Shadow Knight

by O. J. Lowe

  You just had to be careful around him, not give him anything he could use and abuse.

  I’d been directed to an apartment complex in Medway, climbed the stairs to the very top floor and found myself in front of the door to the sixth apartment on the right, banged my fist against the wood and waited. When nobody immediately answered, I waited until finally I heard the rattling and sliding of chains and it opened just a hairline.

  “That you, Armitage.”

  “Open up, asshole,” I growled. “I’m not lurking out here all night.” Not the most diplomatic I’d ever been, but at the same time, I found it hard to care right now.

  “Yep, that sounds like Armitage.”

  The door opened up, only long enough for me to slide through the crack and then it slammed shut behind me, I rolled my eyes in disgust. The room wasn’t in a good condition, a large suitcase open against the wall, dirty clothes scattered around it, an old trash bag next to it. The couch had at least seen worse days, it was clean and that was more than could be said for the rest of the stuff in here.

  “You’re living rough these days,” I said, trying to hide the curl of disgust on my face. “What happened?”

  Leon Girard shrugged at me, a middle-aged wizard going bald on the top with the most piercing brown eyes I’d ever seen. “Word of mouth soon gets around,” he said with a shrug. “Don’t matter if it’s true or not, it’s all about whether people believe it is. Most people would rather believe a vicious lie than a mundane truth. The hint of scandal excites them.”

  “What is the truth?”

  “Flexible,” he admitted. “It’s only relative to what can be gleaned from a lie. Einstein said that.”

  “I’m pretty sure he didn’t.”

  “Well, semantics,” Girard smiled. “I didn’t offer up anyone. I simply offered an antidote to a poison and well, it all got out of hand.”

  Yeah… Girard made poisons. Good ones. As an assassin, it’s always handy to know someone like that. The bullet or the blade might never be what puts them down, but a little surprise can have deadly implications. I’d bought stuff from him for a long damn time, he kept his ear to the ground for me.

  “What happened to your bodyguard?”

  “James? Ah, the lion queen got into his ear, told him that I shouldn’t be trusted. He stopped believing what I was saying to him after a while. I think he got the impression I wasn’t going to cure him after all.”

  “Were you?”

  Girard snorted in derision. “What do I look like, a doctor? A berserker wererat was about his level. He’ll be in jail before long, he’ll piss off the wrong person.”

  “Speaking of,” I said. “You hear about what happened in High Hall?”

  “Heard there was some sort of rebellion. The troll-apes and the andah teamed up to try and stomp fae heads in.”

  “That rumour though,” I said, giving him a grin. His own smile faded quickly.

  “What rumour?”

  “It was a knight of the Shining Council who incited it. Allegedly.”

  “Which one? It wasn’t Symond, was it?”

  “Moulton,” I said. “Just a rumour, mind.”

  “A bad one, that one,” Girard immediately said. “Doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Why?” Instantly I began to wonder what he knew that I didn’t, if some great secret was on the streets about him.

  “I knew Garry a bit back. Always knew he hated the fae. Especially Queen Leanna.”

  I fixed him with a gaze, silently begging him to spill it a bit further, let his lips be a bit looser with what he knew. “What?” he asked.

  “Why did he hate her?”

  “Some old family feud or something, I think.”

  “You know this how?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.

  “I listen,” he said with a grin. “When someone starts bitching, it’s a good idea to listen. It says so much more about the speaker than the one they’re criticising. I always found Moulton interesting to listen to.”

  “You know where he is?” I dared to dream; this was better than I could have hoped.

  “I can make a few calls,” he admitted. “See what I can knock up.”

  “Do it,” I said simply. “The rewards are high.” I took one of the gold bars out, hefted it one handed, tossed it into the air and caught it again. “You find him, this is yours.”

  Eight.

  Information is always the key, it’s the single most important thing any assassin can have as a tool in their armoury. Without information, we might as well be beasts, it sets us apart from the common rabble. It lets us get in, perform the job and have an exit route with the minimum of fuss. It can be the cigarette paper between a success and an unmarked grave, a bullet in the back of the head, a stake through the heart.

  It was good intel that led me to Punjabi Parvati. We’d been given the contract on a businessman, Rahm Chansiri, someone who’d pissed off the wrong people, as is usually the way. Because nobody puts out hits on saints. I’d gone myself, snuck into his home, a big mansion out in Vermillion Heights, only to discover I wasn’t the only one who’d decided to try their arm at it.

  Parvati was… Skilled. Sly. Subtle. All the things you want in an assassin, with the counterpoint of being raw as hell. That’s good. From raw materials, you can get a finished product, refine them into something better.

  All I can say is, I’d never encountered someone like her before. She had a way of getting in your head, mild psychomancy which left you disoriented, questioning your vision. Sometimes, she’d even get under your skin, leave you a gibbering wreck. I was fine, my willpower trumps hers, I know who I am, but I imagine someone a little more insecure would be left a quivering lump of jelly. With training, she’d even become able to see through a target’s eyes, making it impossible for them to hide from her.

  I’d not expected the nagini to make her presence known. If I had, no doubt I’d have had a plan to kill her. I’m not going to kill someone over nothing, but should they come between me and my target, I’ll put them down. Instead, I’d found a new recruit for my stable. I saw something in her I doubt anyone else ever had.

  Self-belief. That’s the real key in any of it. Iron clad determination you’re going to be able to pull it off. Without that, all the information in the world is useless, knowing you need to act and being unable to do so is the worst sort of treachery. Betraying yourself.

  Chansiri died. I even let Parvati kill him, on the proviso that she come to work for me. If she’d refused, I’d have killed her too. A shapeshifter is always handy to mould into an assassin. After all, the best killer is the one that you don’t see coming. Nobody who ever met the petite Indian woman would ever guess she could transform herself into a half-serpent monstrosity. There was something strangely attractive about her true form.

  That’s the third thing. Knowing when to at, when not to. If you can get something better out of not doing anything, then it’s usually the right thing to do. When Parvati joined the Red Claw, there were basically two payments. The guy who’d hired her, and the guy who’d hired us. See, I did nothing, we got paid twice and I got a new assassin.

  Sometimes, it all comes up in your favour.

  “Not many people want to return my calls these days,” Girard said.

  I simply shrugged at him, settled back on his couch. “Well, if that becomes my problem, I’ll be amazed. I don’t want to hear explanations; I desire an outcome. And I think you want a gold bar.”

  “Yeah, but not for the reasons you think,” Girard said. “I’m wanting to create a new poison. I’m swearing off silver these days, it gets you into too much trouble. Especially when angry shifters show up on your doorstep.”

  “And gold is the answer to that?”

  “Hey, you ever see that film where the girl gets killed because she gets covered in gold paint? Now imagine if I could create something which basically does that but to your blood?”

  “A noble ambition.”

&nbs
p; “You’re a professional killer, Cassius. You can appreciate the applications of something like this. Unfortunately, I need gold to perfect it.”

  “An expensive process.”

  “That’s okay, I’m planning on it being an expensive way to kill. It’s amazing how you can market it to some people. They even want their poisons to be top of the line. Never mind that they’re going to look guilty as hell if they ever use it. Heh, you’re a killer, you remember when the whole idea behind poison was that nobody would ever know it’d been used? You use something like this, it’s going to be a big red flag that someone rich wanted them dead.”

  “So, you’re making it why?”

  “Sort of a big fuck you to society,” he shrugged.

  Personally, I thought Leon Girard had a screw loose these days, but if it was how he wanted to spend his time, then that was up to him. “You ever want help testing it, let me know. I’m sure we might be able to come to some agreement.”

  “You know how every artist’s work is unique? I feel that way about my poisons, sometimes, you know. I want to use them and people to know it was my work. Silver Rose was something outstanding. I mean, poison that’s incredibly hard to cure. You know how rare true love really is? Far more likely they’d die first and well, mission accomplished.”

  I knew all too much about his previous example of a designer poison. “So, you can’t make that anymore.”

  “One known survivor is bad for business,” he said. “Not when it was previously supposed to be incurable.”

  His phone rang, I sat up in my seat and watched him as he brought it to his ear, spoke into it, plenty of non-committal words, not really giving too much of it away. I was sure privately he was doing it to look mysterious, as if he was trying to make out more work was involved than likely was. He put it down again, grinned at me.

  “Garrett Moulton,” he said. “I heard he got sighted in Dead Town, not far from the Church of Unholy Sun.”

  “You think Vressiere is sheltering him?” That would be interesting. Traditionally, vampires had no love for the fae. Santiago Vressiere had been the Sunlight King for a long damn time though, I’d figure he had more sense than to intentionally thumb his nose at everyone else like this.

  “Maybe he doesn’t know he’s there or what he is. It’s a big area. Plenty of space for someone to lie low.”

  “He’s a goddamn magic user, a powerful one. No way someone like him stays incognito for long.”

  “He could be concealing himself behind wards, masking his true power. And I think you underestimate what being hunted can do for your state of mind. It makes you act as you normally wouldn’t, sometimes out of desperation, sometimes out of necessity. At least in the early days, he’ll question every step, stay out of sight if he has to. The longer he remains at large, the more confident he’ll become. Eventually he’ll get caught because he forgets that pure panic in the terror of knowing someone is chasing you, that they want your blood more than anything else.”

  “Dead Town then,” I said. It was a lead, a slender one I had to admit, but better than nothing. I tossed the bar on the table. “Here you go. Turn that into poison or whatever you want with it. I get him, there’s another one coming your way. Especially if you keep your mouth shut about this discussion.”

  “It’s real, ain’t it?”

  “That’s what they told me. And I warned them what would happen if they tried paying me with dodgy gold. I don’t think that they’re prepped for those sorts of consequences.”

  “Who’s the employer?”

  “Can’t tell you,” I said. “Contract.” I’d mentioned a few names, but only to interest him, nor had I confirmed them. I didn’t trust Girard to keep his mouth shut out of the goodness of his heart. His greed though, that trumped most things.

  “That old chestnut.” Girard gave a theatrical sigh, as if he were hurt, but at the same time, I doubted he’d really expected me to give them up. That would be unreasonable of me. “Let me know how it goes. I’m going to assume you’re working for Queen Leanna, huh? Take it she wants revenge on him?”

  I said nothing. If he wanted to believe that, it was up to him. I wasn’t going to confirm or deny either way. If I said yes, it’d put the Shining Council in the clear, but I might have Queen Leanna taking an interest in me.

  Heh. If I was feeling particularly aspirational as a businessman, suitably brazen, I might even get in touch with her, see if I could scrounge something out of her for his death. If a client wants someone dead and you’ve already gotten a contract on them, it’s always worth a try, depending on the client. It all boils back down to information, to reading a situation. I wouldn’t dare with someone who could wipe me out with a particularly stray thought. The secret of my success by and large has always involved steering clear of the fae queens, more like gods than gods these days, most of them anyway.

  “Been nice seeing you again, Leon,” I said, offering him a hand. He took it, gripped it tight and patted me on the shoulder. “Been too damn long.”

  “Hey, running for your life can do that to you. When things settle down a bit, we’ll have a meet up, yeah? Meet for a drink.”

  Is it bad I considered this particular piece of scum one of my closest friends? The truth of it was, I had to. We knew each other too well, we had that sort of relationship that comes with years of knowing each other, close because of time rather than any sort of affection. If he ever desired someone to be killed, I’d give him the friends and family discount, there’s not many in the Novisarium who can have that honour.

  I always hated coming to Dead Town, the air always felt thick and cloying whenever I walked into the vampire capital of the Novisarium. It wasn’t the only place they lived, some of the older and richer ones spent their time Uptown, one or two of them no doubt had places in Vermillion Heights.

  Still, things weren’t all they were cracked up to be for them right now, some idiot switched the sun on for a few weeks some months back and the Novisarium went from a city of eternal night, aka vampire heaven, to a place with a normal day/night cycle. The street sweepers had a hell of a time those first few days, exploded piles of blood and bone everywhere, the remnants of those who hadn’t expected the sudden, lethal change. It’d thinned out the numbers, that was for sure, the official count at well over a hundred dead vampires before they’d worked it out.

  Nobody knew how many there were. I don’t think they approved of the census. That’s a whole other thing in the Novisarium, some find it impersonal, some think it’s archaic, others consider it downright racist. And then there’s those who think it makes them a target.

  Hey, if I was wanting to commit a genocide, I’d want to know the numbers beforehand. Like I said. Information is key. You have that, you can work out what sort of effort you’re going to need, how much help, so on and so on.

  I didn’t linger close to the church, Vressiere had defiled it, made it so that he could hold his court there without them bursting into flames. Churches and the like historically have a hard time in the Novisarium anyway, when there’s this much temptation on offer and so many fallen gods, it makes it hard to believe in the divine. I’m not saying there aren’t those who believe. Just that they have their own ways of expressing it. Me? I believe in no gods, though I’ve killed a few in my time.

  How best to do this then? I couldn’t just walk around brandishing Moulton’s picture. Chances were nobody would offer him up, not out of loyalty but because they didn’t like outsiders. You might hate your neighbour, but at least they were your neighbour.

  Besides, whatever image he might present to the wider city, Vressiere is royalty. No king wants a notorious assassin hanging out close to them, even if there is some innocuous reason. Paranoia is healthy sometimes, if not entirely convenient for those caught up in its wake.

  Going door to door was out. Girard had been helpful, to a point, the rogue wizard might already have moved on. It wasn’t impossible, though if he was hunkering down behind wards, it would
argue against that. Moving around is the opposite to hiding.

  I don’t know how long I wandered through the streets of Dead Town, waiting for something to catch my eye. If I’d learned anything through my years as a hitman for hire, it’s that you’re always going to get a chance, something will show up, you need to take your opportunities when they appear.

  Hours and hours passed; I’d nearly given up when I spotted the boy on the bicycle.

  That in itself was unusual. I had to question the parenting, a fourteen-year-old boy on a bicycle in a city where drivers tend to put spikes on their hubcaps, just in case. Most of them have the road sense of a professional NASCAR driver, giving the impression they’re driving a tank. So, letting someone go out delivering was a questionable decision without so much as a metal frame between them and the road.

  Still, I paused, took the moment to study him, a bag under his arm as he pedalled frantically through the streets like he was being chased. Maybe he was.

  My theory that Moulton was holed up somewhere had its pluses and its minuses. Still, I couldn’t help thinking about the populace of this section of the city. The clue was in the name. Not many people lived here who weren’t vampires, not out of any particular lack of safety, but vampires have a pretty bad rep, publicity-wise. Stoker did them a lot of damage when he wrote Dracula.

  In short, people didn’t like living here, just in case the vampires went feral and tried to suck their blood in their sleep. So, as a result, it brought about the question of food.