by Joe Jackson
“Don't count on it being that simple,” Eryn said.
Aeligos shook his head. “No, I have to figure if she knew about any of the syrinthians, she'd have let someone know to get them captured or killed. I'll check with my contacts, but my guess is Eryn's people will be better connected to figure this out. Anyone contacting a demon king to pass on info has to be some sort of practitioner of the arcane, yet keeping a low profile.”
“And those are exactly the type of people Tarek has us keep a very close watch on,” Eryn added, dropping the alias of the Blood Order's leader rather casually. She folded her arms across her chest. “Do you just want this person dead, or do you want them captured if possible?”
“Captured, if possible,” Kari said. “We have a warded prison on campus that can hold them and keep them from contacting anyone by magic, so unless there’s a risk they might get away, try to take them into custody.”
The assassin nodded, but then she held her hand out and poked her palm with a finger rapidly. “This service will not come cheaply, Kari,” she said. “I can't order anyone from the Guild to help your people. It's got to be a bounty.”
Kari grimaced, but she understood where Eryn was coming from. If the Guild looked like it was helping the Demonhunter Order for free, it would cost them face just as much as it made the Order look bad. Kari wasn't thrilled with the prospect of “hiring” the Blood Order to capture or kill someone, but having her own people handle the matter would almost assuredly tip off their mark and, consequently, Sekassus. The families of Kari's captives would probably be slaughtered, the spy who passed along reports to Sekassus would either flee or maybe even kill himself, and the Order would have gotten virtually nothing in return. To top it off, they'd also have nearly a dozen angry, uncooperative captives that they had to get rid of, and execution would likely be the only viable option. It was a rotten prospect all around.
“How much money are we talking about? I can get a bounty put on this spy officially by the Order, and pay your people indirectly,” Kari said at last. A bounty was the most obvious choice to better blur any connection between the Order and the Guild. There was still that minor connection there, and Kari wasn’t happy about it, but if she offered a bounty and a member of the Guild happened to be the one who collected on it, there wasn’t too much anyone could say.
Eryn waved a hand dismissively. “If it's a bounty, five thousand ought to do it.”
Only five thousand? Kari thought sarcastically. It was astounding to her just how much coin switched hands over even a single death. Kari had been hunting demons for most of two lifetimes, had hundreds if not thousands of kills to her credit, and never had she earned even a shadow of that kind of money doing so legitimately. The more she thought about it, though, the more she realized she'd want to be paid an exorbitant amount of money if she was being asked to kill someone in cold blood and possibly face capture and execution for someone else's ambition.
“I think we can manage that,” Kari said. It was a lot to post as a bounty, doubly so when she considered what she hoped to get from it. Paying a bounty for the capture or killing of a demon – or something considered a demon, anyway – was one thing, but doing so in hopes of sparing syrinthians…Kari wasn’t sure how she could explain it to the Council. She was going to tell them either way, though: she was determined not to be the type of leader that had to hide what she was doing, whether it made sense to people or not. “All right, the two of you see if you can find and deal with this…person. I’ll make sure the Council is willing to pay out a bounty when it’s done, as soon as I can get back to the campus.”
“Where are you headed now?” Aeligos asked.
“I’ll explain that at dinner,” Kari said, motioning for them not to press on the matter. Kyrie held her tongue, and Kari was glad for that. She wasn’t looking forward to dinner tonight and explaining things to her family; she certainly didn’t want their potentially vocal protests to happen in the middle of a temple. As she thought about it, she realized the only thing she was looking forward to at this point was going to bed. Meeting with Amastri didn’t rate very high on her list, and having to then explain everything she found out to the Council and her family was bordering on overwhelming.
“Well, let me know if I can help,” Aeligos offered.
“The best way you can help me is to find this person,” Kari said, and the rogue nodded. “Once the wards are replaced around the house, I think we’ll all feel a lot safer. So mom, I’ll leave you to that and these two to their task. I’ve got to go meet with Eli and Danilynn and see what else I can dig up.”
With their agreement, Kari left the temple and made her way south to the main square that fronted the Archmage’s tower. There, in the most opulent of all the city’s market squares, was the upscale inn known as the Silver Chalice. Kari knew the place fairly well: Kyrie sang there on weekends sometimes, enthralling the citizenry with an opera-quality voice and ballads about the pantheon and its history. The inn was known for its expensive, rich cuisine and its entertainment, which typically included bard troupes and even the occasional illusionist or jester. It’d been some time since Kari had visited the place; she found herself spending less and less time away from home that wasn’t work-related since Little Gray had been born. Unfortunately, just as with nearly everything else she had to do today, she wasn’t able to look forward to the visit on account of why she had to go there.
The fact that this Amastri could typically be found in the city’s most upscale inn told Kari a bit about her already. The inn’s reputation and creature comforts gave Kari some insight into the type of woman – if such was the right term – Amastri was before they’d even met. Kari’s days as a homeless, fruit-pilfering teenager on the streets of Solaris had taught her a great deal about laying low. She’d learned further tricks of the trade from Aeligos, who was the spy and infiltrator among the Silver Blades, and from Eryn. Kari understood how to keep a low profile and stay out of the public eye when one spent a good deal of time where they didn’t belong.
And so it confused her that Amastri would spend all of her time in one of the most lavish and highly-frequented inns in one of the busiest cities in the kingdom. If the ‘demoness’ sought to keep a low profile and try not to attract attention, Kari couldn’t understand why she decided to stay right in plain sight for years. Certainly hiding in plain sight was a trick of the trade, and quite an effective one, but only under the right circumstances. A spy pretending to be a peasant and spending time in an enemy capital was one thing; a demon spending time six blocks away from the campus of the Demonhunter Order was quite another. That, too, gave Kari some insight into what Amastri was probably like.
The inn was already filling up as the dinner hour approached, and Kari wondered which of its most sought-after bards would be performing this night. Kari had always appreciated the antics of Caedric the Jester, though she knew the innkeeper wasn’t always as happy with the comedic bard’s performances. As often as not, he ended up damaging the inn in some way with his tricks. Kari scanned the crowd and saw that Eli and Danilynn were sitting at the bar.
Eli waved Kari over when he spotted her in the doorway, and Kari cut her way through the crowd carefully, trying not to buffet people with her wings. “Want a drink?” he asked when Kari reached him.
“Never on the job,” Kari said quietly. “Is Amastri here?”
Eli motioned toward the corner with his eyes but didn’t look that way, and Kari resisted the temptation to turn and stare at the ‘demoness.’ After a moment, she reconsidered hesitating. Amastri surely knew who Kari was – not to mention Eli and Danilynn – and if Kari was there to talk to her, there was no sense avoiding eye contact. She turned and looked in the direction Eli had indicated, and the woman seated at the corner table was not at all what Kari expected.
It wasn’t surprising to find that Amastri was a beautiful woman; after all, people mistook her for a succubus all the time, apparently. She was gorgeous, with some of the angular f
eatures of an elf, including long, slender pointed ears, slightly upturned eyes and brow, and cat-like green eyes that marked Kari with their intensity from across the room. Her face was touched up with just the right amount of makeup to accent her strong but beautiful facial features, the high cheekbones and slender nose, and her pointed earlobes were each pierced only once, from which hung a pair of glittering, tasseled golden jewels. Her hair was fine but long, set up in a high tail that seemed to still reach well down her back, though Kari’s view was partially cut off from this angle and distance. Her skin was not milky-white like Turillia’s fine scaled-skin had been, but instead it was a smooth, light tan as would be appropriate for a half-elf or a human who lived outside the tropics or subtropics.
Most dazzling was her dress, a shockingly red garment that matched the color of her hair, embroidered with sinuous black highlights that accentuated every curve of her feminine body. She was an absolute stunner, and Kari could easily see in those first few seconds why the woman was so often mistaken for a succubus. The difference Kari could see as a demonhunter, though, was that the woman had to make herself stand out because she wasn’t a succubus. A succubus could have commanded all the attention of the fawning men around Amastri by wearing filthy rags. Amastri had a pack of half a dozen men vying for her attention, but at that moment, her eyes were distinctly on Kari, Eli, and Danilynn.
Intrigued, Kari approached the woman. The men around Amastri looked impatiently at the demonhunter when she reached the table, as though she was interrupting their good time. She was tempted to tell them to get lost, but approaching Amastri in the right manner and with the right tone was very important, and Kari kept that in mind. “May I have a few minutes of your time?” she asked the woman.
Amastri tilted her head to the side slightly in appreciation, and nodded. “Gentlemen, the demonhunter and I have business to discuss,” she said lightly. Her voice was strong but melodic, lacking in the seductive charm Kari might have expected, and Amastri kept her tone soft without any obvious effort. “Have the innkeeper bring us a tray of pastries and some coffee.”
Almost as one, the men all stood up and bowed to Amastri before leaving the woman ‘alone’ with Kari and her friends. Amastri gestured toward the seats the men had vacated, and Kari sat down along with her two companions. The encounter was already going nothing like Kari had expected, and she watched the quietly confident way Amastri looked around the room to chase off curious eyes. Kari wondered exactly what she was dealing with. As she’d explained to Eli during her hunt in Barcon, she much preferred the demons that simply tried to rend her limb from limb: they were so much easier to understand. Subtle, crafty creatures like Amastri posed so much more of a challenge.
“Elias, Danilynn…it has been some time,” Amastri said, though she didn’t attach any of the typical pleasantries that would accompany such a statement. The woman fixed her cat-like eyes back on Kari then, and added, “Lady Vanador, I do not believe we have ever been formally introduced. I am Amastri D’al’cinyiore.”
“Doll-sin-yuray…so you are part elf,” Kari said, and the woman gave that appreciative nod again. “I was pretty sure as soon as I looked at you.”
“Your familiarity with the elven people has not faded in all the years you have spent apart from them,” Amastri said. Kari wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a backhanded insult about how long it’d been since Kari visited the elves; the woman put very little emotion into her voice regardless of what she was saying. She was a practiced speaker, and Kari wished she had Kyrie or even Aeligos with her to better decipher the woman’s intentions.
Kari started to speak, but she stopped herself short when some of the men returned with a tray of sweets, pastries, and a carafe of coffee with several cups. Once they had set up the tray, plates, and cups, Amastri dismissed them with a short gesture. She helped herself to a cup of coffee and one of the fluffier pastries on the tray, and gestured for her guests to do likewise. Kari ignored the food and drink; it was nearly the dinner hour, and with any luck, she would get to spend it with her family instead of syrinthians and a ‘demon.’ Eli helped himself to one of the pastries and some coffee, but Danilynn hesitated.
“You still do not trust me,” Amastri said to Danilynn, and then she smiled an unsettling, if beautiful, smile. “How very prudent of you. Unnecessary, of course, but prudent.”
Eli munched away at his pastry as if nothing were amiss, and washed it down with a few sips of the hot, black coffee. It smelled good, and Kari wished she had the luxury to indulge herself. At that moment, though, she reminded herself that she couldn’t allow anything Amastri said or did to put her off-guard or at a disadvantage. Kari had to be stern and deal with the half-elf or half-succubus or whatever she was from a position of strength. Still, she further reminded herself to deal with the strange woman objectively, politely, and fairly, all the better to put her off-guard and possibly at a disadvantage.
Amastri looked around the common room again and Kari waited for her attention before speaking. At the woman’s glance, several other patrons who’d wandered too close suddenly turned and made their way toward the other end of the room. Kari wondered if Amastri had some innate empathic or telepathic ability, which would have further reinforced the perception that she was a succubus. She clearly had some hold or charms over the people, and Kari glanced over her shoulder at the gathered folk. There were several dozen people in the inn’s common room already, and if Amastri could affect their mood or even partially control their actions, Kari realized she was potentially sitting in the midst of over fifty enemies. She wondered if Eli and Danilynn realized the same thing.
Amastri’s eyes met Kari’s again. “I have heard that your Order has rounded up a number of syrinthian infiltrators. Clearly your efforts before the war,” she said to Eli and Danilynn, and then to Kari, “and yours after on the island of Tsalbrin have set the Cobra Lord on edge. But you have not come to me to be told things you already know. You have come for information. Tell me what you require, and I will tell you what I require.”
Kari tried to maintain a poker face, but she was not at all happy to find that Amastri already knew what had happened on the campus. If Amastri knew, that pointed to whoever the agent of Sekassus was also knowing, though not necessarily. What it did seem to point to for sure, though, was that there was a leak or a mole on the campus. Kari had a hard time believing anyone in the Order had been turned to Koursturaux’ service, but then there had been a dozen syrinthians hidden among the Order just hours before. Kari glanced at Eli and Danilynn, and each nodded their head in turn to her unspoken question. “How much do you know about what Eli and Danilynn did before the War?”
“I am well aware of the thwarting of King Sekassus at their hands, if that is what you mean,” Amastri answered. She took a moment to sip her coffee, and for some reason Kari noted that the woman didn’t leave lipstick prints on the cup. “Does this inquiry have something to do with the death of the turncoat Se’ceria, or her daughter who remains in Sekassus’ clutches?”
Kari held her tongue for most of a minute. Amastri already knew what had happened on the campus, and she also knew why Kari was here. It was possible that Amastri had learned of Se’ceria from her own master, King Koursturaux, who had also been present at the conclusion of the incident. But that the woman knew about the syrinthian infiltrators and somehow already knew that Kari was planning to rescue Se’sasha was troubling. It also bothered Kari because if Amastri knew, it was highly unlikely she was the only one. If most of the underworld knew, then a trip to try to rescue Se’sasha could leave Kari beset on all sides by demons, their kings, or who-knew-what, because they’d all already know where she was going and why. Allerius’ suggestion of a trap within a trap came to Kari’s mind again.
Realization hit Kari after a moment, brushing the other thoughts aside: Amastri had said in Sekassus’ clutches. It could have just been an odd word choice, but Kari got the feeling it meant that Amastri – or at least, her king – wa
s not pleased with the situation. “Eli, Danilynn, and their friends made a promise to rescue Se’ceria’s daughter from the underworld,” Kari said casually, and she marked well Amastri’s reaction to the word underworld. Something had passed behind those green, cat-like eyes, and Kari didn’t miss it. All those nights playing poker with Aeligos and his siblings had taught her something after all. “Right now what I’m interested in is seeing how much reliable information I can get on going there and coming back alive.”
“Mmm, a demonhunter in the underworld,” Amastri returned, a hair shy of a purr. “Not since the days of Turik Jalar has my homeworld hosted such an exciting guest. Be honest with me, Lady Vanador: is retrieving Se’sasha your true goal, or just a feint to cover up your actual intentions?”
She knows her name, too, Kari thought. It was perhaps too early to think so, but Kari had the feeling Amastri had already tipped her hand. It seemed that, by trickery or manipulation, King Koursturaux wanted Kari to rescue Se’sasha for whatever reason. The most obvious reason would be that Koursturaux thought she could recruit or bend Se’sasha to her will once the girl was free of Sekassus, but Kari wasn’t ready to make any assumptions. “Rescuing her is my goal,” Kari said evenly. “I’m not interested in getting wrapped up in the affairs of the kings. If Sekassus is humiliated in the process, well, that’ll be a nice bonus but that’s not why I’m considering going there.”
The woman nodded her head appreciatively again, and Kari wondered if Amastri was able to read the truth of her words through emotions or otherwise, like Kyrie or Sonja. “Tell me what you require of me to assist in this endeavor,” Amastri said.
Kari hesitated a moment. “First off, I need to know where Se’sasha is – whether she’s being held prisoner, or if she’s in hiding. I need to know if there’s a safe place to cross over to your world, and if it’s even possible to get to wherever Se’sasha is without getting killed along the way,” Kari said. “If she’s being held by Sekassus and it’s possible Sekassus will negotiate for her release at all, then I need some idea of what he would be willing to trade for. And, of course, I need some way to get back home safely. I understand your king despises Sekassus, so I’m hoping the idea of him losing face over this will mean you can help us.”