Decimus Fate and the Butcher of Guile: (Decimus Fate - Book 2)

by Peter A Flannery

  ‘The Butcher of Guile indeed,’ he said with a smile.

  22

  Luca’s Tale

  The Butcher’s cave was surprisingly homely with a table, three chairs and hundreds of books lining crude wooden shelves set into the walls. Light was provided by glass jars filled with brightly glowing fungus. A low cot lay against one wall and it was here that Weasel was sitting beside Madam de Lorni’s son. Luca appeared anxious while Weasel looked distinctly pleased with himself.

  Sitting in one of the chairs, the Tutor looked up at the ‘bogeyman’ as the troglodyte handed him a stone cup of water.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘His name’s Cradlop,’ said Weasel.

  ‘Thank you, Cradlop,’ said the Tutor.

  Weasel laughed at his attempt to imitate the bizarre name, but the troglodyte merely dipped his head with a pebble-plop sound that almost certainly meant, ‘You’re welcome.’

  Across the cave Fate accepted a similar bowl from the Butcher. The large man walked with a stiffness that spoke of sore joints and the sorcerer watched him closely as he lowered himself into the remaining chair.

  ‘You’re a replicantis,’ said Fate and the Butcher gave a soft laugh.

  ‘I haven’t heard that term since my mother died more than twenty years ago.’ His voice was deep and mellow, a voice well suited to the echoing acoustics of a cave.

  ‘A replicantis?’ asked the Tutor.

  ‘Someone who can transfer the physical properties of one living thing to another,’ said Fate.

  ‘Similar living things,’ clarified the Butcher. ‘And the changes I can make are largely superficial.’

  ‘You were able to modify the skin of a troglodyte,’ said Fate as his gaze moved to Cradlop. ‘There’s nothing superficial about that.’

  The appearance of the troglodyte’s pale skin fell somewhere between human skin and mottled stone.

  ‘That took some time,’ said the Butcher.

  ‘But without it, Cradlop would have died,’ said Fate. ‘A troglodyte cannot survive for long without the mineral waters of its home.’

  ‘He was getting weaker when I found him,’ said the Butcher as the two friends looked at each other. ‘We saved each other.’

  ‘Your eyes,’ said Fate and the Butcher nodded.

  The Butcher had the pale skin and pink eyes of an albino, but his eyes also glowed like Cradlop’s, and the glowing eyes of a troglodyte can see in the dark.

  ‘I was born with a condition that made me susceptible to sunlight,’ the Butcher explained. ‘Even a brief exposure would lead to blisters and burns.’

  ‘I have heard of such a condition,’ said Fate.

  ‘Well, the people in my neighbourhood thought I was cursed,’ the Butcher went on. ‘My mother was a healer and, while she lived, she protected me from the cruelty of ignorant folk. When she died I lost that protection and the people drove me out of my home. One boy slashed me with a knife.’

  Here, the Butcher paused.

  ‘I think it was the fear that awakened my power… When the boy tried to stab me again, I grabbed his leg and the cut in my shoulder appeared in his thigh. There was so much blood that I knew he wouldn’t survive, and so I fled into the sewers.’

  Another pause.

  ‘For months I lived in a twilight world; lost to the day and scared of the night. And I would have died if I hadn’t found Cradlop.’

  The Butcher smiled as he looked at Cradlop.

  ‘Cave dweller, like me,’ said the troglodyte.

  ‘We both would have died,’ the Butcher went on. ‘And Cradlop was suffering from some infection of the skin.’

  ‘Bleed skin, no breathe,’ said Cradlop.

  ‘So you transferred some human qualities to Cradlop,’ said Fate and the Butcher nodded once more.

  ‘I shared my skin and he shared his eyes,’ said the Butcher. ‘And that allowed us to carve out a life in the tunnels beneath the city.’

  ‘And now you use your skills to save those who fall between the cracks.’

  The Butcher smiled and inclined his head at Fate’s choice of words.

  ‘So, let me get this straight…’ said the Tutor. ‘You find someone who’s wanted by one of the gangs, and then you copy their body to fake their death.’

  ‘They only copy innocent people,’ said Weasel.

  ‘We choose people who seem decent,’ corrected the Butcher. ‘People who have fallen prey to misfortune.’

  ‘Like Luca,’ said Fate, and all eyes turned to Madam de Lorni’s son.

  ‘But how do you know he’s innocent?’ asked the Tutor.

  ‘You learn to tell,’ said the Butcher. ‘There are many reasons why people end up hiding in the sewers of Guile. You’d be amazed at how well their voices carry down the pipes and drains.’

  He looked across at Luca, but the young man simply bowed his head.

  ‘Some boast of their crimes, some plead for their lives, and some speak of regret and how foolish they have been. They speak to the darkness as they would to the confessional grille of a chapel.’

  ‘And you listen,’ said Fate.

  ‘What else is there to do?’ said the Butcher. ‘For an exiled troglodyte and a man whose skin dissolves in sunlight... It’s the only way we can share in the life of the surface world.’

  ‘And what about the people you save?’ asked the Tutor. ‘What happens to them?’

  ‘We send them far away,’ said the Butcher.

  ‘But where can they go?’ the demon hunter persisted. ‘The people who want them will be watching the gates. And many of the gangs have contacts in other cities.’

  ‘We don’t leave through the gates,’ said the Butcher. ‘The river that carved these tunnels doesn’t stop at the city walls. It flows all the way to the sea.’

  ‘What!’ said the Tutor. ‘You can follow these tunnels all the way to the coast?’

  ‘Mostly,’ said the Butcher. ‘Some sections are too narrow so we need to travel overland during the night.’

  ‘And what happens when you get to the coast?’ asked Fate.

  ‘We have an arrangement with the captain of a trading fleet.’

  ‘An arrangement?’ queried the sorcerer.

  ‘Cradlop has a gift for finding gems and precious metals,’ said the Butcher. ‘We pay for discretion and two years’ passage as a hand on a trading ship.’

  ‘Two years?’

  ‘That’s how long we deem it safe for most problems to blow over. But many of the people we save choose never to return.’

  ‘So Luca might need to leave the city for two years?’ asked Weasel.

  ‘And for all that time his mother will think he’s dead?’ added the Tutor.

  ‘Better that, than for him to be actually killed.’

  ‘But Luca’s innocent,’ said Weasel, and Fate finally turned to look at the young man.

  ‘Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened?’

  Still a little wary, Luca looked to the Butcher before answering.

  ‘It started about six months ago when Alonso told me to collect a silver flask from a potion-maker.’

  ‘Inganno,’ said Fate.

  ‘That’s him,’ replied Luca. ‘A slimy toad of a man. I gave him a purse of money and he gave me a potion.’

  ‘And what did the potion do?’ asked the Tutor.

  ‘It made people obey,’ said Luca and Fate shook his head in disgust.

  ‘A potion of compliance,’ he said. ‘A slave potion, if you will. Their use has been outlawed for almost a century.’

  ‘Like Inganno’s love potions,’ said the Tutor.

  ‘Worse,’ said Fate. ‘A love potion changes the way a person feels so an affected person could actually be happy, whereas a potion of compliance can compel a person even if they despise what they are doing.’

  ‘He used it on women,’ said Luca, ‘serving girls mostly.’

  ‘There were other victims?’ asked Fate in a dangerous tone and Luca nodded.

&nbs
p; ‘Most were just abused, but I heard rumours about others that went missing.’

  The blue ice in the Tutor’s gaze matched the golden fire in Fate’s.

  ‘But then he used the potion on his cousin, Eliza.’

  ‘Lord Medici’s niece,’ clarified the Tutor.

  ‘He’d been tormenting her for weeks,’ Luca went on. ‘But he was running out of the potion… he didn’t have enough for a full dose and so he lost the ability to control her. He kept her in the house while he waited for a new batch to arrive, and that was when she wrote the note.’

  At this, the Butcher placed a crumpled letter on the table in front of Fate.

  ‘She gave the note to me…’ said Luca, his eyes glazing over as he remembered the fear in Eliza Medici’s eyes as she pressed the hastily written letter into his hand…

  *

  ‘Please,’ said the pretty young woman. ‘Just deliver it to my father, that’s all I’m asking.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Luca. ‘Alonso’ll kill me if I betray him.’

  ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘You’re not like the others. I know you’re not. Please help me.’

  Eliza’s blue eyes were swimming with tears as she held onto his hands.

  ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Thank you,’ gasped Eliza as Luca slipped the letter into his trouser pocket.

  Overcome with relief, she pulled Luca into an awkward embrace before pushing him behind the door as she stepped through into the adjacent room from where Alonso’s voice now rose up.

  ‘And where have you been hiding?’ he demanded.

  ‘Nowhere,’ said Eliza as she moved away from the door. ‘I was just…’

  Smack!

  ‘You’re lying!’ said Alonso, and Eliza stumbled into a table as Alonso delivered another backhanded slap to her face. ‘You were trying to escape, weren’t you? Trying to flee back to dear old daddy.’

  Still hiding behind the door, Luca hardly dared breathe. He peered through the narrow gap and froze as he caught a glimpse of crimson robes. It was Alonso’s Don’Sha’Vir and Luca was terrified that the mystic warrior might sense his presence.

  ‘Don’t you realise that you belong to me,’ Alonso continued. ‘You’re my favourite toy and I will never let you go.’

  Luca heard a lighter slap.

  ‘Why, you!’ came Alonso’s angry reply, and this was followed by the sound of a heavier blow.

  Eliza screamed.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Alonso with sadistic glee. ‘The house is empty. My father won’t be back till morning so we have the whole night to enjoy ourselves. And you know what…’ he added as if the thought had just occurred to him, ‘I think it’s even more fun without the potion.’

  Risking another glimpse, Luca saw Eliza running towards the door behind which he stood. She was almost at the door when she fell forward and Luca saw a slender dagger protruding from her shoulder.

  ‘Oops!’ said Alonso, lowering his hand after throwing the dagger.

  The next few minutes were too awful for Luca to recall, but finally the scuffles and the stifled cries gave way to silence and Luca risked a final peek through the crack in the door.

  A dishevelled Alonso was rising to his feet, while Eliza’s body lay on the bloodstained floor.

  Stabbed… strangled… dead.

  In a state of shock, Luca backed away from the horrific scene as the voices resumed in the adjacent room. He heard Alonso say something about family, but it was the next sentence that prompted him to act.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Alonso continued. ‘We’ll blame it on the new footman. Now he can hang for the death of my dear cousin.’

  Sheer terror gripped Luca.

  Stripping off his footman’s jacket, he moved to the patio doors, his hands trembling as he tried to turn the key. He was just about to leave when a thought occurred to him. He had the letter that Eliza had given him, but without the potion he would have no physical proof.

  Turning back into the room he dashed over to a drinks cabinet where Alonso kept the potion. Through a cloud of cold vapour he caught a quick glimpse of a small silver flask and reached out to grab it. Then, before anyone even knew he was there, he slipped out of the patio doors, sprinted across the lawn and scrambled over the boundary wall before disappearing into the night-time streets of Guile.

  Knowing it would be too dangerous to return home, Luca ran until he reached the river. He needed somewhere to hide so he scrambled down the bank and forced his way through a thicket of blackthorn bushes where he found a large storm drain that opened into a cave.

  Reaching the shelter of the storm drain, Luca sat down on a mound of sandy earth. He was still holding the silver flask in his hand and now he removed Eliza’s letter from his pocket. Together, these things should be enough to save him from the hangman’s noose. But then he removed the cap of the silver flask and all hope turned to despair as he caught the unmistakable smell of brandy.

  It was the wrong flask.

  In his haste to escape from the Medici mansion, he had taken the wrong flask.

  *

  ‘That’s where the sergeant found me,’ said Luca as he completed his tale.

  ‘Your mother’s friend?’ said the Tutor and Luca nodded.

  ‘He went to get the potion flask but he never returned,’ said Luca. ‘I was waiting for him to come back when I saw Medici’s men coming along the riverbank…’

  ‘And that’s when Cradlop took Luca,’ said Weasel who had been waiting impatiently for them to get to the part of the story that included him.

  ‘Took him to make safe,’ said Cradlop.

  ‘Scared me half to death,’ added Luca. ‘I thought I was going to drown when he dragged me into the water, and then those nightmare fish started biting.’

  ‘They’re horrible,’ said Weasel, and the young wayfinder grew uncharacteristically serious as he relived his own encounter with the subterranean lamprey.

  ‘We cut them off quickly,’ said the Butcher. ‘They didn’t have time to do too much damage.’

  ‘So what are you planning to do now?’ asked Fate.

  ‘We are going to copy Luca’s features onto a nameless corpse,’ said the Butcher. ‘In fact we’ve almost completed the replicating process. We do it a bit at a time because the process is painful.’

  ‘And you chop the body up to obscure other differences like height and weight.’

  ‘Correct,’ replied the Butcher with a nod. ‘And the river helps. Even a few hours in the water will change the appearance of a corpse, so people just look for identifying marks.’

  ‘But what about the bodies you use?’ asked the Tutor.

  ‘Unclaimed bodies from various morgues,’ replied the Butcher. ‘It might take a few days, but it doesn’t take long for someone to die without anyone to notice they’ve gone.’

  He exchanged a sober look with Cradlop.

  ‘We treat them with respect, and the fact that they are saving another person’s life gives meaning to their deaths.’

  ‘So what about Luca?’ asked Fate, and the Butcher shrugged.

  ‘There was nothing we could do to prove his innocence so we planned to go ahead with sending him to the coast.’

  ‘And Weasel?’ asked the Tutor.

  ‘Young Weasel poses a different problem,’ said the Butcher. ‘If we let him go then we run the risk of our actions being unmasked. We were trying to decide if we could trust him to keep a secret.’

  Fate turned to look at the young wayfinder.

  ‘You can trust him,’ he said, and Weasel bowed his head in embarrassment. No one had ever shown that kind of faith in him before.

  ‘But what if we could prove that Luca is innocent?’ asked the Tutor. ‘What if we could retrieve the potion?’

  ‘Then Luca could prove his innocence and return to his mother,’ said the Butcher. ‘Do you think you can retrieve it?’

  In the pale light of the Butcher’s lair the demon hunter and th
e sorcerer exchanged a glance.

  ‘I would think so,’ said Fate. ‘But first we need to take care of a dog.’

  ‘A dog!’ said Weasel excitedly. ‘Are we getting a dog?’

  23

  Ensnared

  It was an hour before dawn when Fate and the Tutor made their way back to Blackfell House. Cradlop had led them to a different exit from the tunnels so there was no need for them to go back through the sump, something for which they were both extremely grateful. Veils of mist lingered in the air so they moved with caution, checking every side street and alleyway for any sign of a dark wolf-like creature that had attacked them earlier in the night.

  ‘Do you think it’s healed by now?’ asked the Tutor.

  ‘Difficult to say,’ replied Fate. ‘Your sword cut pretty deep, but effigies like that are not easily destroyed.’

  Nodding in agreement, the Tutor drew his sword and Fate noticed that there appeared to be no stiffness or pain from the deep gashes that the manitu had inflicted.

  ‘How’s the shoulder?’

  ‘It feels good,’ replied the Tutor. ‘How’s yours?’

  ‘Sore.’ said Fate.

  ‘At least it still looks like you,’ said the Tutor. ‘The skin of my shoulder is now so pale it makes me look ill.’ He flexed his recently injured shoulder and Fate smiled.

  Before leaving the caves, the Butcher had used his gift to heal the gashes inflicted by Vulpyrac’s hound. However, to do so he needed the ‘template’ of a healthy shoulder and, purely out of professional curiosity, Fate had volunteered his own.

  Getting them to lie down on the stone slabs, the Butcher had reached out his hands, one to the Tutor’s injured shoulder and one to Fate’s. He closed his eyes and the two men winced as their shoulders were suffused by a fierce tingling warmth. When the Butcher removed his hands the gashes in the Tutor’s shoulder were gone and the demon hunter’s dark skin displayed the vague outline of a pale hand.

  ‘That’s because Fate’s skin tone is lighter than yours,’ said the Butcher. ‘It will fade in time,’ he added, but the Tutor seemed indignant.

  ‘You mean to tell me I’ve got part of him in my skin?’