” Aramis shrieked.
Porthos nodded. “I looked it up when I got back to the hotel. I actually stepped out of the restaurant like I was leaving, but really it was just to calm down, and then I went and told her I’d gotten a call that we needed to postpone the show another two days. We’re out of danger of her showing up when we need to go in, but I don’t think we need her as bait anymore.”
Aramis had buried his head in his hands, whispering to himself. Athos glanced at him. “Our resident rules and Oaths master would apparently like to remind us that the Aliomenti swear an Oath against marriage or committed relationships, under penalty of fifty years confinement. But there’s another aspect of it.”
Porthos nodded. “The wife. Our bait. The law says she must be killed to protect our anonymity, which means… we need to get The Assassin involved.”
Athos nodded. “I’ll let The Leader know. He’s the only one who can control The Assassin. But the red-eyed freak will be ecstatic. Not only does he get to kill a human… it’s going to terribly wound Will Stark to do so.” He nodded at Porthos. “Well done.”
Porthos nodded in acknowledgement. “And I think if the Assassin is involved, we don’t need to worry about him restraining himself at all; he’s already there to eliminate one human, so why not two more? He can take care of the guards for us, then get the wife. With her in obvious peril, Stark’s distraction will be complete.” Porthos smiled. “And then, his imprisonment will be complete as well.”
●●●●●
The Assassin arrived, blood-red eyes still mirthless, face still heavily scarred. He’d worked with the Hunters on many occasions, but seemed — by his standards — to be ecstatic at the possibility that he’d get to execute a human woman in the name of capturing the traitor Will Stark.
“Picture,” he said.
Athos handed him a picture of a human woman in her late twenties, with platinum blonde hair and shining blue eyes, smiling an enchanting smile. She was wearing a wedding dress, standing next to Will Stark. The Assassin studied the picture, and then tucked it into a pocket. “Location?”
“The woman is located in this home within a heavily guarded community,” Athos replied, pointing to a home within the walled Estates. “We’ll enter here.” He pointed at the location in the holographic image of the fortress community.
“I don’t teleport,” The Assassin said.
“We don’t expect anyone to teleport inside,” Athos replied. “We need to incapacitate the two guards to prevent them from raising an alarm. We need to avoid Energy usage to prevent Stark from sensing our presence. The first part is where we think you can assist us.”
“I do not assist,” The Assassin said. “I execute humans.”
Porthos smiled. “Precisely. Humans.”
The Assassin turned to face him. “There are… more… besides the woman?”
The Hunter nodded, and the Assassin’s scarred face twisted into a terrible smile. “We’ve discussed methods of incapacitating the guards, but the technology we expected to use isn’t done, and there’s no timetable for when it will become available. Therefore, we’ll need you to take care of the guards. But we need to figure out the best approach.”
The Assassin rested his hand on the short sword sheathed on his belt. “I have only one method of execution.”
Athos nodded. “We’re aware of that. The issue is the timing of those executions, and the sequence.”
“You see,” Aramis said, “our goal is to get Stark under excessive mental duress before we try to subdue him. As you’ve likely heard, he’s rather… resourceful at making his escape when at full strength and in full possession of his mental faculties. Therefore, we’d like to have you execute the two guards at night, and we’ll then go into the fortress together. When we burst into his home, you’ll capture his wife and threaten her. If Stark resists, you execute her in front of him, and then he’ll be ours. If he doesn’t resist, you execute her after we’ve got him.”
The Assassin shook his head. “Stark will know we are coming and will move the woman to safety. It is best if I get to her when she is alone.”
Porthos scratched his head. “I’m not following.”
“When I kill, my Energy always surges. It is the emotion of the kill, the joy it brings me. It brings fear to others. If I kill two men… Stark will know, if he is nearby. He will move the woman to safety before we arrive at his home.”
Athos sighed. “OK. So perhaps we need to get inside while Stark is away, but the woman is at home, then?”
The Assassin nodded.
Athos looked at Porthos. “When would Stark likely be gone, while his wife would be at home? Don’t human couples always move about together?”
Porthos shook his head. “It’s common for humans to leave their homes during daylight hours to perform their work. Stark, for example, probably goes to the Dome. We do not know if
the wife does the same. My study of humans suggests that, given their level of wealth, she may not have any need to leave their home during the day to work, but that varies depending on the human. We can confirm that, but we’d probably need to count on her being at the house during the day while Stark is out. We can set our traps and wait for him to arrive home in the evening.”
“I will go at dusk, before Stark arrives home,” The Assassin said. “I will execute the two guards, and we will go together into the community.”
“One question,” Porthos said. “This… emotional Energy you radiate… is it strong enough for even humans to sense?”
The Assassin considered this, and then nodded. “Many become immensely fearful as I approach, before even seeing me. It is likely the human woman will sense my presence before I reach her home.”
Athos sighed. “Then we run the risk that she’ll try to flee.”
“That’s no good,” Porthos agreed. “We want her to be killed so that Stark finds out right as he reaches us. If she’s concerned…” He thought for a moment. “If she’s concerned, she may call those guards to see if something worrisome has occurred.” He glanced at the Hunters, and then at The Assassin. “I’m thinking you’ll need to kill one, then restrain the other until she calls them to find out if something is happening; if that terror Energy is that strong, then she’s going to notice. Once she believes it’s merely imagination, you kill the second guard and head in to execute the woman.”
The Assassin nodded; a slight delay was of no concern to him, so long as he was permitted his kills. “Which guard shall live the longest?”
The Hunters studied the photographs of the entry. “I think you need to take out the guard in the tower first,” Athos said. “If you take out the guard below first, then the tower guard might notice and call something in. If you take out the tower guard first, though, the guard below won’t see anything until you appear.”
“Perhaps we can offer a bit of a distraction,” Aramis mused. “If we walk to the area where the guard on the ground is situated, he, being a guard, will likely pay attention to us. That will enable The Assassin to enter the tower area unnoticed, kill the first guard, and then move into the ground level station to restrain the second guard.”
“That second guard will need to open the gate or door trap for us,” Athos said. He turned to Aramis. “Didn’t you say there were doors set up that only the guards can unlock?” Aramis nodded. “We could blast it, but that won’t do much good for keeping our presence hidden.”
“I doubt two dead guards will help much either,” Porthos said, amused. “But yes, I agree, the remaining guard lets us in in the normal fashion, we head unseen toward the Stark’s house, and the Assassin joins us there once his business at the front gate is complete.”
The Assassin grunted. “I have developed new techniques with my fire,” he said. “If I am able to set Stark’s house on fire as he arrives, that will mentally destabilize him.”
“I like that,” Athos said, as Aramis nodded and Porthos rubbed his hands together, grinning. “It has the added advantage of destroying any physical evidence that we were ever there.”
“We also need to remember that no humans will be able to enter the community until they get the replacement guard or guards in place,” Porthos said. “The security information suggests that only the guards can open the gate or the doors; any personnel like the human police will be stymied by that little problem.”
Athos smiled. “Stark will figure out a way. And in this case that’s a good thing. He’ll get in long before the others and come to us while they try to figure out how to open the gate or the doors.”
Aramis laughed. “We have time to spare, then. I’d like to get in a few solid kicks at the man before we return him to Headquarters.”
Athos glanced at Aramis. “You, break a rule about prisoner treatment?” His face turned somber, and then angry, as he touched the scar on his cheek. “I wouldn’t mind giving him his own permanent reminder of this.”
“You know me, always in favor of a good beat-down on somebody else,” Porthos said.
“So let me recap,” Athos said. “The Hunters will approach the guard at ground level, distracting him; we’ll also be deploying our camera neutralizing technology as we go by so nobody sees video of us later. While we’re doing that, and while that lower level guard is distracted, The Assassin will get into the upper part of the tower and kill the guard there. He will then emerge and enter the ground level station unseen. He will prevent the guard there from summoning help, and force him to allow us to enter the community. After a presumed call from the woman, The Assassin will kill the second guard and move to Stark’s house, where he will kill the woman and ignite the house on fire as Stark arrives. When he realizes the woman is dead and the house is on fire, his mental state will be destroyed, and we’ll be able to subdue him without resistance; we may not even need the sleep inducers. We may get a few… paybacks in before we take him away.” He looked at the team. “I like it. There’s no need to use any Energy, we’ll get Stark, and any threat of exposure by the woman will be eliminated.”
The others nodded.
“I still expect Stark to come up with something, some way to make this difficult,” Aramis said.
“Then we’ll improvise and deal with it,” Porthos replied. “No plan runs perfectly upon actual execution, but what we’ve created is sound and should provide the framework for us to succeed.”
Athos stood up, effectively ending the meeting. “Rest well, gentlemen. We move on Stark’s home tomorrow. In twenty-four hours, the scourge that is Will Stark will finally be eliminated from this earth.”
They all left, convinced that Athos was right.
In reality, their war with Will Stark was just beginning.
Author’s Notes
Thank you for reading HUNTING WILL. This short novella serves as a prequel to the larger Aliomenti Saga, and leads directly into the opening scenes of the first novel in the series. If you enjoyed HUNTING WILL, be sure to read A QUESTION OF WILL next!
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Copyright (c) 2012 by Alex Albrinck. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact [email protected].
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, pl
aces and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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