The Assassin and the Knight

by Rick Bonogofsky

  “Want me to bring something back for you once I find it?” Adrian asked. “A coin, a book, a bone for you to chew on in your office?”

  The curator’s unamused look was all the response Adrian was going to get, as the werewolf turned and walked away.

  “I thought dogs were such happy creatures?” Adrian quipped to himself. With the required information in mind, he left the museum and found a taxi to take him to the lake. Being on Earth and having the local currency certainly had its advantages.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Adrian hiked through the forest around Lacul Vidra, the small lake where Scholomance was reportedly located. He slipped between two trees and came to the edge of a cliff overlooking the lake. Standing on a high cliff, he was able to survey his surroundings, taking in the scenery. The sight was much more beautiful than he would have thought. As he looked out over the landscape, he spotted what looked at first like a rocky outcropping further down the southern edge of the lake. A thin line of smoke wafted upward from the stone, causing Adrian to think it may have been a building instead.

  “That should be a good place to start looking,” he mentioned to himself. He climbed down from his high perch and started making his way through the woods toward the building. The cool air in the mountains made the demon pull his cloak tighter as he walked, and his breath came out in puffs of steam. The woods around him seemed to close in, threatening to block his path. There was obvious spell work in place, that much Adrian could feel. His eyes picked up the subtle waves in the air around him, cluing him in to the palpable magical energies that permeated the area. He knew he was getting closer. Finally, after nearly an hour of walking, the trees gave way to a large clearing, in the center of which sat a squat building made to look like a pile of boulders. The thin line of smoke that had caught Adrian’s attention was still rising from a masterfully hidden chimney, and the demon could smell the faint scent of burning pine. The building looked to be only about thirty feet wide and maybe twenty feet deep. The whole thing rose only fifteen feet high, suggesting the bulk of the fabled school must have been underground. Undaunted, Adrian strode up to the thick wooden door and gave a heavy knock. He waited only a moment before a panel in the door slid open, revealing a pair of brown eyes peeking from under heavy lids.

  “Who are you?” the man behind the door asked sharply.

  “My name is Adrian, son of Dante, king of Hell,” the assassin replied. The words fell from his lips against his bidding. He quickly realized he was within the area of a spell that compelled him to tell the truth. “I am an assassin by trade and have come seeking the aid of a human wizard.”

  The old man behind the door paused, considering his words carefully. “What do you want, demon?” he finally asked.

  Adrian pushed his cloak off of his right shoulder to reveal the stump. “I severed my arm to keep from being consumed by my own magic and would like help in reattaching it. How it is reattached is of little importance to me, just so long as I have the use of my right arm again, be it necromancy or proper healing.”

  “No,” the old man stated and shut the panel. Adrian could hear him stomping away.

  He gave another heavy knock and hear the old man say something impolite before stomping back. The panel slid open again.

  “Go away,” the old man hissed. “I will not help you!”

  Annoyed, Adrian toyed with the notion of stabbing the man through the door. “Please, I need help and I have come a very long way. I came in search of Scholomance hoping to find someone who could help me.”

  The old man’s eyes widened at the mention of the fabled school. “How do you know that name?” he asked fearfully.

  “I heard it from one of my contacts, an increasingly repugnant man in Athens, Greece, who I wish was dead. He told me about the fabled school and it piqued my interest. I came out here to find it, hoping to find some human who was powerful enough with magic to fix me. Is this Scholomance or not?”

  The panel slid shut and Adrian felt as if he would draw his sword to storm the building before he heard the heavy locks being moved out of place. The door opened and Adrian stared at the old man’s wizened face. He looked to be well over a hundred years old, and stood hunched over from age. His eyes, however, were as clear as a younger man’s, belying the alertness hidden beneath the decrepit visage.

  “You have come to the right place, then,” the old man stated flatly. His annoyed tone spoke volumes about how much he disliked strangers in his home. Adrian stepped into the warm abode and looked around, a habit he had picked up during his training. The place was warm and inviting, despite the host’s attitude. A fire burned in the hearth, warming the large common room. Comfortable furniture was situated around the hearth, and several young humans sat in some of the chairs. They looked up and paused in their activities to stare at the demon as he walked by. Adrian stared back and came to the conclusion that they recognized him for what he was. At the far end of the room was a set of large double doors.

  “They know what I am?” he asked.

  “The red eyes and strange clothes kind of give you away, boy,” the old man grunted. Adrian nodded at that, and followed the old man to an empty room off of the main entryway. He motioned for the demon to sit as he flipped a switch, bathing the room in a soft, warm glow. Adrian seated himself while the old man took a seat across from him.

  As the old man got settled in his seat, he asked, “So, what makes you think we’ll just fix you up and send you on your way?”

  Adrian paused before he answered. “Well, I actually had not thought that far ahead. I expected this search to take much longer than it did, and I certainly never expected to find anything like this place. I just wanted to find one human wizard to help me.”

  “What do you have in mind for compensation?” the old man inquired.

  Adrian shrugged. “No idea. I feel I can offer a trade of some sort, or maybe a favor. It may come in handy having a prince of Hell in your debt.”

  The old man nodded, agreeing that such an idea was indeed tempting. “It may be useful to us. Let me sleep on it. I will meet with my peers in the morning and we will make a decision. We do not give aid lightly, nor do we enjoy dealing with demons. Some of us remember what your people did to ours during the war.” He left the subtle warning float in the air between them before standing again. “Come, I will fetch someone to show you to a room where you can stay for the night.”

  Ariel paced in her apartment, which was now the new headquarters for Adrian’s team of assassins while they were on Earth. Her frustration was plainly evident on her face as she glared at the demons. They were trying to be respectful of her home, but they still made a mess of the place. Only two of the six were in the apartment now, and they were busying themselves with preparations for the upcoming battle. Zhun sharpened her short swords, while Vurga honed his axe.

  “When is this battle supposed to begin?” Ariel asked, her voice strained. She shifted in her armor, wishing she was joining her brethren down the street, and her pearlescent wings twitched with anticipation. Her spear leaned against the wall next to the window they planned to use to leave once they received the signal to join the fight.

  “Patience, little angel,” Zhun purred. “When Kizrack gives the signal, we go. Not before.”

  Ariel turned her frustrated gaze on the feline demoness and said, “How are you so damn calm? Isn’t your lover out in the world somewhere, instead of here? Why isn’t Adrian joining us for this fight? Why isn’t he here to save his own brother like I am?”

  Zhun lifted her hands in a placating motion. “Believe me, Ariel, I am just as agitated as you. I do wish Adrian was here, but I also know that he would only be a liability without his sword arm or his magic. He’s off looking for a way to fix that. From what it looks like, he may miss the whole thing. Now, try to relax, the signal could come at any moment.”

  Ariel leaned against the wall next to her spear, looking out the window. The city was so peaceful and calm, as if there
was no hint of the coming conflict. She knew there would be bloodshed and the humans would become afraid once again, but the presence of angels should be a comforting sight for them, even if it meant their worst nightmares were also true. It did not matter in the long run, Ariel knew. The humans would go right back to not believing in the supernatural, and they would go about their lives as if nothing happened.

  She almost envied them for it. She wished she could forget all of what she had seen throughout her life. It had been a long time since she was truly happy. She remembered when she had first met Artemis, back when humans still believed in multiple gods. Those were simpler times, before everything fell apart for her. After Artemis left Heaven, her father, Victor, had finally come back, ending his banishment. While she was sad to see the man she loved leave, she was glad to have her father back. But he was different. He had grown obsessed with Dante and the evil the demon had wrought on Earth. When Dante had disappeared, Victor went on a decades-long search for him, but came up empty. His obsession drove him to leave Heaven permanently to live on Earth. He had said that if Dante was still alive, he would have to come out of hiding sometime. Ariel went to him when she could, leaving her seat on the council to do so. The other angels understood why she did, even if they secretly pitied her for it. They all knew she would never be able to convince her father to forget about Dante.

  Then, thousands of years later, Victor finally found Dante, and the two eventually clashed. Victor was killed, and Dante became king of Hell. And Ariel was left without a father once again. She watched all of it through her mirror back at her home in Heaven. She wanted to hate Dante for what he had done, but she knew that her father was not entirely without fault. Victor drove Dante to kill him. Dante was certainly not innocent, and was not even a good person underneath his demonic heritage, but Ariel could not come to hate him. She was just sad that it had come to the end that it had.

  She hated that damned mirror, though. It was now considered an ancient artifact in Heaven that was created by her and the rest of the council so she could keep an eye on things on Earth, but the magic had started off faulty from her lack of experience and misuse of the forces that went into creating it. She had figured out how to manipulate the mirror to show her what she wanted to see in the present, but anything past or future was a gamble, and rarely worked the way it was supposed to. There were things she saw that had not happened yet, and there were past events that seemed to unfold differently than they actually had. And where Artemis was concerned, it seemed as if the magic of the mirror was disrupted more so than usual. It showed the archangel-turned-god in situations that were too incomprehensible to explain. Once, Ariel had found the image of Artemis holding her dead body in the aftermath of the last war. It terrified her, but filled her with hope. If she could just alter the events just right so they played out as before, only without her death, she thought she could finally be with Artemis. During the war, while she was leading an angelic charge against the demons, she spotted what the mirror had shown would kill her. She was ready for the demonic spear well before it flew through the air, and brought up her shield to deflect it. The spear harmlessly pushed aside, Ariel charged in with her angels and slaughtered the demons in her path.

  After the war, she stepped down as an archangel, handing the leadership of her army to another angel so she could be by herself for a while. She needed the alone time to gather her thoughts and consider her options. With her father living on Earth and out of contact with Heaven, Ariel had no idea how he was doing. She checked on his empty sarcophagus in the tomb on occasion, which was given the same enchantment as his armor. It still had the same glow his armor once had, indicating he was alive and well. Why the other angels had neglected to remove the false grave, Ariel could not understand. It felt lazy to just leave the sarcophagus empty. Perhaps the other angels felt it was fitting, since Victor had cut ties with Heaven. Then, Ariel eventually heard of his death at the hands of Hell’s new king, some young demon named Dante. She was stunned, and feared another war would break out. Victor was the son of Amun-Ra, and he was murdered by a rival kingdom’s ruler. The political outrage should have sparked another conflict, but none came. Instead, some of the angrier agents of Heaven insisted on going to Hell to start a coup, hoping to unseat the new king and put a new one into place. Some of their underlings even took it upon themselves to go to the kingdom to perform the coup themselves. Dante and his son, Adrian, proved to be too much for the usurpers, and spent the better part of ten years putting them down, along with the rebellious demons and devils who started a civil war.

  The red haired angel sighed as she looked out the window at New York. Only a few blocks away, her comrades from Heaven were gathering. She wanted to go to them and resume command of her army, but she knew it would never happen. She had willingly given up her position to her captain, and friend, Lailah. Ariel knew Lailah would be a good and just leader. Her army was in expert hands. The coming battle would be her first real experience leading the entire army since the war, but Ariel knew Lailah was more than up to the task. She just wished she could join her people rather than sneak in with Hell’s assassins. As much as she wanted to save her brother and take him back to Heaven where he belonged, she knew her aptitude for stealth was nowhere near what Adrian’s team was capable of. Her misgivings about the plan aside, Ariel just wanted to be done with it all. She wanted her brother to be free, and she wanted more than anything to take him home to Heaven. After the battle, she would return home with him at her side. Nothing else mattered to her anymore.

  “Something’s off,” Zhun muttered quietly. The words brought a feeling of dread to Ariel, and she crossed the room to talk to the demoness.

  “What do you mean?” Ariel asked. By now, all eyes were on Zhun.

  “I just got word from Kizrack,” she announced. “A vampire emissary came to the king and tried to stall them. I’ve tried to contact Berron with the angels, but there’s no answer.”

  Ariel’s feeling of dread grew in her chest, and her heart sank. “We need to find out what’s going on,” she stated forcefully. “We need to go to the angels and find out what is happening.”

  Zhun held up a hand to silence her, listening to her headset. “There’s no time. The king and his army have begun their march. This is not going to plan. We need to move.”

  “The plan’s shot!” Ariel shouted. “What about my people? Have they begun moving?”

  “Patience, Ariel,” Zhun said calmly. “We’ve dealt with snags before, this is nothing to worry about. Although, it is odd that Berron missed his check in.”

  “We stick to our side of the plan,” Vurga stated. “No matter what, the vampires will be distracted, and it is likely they aren’t fully prepared for our forces. We go in as planned, and get Vincent out. Then, we’ll figure out what went wrong.”

  An explosion shook the building, interrupting the conversation. Ariel ran to the window to see what happened and saw smoke rising from a building a few blocks away. Her palms began to sweat, and all the color drained from her face. That building was where the angels were gathering. “No…” Ariel whispered. Without another word, she took up her spear and flew out of the window, throwing caution to the wind. She did not care of a human saw her, she had to get to her people.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Zhun shouted after Ariel, but it was no use. The angel was too far away to hear her by then. “Damn you,” Zhun growled. “Come on, Vurga, we need to get her back.”

  Vurga nodded, hefting his axe and followed Zhun out the window, each of them enacting an invisibility spell on the way.

  On the headset, Zhun called to Kizrack. “The angels may be compromised,” she reported.

  “Well, son of a bitch,” came the imp’s response. “That’s going to screw the plan even more than before. Dante’s on the warpath, and I don’t think he’ll be persuaded to divert to the angels. Go and see what happened and get to us as soon as possible. Worst case, we can probably still pull off our plan
with just me, Loran, and Cheal. The other two are already in place and waiting for us. Get us our angel friend if you’re able. We need a powerhouse like her to lead our small charge.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Zhun replied and killed the connection. She and Vurga ran across the rooftops, avoiding the crowds of people on the streets. This way, they could keep Ariel in sight, but there was no need to with the smoke rising into the sky. Within a few minutes, Zhun and Vurga made it to the building where the angels were gathering. What they saw caused them to skid to a halt at the edge of the neighboring building. The entire warehouse was in ruins and among the rubble were two hundred angel corpses. Some were mostly intact, with only a fatal wound to mar their otherwise perfect bodies. Others were ripped apart, as if by some huge beast, while some others looked to have been burst open from the inside. Limbs and entrails hung from the debris of the building. Ariel knelt next to one of the corpses, a female angel with mousy brown hair and a wicked scar running down one cheek. She had been ripped in half, and her body’s contents lay in the gap between her legs and her torso. Ariel held her head in her lap, crying over the lost soul.

  Zhun and Vurga came down to the ruined warehouse and surveyed the scene of death. In one corner, they found who they were looking for. Berron lay on the charred ground, his chest torn to shreds and his heart lying on the ground next to him. His eyes stared blankly into the air, his face contorted into a visage of terror. There was no question in the assassins’ minds; Berron was dead, killed by an unknown force. Vurga knelt beside his brother and closed the dead demon’s eyes.

  While choking back his despair, Vurga said, “We need to ward this place so the humans stay away while we deal with the vampires.” Knowing his sense of duty and pragmatism would not allow him to grieve until this was over, Zhun nodded, tears in her own eyes. Berron had been a dear friend to her over the years that she had been an assassin, and had been as much a mentor to her as he had been for Vurga and the others. He was also next in line to take over for Adrian. Without Berron, the team was severely lessened. Zhun pulled Vurga to his feet and they got to work warding the ruined warehouse against human eyes, crafting spells that would cause them to look away from the area and ignore it completely. It took much of the combined energy of Zhun and Vurga, but they finished the spell work quickly. Satisfied, they moved through the wreckage and carnage to gingerly approach Ariel. The angel sobbed over her lost friend, and seemed inconsolable.