The Amethyst Angle

by C. Ryan Bymaster

  I pull an elbow below me and sit straighter, struggling to keep from gasping in pain. “It wasn’t happenstance,” I say when I recover. “You planned on going to Anderest’s place that night. Even brought fresh flowers like every other visit. The very ones I saw in his room.” Gods am I a fool. It was staring me in the face the entire time. “You must have knocked them over in your haste to get out of there.”

  “You don’t understand,” she whispers. “It’s not what you think.”

  “You murdered your own grandfather. Not much to think on my part.”

  After a stretch of silence, she gives in, voice barely registering over the howling storm outside. “He … he wouldn’t teach me.”

  “Teach you? Teach you what?”

  It takes a couple breaths for her to respond. “You know I have arcane magic in my veins. You know what that’s like.”

  I do, but I won’t dignify her answer, won’t give her any support.

  She turns back to me, eyes ablaze with anger. “I wanted him to teach me about that part of my blood, to show me how to use it.”

  “He wouldn’t.” It’s not a question.

  “No. He wouldn’t. He said it was best if I left that part of me aside, hidden.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “It’s part of me. A flower can’t bloom unless you know how to nurture it, how to ensure its roots grow strong. I needed to nurture that part of me.”

  “Trust me, you didn’t. You don’t.”

  She takes a step forward and throws an accusing finger at me. “You have no right telling me what I don’t want. Grandfather taught you!”

  And there it is. Jealousy, the one fruit that sat too long on the stem, soured on the vine. She knows all about vampiric magic, my curse. Knew it from word one, before stepping into my office that first night, and used that knowledge against me sure as a gambling man stacks the deck.

  There’s significant bite to my voice as I say, “He tried teaching me how to subdue it, not bring it out.”

  She matches my tone and her raised hand becomes a slow fist. “In order to subdue it, you must understand it first.”

  “That’s why you came to me, isn’t it?”

  She nods, and her voice loses some of its edge and grows wistful. “When I first broached the subject, he used you as an excuse as to why I should leave that part of me aside. He told me how much he worked with you to understand your gift, how to keep it at bay.”

  Gift? Not bloody likely. It’s like having a devil within, begging to be let loose, to kill. I’m an abomination, not a man.

  A cold realization creeps into my gut. “So that story about Anderest telling you to come to me if you needed help? That was all a lie?” I don’t know what kicks me more: the fact that she lied to me, or the fact that Anderest never spoke highly of me to her.

  My face must betray my thoughts because Vayvanette tilts her head to side and consoles me with a spare smile. “Oh, he did hold you in some high esteem, that was true. He used you as an example of overcoming your … disability.” Her face clouds over. “He even shouted your name as he died.”

  Shouted my name?

  Why would he? Was it in spite? I suck in a breath. “And you hated me for it.”

  “I … I don’t know. Yes, and no.” She looks to floor and hugs herself. “I planned to use you, but, something about you … you made hating you so difficult.”

  I’ll take the compliment. “So you came to me because of Anderest. But why ask me to find his killer when it was you all along?”

  Her voice is flat with honesty. “The amethyst.”

  The gears grind in my head as I reason it through. “You killed your grandfather, cut yourself and used your blood, your grandfather’s bloodline, to open the vault. Then you took the amethyst and fled.”

  She wraps her arms tighter around herself and she takes a moment to respond. “I learned of the amethyst from Grandfather only recently.” A soft chuckle escapes her lips. “It came up one night when we were arguing about you, actually. Something about the way it worked. He wouldn’t say. But I knew from his reluctance to speak of it further it must be worth something to the right people.”

  She steps to the foot of the bed and sits down on the corner, not facing me, but not quite facing away, either, before continuing. “That last night, I came to Grandfather with proof I could handle arcane magic. I slipped a tincture, something I’d learned from an arcane book I’d acquired, into his drink. It was concocted from a rare flower I’ve been cultivating in my greenhouse, one no longer found around here, and I worked it with a fluid-binding spell given to me by a demon I had managed to conjure into this plane. It was supposed to be slow acting, give me time to make him relent and agree to teach me all he knew about the arcane in exchange for releasing him from the poison-curse.”

  Her shoulders begin to shake, and I don’t know if it’s from a sob or from remembrance of how she underestimated the power of arcane magic.

  “The Heaven’s Bane. It took a hold of him quickly. The demon I had bound to the tincture returned, claiming Grandfather’s soul as his reward for his part in the creation of the poison-curse. There was nothing I could do, even as Grandfather struggled to keep his life. It was horrendous. And,” she looks up at me, eyes gleaming, “it was wonderful. Such power ….”

  How I lay with this woman, I can no longer understand. I wish the poultice she used on my wound would numb more than just my skin.

  “The amethyst?” I say, more to pull her out of that sick reverie she’s lost in. “Why the amethyst?”

  She looks down at the bandage covering the wound she inflicted upon herself to get the vault open. “Partly because it had something to do with you, partly because I knew it had to be worth something, something to validate what I had done. I had previously asked around about it, but I had to be careful of whom I approached.”

  “Julien,” I whisper, feeling the fool. I suddenly remember the way he acted around her that night at the Far and Wide. He wasn’t being chivalrous. He was protecting an investment. Her questions regarding the amethyst must have led her directly to him, before even she sought me out.

  “It was worthless,” I say, cramming that fact down her throat.

  “But I didn’t know it was a fake. It was in the vault, with all the other originals. How was I to know he’d hidden the real one?”

  “Maybe if he wasn’t dying in such an excruciating manner, he could have told you.”

  She glares at me. “I was warned by Julien that the amethyst I sold was a fake and that the buyers were … upset.”

  I was right in suspecting Julien being the intermediary, I’d just gotten his client terribly wrong.

  “Then why hire me to find it?”

  “I didn’t know at the time what the amethyst was truly worth,” she admits. “At the same time that I found out the one I sold for a paltry sum was fake, I learned that the real one was worth more than I could ever imagine. In Grandfather’s vault, the satchel I found the amethyst in had your name on it, even had a letter for you from him.” Her eyes burn momentarily. “I nearly tore the letter to shreds. Then I realized: who better to drive you to find then amethyst than Grandfather himself?”

  And that would be how I fit in in all this. I’d assumed the letter related to the six-spell he created, but what if I was wrong? My mind races and I conclude the rest, now that I know the beginning.

  “You found out you could have made much more coin if you got the amethyst back and kept it for yourself. You needed the buyers eliminated to nullify your contract with them and, once the real amethyst was found, returned to you as the rightful beneficiary. That’s why the missing will was so important to you. And I went along perfectly with it all.”

  “All you had to do was find and kill the buyers.”

  “Can’t kill the Arcanium.”

  “I didn’t know it was them!” she cries. “I swear. I only dealt with Julien and his go-between. I didn’t care who the buyer was.”

&n
bsp; “Well, your greed got people killed. Nearly got me killed.” Not to mention Durmet and Trip.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she pleads. To me, to herself, to whatever gods are listening. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.

  My blood begins to boil, and it has nothing to do with my magic. This rage, this disgust in myself, this betrayal on Vayvanette’s part, it’s all personal. My hand claws at the bedsheet, bunching it tightly in my fist.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally says. She looks over at me, so frail and beautiful and terrifyingly deadly.

  “Me too,” I whisper.

  Though I know it’ll rip open my wound, I yank as hard as I can on the bedsheet. Vayvanette’s thrown off balance and tumbles over the foot of the bed while my sopping clothes, dragged by the bedsheet, come flying toward me.

  Before she’s recovered, I’ve extracted my six-spell from my clothes and come to my feet. She’s on her knees and when she looks up at me, it’s to find the wand pointed at her chest.

  “Gideon,” she says with an intake of breath. “Don’t. You can’t.” Her chin trembles and tears fill her eyes. “We shared something special.”

  My wand hand never wavers, though my fortitude does. I’ve got one lightshot left. I could loose it. No one would ever know. Anderest’s murderer would get what she deserves. The shock of the point-blank blast may kill her. It may not. Fifty-fifty chance.

  Fifty-fifty.

  What is in your blood does not define you. You are as much holy as you are arcane.

  Anderest’s voice reaches out to me over the years, one of his first lessons coming back to me.

  Fifty-fifty.

  It is your deliberate actions that define which side will win.

  Vayvanette whimpers up to me, a broken woman. “Please.”

  “You hired me to find your grandfather’s murderer,” I say. “I did. You wanted the will recovered. It has been. Finding the amethyst, the real one if it ever existed—”

  “I know it does!”

  “If it even existed, that wasn’t part of the contract. As of this moment, the terms of our agreement have been fulfilled.”

  My palm itches with sweat as I keep the wand trained on her chest. Slowly, ever so slowly, I lower my hand. “I made a promise to a friend that I wouldn’t seek personal vengeance when I found Anderest’s murderer. You’re lucky I keep my word.”

  I toss the wand to the bed and grab the blood-and-water-soaked blanket, which I use to truss the woman up, wrapping ankles and wrists thoroughly. When I’m done, she’s lying on her side, struggling on the floor.

  Hard eyes, once beautiful, now baneful, watch me closely as I dress. Before I slip on my shirt, I soak the towel with as much of the poultice as possible and wrap it around my torso. After an excruciating minute or two, I’m back in my ruined, sopping clothes, looking down at her.

  How many words flutter through my head and chest, a war of brains versus heart?

  Fifty-fifty.

  I say nothing. My entire side has gone numb from the poultice, just as my emotions have.

  Before I walk away, with her screaming words of hate and love at my back, I glance at her jewelry box and what I discovered sitting in it one last time. I leave everything there, and Vayvanette to her fate.

  25

  DUTY AND FRIENDSHIP

  “I shouldn’t have let him go,” Trip says to himself in the empty carriage.

  A part of him wants to shout at the carriage to driver to turn around, to take him back to Vayvanette Herchsten’s place. Another part wants to give Gideon one last night of freedom, one last hurrah with whatever that woman has come to mean to him. In Gideon’s current state, it’s doubtful he’ll make it through the night, let alone one hour in bed with that stunning woman.

  Somehow, a hint of a smile finds its way to his face. Now, if ever there was a way to go, that would be the way he would have it.

  The carriage bounces over something in the street and he grabs the handle along the roof to keep from slipping from the seat. The sudden shock brings his thoughts around, which are as dismal as the unrelenting storm outside.

  All this time, he knew something was off with Gideon. He knew, knew, his old partner hadn’t been truthful all those years ago when they both wore the Watch pin, but he had no way to prove it. A suspect he and Gideon had been chasing had injured a woman as he ran, leaving Trip to tend to her wounds while Gideon continued on to hound the suspect by himself. When Trip finally caught up with Gideon, it was to find the suspect dead at his feet. Gideon claimed the man simply fell over and died, but Trip didn’t believe him. Not after all the talk Gideon had given about the suspect deserving to die for what he did. And now that Trip saw what Gideon was, what he could do, there was no doubt in his mind how that suspect had died that night.

  Gideon did kill that man back then. He always suspected it, couldn’t prove it, didn’t want it to be true. But now, after the events at the Herchsten Estate, with Gideon openly doing whatever it was he did, he could not turn a blind eye.

  Illegal six-spell, arcane magic, convening with demons—it’s as if Gideon is practically begging to be arrested. Gideon may have turned his back on law and duty, but Trip won’t. This job, the pin on his breast, the people of Wrought Isles, they all made him who he is.

  The carriage smooths out, and he lets go of the handle and rests his arms on his legs, palms up. He looks from left to right and back again. Friendship is a heavy thing, but duty is heavier by far. It’s a shame Gideon never saw it that way. Maybe that was what always set them apart, even when they walked the beat together during their first few years in the Watch.

  Duty or friendship?

  Hands clenching into fists, he makes his decision. He curses Gideon, curses himself, curses whatever gods are listening. Then he curses the carriage driver as he suddenly realizes that they’re no longer moving. He’d been lost in thought, everything drowned out by the storm, that the gradual slowing then stopping of the carriage came as surprise.

  He pulls aside the curtain and peers into the storm. From what he can make out of the city backdrop, they’re halfway to the Station, but pulled off to the side in a roundabout running through a small park fronting a series of commercial buildings.

  “What’s going on?” he shouts, loud enough to hopefully be heard over the storm.

  The driver doesn’t respond, but the sudden shifting and give and take of the shocks of the carriage tell him that the driver’s hopped down from his perch.

  More trouble?

  He starts for the door latch but it turns before he reaches it. The door swings open wide, taken by the wind to slam against the carriage side, and the hooded driver slips inside.

  “What in the hells is going on?” Trip demands, drawing back from the battery of wind-driven rain.

  The driver, a tall, sinewy figure, shakes his body, sending enough water around that they might as well be in an open-topped carriage, then leans back out and struggles against the wind to slam the door shut.

  “I know it’s bad out there,” Trip says as he brushes water from his shoulder, “but we need to get—”

  “Apologies, Captain.”

  Trip reaches for his sword in response to the vaporous voice that hisses out from under the driver’s hood, a voice that at the same time fills both the carriage and his mind. His sword, of course, is back at the Herchsten Estate. Pushing as far back into the corner as he can, Trip searches the gloomy interior with eye, hand, and foot. Gideon’s knife is in here somewhere. It had been on the bench, but with the jostling ride, it must have fallen to the floor.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he says, mustering a sharp blade of authority in his voice and using it in place of the actual thing. He just needs time to locate the knife.

  The driver draws back his hood to reveal what the voice already has. Its large bulbous head is blindingly obvious even in the near-darkness, and when it speaks again, Trip catches the rustle and subtle movements of the tentacles draped down i
ts chest.

  “We will be on our way shortly, I assure you,” the mind flayer says. The voice is steamy yet without warmth, and in no way reassuring.

  “You know I am the Captain of the Watch,” Trip says, sitting straighter and bringing his hands forward. “Harm me and you’ll have the entire Watch cutting down you and all your ilk. Think carefully on what you do next.”

  The mind flayer dominates his side of the carriage. He’s not huge, but he is tall and long-limbed in his cloak, a coiled snake in a burlap sack. He spreads his arms, his long fingers opened elegantly in the near-darkness. “I am not here to harm you.”

  Trip slides his feet along the floor, still searching for the knife. “Then let’s be on our way.”

  “After a brief respite.” Two of the thing’s tentacles lift his way, and Trip can just make out the other two as they spread out near its chest. Except, a closer look shows that one of the tentacles is merely a stub. Which means this is none other than—

  “This,” Maanzethelin wisps out softly, “must be done.”

  All at once, the mind flayer unfolds from his side of the carriage and Trip finds himself engulfed in limbs and fingers and … Gods no!

  “It is for your own good,” Maanzethelin says, somehow defeating Trip’s every move to disengage himself, to untangle his body from this unholy embrace. No matter how hard he struggles, he feels himself losing the battle. First, one arm is pinned. Next, his ankles are locked by Maanzethelin’s legs.

  Three slithering tentacles, each one like its own evil entity, snake around Trip’s head. He shakes and twists his head as best he can but the tentacles are unrelenting in their advance. Inevitability freezes Trips muscles. Finally, the tentacles cease their probing. Two on his forehead, one on his temple.

  “Know,” the Brood Master’s voice seeps into Trip’s mind, “that this is done for your benefit, in the name of friendship.”

  Trip doesn’t scream as his world fades to numerous shades of black. It’s not painful, not in the least. It’s not even as disturbing as it had been moments ago, before it started. It’s just … nothing.