The limp! The sight set pieces clicking into place in Ilanna’s mind. Daytin, the alchemist, had said the man who bought the Flaming Tansy had limped.
Ilanna crossed the distance to him in three quick steps and kicked his right foot out from beneath him mid-stride. His bad left leg crumpled under his weight and he collapsed with a cry.
The Hunter and Ria reached her at the same second, and they both descended upon the manservant before he could retaliate.
“I warned you!” the Hunter growled, and drove his dagger into the man’s side. The man screamed in agony, and Ilanna’s eyes flew wide at the bright red light that bloomed from the gemstone set into the pommel. But before she could shout at the Hunter that they needed the servant alive, the assassin tore the weapon free of the servant. Ilanna watched, spellbound, as the steel seemed to consume the blood staining the tip and last finger’s breadth of blade.
What the bloody hell manner of weapon is that? Once again, she couldn’t help a shudder of fear—both from the Hunter’s reputation and what she had just witnessed with her own eyes. Thank the gods he hasn’t turned that thing against us.
By the time she blinked away the unease, the Hunter had seized the servant’s collar and hauled him bodily to his feet. “Know anywhere private we can take him?” He shook the man. “Someplace where no one will hear him scream.”
Ilanna nodded. “This way.”
The manservant tried to struggle, but the Hunter drove a fist into his gut. Breath whooshed from the man’s lungs and he sagged, only to have the Hunter haul him upright by the drab brown vest and tunic once more.
“Cease your resistance,” the Hunter barked at the servant, “and you might live through this.”
The man’s face creased into a scowl. “I don’t know what you think yo—”
The Hunter gripped his face in a strong hand, cutting off his words. “We know exactly what your master and mistress are up to.”
The man’s eyes widened a fraction and in that moment, Ilanna knew their theory about the Chasteyns had been correct. That was the look of a guilty man.
“Please, you don’t understand!” The servant protested as the Hunter hauled him down the street. “I just did it to help the mistress.”
Ilanna’s gut clenched, and she hurried her steps. Two streets away, she led Ria and the Hunter through a back alley and into small brick house set a good distance from the main thoroughfare. The Night Guild owned such properties around the city—safe houses in case someone needed to lie low from the law or a rival.
The Hunter threw the manservant to the floor and loomed over him. “Explain how killing children is helping your mistress!”
“You don’t understand,” the man said again, barely above a whisper. Tears sprang into the man’s eyes, and he shook his head. “It was the only way…”
“The only way to what?” Ilanna’s voice was cold and hard as ice.
“To keep her from ending it.” The manservant’s shoulders slumped, as if someone had just hung a millstone around his neck. “She’s endured so much…she almost broke once, I couldn’t let it happen again.” He lifted his eyes and fixed her with a pleading look. “I promised her mother I would keep her safe!”
Ilanna narrowed her eyes. “Unless you want me to let my friend at you again—” She gestured to the Hunter. “—you’ll speak plainly.”
The man seemed to deflate, his posture exuding shame. “Lord Vorack Forgolan was a cruel man.” He spoke in a low, miserable voice. “A man of violent passions. He returned from the Eirdkilr War a brutal, vicious creature, seeking to inflict pain on anyone who stood in his path. In business and at home.”
Ilanna’s jaw clenched. An all-too familiar story.
“My father tried his best to shield Lady Forgolan and her daughter from the master’s rages, and after his passing, the duty fell to me.” The manservant held out his insignia, a gryphon clutching three stalks of wheat—the symbol of House Forgolan or House Chasteyn, she guessed. “But when my lady married Lord Chasteyn, she traded one cruelty for another, one violent hand for another.”
“What does this have to do with killing children?” the Hunter growled.
Ilanna held up a hand. “Let him speak.” She’d known men confess their sins out of relief at being discovered. A man’s soul could only carry so much guilt before the burden grew too much to bear.
“The day came when my lady tried to take her life.” Sorrow and shame twisted the man’s face. “Five years ago, on Maiden’s Day, while her husband entertained guests next door. A desperate act to humiliate the man that had tortured her for years. But, to my eternal regret, I honored my vow to her mother and stopped her before the knife could open her wrists. I stitched her up, nursed her back to full strength, but she had changed that day. She determined to have her vengeance, in this life if not in the next. But it would not be a quick vengeance, nor a painless death. She would make Lord Chasteyn suffer for years as he had made her suffer. Banshee’s Bite was her weapon.”
Ilanna recognized the name—Banshee’s Bite was a slow-acting toxin that built up in the heart, lungs, and blood vessels, suffocating its victims to a lingering death over the course of a year or more.
“But Lord Chasteyn uncovered the deceit after just a few days, and when he confronted my lady, they fought and she killed him.” He shivered, as if reliving a horrible memory. “So much blood. More blood than I’d ever believed possible. I barely recognized my master after what she did to him.”
Ilanna didn’t need to imagine it; she had a similar memory, from the time she’d killed Sabat. The Bloodbear apprentice had more than deserved his cruel death, poisoned and slain by the same knife he’d used to kill Ethen. She had hacked and stabbed at him until his body barely resembled the fat, cruel-featured boy that had laid hands on her.
“Let me guess.” The Hunter’s voice held a scornful edge. “She developed a taste for killing.”
The manservant nodded again. “She was changed after that day. Gone was the fearful daughter and terrified wife. In her place was the Lady Chasteyn I’d hoped she would grow up to be once free of her father’s shadow.” His face paled. “She laughed, sitting in that pool of her husband’s blood. Laughed, and smiled! As if she’d just sampled a fine wine.”
The Hunter’s scowl deepened. “Some people are born broken, while others are broken by the ones closest to them.”
“Yes!” The manservant latched on to the words, as if they held hope. “She cannot help herself, the need to kill. It was beaten into her by first her father than her husband. She is ill, and I have done everything I can to help her.”
The Hunter sneered. “By killing children. Some help you are!”
“She would have killed them anyway,” the manservant protested. “I found her standing over the body of one of her Bluejackets, her hands still clasped around the boy’s throat. When I saw the suffering in the child’s face, the horror in his still-open eyes, I almost summoned the Praamian Guards right there. But I had promised her mother that I would let nothing harm her. I had failed with Lord Chasteyn, but I could stop her from harming herself.”
The man’s words sickened Ilanna, yet she could understand that blind devotion to a loved one. She’d done horrible things in the name of saving Kodyn, then saving him when she’d believed him dead.
But that doesn’t excuse what he did. Nothing will ever atone for that. He had crossed too many lines to be redeemed.
“So was she the one that poisoned the children, or was yours the hand that delivered the dose?” the Hunter demanded.
“I tried for months to convince my lady to fight her urges, to seek help from the Sanctuary, the Illusionist Clerics, anyone who could help to repair her broken mind.” More tears streamed down the manservant’s face. “But when I saw she could not be restrained, I did the only thing I could. I tried to ease the suffering of her victims.”
“The Night Petal,” Ilanna said. “A quick killer.”
“Yes.” The manservant nodd
ed. “One drop was all it took. Within hours, the child would slip into unconsciousness, never to wake again. A painless death, and I would be following, ready to take them to a quick burial. It was the best I could do for the ones my mistress chose to kill.”
The Hunter bared his teeth in a snarl and seized the man by the collar. “Or you could have stopped her yourself!” His voice rose to a shout. “Instead, you not only let her keep killing, you helped her!”
“And when the time comes, I will answer to the Long Keeper for my choices.” A hint of defiance sparked in the man’s eyes. “But I will look the god of death in the eye and tell him that I did what I did to protect the ones I love.”
“Then I hope you’re prepared for your final judgement,” the Hunter rumbled. “Your time has come.” He seized the manservant’s head in his hands and twisted hard. The man’s spine gave a loud snap and he sagged, limp.
For a moment, Ilanna could only stare in shocked silence at the corpse. “Watcher take you, Hunter!” she cursed. “He still had information we needed!”
“No.” The Hunter shook his head. “He told us everything we needed to know.”
“Like how bloody Lord Chasteyn is somehow alive after his wife murdered him years ago?” Ria stepped up beside Ilanna and jabbed a finger at the Hunter. “How can you explain that?”
A cold smile spread the Hunter’s lips. “Simple. Lord Chasteyn is dead, and a demon wears his face.”
Ilanna recoiled as his face began to shift, contorting like maggots crawling across a carcass, and his dark, scarred features changed to those of the manservant.
“It is no difficult task,” he said in the dead man’s voice. Muscle and bone in his face moved, twisted again, until finally the Hunter’s face stared back at her. “When I first met Lady Chasteyn, she invited me to a party celebrating her husband’s return from a pilgrimage to Shalandra. The Gatherers are from Shalandra, and they serve the demon’s bidding. That could easily explain Lord Chasteyn’s prolonged absence and still connects him to the Gatherers.”
Ilanna frowned in thought. “If she’s been killing, why haven’t more bodies been found?”
“They have.” The Hunter shook his head. “According to my contacts, five children, all the same age as the Bluejacket in Old Town Market, appeared in the Field of Mercy.”
Ilanna’s gut clenched. She had bad history with the Field of Mercy—she’d lost two of her dearest friends to the ravenous quicksand.
It would serve as the perfect dumping ground for bodies, for both the Gatherers and Lady Chasteyn’s victims, she thought. They would never be found again. Only the gods knew how many criminals were buried beneath the thick mud.
“But if they were dumping bodies in the Field of Mercy, why would they suddenly stop?” she asked.
“I think I know the answer to that,” Ria said. “Yesterday I overheard a couple of Foxes talking about heightened security in Watcher’s Square and around the palace. Something about twice as many Praamian Guards, though no one seems to know why.”
Ilanna grimaced. I know why. On her last visit to the King, she’d thrown a salty comment at Duke Phonnis mocking his Praamian Guards. He’d taken her jibe to “do something about” security measures to heart, it seemed.
The Hunter spoke up. “But if the Gatherers and Holtan here couldn’t dump the bodies in the Field of Mercy, they’d have to find a new dumping spot. Which explains why they chose the alleys and sewers.”
“And why they left the Bluejacket’s body in Old Town Market,” Ilanna put in. Kytos’ words flashed through her mind. They’d found the child dying from Lady Chasteyn’s poison, doubtless snatching him up before Holtan could collect his body—or the message to Baronet Wyvern. At Lord Chasteyn’s command, the Gatherers had dumped the dead or dying boy into the alley. “The Flaming Tansy claimed him before they could dose him with Night Petal.”
The Hunter bared his teeth, fury blazing in his eyes. “The bastards deserved a far crueler fate than just death.”
“If the legends of that dagger are true,” Ilanna said, thrusting a chin at Soulhunger, “their souls are suffering in one of the hells.”
The Hunter glanced down at his dagger, then nodded. “True. But they will not suffer alone. Lord and Lady Chasteyn must taste the Watcher’s justice this day.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The smell of demon hung thick and sickening in the empty house. The manservant reeked of rot and decay, the odor so strong the Hunter was surprised he hadn’t detected it when he encountered Holtan in the House of Mercy. Or when he encountered Lady Chasteyn, for that matter. Only the overwhelming amber, cinnamon, musk, and candied flowers of the noblewoman’s perfume had kept him from smelling it.
But he’d found the demon now, of that he had no doubt. Everything pointed to the Chasteyns—Lady Chasteyn the murderer of the Bluejackets, and Lord Chasteyn as the Abiarazi and the leader of the Gatherers. All that remained was to track them down and mete out the punishment they deserved.
“Hold on.” Ilanna stepped between him and the door. “We can’t just go storming into a nobleman’s mansion in broad daylight.”
The Hunter snorted. “You might not be able to, but—”
“If this demon is as hard to kill as you say he is, don’t you think it’s stupid to fight him and his household guards?” Ilanna cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, and any of the Duke’s Arbitors he might have hired to protect him?”
“How many?” The Hunter folded his arms. “Ten, twenty?” He’d faced and defeated far worse odds than that.
Ilanna fixed him with a deadpan stare. “Are you really trying to tell me you’re that good?”
The Hunter said nothing, simply shrugged.
Ilanna rolled her eyes. “Be that as it may, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather play this one smart.”
“What are you proposing?”
“We pay the Chasteyns a visit, but only after I’m sure we’re not going to run into a small army.” Ilanna gestured to Ria. “My people will keep the Arbitors and the household guards busy so we can get in and face the Chasteyns in person.”
“And what makes you think they’ll even be there?” the Hunter asked. “If the Chasteyns know about the Gatherers or suspect that we’re on to them—”
“You saw how their servant was strolling up to the orphanage.” The Guild Master shook her head. “Did you get even the slightest hint of nervousness or fear from him?”
The Hunter considered the question. Holtan hadn’t seemed nervous or fearful, and given how much he cared for his mistress, he’d be the first one to know if the Chasteyns were afraid for their lives or preparing to flee. “No,” he said finally.
“Which means the Chasteyns can’t know that we’re coming for them.” The Guild Master drove the point home. “So we’ve got time to do it right, to get in without tipping the Chasteyns off until we’re ready to take them down.”
“Take them down?” The Hunter cocked an eyebrow. “So you’re not suggesting we drag them in front of the King for summary judgement?”
The Guild Master snorted. “Why would I ever suggest such a thing? The Chasteyns have given me too much trouble to trust them to the King’s court. Besides, if Lord Chasteyn really is a demon, do you truly believe the Praamian Guards or Arbitors could handle him?”
“Not even a little.” The Hunter allowed a little smile to spread his lips. “I just wanted to see where you stood.”
A dagger appeared in Ilanna’s hand with a deftness that surprised him. “I want my city cleansed of this filth, today!” Fire flashed in her eyes.
“Good.” The Hunter nodded. “Then we will play it your way. How long do you and your people need?”
Ilanna shot a glance at Ria. “The Serpents should be here at any moment. Once they arrive, we can be ready to move within the hour.”
One hour, eh? The Hunter pursed his lips. He’d been so focused on finding the demon in Praamis he hadn’t given much thought as to how to deal with the thing once he did.
>
Until Enarium, he would have driven Soulhunger into the demon’s heart and laughed as the creature died screaming. Now, with the promise he’d made to feed Kharna, he couldn’t afford to kill the Abiarazi. Their life force—the energy that coursed within their bodies, the source of their inhuman abilities—was far too valuable in the Serenii’s fight to keep the Devourer of Worlds from breaking into Einan. He had to find another solution to deal with the demon that didn’t involve killing.
He stifled a snort. Easier said than done. Abiarazi had proven notoriously hard to kill, and trying to take one alive could prove paramount to suicide.
Unless, of course, he had the right tools for the job. The Swordsman’s blades might be in the House of Need in Voramis, but perhaps there was another solution.
“Allow me to make one request of your people before we go. An…unusual one, but vital to put an end to the creature we will face.”
Ilanna cocked an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
“What I’ll need is…”
* * *
The Hunter shot a glance at Ilanna, crouched beside him in the shadow of an overhanging rooftop. “How much longer?” he growled. He’d acceded to the Guild Master’s plan, knowing it would make his mission to take down the demon easier, but he chafed at the delay. If anything went wrong and the demon evaded him here…
“Two minutes,” Ilanna hissed back. “Just waiting for the Serpents’ signal.”
The Hunter ground his teeth. “Your people have what I need?” he asked.
Ilanna jerked a thumb at the huge blonde man—she’d called him Jarl. Jarl shook his sack, and a satisfying clink of metal echoed from within.
“Good.” The Hunter nodded. “Keep them at hand for when I subdue the demon.”
He turned his focus back to scrutinizing the mansion that was their target. His eyes roamed the building and found only the exact same details he’d been studying for the last half hour.
From his position atop the roof of a four-story mansion, he had an unobstructed view of the Chasteyns’ mansion. It was a larger, richer property, with tall trees, perfectly manicured lawns, and a four-tiered stone fountain in the paved stone courtyard. The building itself rose just three stories off the ground, but it covered more surface area than the rest of the properties around it. Evidently the wishleaf trade was more lucrative than the Hunter knew.
Darkblade Justice: An Epic Fantasy Murder Mystery (Hero of Darkness Book 7) Page 28
