Death's Reckoning (20 page)

Jerrod made the promise to himself that if Zandor ever ordered him around again, he would stab him through the heart.

Chapter Twelve

The chase continued up and down the streets of Sea Haven, Giorgio’s one and only home, the only city he had ever set foot in. He’d grown up on the streets, knew every one in every neighborhood, every hiding place fit for a thief, every nook and corner anyone could squeeze into.

The men chasing him seemed to know it better. They cut him off at every turn, two steps ahead of him no matter what route he tried. It was uncanny.

Even without his new powers, the heightened senses, preternatural agility and eye hand coordination, he should have been able to lose them with ease, yet they remained right on top of him, a moment later coming out of the darkness like ghosts.

The former thief stopped and hid behind a garbage dumpster. His endurance was much improved. He’d run harder and longer than ever, but still his lungs were strained to break.

He kept his back tight against the dumpster, and the dog curled at his feet, panting. A moment later the garbled rumblings of the foreign men’s language reached his ears, and Giorgio cursed under his breath. This wasn’t possible.

There were two of them. The outlines of their heat signatures pulsed beyond the building they stood behind, talking together. Giorgio sprang out from behind the trash box and tossed a loose stone at them in the process. They grunted in surprise. One of them raised an arm to bat away the flying projectile, and they charged after him down a side street. He and the dog ran as fast as possible.

The man who spoke with Giorgio the most ran the other four, shouting orders, and coordinating them along in their well-aimed attacks.

Giorgio decided to stop playing their game and try a different tactic. He hit the next corner, and crouched down by the side of the wall. The dog latched on to his side, close and ready. The foreign men made their first mistake as they kept running full tilt. They sprinted by his spot, one turned his head to shout, but it was too late.

There were two daggers in the air and a third coming before the man ever opened his mouth. The first struck his shoulder and made him spin, which was fortunate because the next missed his throat by a hair’s breadth.

The second man, by a seeming miracle, had his cutlass out and blocked the third dagger, but Giorgio and his pet were already on the attack. The hound went for the wounded man while the thief pulled out a short sword and an extra dagger and went hard at the other man.

Giorgio gritted his teeth and ghosted himself; turning on his supernatural abilities to their maximum effect. His skin grew paler, his hair thinned, his senses and agility became sharper, his muscles and speed greater, greater than his opponent’s, who was backing up to avoid the onslaught.

The former thief from the streets yelled in rage. His voice a harsh echo of humanity, a shrieking call from a damned mind. He pounded his short sword down, again and again, over and over, with no discernible regard for tactics or skill. He stabbed his dagger in from the side in a garish, repetitive act of rage.

The man lived through the initial assault, and Giorgio’s tortured mind was aghast at the idea that his opponent was not carved from groin to shoulder and bleeding out on the street with his guts hanging over his legs. His scimitar was a poor weapon for defense, yet the man was skilled enough to survive where most men would have fallen. Giorgio managed to slip in a decent stab with his dagger on the man’s side, but it wasn’t enough to kill.

Given more time he might have finished him but it wasn’t to be.

The dog growled, and the injured man shouted in anger in his foreign tongue. Whether the words were meant for his partner or out of pure frustration Giorgio would never know.

The man before him wheezed, perhaps his lung was punctured, and backed away. Giorgio pressed his attack and didn’t give the man a moment’s rest, stabbing and slashing with wild abandon. But there were shouts behind him. The others were coming. Time to run once more.

His direct opponent shouted back, and the voices responded. This interaction spurred his opponent on to a more aggressive stance, and he fought with renewed vigor, attacking once again. He stepped to the side making Giorgio turn his body towards the yelling voices.

Giorgio let out a grunt of frustration and broke off his attack. All of them would be on him in seconds. He sent out a mental command to the dog, and off they went again straight across the cobblestoned street. There was no sense hiding anymore. His only chance was getting help. There might’ve been a place to get it.

* * * * *

Sleep would not come.

The nightmares hounded her every moment, too much to allow her body to. Madam Dreary believed she was going mad.

The last couple of hours were spent tossing back and forth on her luxurious bed. The red silk crumpled up around her shivering body. Her mind twisted, turned, and gnawed on her sensibilities, always on, always there, never allowing her a moment’s peace. This never happened.

Haunting images of blood and mangled flesh clouded her uppermost thoughts, careening in front of her eyes even when they were open as if they were happening at that very moment. No matter what she did, no matter where she looked, they haunted her, lingering and tormenting her every second. In her room the images were stronger as if that were the location of their origin. She left her bed and strolled about what had once been a place of joy and solace, but was now part of her waking nightmare.

Soft moans of pleasure came from behind the curtained doorways, and one scream of ecstasy elicited a grin from Madam Dreary, but it was short lived. The image of a man, cut from hip bone to hip bone, his eviscerated guts hanging out of his abdomen, appeared before her eyes, so real and visceral she staggered.

She let out a gasp and moaned, covering her mouth with a shaking hand. She closed her eyes, but the image remained. His insides slipped out and covered his legs, dripping down to the ground as his face went slack. Somehow he remained standing like a marionettes’ puppet being forced to die on its feet.

It was Jon who was dying. His face, his sweet innocent face, twisted in agony as his life fled from his body. It wasn’t fair. A sweet man like him deserved to live, to have a life of fulfillment. One didn’t often find such a man in Murder Haven.

The image faded, and she went slack, still on her feet but feeling numb and sick, confused and afraid, the disastrous portent shaking her hard. Distraught, the madam sought out a modicum of solace in the kitchen. Her favorite chair propped against the simple table near the rear door.

A new cask of wine perhaps promised the vestiges of her pain, so immediate, would be sloughed off by the dull ache of drunkenness. It helped. Soon the liquid death stole into her body and relaxed her body and mind.

A shout erupted the tranquil scene, and Madam Dreary blinked as incredible, irrational fear struck. Her heart beat so fast, it might’ve exploded within her breast.

She ran from the kitchen towards the commotion. Her throat tight and breathing labored. The voices of her girls and a few security personnel become more and more agitated. It wasn’t so late that the common room wouldn’t be full with guests.

Madam Dreary pulled up short when she entered the room. A questioning retort died on her lips. A strange looking man screamed, surrounded by a few employees, girls, security, even a clean-up man. All of them were attempting to calm him down.

But the stranger did not listen. He was very frightening, in both demeanor and appearance, and Madam Dreary felt a tug at her consciousness prompting her to help him at all costs. Somehow she felt both a kinship with him and recognition with his shifting form. He couldn’t stop moving around, bouncing back and forth from one person to the next, screaming at them to listen.

There was a dog too. T animal was mangy and filthy, and it triggered another level of recognition. Dreary tried to fight through the web of haze and mental dissolution.

The man was dirty and dishelmed. Something about his skin and limp grayish hair scared her, and the dog was no better. It was feral, with a scrubby coat and bloodshot eyes. The man kept repeating the same phrases over and over like the mad. Maybe he was an escaped lunatic from Sea Haven Asylum.

“They’re coming! Understand, they are coming, you fools! Help me! Do you understand? They are coming!”

Madam Dreary stepped, even as one of her security men put a hand up to block her, recognizing something in the madman’s voice. She knew this man, and the sudden predication to help him became overwhelming.

“Giorgio? Giorgio, is that you?” She peered closer and held her breath. “My… my god, that is you! What has happened?”

She waved off the guardsmen who interposed themselves between her and the man once known as a friend and companion, but they stood their ground too afraid of the strange man screaming in front of them all.

“No,” she said and pushed one man back. “Help this man. Put your weapons down. Bring this man something to eat. Can’t you see he’s starving near to death!”

They didn’t move. She struck them with her hands, slapping one man on the face.

“Move! Get going, all of you, and help this man!”

Some of them obeyed if not to satisfy her anger. Giorgio turned his manic attention on her, and she was almost knocked back by his bestial energy. The stricken man grabbed her shoulders, and she winced at the icy cold of his flesh and the iron strength of the grip.

“You,” he said and his slimy dog sniffed at her legs. “I know you. Madam… Madam something. Dearie… that’s it.”

She tried to pull his hands off her shoulders, but they were like gnarled oak crunching against a bed of flowers. “It’s Madam Dreary, love. Giorgio, you’re hurting me. I will help you, but ye must let go of me for one moment.”

He nodded, blinking his eyes and along with the assistance of one of her security men, she pried his fingers off. Giorgio closed his eyes, shook his head, and the dog growled. Then he bellowed, the voice a harsh grating spark of rage, and he pushed the man away from him and ran down the hall, screaming and hollering as if demons from hell chased him. The dog ran after him.

Madam Dreary was so stunned, so appalled by the condition of Giorgio, and the speed by which it happened, she found herself frozen to the spot. It was impossible to move an inch.

* * * * *

Two more days. Two more days until the ultimatum was up at least according to a hired thug whose only job was to beat Muldor.

But there was no reason to doubt someone was coming to collect the debt, and that they would come to him alone. The Guild’s list of allies was dwindling. Some of his informants gave him grave news. There were machinations going on behind him that boded ill for them.

He walked with his heavy grey robes bundled about his shoulders like a second skin, so familiar that he would have sooner shaved his head then part with them. They were his armor, his personal, recognizable totem that everyone knew him by. His reputation was his signature. Everyone knew him. Everyone liked him, even his enemies, or so was his assumption. It was unthinkable that people would conspire to fulfill his doom.

Cutter was where the old man always was, cooped up in his cavernous den among the hundreds and hundreds of boxes, a labyrinthine expanse of twisting, winding, rounding edges. Muldor had no trouble navigating its environs and soon stood face to face with Cutter in the center of it all, the space cleared away of everything save a lone desk.

The old curmudgeon frowned at Muldor as if he had strangled his only child and put his pen down. Muldor pictured himself in Cutter’s place, old, bent and hunched over his desk with the same disgusted look on his face. It was the future of another time, another life.

“I’m busy, Muldor.”

“Everyone’s busy in this city. There is no need to remind me of your particular set of responsibilities.”

Cutter’s eyes narrowed, and he sat back. “What are you playing at? I have no time for trivialities I assure you.”

“Neither do I. Our time grows short. Both The Guild and the city are facing the greatest peril they have known, greater than even the recent attack brought against our shores. We must pay a substantial amount, part of which you are responsible for due to your personal compliance in Castellan’s attempted coup. We lack the military and political might to repel another attack, and without a regent to the crown, we have no choice but to pay.”

Cutter looked like he was chewing on something dead and decaying. He smacked his lips and sighed. “How far you have fallen. It is almost painful to see.”

Muldor raised an eyebrow. “How is that?”

Cutter sat forward and addressed Muldor like he would a simple child. “Muldor, no regent will ever come to this city, not as long as you are in charge of The Merchants Guild. I was hoping you would know of this through your own avenue of information, but your people are weak and ineffectual. Quit the Guild, and you can go back to your clerical duties. Continue down this path and utter ruin shall be yours.” He shrugged and picked up his pen and went back to writing.

Muldor couldn’t comprehend any of what was said. He was the head of The Guild. No one in existence could do a better job than he; no one alive cared more for The Guild and its continued, prosperous reign.