The young boy persisted like a dog on a scent. "Oh that's a shame. There's a special ingredient in it that I think you might be excited to hear about."
James watched Alisanne's frustration grow. "I couldn't care less about the special ingredient in your tea boy. Now be gone. The Minister and I are attending to matters of grave importance." She looked at James with evil in her eyes. James was dispassionate. Indifferent to her true self.
"Oh. I really think you want to know what the ingredient is though," the boy said sadly.
"Leave. Now." Now the snarl was in her voice.
"You really should be nicer to people Bishop. What goes around, comes around," the boy said, though this time, his voice was changed. Different. Older somehow. Sad.
"Wait. What did you say?" Alisanne's eyes were darting around. She lifted the hand that held the mysterious item and backed up to the wall to look out the window. She looked like a cornered animal. Wild and dangerous with eyes widened and teeth bared. "Your voice…"
Her office door opened and an older man walked in. He held the bamboo box the young Apostle held and wore the same clothing. He was a little taller than the boy was, and had much darker hair. It was Weston. He had used The Way to mimic someone else.
"YOU!" She spat at the man she thought was half a nation away.
"Me indeed. How are you feeling Alisanne? Little crampy yet? Bile rising in your throat? Feverish?"
She swallowed, her hand pointed directly at Weston. James took to his feet, finally realizing the brevity of the situation. He moved towards the shelf where the box was. He pretended to back away afraid. It didn’t take much acting skill.
"What have you done to me?" Her other hand found her stomach and clear across the room both men heard a rumble from inside her. The tea was taking effect. She looked at James. "Do you not feel it worming its way inside you?"
James shook his head.
"Oh there was a little bit of wild mushroom in the tea. Just your tea though. I gave James tea from a different pot but you were too busy to notice," Weston said, pleased with the ruse the two men had managed.
"Arrhhh," she said, doubling over in pain. "Cowards resort to poisoning Weston Fireborn. I should've expected it from you. And you, James. Of all the men in Daris to conspire against me you… Your treachery. You will suffer for eternity for what you have tried here this day." It took all her effort to get the threat out.
James was emboldened. "No Bishop. I am not the murderer you are. The only one who will suffer here I think is you." James turned and took the box from the shelf. He tucked it under an arm and turned back to face her.
Weston was quick, but Alisanne a breath quicker. "I SMITE THEE JAMES!" She screamed with all her strength, pointing at the Minister who held the box.
The reaction of the world to her words was instantaneous and calamitous. The Way leapt to her call and spirits from the other side reacted, piercing through to the material world, lashing out at the Apostle with the force of centuries of arcane power. Swirling vortices of ghostly energy wracked his body from head to toe, buffeting him to and fro, ripping and tearing at his skin and deep into his flesh, grabbing hold of his very bones and twisting, breaking him in as many places as he had. Hair stood on end and the smell of burning human flooded everywhere in an instant. It took only a few seconds, but James fell to the floor shattered and bleeding to death. He let slip a wet, choking moan that begged for succor.
The bamboo tea box thrown aside, Weston leapt over the desk and before his feet touched the floor his right fist found Alisanne's face. He wasn't a strong man, but he was furious, and he'd waited twenty long years to exact vengeance on this woman. His knuckles cracked her nose, smashing it wide and flat, sending a red spray across her bright clean robe. The wash basin on the desk wobbled and nearly tipped but steadied itself.
Alisanne was reeling. The poisoned tea coupled with the punch that rocked her kept her out of her senses, and off focus. She could barely raise her hands to defend against Weston's assault let alone cast another spell.
"You fucking bitch!" Weston screamed. He punched her in the jaw, rattling her even more. "You killed my brother!" He swung low, and sent another fist into her already twisted belly. She doubled over more as the stabbing pain dug deep into her. "You killed Catherine!" Weston made both fists into a club and brought it down on her shoulders sending her to the floor on her knees. She fought off a sob from the pain. "You took EVERYTHING FROM ME!"
"Stop Weston, you don't understand," she said through a mouth with many broken teeth, trying not to plead but failing.
"Fuck you, you evil witch," Weston cursed. He could hear commotion from down low in the building. Their fight was drawing in the Cathedral guards. He didn't have long. Maybe not long enough.
After putting a knee into her face Weston went around the desk and crossed the office to the door just in time to see four armed Church guards reach the top of the stairs. They saw him and started to run, but he shut the heavy door and threw the bolt before they made it. A jolt of exhilaration hit him. He was about to kill the woman who'd ruined his life, and the lives of the people he'd loved.
Weston turned and felt a sting in his stomach. Alisanne had followed him across the room and was standing close, pressing him against the door. She had a hand at his belly where he felt the sting. Her hand came away and the sting turned into a biting burn as a long dagger slipped out of a hole above his navel. She plunged it back in, lower this time and Weston knew he was in trouble. A hot wet sensation spilled down his lap and ran down his legs. That much blood that fast meant he was going to die.
"You aren't powerful enough Weston. You weren't then and you aren’t now," Alisanne said, her voice thick and snotty from the shattered nose and broken teeth. She stabbed him slowly again, this time much higher, piercing his lung as he slipped into shock. He could feel a coldness come over him as his strength began to give way.
"Ancestors mend me. Give me the blood I need to make me whole," Alisanne heard James mutter from the floor. His voice was tremulous and shaky but he managed the words. She turned and saw the final moment of him getting to his feet. His flesh knitted closed and his bones righted their skew. He'd summoned the power to set right the damage her smite had done. It seemed that the same spirits that had torn him apart realized the error of their ways, and returned to undo the damage they'd done. He was far stronger than she had thought him to be. Part of her was proud. She'd been right about him in that regard.
"Bishop! Open the door!" The guards yelled. She couldn't get to the handle to open it properly. She had Weston pinned against it and backing away would give him a chance to hurt her again.
"Water. Let you drown," Weston said nonsensically.
"What?" Alisanne asked him.
Weston coughed up a wad of mucus and blood then smiled lopsided. "Drown. You're going to drown. I've enough of The Way to see to it that happens." Weston collapsed to the floor, the dagger coming free from his body a final time. He tilted his head towards her desk as a puddle of crimson blood formed around him. James and Alisanne turned to look.
The golden wash basin the Bishop had used to cleanse her face was now empty of the water. Floating in the air and moving towards Alisanne was a globe of the soapy fluid, large enough to envelop her head. She screamed as the sphere lunged through the air at her with a mind of its own and swallowed her head whole.
The bloody dagger clattered to the floor as she scratched and clawed at the water clinging tenaciously to her head and face, forming a skin several inches thick. No air could get to her. Her eyes grew wider and wider as her body began to spend what air her burning lungs had. Her screams bubbled outward, managing only a guttural, frothy moan. Ribbons of her own red blood floated in the water in front of her panic stricken eyes.
"Get. The box. Take off your uniform. Go," Weston whispered as the guards smashed into the door, shaking his body. As he spoke Alisanne flailed around her office, desperately trying to get the water away from her mouth and broken
nose. She knocked things off her desk and the shelves on the walls, creating a field of slippery debris that made her situation that much worse.
James rushed to the fallen Waymancer and started to summon healing magic to repair his perforated body. Weston shook his head and managed to pat James' hand, breaking the spell. "What?" James said, stopping the spell.
"It'll be easier if only you escape. I can be a dead villain. I've nothing left to lose but the boy and the girl, and they'll be better off with me guilty. Tell the twins I said goodbye. And thank them for giving me a chance at redemption. I wish I had more time with them." Weston watched and smiled as Alisanne's frantic movements started to become sluggish. She leaned on her desk, almost as if she were thinking on a solution to the water that was killing her, but then she collapsed to the floor, twitching. Dying. Unable to summon the spirits she needed to survive.
"No. I can heal you. We'll figure it out. The twins need their family," James said.
"Go. I insist. They had no family before they met me and now they are no different. I was but a bend in the road of their life. And that's okay. I'll be on the other side watching, you can hail me there, and I'll do my level best to continue aiding what must be done. Go," Weston insisted with even less life. His eyes closed and James feared the man had spoken his last words.
"It was an honor," James said, stripping away his own cream and white robe. Under he wore breeches and a blouse far below his station. He looked entirely unlike the well-to-do Apostle he was. He quickly folded the robe and put it in a small closet in the corner of the office and picked up the box that contained the key Weston was dying for. James knew he had to go out the window and headed over to the desk, but stopped when he saw the dagger on the floor. It was covered in Weston's drying blood.
James picked it up off the floor and went over to where Alisanne lay prone on the floor. Her head was near the fancy desk she loved so with all its carvings and intricacies. James took a knee and spoke to her body.
"I don't know if you can hear me Alisanne, but I figured I would give you a chance to experience something I was able to because of you." James took the dagger and plunged it into her back right between her shoulder blades, severing her spine. She twitched and flailed more. Evidently she wasn't drowned fully yet. James felt a sense of satisfaction that she'd felt his last insult against her.
"Now you know what it's like to be stabbed in the back just like everyone that comes into your life does."
The office door suddenly gave way, toppling Weston's body from its resting place into the pool of blood that surrounded him. As the guards began to push their way inside, into the aftermath of the confrontation, James summoned the spirits around him for the energy to power another spell.
- Chapter Eighteen -
SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING DARK
The spell's power summoned, James fell from the open window just as the guards reached out to grasp him. He was half a second faster than them, and that was just enough time to escape their clutches. James recognized them as the sentries who had been posted at the entrance to the building below. The same below he was plummeting to.
His escape was not fast enough to escape them seeing him however. His clean getaway was dashed, and Weston's sacrifice was likely now all for nothing. He had to flee with the box, and he couldn't hurt anyone in the process.
If he could help it.
All of this occurred to James as fell through the warm summer morning air like a graceless stone, his arms flailing wildly, one hand gripping the locked box firmly, attempting to keep it away from the hard ground below. He fought back a scream as the ground rushed up to meet his already sore body.
With a bone shaking thump he impacted on the flagstones in the plaza outside the structure Alisanne's office was in. His head bounced off the stone painfully, opening up a gash just below his right eye and sending his thoughts into a confused frenzy. His brow and cheek immediately swelled and narrowed his vision. James was thankful he'd summoned the support of the Ancestors before his leap. Were they not surrounding him with a cushion his head hitting the concrete would've been fatal.
James got to his feet with a grunt as several bystanders rushed over to give him help. Blood dripped off his cheek and left a series of wide red dots on the white stone at his feet. The onlookers were shocked that he was conscious let alone up and moving. Up above the Cathedral guards were shouting down out of Alisanne's window for him to stop.
"I'm fine thank you. Please leave me be," James said urgently through the haze in his head to the people coming to assist him, pushing their helping hands away as politely as he could. He took in the landscape around him and knew exactly where he needed to go and started to run in that direction.
Mounts inside the Cathedral grounds were strictly to be on marked dirt paths. They were not to walk on the paved stone walkways for people, and they were to be walked, not ridden. It kept order in the sedate grounds. James knew exactly where Chelsea and Malwynn were waiting for him with a spare horse, and he started to run in their direction. The stable was a few hundreds yards distant, and James had only a small lead on the guards behind him and with their superior physical condition to his, he would not be able to maintain his lead for long. He ran for his life, and the lives of all the people Alisanne had killed in her misguided quest for the glory of the people of Elmoryn.
Legs and arms pumping, the middle aged plain clothed Apostle leapt over a row of trimmed hedges and across a wide expanse of bright green grass. He looked no better than a common criminal, or a street thug that had lost a dirty fight. A budding couple on the lawn, legs entwined with each other stopped a kiss to watch him run by like a mad man. He waved at them and kept running full tilt until he reached the far end of the grass where he jumped over a short stone wall and down a slope towards the nearest dirt path. It would lead him to a stable. The stable where his allies waited impatiently.
"Stop! Murderer!" James heard a man trailing him holler. He didn't turn to look. He already knew it was a guard in pursuit. It frightened him how close the voice behind him was already. He'd hoped for more time before they got to him. James pumped his legs harder, feeling a scalding burn from his thighs and lungs in response. His body was not accustomed to being smited with The Way, thrown from a third story window and then asked to sprint a half mile all before a hearty breakfast. His flame was burning out fast. James made the turn at an apple tree onto the dirt path and watched as the armored guard following him tried to corner to meet his adjusted path. The heavier, larger man lost purchase with his feet and slipped, landing hard on his back. James could hear the man's lungs forcefully empty as his weapon skidded into some bushes. The guard heaved, trying to stand as James peeled away, making up ground immediately. The next closest pursuer was well over twenty yards away.
"Thank Ulysses," James said in between two heaving breaths. Invoking the name of the long dead patriot spirit of Varrland was a rare occurrence for James but he felt if he owed any thanks to anyone in this moment, it might as well be the man who slayed the Tyrant King so long ago.
James ran for his life, clutching the tiny wooden box close to his chest. He had to sway and weave between people walking their horses, and one person walking a Gvorn. He was short but polite. "Please, excuse me," was his most common courtesy uttered half out of breath as he sprinted past.
The path ran as straight as an arrow for another hundred yards and when he finally passed the last person walking their mount he could see the large stable with its white walls, and brown and black wooden beams. A thatched roof reached high, reaching a pinnacle four stories above the ground. It was a needlessly large stable strictly for the show of it. The Church wanted all to know it was a special place, and even the horses brought here were put up in beautiful homes.
Four armor-clad men stepped into the path fifty paces ahead. James slowed to a jog, then to a full stop. Two of the four freed up a pair of maces from hooks on their belts and presented them menacingly. The smooth steel heads spoke of
broken bones and dark bruises to come. They meant to beat him unconscious if they had to so they could take him into custody. He was, after all, suspected in a murder now.
"Now sir, stop where you are. No one else needs to be hurt today," one of the larger, and the elder of the four said. He was likely the patrol leader. James had no idea the Church had so many guards on hand.
James had to admire how clean their armor was. How white their tabards appeared. "I didn’t kill anyone. She was already well along to dying. In fact, she tried to kill me first. The other man was helping me. He came to my aid and she did him with a dagger. Her very own dagger. Alisanne was a vile creature I tell the truth," James said. It was the truth. It had to be, he was still under the effect of the Saint lying in repose on the Cathedral grounds.
The four guards stopped and looked at one another, clearly taken aback and confused by the open admission that had to be legitimate somehow. The two Church sentries who had kept on his tail were now slowing to a jog behind him. He heard their feet crunch a few loose stones as they too stopped. It was a bit of a standoff.
"Why did you jump from the window if you did no wrong?" The leader asked, lowering his mace an inch.
James stammered, unsure of how to answer. He felt compelled by the Saint's aura covering the grounds to fess up and tell the whole story because he was bidden, but he fought the compulsion, and chose what parts of the truth to tell. "I knew you'd suspect me of her killing. I need to leave here today. I cannot afford delays. I am on a task of the utmost importance. The safety of untold numbers may hinge on my success or failure. You mustn't delay me."
"Well sir a delay you have. We cannot let you leave until a full investigation has been made. I'd ask you to set down that box you've got and put your hands behind your back so we can place some handcuffs on you. For everyone's safety. Now be a good citizen." The large soldier—clearly now the leader—revealed a pair of handcuffs from his belt. The cold iron rings looked uncomfortable, and for James, they were the ultimate symbol of potential failure.
The Motive for Massacre (The Kinless Trilogy Book 2) Page 23