Assassin of the Damned

— 19-

I peered around a corner into the piazza. The knight sat on his horse near the fountain. Both mount and rider scanned back and forth. The lycanthropes troubled me because they remained hidden.

I watched from a distance, and found myself glancing at the candles circling the pattern. With a start, I heard paws padding. The sound came from around the corner. The footfalls paused. Someone sniffed. I swear I heard dust fluff and resettle onto the ground. The lycanthrope had to be just around the corner, hidden in that dead spot as concerned my vision. The candle and pattern were across the street at an angle from me. He sniffed again as if not daring to believe his first scent.

Several candles leaped with flame, consumed in an instant. A boot and trouser appeared out of nowhere and stepped onto the pattern.

The night grew dimmer, a chill made me tremble. I drew my blade and stepped around the corner.

A lycanthrope in beast form had turned his head to watch Erasmo’s arrival. Something must have alerted him. The beast’s head began to whip about. I thrust as if my dagger were a rapier. The oily blade entered his neck. I could feel skin, gristle and muscle come apart. The lycanthrope’s turning forced the knife deeper. Smoke curled from the wound. The lycanthrope’s jaws parted. He began to howl, and his hindquarters tensed. I slashed downward, ripping his throat. He leaped. Claws flicked out of his paws. I dove, hit the dirt with my shoulder and rolled. My bloody knife was free and tucked near my chest. The claws flashed past me by inches. The lycanthrope’s body followed his claws. I continued the roll. My feet hit the ground. I stood and pivoted. The lycanthrope’s front paws hit the ground. His body followed, and it crumpled as blood jetted from his neck. His ghastly howl tore at my soul.

I looked right, left. The other lycanthropes burst into view across the street. The black knight was in mid-shout. I leapt over the fallen lycanthrope as a hard grin stretched my lips. I’d whittled down the odds.

The knight shouted. Lycanthropes howled, and Erasmo della Rovere joined us in the Perugian ruins.

***

I dreaded the idea that Erasmo would retreat to the Tower of the East.

I gazed at the gibbous moon as I stood on my palace. I could have soaked in its rays for hours. Instead, I pinned on my cloak and began the descent. On soft boots, I returned to the piazza, although from a new direction.

Erasmo stood before a flickering brazier. He looked like me, a big man in blue and gold garments, with a blue cloak and golden boots. An amulet hung on his chest, a black gem with a flame deep in its center. He chanted loudly. The black knight waited nearby, hunched upon his horse. The remaining lycanthropes padded back and forth on the street and snarled to each other, watching everywhere.

Erasmo poured blood from a golden cup into the brazier. It sizzled and a rank vapor whooshed skyward. His chant rose to a shriek.

The horse neighed. The lycanthropes cringed.

A dread sense of evil rooted me. I looked at the stars. Several had become cold like icicles. The twinkles became sinister like a lone heart beating on a table. Erasmo sang high octaves in a language never meant for human throats. The brazier cracked. Half-clotted blood oozed from it.

The lycanthropes tucked their tails between their legs and cowered on the ground.

Erasmo raised his arms. He chanted.

A wind blew in Perugia. I clutched my cloak so it wouldn’t flap. A strangely luminous green fog flowed past the fountain of Mars. The lycanthropes slunk from it. The knight’s horse backed up. The mist flowed deeper into the ruins. It poured into a building. Masonry and dust rained as the building shook. Then all was still, solemnly quiet as after an earthquake.

Erasmo stood as one dazed, as one who had run a long race. He ran his fingers through his hair and straightened his jacket. Then he approached the lycanthropes. The flame in Erasmo’s amulet seemed larger than before and more active. I had the awful impression that it watched alertly like a guard dog, flickering here, flickering there.

“We will mourn your companion later,” Erasmo said. “Now we go.”

“Leave us, spell worker,” the chief lycanthrope said, his voice filled with grief.

Erasmo’s features tightened, although he nodded slowly. “Grief is noble. However, I need you now, just as you need me.”

The lycanthrope put a paw on his dead brother, the one I’d slain. “We need no spells.”

“You wish to return home, yes?” Erasmo asked.

The lycanthrope’s head turned toward Erasmo. The beast’s nape hairs bristled.

Erasmo’s right hand jerked toward the amulet. His fingertips brushed it. “Think well before you threaten me, beast, even indirectly.”

Although I hated to admit it, Erasmo wore my likeness well. He had evil majesty, the bastard.

The lycanthrope lowered his head and spoke with contrition. “He was our brother, great one.”

“To honor him,” Erasmo said, “I will load you with bloody scalps and whatever else you wish to name. I am generous to those who serve me. But to those who set themselves against me, even in small things, I am a terror.”

“Can you punish the evil thing for what it did?” the lycanthrope asked.

Erasmo stroked his spade-shaped beard. “Do you wish its scalp?”

“Yes! Give it to me.”

“Done,” Erasmo said. “After we return, we shall hunt the world for him. Now let us be about our task. The way is open, but only for tonight. We must hurry, for we have far to go.”

The lycanthropes traded glances. The chief opened his jaws, perhaps to point out that granting a thing hadn’t yet produced it.

Erasmo already gave instructions to the black knight. Then he set out at a brisk pace for the building the mist had entered.

***

I watched the building from hiding, suspecting a trap. They knew I was here. Erasmo had promised the lycanthropes my scalp. The more I considered it, however, the less certain I became. Erasmo had given me no consideration other than as a future promise to the lycanthropes.

The building was silent and dark, but was it empty? It was of brick and mortar construction, with iron-grilled balconies on the second floor. The weather-beaten sign had eroded beyond readability. Yet I knew it. The Alchemist Shop.

I approached from a back alley and like a shadow vectored toward a window. Every sense strained.

I crawled through the window. Heavy tables held dust and broken glass. Some tables lay on their sides. By the shrouds of cobwebs, I knew no one had entered here for ages. I moved softly, careful to avoid particles of glass. One crunch could give me away. The next room smelled dusty for good reason. Paw-prints mixed with hoof marks showed me their trail. I followed through a corridor, into a large room and to a solid wall, and there the tracks disappeared.

I doubted they had become spirits like Lorelei. I ran my fingertips along the brick wall. Toppled benches, low tables and iron discs lay strewn on either side of the trail. Each thing had lain for ages. Except…I noticed coins that had recently made a dusty path of their own, maybe made it only minutes ago. By the extent of their journey, it seemed the wall had shoved the coins.

If a pivot stood here in the wall…

I went to the opposite side as the iron coins. I ran my fingers along the base, the ceiling, the corner. Ah, I noticed footprints and followed them to a niche in a sidewall. There was a candleholder in it. I tugged. It resisted. The bottom of the candleholder had a cunning hinge, hard to see right away. I tugged harder. It moved, and something clicked. I hurried to the wall and pushed. It swiveled on a hidden pivot, and I thought counterweights. My end went in. The other end swung outward, and I saw how the wall had shoved the iron coins. The alchemists had been cunning artificers.

Ah! There were the paw and hoof prints. I entered the secret room, and my shin brushed a stretched wire. There came a soft click. To the sides, steel cords twanged.

I would have died there, but I was the Darkling. Before I understood my danger, before my mind recognized the threat, I threw myself toward the floor with catlike reflexes. A crossbow bolt hissed overhead. Another kissed my leathers. The third punched into my thigh. It slued my leg that way and pivoted my torso the other.

I clamped my teeth together at the pain. Whoever had designed the trap had taken into account someone like me.

The bolt had missed bone and entered into the fleshy back of my thigh. I slithered to the wall, but the trap had swung it shut. I leaned against the wall and felt my thigh. My night-vision was useless in a pitch-black room. The bolt had sunk deeply. I clutched it, and yanked.

A groan tore from my throat. Thankfully, it was a smooth-pointed bolt, not barbed. I pressed the flesh against bone. Sticky substance oozed out, but it wasn’t blood. In a matter of seconds, the oozing stopped.

I found the tripwire and slid my hand to one end. I discovered a mechanism, and by fiddling, reopened the wall. I limped outside and bathed in the healing moonlight.

Erasmo must have known about the trap beforehand. That he knew implied that he and the alchemists had been partners. How deep had the conspiracy run?

I shook my head. What did it matter now?

I tested my leg. It was stiff, sore and partly healed. I limped into the Alchemist Shop, followed the trail, clicked the candle and warily entered the secret room. I used flint and tinder and lit an old torch. There were cages in here. Each held a chained skeleton inside. I followed the dusty trail. The corridor led past doors. One room had stacks of iron ingots. Another had thumbscrews and racks. I ignored the doors thereafter. The corridor led to stone steps sized for giants. They led down.

A faint stir of air startled me. I drew my knife and limped down the stairs. They curved and went farther than I expected. They ended at damp soil where ancient barrels held a meeting. I lifted the torch. At the end of the cellar, timbers shored up the earth like a mineshaft. Not more caves. I hated caves.

Tracks showed me they had used the mineshaft. Screwing up my resolve, I followed after them. My shoulders hunched of their own accord and my muscles tightened. I moved warily. Lorelei had spoken about doors to another Earth, a ruined place. Maybe she had really meant a gateway to Hell. Several twists later brought me before an ironbound door. Its hinges were as long as my forearm. I remembered Erasmo had told the knight he had to bring a key. Maybe the key had been for this door.

I sheathed my knife and limped to the door. The handle was icy cold and a terrible sense of doom filled me, of wrongness. I shrank back. I hated the door. It was profoundly evil. If Lorelei was right, Erasmo had used it once and returned with the plague. He had begun the hideous dying in Perugia. If Lorelei was right, a dead Earth waited on the other side, together with an olden trumpet of doom. How could there be other Earths?

“He stole your wife,” I whispered.

I snarled, and tugged at the door. It was stuck fast. I looked around and wormed the end of my torch into a rocky crack. Then I put both hands on the handle, and I heaved. The door slid open an inch. I yanked again, and used my newfound strength, the one that had allowed me to lift a wagon full of corpses. The heavy door slid open several more inches. I peered through the narrow opening. There was nothing but swirling blackness on the other side-a strange vertigo that hurt my eyes.

I retrieved the torch and thrust it through. The tunnel was cast into pitch-blackness. I pulled the torch back, but the flame was out. I put my hand where the flame had been, but didn’t feel any heat. I touched the charred wood. The flame had gone out long ago.

I tossed the guttered torch aside and listened to it clatter. Then I plunged through the door, the gateway to a dead Earth.