Weapon of Blood (16 page)

Mya had broken a mirror and cut herself
on some of the pieces.  He thought about the old superstition about bad luck. 
Could
that be what had her upset this morning?
  He had not thought she was given
to such silly notions, but he filed that bit of information away with the other
innumerable details he had learned about her, and went back to pondering their
conversation.

What was she hiding?
  There was no way to know, but he felt sure it had
something to do with Vonlith’s death.  And if she was so determined to hide it
from him, then it must be important.

Mya’s right about one thing,
he thought,
there are levels of trust
.  And
although Mya had not betrayed him once to his knowledge since the death of the
Grandfather, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t if given the proper incentive.

Lad made a decision; he had to learn more
about Vonlith’s death.  Unfortunately, he could only think of one source for
that information.

Lad flowed from shadow to shadow, silent
and invisible, as he made his way through the elegant neighborhoods north of
the river.  He knew these streets as he knew the rest of Twailin, but in the
past five years, he had avoided this area.  The affluent neighborhoods of Hightown
and The Bluff were where he had become the Grandfather’s unwilling harbinger of
death.   Coming here brought visions of those assassinations, of victims
five-years-dead, ghosting into his mind.

Lad had thought all day about this.  On the
one hand, Wiggen’s question was valid; what did Vonlith’s death have to do with
him?  And Mya was right, too; he should be pleased that there was now one less
person alive who could betray him.  Besides, Norwood thought Lad was dead.  If
Lad’s curiosity changed that, would the guard captain renew the hunt for him?

But Mya’s reaction that morning had
disturbed him.  She was hiding something, something to do with Vonlith.  There
was only one place he might find answers, and he had calculated that his need
for those answers outweighed the risk of Norwood discovering his identity. 
Getting in to talk to the man, however, was not without problems.  He could not
afford to let anyone identify him.  If they did…

I’m not here to kill anyone
, he reminded himself.  
I’m just here to talk
. 

Part of the risk was his own fault.  To
placate Lad, Mya had posted Hunters to watch over the captain.  He would have
to avoid them to get into the townhouse unseen.

So where are they
?

Ducking behind an ornate marble pillar,
he examined the stately row of homes across the street.  Though far more
opulent than any neighborhood south of the river, the buildings in this area
were a step down, both literally and figuratively, from the palatial mansions
farther up the hill.  The nobles of Twailin evidently wanted the captain of the
Royal Guard to be near them, but not among them.

He crept closer, scanning the shadows and
straining his senses, his bare feet silent against the slick cobbles.  It was
well past midnight, and the streets were deserted.  The rains had slacked to a
bare drizzle.  The flickering street lamps barely penetrated the darkness,
gleaming in well-defined halos of light.

Slowly, silently, he edged forward.

The faint, rhythmic thud of a heartbeat
in the darkness a few steps ahead froze him in his tracks.  He had found the
first of Mya’s watchers.  A faint scent identified the watcher as a woman. 
Staring into the shadow of an elaborate topiary hedge, he resolved her outline;
she was not completely invisible.  She was good, though, utterly quiet and
breathing slowly, her eyes sweeping back and forth, scanning the row of
townhouses.  He took a moment to admire her skill before slipping away to find
another path toward his goal.

Gauging her angle of view, he guessed
where the next watcher would be.  He didn’t know how many Mya had placed, but
her resources were not so vast that she would dedicate more than two or three. 
The woman watched the front of the house from an angle.  He assumed that there
would be one more on this side, and found the man not far away, hunkered high
up beneath the awning of a balcony.

The front was well watched.

The captain’s townhouse stood in the
middle of a row of buildings with shared sidewalls, so only the front and back
were exposed.  The block’s inner courtyard had entrances at each corner.  Lad
slipped beneath an archway and scrutinized the courtyard from deep shadow.  The
flower beds, hedges, and trees were so pruned and manicured that they looked
artificial.  There he spotted a third Hunter pacing the rooftop of the building
across the courtyard with a clear view of the back of Norwood’s home.

Lad eased forward.  If he could time his
entry, he might be able to slip inside when the watcher made his turn. 
Movement in the shadows ahead froze him in mid-step.  On the back doorstep lay
an enormous mastiff, its collar linked by a heavy chain to the railing post. 
As if it sensed his gaze, the dog raised its head.  Lad cursed silently.  Dogs
were a problem.  He could evade the perceptions of any man or woman, and even
an elf or gnome, but he could not hide his scent from a dog.  Any closer and it
would surely bark.  Slowly, he retraced his steps.

Lad reconsidered the two Hunters watching
the front.  They were positioned well, but no eyes could watch everywhere at
once.  The Hunters were probably bored and not as vigilant as they should be. 
That was good.  He slipped across the street again and analyzed the front of
the townhouse.

The structure was built of quarried
stone, polished smooth and set so close that the seams between the stones were
too thin for any kind of climbing device.  Tall bay windows protruded from each
of the three stories, casting a narrow shadow from the nearest streetlight,
though the light’s hooded fixture cut the illumination just above the highest
window.  Entering through a window was out of the question; shuttered and no
doubt locked, they were in plain view of Mya’s Hunters.

Looking up, above where the hooded
streetlight illuminated the structure, Lad finally found his point of entry.  Each
home in the row had a peaked roof with ornate eaves.  Above the third story,
the stone gave way to a low, triangular section of wooden shakes.  Set among
the shakes, directly above the center window, was a louvered ventilation
grate.  The grate wasn’t made to open, but it could probably be removed with
minor coaxing.  With no moonlight from above, and none reaching up from the
streetlight below, the grate was virtually invisible from the street.

Reaching back, Lad checked the small
pouch of tools he had strapped to the small of his back, ensuring that they
would not rattle.

Good
.

A shadow among shadows, he eased back
around the corner, out of view of the two Hunters, and made his move.

With a quick flip, he was over the
wrought iron fence of the corner townhouse and back into the shadows.  He froze
and listened.  Nothing had changed.  His invisibility was intact.

He leapt to the sill of a ground-floor
window and sprang up to the heavy metal brackets supporting the corner
downspout.  With a quick hop, he gripped the bottom sill of the second floor
bay window.  He scrambled up like a spider and launched himself again to grasp
the downspout brackets, and gained the third floor window.  Pulling himself up,
he edged back into the shadows.

Pause.  Breathe.  Listen.
  He heard nothing out of the ordinary, and looked up
to the ornate roof eaves. 
Now for the tricky bit.

The eaves were less than six feet from
the top of the window, and the downspout, only four feet to his right, arched
up to the corner of the building.  The eaves jutted out about two feet.  He
would have to grasp the edge of the roof and flip himself up.  Two things could
cause problems: rotten wood and moss-covered shingles.  Either one could send
him plummeting three floors to the street.

Fear…  It was there, niggling at him,
reminding him of all he had to lose.  For five years now he’d lived with his
emotions freed from the magic that had made him a slave.  He’d gained more than
he’d lost, certainly, and had learned to deal with the fear.

All or nothing
, he thought, committing his mind to the maneuver.

Lad launched himself into the night,
grasped the outer rim of the eaves, and flipped up and over.  No rotten wood
and no slick moss.  He landed like a dark bird upon the smooth slate shingles.

Stop.  Breathe.  Listen.

No sign that he had been spotted, and the
light from the hooded street lamps didn’t reach this high.

Perfect!

He moved along the edge of the roof,
keeping low and watching to make sure he didn’t silhouette himself against any
lights for the Hunter across the courtyard.  He reached Norwood’s roof, climbed
to the peak, stretched himself flat along the shingles, and edged out to peer
down.  He could not see the watcher on the balcony, for the awning blocked his
view, and the woman at street level scanned only from side to side.  Even if she
looked up, she probably wouldn’t see him.

Probably.

The attic vent was directly below, but
still out of reach.  The shakes around it looked too slick and thin to provide
any grip or support, but he might be able to grasp the louvers of the grating
itself.  Lad gauged the distance from the edge—about four feet—and the timbers supporting
the eaves—solid enough—and the angle between the two.  Yes, this would work…if
he didn’t slip and fall to his death.

He looked down, and the fear edged up
from his stomach. 
Fear is a good thing
, he reminded himself. 
Fear
keeps you alive.  Just don’t let it paralyze you
.

Lad flipped up to sit on the peak of the
roof with his back to the street, reached into the pack of tools, withdrew a
wide-bladed chisel, and put it between his teeth.  Positioning his fingers at
the roof edge, he extended his legs out straight in front of him, and pressed
himself up until only his fingertips and his heels touched the roof.  Slowly, he
moved his body out over the void, leaning in to keep his center of balance over
his hands, his heels dragging along the roof until the backs of his knees were just
above the edge of the roof.  With one slow, steadying breath, he let himself fall.

His calves slapped hard against the roof,
and his upper body swung down into empty space.  His legs slid outward an inch,
then his swing pulled him back toward the face of the townhouse and the
grating.  At the peak of his swing, Lad arched his back and reached backward to
grasp the louvers of the grating.  The wood creaked, but did not break.

Glancing down, he checked the Hunters,
but neither had moved.  Lad got to work.

As he’d hoped, the grate was decorative
rather than secure, nothing but a thin wooden frame nailed to a stout timber casing. 
Thrusting the chisel into the tiny gap between the frame and the casing, he
pried the grate away.  A nail squeaked as it moved in its wooden sheath.

Slowly.  Patience.  Haste is your
enemy.  Remember!

Bit by bit, Lad loosened the louvered
grate, pausing periodically to check the two watchers.  Eventually, the grate
came loose, and he swung free, hanging by his knees from the roof.  Lad put the
chisel between his teeth, and swung himself back to grasp the edge of the
aperture.  He craned his neck to peer into the space within.  A dusty, dirty
attic greeted him.

Perfect.

Making sure he had a good grip, he let go
with his legs, swinging down and absorbing the impact against the side of the
building on the balls of his feet.  He pulled himself up, placed the grating
inside, and slipped through.

The attic was a vast, empty space with
only a framework of joists supporting the lath and plaster ceiling below.  To
Lad’s right, he spied a trapdoor with a built-in folding ladder that would
extend when the door was lowered.  It was rigged with a counterweight so it
could be easily closed from below.

Effortlessly balancing his way across the
joists, Lad dropped flat and pressed his ear to the trapdoor.  He heard
nothing, but lack of sound didn’t mean that someone wasn’t there.  He knew that
trapdoors like this one generally opened into closets or hallways, so this one
probably wouldn’t open right over Captain Norwood’s bed.