Zane Halloway: Omnibus Edition

by P. T. Hylton

  “Let’s not waste time,” Zane said. He was surprised at how indifferent his voice sounded. “Jacob, you work on getting the ship. Charles, you prepare things on your end.”

  Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

  Danum gasped. “Good God. What do we do?”

  “Answer the door,” Jacob said. And with that, he and Faraday’s body became invisible, along with every drop of blood on the carpet.

  “Enter,” Danum said.

  The door opened, and the young man from the lobby stepped inside.

  “What is it, Francis?” Danum asked.

  “You said to let you know as soon as the exam was finished,” the young man answered.

  For a moment, Zane had no idea what he was talking about. Then it came back to him. The exam. Lily.

  “Did she pass?” Zane asked. He honestly didn’t know what he wanted the answer to be. If she’d failed, she would never be a ferox. After what he’d seen tonight, Zane thought that might be for the best. It was like Jacob had said the day before. Ferox bartered in human death.

  The young man smiled widely. “She passed.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “This is traditionally the time when the former apprentice tries to kill their mentor,” Zane said. “Have you given it any thought?”

  They were in Zane’s study. He had his foot up on a stool and was massaging the sore calf. He’d told Lily it was feeling better, but she wasn’t sure she believed him.

  Two weeks had passed since she’d successfully completed her exam. Jacob and Zane had given the king their report about how Faraday had tragically and heroically died to complete the job. Lily had been left out of that discussion, and she couldn’t say she was sorry about it. Zane said the king had cried when he’d heard the news. That was an image Lily didn’t need in her head. The King of Opel crying because of a lie.

  The Ferox Society announced Charles Danum had died in his sleep from what were believed to be natural causes, and they were currently going through the process of appointing a new Society head.

  Lily and Zane had traveled home, burdened only by the weight of the gold the king had given them. Lily would have to return to the capital city in four weeks’ time to say her vows, officially become a ferox, and receive her placement, the city she’d be assigned to live and work in as a ferox. Only a certain number of ferox operated in each area, so the Society dictated who could open shop where. Until her placement, she was in an in-between stage. She was neither an apprentice nor a full ferox.

  She grinned at Zane. “Killing you has crossed my mind. I wouldn’t mind inheriting your clients. It’s just that I’m afraid I’d inherit your enemies, too.”

  A shadow crossed his face, and she knew she’d touched a nerve.

  “After you make your vows, I’m going to give you some money,” he said. “Enough to set you up. I’ve asked the society to place you somewhere far away from me.”

  She was genuinely surprised. “Why?”

  “Lily, we’ve entered into a world I’ve spent my career avoiding. We helped fake the death of the head of the Ferox Society, killed one of the king’s most important advisors, and sent ferox to carry out an undercover mission on foreign soil. If you think this is over, if you think there won’t be consequences for all this, I haven’t trained you as well as I thought.”

  They sat in silence for a long while.

  Finally, Lily said, “Can he do it? Can Danum save the ferox in Tavel?”

  Zane rubbed his chin before answering. “He was good once. One of our best. Years of bureaucracy have made him soft, but once he gets out in the field…yes, I believe he can.” With that, he stood up.

  “And what about us?” she asked. “When do we start seeing clients? I’m ready for the next job.”

  “We already have our next job. And, before you ask, yes. You will be getting paid from now on. Thirty percent.”

  For a moment, Lily considered haggling for a bigger cut, but she decided against it. “Who’s the client?”

  “Beth Farns. I met with her while we were in the city.” Before Lily could answer, he said, “Enough business for now. I’ll give you the details later. Come.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Zane smiled. “I thought we might train a little.”

  Few things could have made Lily happier than hearing those words, but she couldn’t resist needling him. “I’m not your apprentice anymore. I figured our sparring days were over.”

  “I had something slightly different in mind. I’ve been reading about forms designed for two swords. There’s one called the Twin Viper that looks especially promising.”

  She tilted her head and smiled. “You’re talking about fighting together. As a coordinated unit.”

  Zane nodded. “I have you for four more weeks. Kingdoms have fallen in less time. Perhaps it’s worth being prepared for all eventualities.”

  They went to the roof, their usual training place, and picked up their swords.

  BOOK THREE: LIGHTNING AND THRONES

  THREE WEEKS AGO

  Beth Farns spent the two months after her father’s death considering how to carry out her revenge on his killer. Then, one night, the killer showed up in her bedroom.

  She opened her eyes, and there he was. He spoke in a soft voice that did nothing to hide the menace. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  Implication: I’m not here to hurt you, but I will if I need to.

  Time seemed to slow to a crawl. She couldn’t make herself move. He was here in her bedroom. Her father’s killer. Zane Halloway.

  Beth regained enough control to sit up. “You!”

  She reached toward the nightstand, but Zane reached out, too, and grabbed her wrist. It was inhuman how quick he moved. She’d been researching him the past several weeks, and she knew he’d apprenticed as an abditus—under Rebecca Waters no less—before inexplicably quitting and signing up for a life of cloak and dagger with the Ferox Society. She hadn’t gotten to the bottom of that mystery just yet, but she would. If she could take care of business here tonight, she would force him to tell her the story.

  How many times had she thought about what she’d do in this moment? How many times had she considered and reconsidered which thorn she’d use when she finally worked up the courage to go after him?

  If only she could reach the thorn in her nightstand, she could kill him. Better yet, she could incapacitate him. Then she could take her time. There would be no need to choose; she could try all her thorns and judge their effectiveness by the tenor of his screams.

  He held her wrist firmly, but no more firmly than was necessary. He’d have slashed her throat by now if that had been his intent. Which raised a troubling but interesting question: if he wasn’t here to kill her, what was he doing here?

  “Please,” he said. “I’m sorry to invade your privacy like this. But I need you to listen to me for a moment.”

  Beth had the sudden and terrible thought that he was here to apologize. If that were the case, she didn’t know what she would do. The audacity it would take to not only steal her father’s life but then also to attempt to deflate her righteous anger with an apology defied her understanding. If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself. She’d claw his eyes out, even if it did mean he’d kill her for her trouble.

  But what he said next was even more unexpected than an apology.

  “I’d like to ask you for a favor.”

  She heard a strange, laugh-like noise and realized it was coming from her own throat. A favor? He couldn’t be serious. The only favor she’d ever grant him would be an end to his miserable life, and that only after a week or two of suffering and begging on his part. “Why the hell would I ever do anything for you?”

  “Because it’s in your best interest,” Zane said. “You’re a businesswoman. And I would like to make you an offer I think you’ll find very interesting.”

  She shook her head and let out another strange laugh. She couldn’t
believe his nerve. A businesswoman? She was, after a fashion. But with her father dead, she was a businesswoman without a product. Zane had not only killed her father; he’d destroyed the great abditus’ life’s work. He’d destroyed the thorns and tangles her father had worked so many years to create and perfect. The beauty of her father’s work was not only in its originality, but also in its simplicity. Another master abditus would be able to duplicate Farns’ thorns and tangles after a few months of studying them, but Zane had made sure there was nothing left to study.

  Still, Beth wasn’t completely without inventory. She’d brought six thorns and tangles with her when she’d left her father’s home. Zane’s apprentice had taken one of them, arguably the most powerful, and Zane had used it against her father. So Beth was left with five.

  Five. That was all there was and all there ever would be. She was still trying to decide how to bring them to market. She’d space them out, let the speculation build for each new product, but she hadn’t decided how long the gap between releases should be. Most of the world didn’t know her father made thorns, so she’d save those for last.

  Five and no more. It was so little for her to create the remainder of her life around.

  She cleared her throat before speaking. He might have her wrist gripped in his hand. He might be armed and be bigger, stronger, and much more skilled in the art of killing. But he wanted a favor, which meant she had the advantage.

  “First, let go of my wrist,” she said, “and then tell me about the favor.”

  There was just enough light coming from the small lamp he held for her to see him nod. He released her wrist and took a step backwards. He didn’t warn her to not reach for the nightstand or to keep her hands in the open, and she grudgingly respected him for it. They both knew she couldn’t reach her thorn before he could stop her, so there was no need to call attention to the matter.

  “It’s about a thorn,” he said.

  She resisted the urge to speak. Let him have his say. Every word spoken was a tiny bit of power given up, and there was a very delicate balance happening here. Let him give up his power, one tiny piece at a time.

  “Your father used it against me,” Zane said.

  Beth’s urge to speak—to scream, really—grew almost unbearable, but she somehow suppressed it.

  He continued. “It turned off my senses, one at a time. It was quite genius, really. As an instrument of assuming control, I’ve never seen its like.”

  She couldn’t stop herself this time. “And yet, you destroyed it.”

  “I did. Just as I’d been hired to do. The thing is, I’ve been doing a bit of investigation on you since we met. Since that night at Janus Hall. I’ve talked to a number of individuals who witnessed other demonstrations you made at other Abditus Society halls. And one in particular caught my attention. It seems you made a man go temporarily blind that night. And another man lost all feeling in his body for a short period of time. So I know you have another one of those particular thorns.”

  He paused before adding, “I’d like to have it.”

  For a long moment, she had no response. Her mind was simply incapable of forming a coherent reply to such an absurd request. She had five magical devices left from her father’s unreleased collection, and he was asking her to give him one of them. Him. She’d never part with any of them, let alone her favorite, without being paid a small fortune, and she’d never give one to him period.

  “I’ll take your silence to mean you are understandably hesitant to hand it over,” Zane said. “Allow me to make my case as to why it is in your best interest.” He stood so still, like a statue towering over her while he spoke. “In the course of my investigation into your father’s whereabouts, I learned some information that was irrelevant to my assignment but was entirely interesting nonetheless. I came to find out that when your father first dropped out of the public eye, he spent some time living in the elvish ghetto.”

  For the second time that night, Beth was utterly shocked and unable to speak. How did he know that? No one knew it. Her father never talked about it, not even to her. It was as if he had been trying to pretend that time never happened. But she knew it did. She’d been young, yes, but she’d never forget the great and terrible things she’d seen during the months she and her father spent living in that place behind the Blue Wall.

  “The question is why,” Zane said. “Irving Farns certainly wasn’t in dire straits financially. He was a wealthy man, and I don’t believe money was ever his primary motivation, anyway. He had a curious mind, and he loved magic. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  She couldn’t and didn’t. Motivation had never been the mystery with her father. Still, it made her burn with anger that Zane so casually speculated on the innermost workings of her father’s mind. Even if he was correct.

  “I think he went there to study the elves,” Zane said. “You know the stories as well as I do. About the way they used to use magic. The way they could channel it with their bare hands, without any devices. I believe your father went to the elvish ghetto to see if he could create something that would allow him to use magic closer to the way the elves used it. What’s more, I think he succeeded.”

  Beth bit her lip. The things this man was saying were the same things she’d thought herself a thousand times but had never been able to prove. “What makes you think he succeeded?”

  “The short duration of his stay. He was only behind the Blue Wall a few months. He either gave up or completed his research. From what I know of Irving Farns, I doubt he gave up. Not that quickly. I believe he succeeded in discovering something. But, for some reason, he never put it to use. Whatever he was originally intending, to sell it, to use it to get revenge on the person who killed your mother, whatever, he never did it. I also know that the device he created in the elvish ghetto wasn’t in his home when I searched it. It’s not in your possession either, or you wouldn’t be demonstrating tangles at local Abditus Society halls. It’s somewhere. And I’m offering to find it for you.”

  Beth slowly pulled back the covers, got out of her bed, and stood up in front of Zane. She was a few inches shorter than him, but it was better than lying down. “So that’s the deal? You find this mystery device that may or may not exist, and I trade it to you for the thorn?”

  “Not exactly. You give me the thorn now. Tonight. And then I find you the mysterious device.”

  She scoffed at that. “Ridiculous. The thorn you want is worth a small fortune.”

  “And the device I’m going to find for you is worth a very large fortune. It is something new. A new type of magical device! Can you imagine how the Abditus Society would react? Such a thing hasn’t been seen in two hundred years!”

  Beth did know how the Abditus Society would react, and that was part of what scared her. If she didn’t play it perfectly, they’d take the device from her. In the name of research.

  “Why do I need you?” Beth asked. “I know my father and I know what he’s been doing these last twenty years. I can find it myself.”

  “Perhaps,” Zane said. “But I’ll find it faster. And I’m going to find it. Whether I give it to you or sell it myself is your choice. I’m a ferox. Finding lost things is what we do.”

  “Is it?” Beth asked bitterly.

  Zane didn’t flinch. “Among other things.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “There’s something else. Do you remember a man named Dursten?”

  Her father’s trusted servant for many years. She’d been young when he left her father’s service, but Irving had talked about the man often enough. She nodded curtly.

  “Do you remember the last time you saw him?” Zane said.

  She thought about that for a long moment. She had a distinct memory of playing in a long hallway with purple walls, and Dursten looking down at her. She couldn’t remember his face, not exactly, but she remembered the shape of him. He’d been a tall, sinewy man. He had reminded young Beth of a tree in the wind, the way he moved so gracefully, but alway
s seeming a bit off balance.

  “No,” she said. “Not exactly.”

  He waited a moment before speaking. “I have reason to believe Dursten stayed in the elvish ghetto when you and your father left.”

  She cocked her head at that. “Why would he do that?”

  “My question as well,” Zane said. “I believe your father asked him to. I think your father left him there to guard something. Maybe something too dangerous to bring out.”

  “His new device,” Beth said. “The one based on elvish magic.”

  Zane nodded. “What I’m offering, in exchange for the thorn, is to go get it for you.”

  Beth drew in a sharp breath in spite of herself. “You’re going to go into the elvish ghetto?” The security measures they had in place these days greatly outweighed what had existed when she and her father had crossed the Blue Wall. And even if he did manage to get in, the stories of unrest made it seem unlikely he’d get back out. “That’s impossible.”

  “I hear that a lot,” Zane said. “I’ve yet to fail to complete a job, regardless of how impossible my employer thinks it is.”

  “Is that what I’d be?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Your employer?”

  “You would.”

  She waited a long moment before speaking. Her father’s greatest device. His legacy. And the only thing separating her from it was the Blue Wall. “The thorn you want in is my nightstand,” Beth said. “It’s yours. I’ll need you to sign a work contract, of course. You must provide me with my father’s device within forty-five days or return the thorn and pay a penalty. Is that agreeable?”

  “Fine,” Zane said. “But I need the thorn tonight. Now. Draw it up and I’ll sign.”

  “Good,” Beth said. “And Mr. Halloway? When this is over, I’ll see that you pay for what you did to my father.”

  To that, he had no response.