Weapon of Blood (17 page)

That would be a problem
, he thought, envisioning himself hopping down to land
right on top of the captain.

After securing the ladder to the hatch so
it wouldn’t noisily extend, he pushed down gently on the door.  When nothing
happened, he pushed harder.  Still nothing.  It was either stuck, or there was
a latch or bolt on the other side.

Patience…  Haste is your enemy.

Lad pulled a razor-thin blade from his
tool pouch and slipped it in the crack between the door and the frame.  As he
worked it around the edge, it met with something metal in the middle, opposite
the hinged end.  A latch or bolt, surely.  Picking a heavier blade, and working
slowly to avoid noise, he cut away a four-inch section of the narrow wooden
laths adjacent to latched end of the trapdoor.  When the last of the wood came
free, he went to work on the plaster, chipping away tiny bits at a time. 
Finally, the blade slipped all the way through, and he worked it around a
square large enough to fit his hand.  When he’d cut three sides of a square, he
pried it up and lifted out the painted plaster in a single piece.  Only a few
tiny bits of dust and broken plaster fell into the darkness below.

Silence and darkness met his questing
senses.

Good.

Reaching through, he eased open the
simple barrel bolt, and pushed on the trapdoor with his other hand.  It swung
open into a large broom closet.

Lucky, lucky Lad. 
He smiled and dropped down, landing like a feather. 
Here, he stopped once again to listen.

A faint snort reached his ears.  Someone
was snoring.

Easing open the closet door, he peered straight
down a dimly lit hallway.  There was a door to his left, and one straight ahead,
both rooms presumably overlooking the front of the house.  Immediately to his
right, a switchback staircase descended to the second floor.  Another hallway ran
alongside the stairway banister toward the back of the house, ending at a
door.  The snoring came from the door immediately to his left.

Perfect.

Lad tried the latch and smiled.  It was
unlocked.  Predicting the cadence of snoring, he chose his moment and slipped
into the room.

Well, damn!

The room extended across the front of the
house far enough to encompass two of the bay windows.  An ornate wardrobe
dominated one wall, flanked by a full-length mirror and a vanity table.  The
cloying scent of perfume and talc hung heavily in the air.  Unfortunately, only
one person slept in the expansive four-post bed, and unless Captain Norwood was
an obese, middle-aged woman—which didn’t match Wiggen’s description at all—this
wasn’t him.  Disappointed, Lad slipped out and down the hall to listen at the other
door.  Nothing.  He tried the latch, also unlocked, and slipped inside.  The high
canopy bed was empty.

Patience
. 
One room left on this floor.

Lad didn’t relish having to venture deeper
into the house and farther from his escape route if this one proved empty. 
Creeping down the hall toward the back of the house, he put his ear against the
door and listened.

A foot scuffed the floor just on the
other side of the door.  Heat surged through him as he heard a click, and the
latch began to turn.  He glanced over his shoulder; it was thirty feet to the
broom closet—
too far
—and if he leapt the bannister onto the stairs, he
ran the risk of making noise.  He had nowhere to go.

Moving objects draw more attention
than still ones.  Remember!

Lad backed into the corner and froze.

The door swung into the room, and a man
of perhaps fifty years with the build of a soldier gone somewhat soft stepped out,
stifling a yawn.  Aside from the nightclothes, he fit Wiggen’s description to a
tee.  Captain Norwood took two steps, then stopped, tensed and started to turn
toward Lad.

A lifetime of training kicked in.

Lad lunged out of his corner, passing behind
Norwood, bounded off the opposite wall, and snaked an arm around the captain’s
neck faster than a single stroke of a bird’s wing.  A gasp was the only sound
that escaped the man’s lips before Lad tightened his hold and whispered into
his ear.

“Silence, Captain!  I didn’t come here to
kill you, but I can break your neck in an instant if you cry out.”  Norwood’s
body trembled, but to his credit, the captain didn’t panic, struggle, or cry
out. 

“Good.  Now, nod if you were alone in
that room, and don’t lie to me.”  Norwood’s chin bobbed against his arm. 
“Excellent.  Let’s go in where we can talk undisturbed.”

Lad urged the captain back into the room
with gentle but inexorable pressure.  Once they were inside the arc of the door,
he closed it deftly with his foot.  He looked around.  The room spanned the
entire width of the townhouse.  Beyond the open drapes, the tops of the
courtyard trees swayed in the night breeze.  Mya’s Hunter stood silently on the
roof across the courtyard, invisible in the darkness to any eyes but Lad’s.  Thankfully,
Norwood hadn’t lit a lamp.  The rumpled bed nearby was empty.  A dagger lay on
the nightstand, and a sheathed sword stood propped in the corner.  Lad steered
Norwood toward a sitting area at the opposite end of the room.

“All right, Captain, I’m going to release
you.”  He felt the man tense in his grasp, and applied just enough pressure to
the back of his skull to get his point across.  “If you try to reach a weapon,
I’ll be forced to hurt you.  I came here for information, not blood, but I’m
more than a match for you.  Trust me on that.  If you agree to talk with me,
I’ll let you go.  Nod if you agree.”

The captain’s chin wiggled up and down. 
Slowly, Lad released the pressure of his grip, then backed quickly into the
dark corner before Norwood could turn around.

“Have a seat, Captain.”

Norwood took a deep breath and rubbed his
throat before he turned to glare into the shadows.  “Do you mind if I stand?  I
think you scared the shit out of me.”  The man’s voice had an acerbic edge, but
his fear was controlled.  Lad admired the captain’s cool head.

“Stand if you like, Captain.” 
More
flies with honey than with vinegar
, he thought, employing a tactic he’d
learned from watching Mya.  “I apologize for startling you, but I can’t let you
get a good look at my face.  You have a reputation for taking your job
seriously, and I know that, if you could identify me, you’d never stop
searching.”

“Who the hells are you?”

“You don’t get to ask the questions,
Captain.  I came here to ask you about a murder you’re investigating.  A wizard
named Vonlith.  Tell me how he died.”

“What’s it to you?”

“I told you, I ask the questions, but if
you must know, I’m with the Assassins Guild.”  Norwood’s throat flexed as he
swallowed, and his jaw muscles clenched briefly. 
Fear.  Good
.  “It’s
come to our attention that you’ve linked Vonlith with Saliez, which makes this killing
of interest to us.”

Norwood’s eyes narrowed.  “How did you
know that?  It’s not public knowledge.”

Lad cringed.  He couldn’t afford to let
Norwood make a connection to his conversation with Wiggen.  He covered the
mistake with a dry laugh.  “We have eyes and ears throughout the city, Captain,
even north of the river.  You’d be surprised at what we know.  What we
don’t
know is how Vonlith died.  Now tell me how he was killed.”

“Fine.”  Norwood hesitated, as if
considering how much information to give.  “He was murdered in his study.  We
found him sitting in a high-backed leather chair with a stiletto wound to the
back of the skull, right into the brain.  Nothing was disturbed and, as far as
we can tell, nothing was taken.”  Norwood gave him a snort of laughter. 
“Frankly, if you’re with the
Assassins
Guild, I thought you’d know all
this.  It looked like a professional killing.”

Lad’s mind spun.  Pithing was a difficult
maneuver, really only feasible if you were standing right behind an
unsuspecting target.  It made sense that Norwood suspected a professional, and
to Lad, that also meant a member of the Assassins Guild.  Who besides him had
the skill to pull this off, and why?  He turned his attention back to Norwood.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be here, would I? 
What else?”

Norwood continued, though he sounded
reluctant.  “The entire residence was protected by magical locks and wards, but
not a single one was broken or tripped.  However, the servant’s door was
unlocked, and it looked as if Vonlith had been entertaining someone just prior
to his death.  There was a glass of brandy at his elbow, and another, recently
emptied, on the sideboard.  We presumed that someone was the killer, and that
Vonlith had let him in.”

A chill ran up Lad’s spine.  How many
people had Vonlith known in the Assassins Guild?  And who would he let into his
home?  Lad had no way to be sure, but knew that it had to be a short list. 
“That’s useful, Captain.  Thank you.  How did you link Vonlith with Saliez?”

“I’m through answering questions without
getting any answers,” Norwood said, startling Lad with his brazenness.  “But
I’ll make you a deal.  I’ll help you if you help me.”

“I’m not here to solve your murder for
you, Captain.”

“I didn’t say I wanted you to.  I’ve got
more interests in this city than one murder.”

Lad paused for a moment, wondering if
this was some ploy to put him at ease or catch him off guard.  “I can’t promise
you anything, Captain, but I’ll give you what I can.  Now answer me, how did
you link Vonlith with Saliez?”

“A wizard’s wagon was spotted at Saliez’s
mansion before the raid five years ago, but it was gone by the time we
arrived.  After Vonlith’s murder, someone recognized it in his stable.”

“Do you have any suspects?”

Norwood laughed sharply, without humor. 
“Not anymore.  We assumed it was someone in the Assassins Guild, but if you really
don’t know about this killing, I guess we need to rethink that assumption.”

“I only deal with a single guild faction,
Captain.  Someone in one of the other factions might have had a reason to kill
Vonlith, or taken a contract to do the job.”

“There’s more than one faction of
assassins?  Wonderful!”  Norwood tossed his head irritably.  “Then you have no idea
who killed him?”

“Not yet.  What else do you know about
Vonlith and Saliez?”

“We’re pretty sure that Vonlith did some
type of work for Saliez.  He was a runemage, and we found runes tattooed all
over Saliez’s body, so we thought maybe Vonlith was the one who did the
tattooing.  He also had a contract that ended without being completed right
after Saliez was found dead.”  Even in the darkness Lad could see the muscles
of Norwood’s jaw clench.  “My turn to ask a question.”

Lad didn’t like the idea of answering
Norwood’s questions, but he had agreed.  “What do you want to know?”

“Do you know what Vonlith was doing for
Saliez?”

“Yes, Captain.”  Lad chose his words
carefully.  “It had to do with a young man who was controlled by magic.  You
undoubtedly remember the assassinations of nobles some five years ago.”

“I remember them.  We were told about the
boy, but frankly, I never really believed he existed.  I was told he was
killed.”

“You were told the truth, Captain. 
Something happened to the magic controlling the boy, and Vonlith was contracted
to renew it.  The boy broke free during the process, and he and Saliez killed
each other.”

“We never found the boy’s body.”  There
was suspicion in Norwood’s voice now, but Lad had expected this question, and
had an answer ready.

“That’s because there was no body to
find.  There were…fail-safe spells woven into the magic that had been placed on
the boy.  It may interest you to know that it took more than fifteen years to
create that creature.  He was more magic than flesh, really.  The spells were
designed to utterly destroy the evidence if he was killed while performing a
mission.  When he died, the body was completely consumed by the magic.”

“You sound like you were there when it
happened.”  The grudging acknowledgement in Norwood’s voice suggested that he
believed that Lad was dead.

Good
.

“I was, Captain.  Now, my turn again. 
What else have you found out about Vonlith?”

“Not much, really.  Vonlith has had only
one contract since Saliez’s death.  It began about a month after, and lasted
until a month ago.  It was lucrative enough to keep him in a very expensive
lifestyle without taking any other contracts.  It’s more likely that his death
is related to this recent contract than any work he did for Saliez, but we
aren’t ruling out either.  Then again, it could be something else entirely.  We
just don’t know.”

Lad considered the information. 
Unfortunately, it provided no clue to the identity of Vonlith’s killer.  He
agreed with the reasoning, but who would contract a runemage for five years and
then kill him when the contract was done?

Suddenly he felt as if he’d been dipped
in ice water. 
Someone interested in making a weapon…a weapon like me.  And
they killed him to make sure no more were made, or that the one he’d just
finished was kept a secret.
  Lad had no idea how many in the Assassins Guild
knew how he had been made.  The Master Hunter, Targus, had known, but Lad had
killed the man.  Did the other masters know?  In fact, Mya had led a
wide-ranging manhunt for Lad, enlisting dozens in the search.  Did they all
know?  His mind whirled at the prospect.