“Sorry, son, didn’t see you two there. Look, I hate to be rude, but I’ve had a long day. I’ll have the wife cook you guys some dinner next week sometime, but right now I’m in no mood for company.”
Cyus studied him a long moment before answering.
“While I do admit that I’m disappointed that I won’t be getting fed, I come bearing some news that can’t wait.”
Dain studied Cyus in turn and found that all too stubborn look on his face that told him he wouldn‘t be leaving until he‘d had his say. “Damn it all to hells, inside with the two of you then,” he grumbled, digging out his keys and fumbling at the lock.
Loren took the opportunity to give him a fierce hug around his middle from behind and planted a kiss on his plump cheek.
“It’s good to see you too, old man,” she said, laughing as he rubbed irritably at the makeup she left smeared on his face.
Dain ushered the two of them inside, taking their coats and hanging them on pegs just inside the door. A long, unadorned corridor stretched out ahead of them, with two rooms on each side. The apartment he shared with his wife was upstairs and could be accessed by a lift he had installed at the end of the hall. His wife had taken ill a few years ago and had lost the use of her legs. Dain knew how she loved to visit him while he was working, so he had designed her a chair with four wheels attached to it that acted as a cart of sorts so she could still get around.
The first room to the left was his office, which at the moment was a disheveled mess. Case files and unfinished letters were scattered about everywhere. It was definitely unfit to receive guests. They continued past it and the second room on the right, which contained Vance’s sleeping chambers. That left his laboratory, or his small library. Cyus made the decision for him by striding directly into his lab on the left. It was in slightly better shape than his office, but he supposed it would serve their purpose for whatever Cyus needed to discuss.
“So, what’s so damned important that it couldn’t wait, Cyus?” Dain asked grumpily after he had settled himself on his work stool.
Cyus was the best apprentice Dain ever had the pleasure of instructing. It had only taken him three years to attain the rank of Master Inspector. The average pupil took eight, so it was a completely unprecedented achievement. The lad was a natural. More than that, he was a true prodigy. He was a wizard in the laboratory and had by far the best instincts of any Inspector Dain had met, including himself.
He respected and trusted this man above any other, so despite his displeasure at being kept from a hot meal and his wife, he took his ease upon his stool in front of his crowded workstation and waited patiently for whatever the man had to say.
At first Cyus just paced the room. He idly ran his fingers along the massive collection of jarred chemicals that stretched on shelves that ran all along the back wall. Next he browsed the instruments that were laid out in a jumbled clutter on his many workstations. Cyus picked up a pair of goggles and began to absently toss them from hand to hand as he walked. Dain tensed at the casual way he was handling his invention. He had designed those goggles after he had discovered a particularly strange insect he had seen as a boy and they could amplify the user’s vision over one hundred times. They were very valuable, and Dain used them on a regular basis. When Cyus finally sat them down, he breathed a very large sigh of relief.
“Well, if you’re just going to wander about wasting his time, I’ll fill him in,” Loren said, breaking the silence with a beleaguered tone. “There’s been a trend of murders, Master. Serial murders. Cyus has dealt with serial killers in the past, but this is different. He‘s in completely over his head on this one.”
Cyus shot her a withering glare, but she ignored it. In turn she gave him a penetrating look that in no uncertain terms dared him to call her out for speaking in his stead. Dain mused that all women seemed to have that particular look tucked up their sleeves, ready to hurl at an unsuspecting man at a moment’s notice. Cyus did the smart thing and simply nodded to Dain, shrugging and throwing his hands up in defeat in way of response.
“I appreciate you getting to the heart of the matter, my dear,” he said, smiling at Loren.
Cyus always did have his hands full with that woman. She was headstrong enough for the both of them as a Master and apprentice duo and probably twice as clever as either Dain or Cyus combined.
Addressing Cyus, Dain started pressing him for answers. “What does she mean that you’re in over your head? Since when can’t you outthink a serial killer?”
Cyus gave him an incredulous look at that. “I can outmaneuver any killer. But that’s not what this particular conundrum is about, Master. It’s the victims. They’re all women. There have been nine of them so far and all of them were, for lack of a more tactful term, butchered.”
Suddenly it dawned on Dain what Cyus was getting at in his roundabout fashion. “All nine of the women you’re investigating, they’re all Healers. Aren’t they?”
Again, Cyus nodded and threw his hands in the air.
“Jenukai’s Wings,” Dain heard himself utter through his shock.
It was a nearly out-of-body experience as he heard himself ask, “Loren, my dear, would you please go upstairs and help my wife brew some coffee? It appears your master and I have some collaborating to do.”
Chapter 20
“I’ve never trusted Mimics,” Xavian muttered for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. Mimic was a derogatory term for a Lurk, which was already a derogatory term for Shifters.
“I already told you, this Lurk has been in the service of my family since we were the royals here in Axion,” Arius replied, trying to keep a rein on his patience. “People just have an ingrained mistrust when it comes to Lurks because they can change their form at will.”
“Yes, ‘ingrained mistrust’ is one way of looking at it. Those sneaky little shits give the term ‘two faced’ a whole new meaning, if you ask me,” Xavian grumbled. “This particular Mimic hasn‘t exactly changed my mind on the lot of them either. It shows up out of nowhere on our first night here and tells us your to-be-bride is being held prisoner by two Demon Priests inside of the Tower of Axion. What’s worse is that your brother seemingly gave the order and will be here to collect her any day now. As if that isn‘t all bad enough, it’s somehow managed to convince you that we should wait for it to sneak us in there to rescue her. Oh, and on top of all that, we need to find Erantis.”
“You know what, Xavian?”
“What?”
“That may have been the most words that you’ve ever strung together in your entire life.”
Xavian’s face darkened, but he didn’t retort right away. After a moment of sufficient glaring, he finally asked, “How much longer do we wait on this Lint character then? It‘s been four days already. Surely you‘re worried about Evaline’s wellbeing?”
“Of course I am. It‘s more complex than that, though. For all we know, those two Demon Priests have standing orders to execute her if anyone dares trying to mount a rescue. And what of Erantis? It‘s paramount that we find him. Our entire defense system for the Seven Cities hinges on their ability to hold the Link and stave off Lord Rathe and the rest of the Duncar magisters he has at his disposal.”
That wasn’t entirely true, at least the part regarding Evaline. Lint had told Arius in private that she was being treated exceptionally well by her captors. That was ponderous without question, but she was safe for the time being, and that was enough of an excuse for Arius.
The fact of the matter was he needed time to assess the situation. Arius and Xavian had landed on the outskirts of Axion aback Alrukar and Rotu and had snuck into the city with them tucked in their packs in their Genai Sphere forms. They had arrived in the early morning before dawn expecting to find a conquered city and a legion of Dantronian’s awaiting them, perhaps even a dragon armada to contend with. Instead, he found himself having to rescue a princess he was betrothed to like out of some absurd fairytale.
I would a
lmost have preferred to face the damn legion, Arius thought to himself. Warfare I get. Women are a mystery I’m not prepared to begin solving.
As Xavian settled back into his usual state of taciturn malcontent, Arius started to recall everything he could about Evaline and their lone encounter.
They had met at a party here in Axion to announce their engagement a few years ago, and the night hadn’t gone well in the slightest. Calling it a mitigated disaster would be more appropriate. The idea of marriage had never sat well with Arius. Contemplating the notion of being with one woman for a lifetime had usually been enough to cause him bouts of severe hyperventilation. He’d known he would marry Evaline for years now. However, Arius had always looked at it as a far off event that would happen well into his adulthood.
After Dregan had killed their father, Evaline’s family took over the throne of Axion, and their engagement had been fast tracked in order to unite the bloodlines faster. Instead of being able to cavort, carouse, and embellish in the usual idiocies of enjoying his youth, Arius had been forced into many obligations much sooner than he would have liked. Dregan‘s insanity could be thanked for that.
He had been named as one of two central figures in the most important prophecy known to mankind. On top of that, he was leading a nation’s entire army into a war the likes the world had never seen. He wasn’t sure sometimes which should be most prominent on that list. As daunting as that all seemed, neither of those endeavors scared him half so much as did the prospect of marriage.
Arius cringed as he recalled the spectacle he had made of his and Evaline’s engagement party. She had been lavishly stunning, there was no denying that, but that hadn’t stopped him and his entourage from drinking far too much and turning a pristine ball into a rowdy tavern environment.
Robik had vomited spectacularly onto an ice sculpture, and Miles had to keep the twins from brawling with another pair of Guyvers the entire evening. Arius had been nervous to the point of becoming physically ill, so upon coming face to face with his fiancée he had been overly curt and awkward. He had tried to be charming, but he instead ended up kissing her hand brusquely and blushing a furious shade of red. After that, he had practically run away from her to bury his face in his cups the rest of the party.
And now he was to rescue her from the clutches of a man he both despised and loved.
Arius and Xavian sat in the shadow of his boyhood home, the Tower of Axion. They were on a deck overlooking the water at an establishment called a restaurant. It was the latest fad in Axion, like an inn that only served food and had no rooms to rent out.
Lint had told them to check at noon every day at this particular restaurant called the Sea’s Bounty. For four days, they had arrived as requested and waited for any news he had to share or when the time was ripe to go after Evaline. They’d also asked him to uncover any insight on the whereabouts of Erantis. Each day the Lurk had been a no-show.
The food was exquisite, some of the finest fish Arius had ever eaten in all his life, but the quality of the food did little to quell Xavian’s readiness to throttle Lint. Outwardly Arius seethed alongside his friend, but on the inside he bided his time gratefully.
It was a typically overcast day in Axion. The air was wet and chilly, so Arius pulled his cloak tighter to stave off the elements. The longer they sat there, the more he remembered that he hated the weather of his home city. All the cold did was make him more impatient, and he was constantly craning his neck as he kept out a hopeful eye for Lint. So far, after an hour of waiting, the only visitor they had was the biting wind from off the Bay of Kings, where the tower resided on an island in the middle of the white-capped waters.
Arius was just about to start in on a third helping of a divine shellfish stew that the waiter was just setting down in front of him so he could warm himself a bit when Xavian spoke up unexpectedly.
“It’s about time you showed your face, Mimic. Whose face is that you’ve donned anyways? Some poor bastard’s throat you’ve slit in an alleyway, perhaps?”
Arius looked up from the stew at the waiter standing over the table, and it was indeed Lint in his current form. Lint had assumed the role of a dark-skinned man of average height and build. For that matter, all of this duplicate’s features were average. That was the way with Lurks: they would always choose the form of the most generic-looking person they could emulate to avoid standing out in any way, shape, or form. Arius would never have spotted Lint if Xavian hadn’t said anything.
Xavian wasn’t completely wrong in that some Lurks were hired for purposes of assassination and would kill and replace a target if necessary. Those Lurks were generally in the minority among their species. As far as Arius knew, Lint was not a cutthroat. Xavian opened his mouth again to continue his tirade, but Arius cut in before he could do so.
“What have you discovered, Lint?” Arius asked in a low voice so he wouldn’t be overheard by their fellow patrons sharing the deck.
“Your bill, sirs,” Lint replied. He tucked a neatly folded piece of parchment into Arius’ hand and was gone as quickly as he had arrived. Arius casually opened it and found a neatly flowing script written in a code that would only be decipherable to one of his own family members.
“Well?” Xavian pried.
“Not here. Let’s get back to the inn where we can speak more openly.”
Evaline paced, the apprehension causing her heart to beat thunderously inside of her ribcage. Her father’s intense shouting from outside of her bedchamber had her rattled. She had been confined to her sleeping chambers ever since she had been taken captive, and she hadn’t seen her father once in that time. She thought that maybe he had met the same fate as Brenan. The abruptness of the silence that had followed his bellowing now had her on the verge of panic.
It was true that Evaline and her father had grown distant since her mother had walked out on them. It was truer still that deep down inside she despised Jonarus for turning the other way while Brennan had abused her for years. Despite all that, he was the only family that she had left in this world, and for reasons she couldn’t herself comprehend, the thought of harm befalling him was more than she could stand. She had been dozing on her bed when the disturbance had begun.
“I demand to see my daughter. Now! I’m the rightful king here in Axion, and you terrorists cannot impede me in my own home!”
Evaline could hear Brom and Korac conferring with each other, but what they were saying was completely beyond her to make out. As usual, they were standing guard over her. In fact, they had been her only company while she awaited Lord Dregan’s arrival. Evaline was fine with that, as she was used to being alone. However, because of their company she didn’t feel lonely for the first time in ages. Although she was their prisoner, in a strange way she had grown fond of them.
Evaline enjoyed their banter, and as intimidating and brutal as they were, they had never mistreated her once. They were always bringing her treats from the kitchens or a book she requested from the libraries. Brom had even picked her flowers on one occasion. Evaline found herself looking forward to when the two of them would peek their heads in and joke with her or tease her, which they did countless times per day.
Now, though, she was reminded of the night they had come for her. The brutality in which they had dispatched Brennan haunted her dreams sometimes, and that was the image playing across her mind now. Thinking of the two creatures they had conjured brought cold sweat trickling down from between her shoulder blades and down her spine.
Evaline had tried to listen to what the two Demon Priests were saying during her father’s hoarse diatribe, but the outburst had ended almost as quickly as it had started. She had pounded on the door, screaming for either Brom or Korac to come assure her that everything was alright, but they had pointedly ignored her pleas. She continued pacing, wringing her hands together until finally after what seemed an eternity Brom stuck his head into the room.
“You have a visitor, little princess.”
“What
have you done to my father, Brom?”
“What did we do to her father, Korac?” Brom asked, mimicking Evaline’s tone.
Jonarus was shoved into the room ahead of the two Demon Priests, and Evaline gasped at what she saw. His face was a mass of bruises and cuts. He was walking with a definitive limp, too.
“Been teaching him some manners, haven’t we, Brom?”
“Think he learned his lesson, Korac?”
“I’m willing to offer up another lesson if need be.”
“Enough! I want you two out of here. Now! I‘ll speak with my father alone.”
Both Demon Priests exchanged looks, but they only hesitated a moment before bowing to her and taking their leave. As Brom was about to close the door behind him, he turned to the king and said, “Why don’t you explain to your daughter how you earned that beating, King Jonarus?”
Her father flinched and cast his eyes downward.
As the door shut, Evaline rushed to her father’s side. She pulled forth a handkerchief from her sleeve as she reached him and began dabbing at his wounds. In response, Jonarus fended her off, callously shoving her away from him.
“Oh, do stop pretending you care for me, won’t you, Evaline? We both know that besides your looks, that’s the trait you share most with your mother: your shallow indifference towards me.”
Evaline quickly suppressed the hurt welling up inside of her. She had always refused to let her emotions show to this man. It was a coping mechanism she had developed after years of staunch mistreatment and verbal abuse.
“What is it you want from me, father? Did you risk being accosted so you could come in here and harangue me one last time before I’m carted off to Dantron in chains? If so, you can save your breath, or I’ll invite my jailers back in to re-educate you.”
Dragons of Destiny Page 20
