Weapon of Blood (25 page)

“I can protect them!  I can put people—”

“No, Mya!  I don’t want your Hunters
standing guard over my family.”

“I don’t understand you, Lad!  What in the
Nine Hells did you expect?”  There was scorn in her tone now.  “People like us
don’t
have
families!”

“No, Mya.  People like
you
don’t
have families.  I am a husband and a father.  I am
not
like you.”

Rage contorted her features, and he knew
she would threaten him before she opened her mouth.

“You think you can just walk away from
this?  Away from
me
?  You think I’ll
let
you walk away?”

He smiled at her, but there was no
amusement in it.  “Don’t, Mya.”

“Don’t what?  Try to convince you that if
you leave, I’m as good as dead?”

Her quick change of attack caught him off
guard, but he recovered.  “No, I mean don’t threaten me.  You can’t stop me
from leaving.  Your skills are good, but not that good.  If you threaten my
family, I
will
kill you.”

Her eyes flashed with shock.

“After
years
of protecting me,
you’d do that?”  Behind her disbelief, something else, something he couldn’t
read, added a tremor to her voice.  “You’d
kill
me?”

“I love my family more than anything else
in the world, Mya.”  He thrust his words at her low and hard.  “Don’t test me. 
You’ll lose.”

“Godsdamnit, Lad, I
need
you! 
I…”  Mya bit her lip, one of her minor tells; she was holding back.  “There’s
nobody else I can
trust
like you!”

“You’re wrong, Mya.  Your Hunters are
loyal.  Trust them.  They surround you at the
Golden Cockerel
.  You’re
safe there.”

“Not like I’m safe with you!  If you go,
I’m dead.”

The desperation in her eyes sent a pang
of guilt through him, but he forced it aside. 
Wiggen…  Lissa
…   He
couldn’t let her change his mind.

“No you’re not, Mya.  You’re an expert at
survival.  You’ll be fine.  And you can’t stop me from leaving.”

Mya turned away and stood with her back
to him for a long moment, her fists clenched, her whole body as tense as an
over-wound spring.  Finally she strode away, flinging her words back at him.

“All
right
, for the gods’ sake! 
But give me some time, a few days to put together a network of bodyguards to
take over your job.  If you leave before I get them in place, you may as well
kill me yourself on your way out the door.”

Lad thought about it as he fell in behind
her.  A few more days wouldn’t hurt; he could give her that.  It wasn’t a
matter of him trusting her to keep her word, but simple logic.  He’d warned
her, and she knew he was serious.  If she dared to threaten his family, he
would
kill her on his way out the door.

“Five days, Mya, then I leave.”

“Fine.”

He followed her for a time, maintaining
his vigilance and girding his worries.  Not until they reached the looming
warehouses of the South Docks District did Lad finally realize where they were
headed and break the uncomfortable silence.

“We’re going to Youtrin’s warehouse? 
There’s a meeting of the masters?”

“Figured that out, did you?”  Anger and
scorn edged her words, but he’d expected it.  Mya didn’t like to lose an
argument.

“Yes, but you usually warn me.  I didn’t
think you were attending meetings anymore.”

“Then you didn’t
think
of
everything, did you?  The summons I received made it clear that attendance
wasn’t optional.”  She glanced back at him.  The desperation and fear in her
expression had been replaced by anger and resentment.  “Just do your job and
keep your mouth shut.”

“Yes, Mya.”  Lad stepped up his
vigilance.  If they were walking into a nest of vipers, he had to be at the top
of his game.

Master Woefler tilted the tiny crystal
vial back and forth in the light from the window, smiling as it cast a flurry
of rainbows around Norwood’s office.  The annoyed captain would have snatched
the vial away had he not been so daunted by the light brown liquid inside.

Sergeant Tamir nodded at the glittering
vial.  “We found that tucked in the dead woman’s dress, sir.”

“It really is the most deadly toxin I’ve
ever encountered.  No more than a tenth of an ounce, and it’s enough to kill
every member of the Royal Guard twice over.” 
Woefler
seemed elated by the lethality of the substance.  He placed the vial carefully
on Norwood’s desk.  “An alchemist colleague of mine identified it.”

“After we visited
four
other
alchemist shops first,” Tamir added with a note of annoyance.

Woefler ignored the
sergeant’s comment and continued his speech.  “It comes from the spines of a
small tropical fish, the two-step stonefish.  It’s so named because if you step
on one, you can take about two more steps before you fall dead.”

Tamir rolled his
eyes.  He’d obviously been listening to Woefler prattle on all morning.

Wizards!
 Norwood thought. 
Give them
a spot of mold to look at, and a band of ogres could tromp through the room without
drawing attention
.  “That’s very interesting, Master Woefler, but it
provides me with absolutely no information to help solve this murder.”

“Oh, but it
does
!” 
Woefler picked up the vial and turned it in the sunlight again.  “This is rare,
Captain.  Very rare!  Consequently, we should be able to find out who supplied
it.”

“Which means more
visits to
more
alchemist shops,” Tamir muttered.

“The intended
method of delivery was rather mundane, just a grooved needle, but quite
sufficient when combined with the high potency of the stonefish toxin.” 
Woefler withdrew from a pocket the dart Norwood had extracted from the dead
woman’s neck.  “Then we have this little toy!”

“Careful with
that!  I didn’t know you’d taken it out of the jar!”

“Relax, Sergeant. 
It’s been cleaned.”  The mage turned back to Norwood.  “The toxin in this was
not so rare, but still very potent.  The mechanism of this dart, however, is
astounding.  Look!”

Woefler held the
lethal little projectile beneath Norwood’s nose and twisted it between his
fingers.  Something clicked, and a tiny port opened in the side of the dart’s
shaft.  “The poison is loaded here, and the click you heard was a spring being
cocked back.”  He withdrew another little vial from a pocket and used a tiny
glass pipette to transfer several drops of green liquid into the port.  “Don’t
worry, this is just colored water.   Now you twist it back, the port closes,
and the dart is ready.”

Woefler tossed the
little black dart in a high arc.

“Hey!  Watch it!” 
Tamir stumbled back, his eyes fixed on the tiny missile.

The dart’s
fletching righted the projectile as it fell to the captain’s desk.  The beveled
needle stuck into the polished wood with a thud and a faint click.  Green
liquid squirted out of the needle, staining the papers that littered the desk’s
surface.

“Oh, sorry.” 
Woefler drew a kerchief from yet another pocket and dabbed up the spill.  “But
you can see how effective it is at delivering a lethal dose of venom.  Much
more effective than the simple coating of a grooved needle.  The dart was
filled with white scorpion venom, a potent neurotoxin that is deadly at a mere
one one-hundredth of the dose that was injected into the woman you found. 
Whoever used it wanted to make sure that the target died instantly.”

“Good gods.” 
Norwood was getting the picture; great expense had been taken both in the
woman’s attempt to kill someone, and in the second assassin’s strike.

“Obviously
professionals, sir, both of ’em,” Tamir said.

“I see that.”  The
captain rubbed his eyes; the wizard’s enthusiasm was not infectious enough to
overcome his fatigue.  Sleep had been as elusive as Vonlith’s killer since his
late-night visit from the assassin.  All the security in the world would not
protect him from someone like that, and worrying about it had ruined his
ability to relax.  That, in turn, impaired his ability to think.  Twailin
seemed suddenly full of assassins, and all of his efforts felt futile.  “Any
chance of tracking down who sold any of these items?”

“I can work on the
dart and the ring, sir,” Tamir offered.  “I know a few crafters.  There’s an
old gnome on Ironmonger Street who makes clocks and such, intricate kinds of
stuff.  He might recognize the work.”

“An excellent
idea!”  Woefler looked at Tamir as if the man had just surprised him with his
investigative prowess.  “I, of course, will look into the origin of the
venoms.”

“Good.  Concentrate
on the rare items, the maker of the dart and the supplier of the stonefish
poison.  We want to know who these items were sold to.”

“People who sell
poisons and spring-loaded darts aren’t likely to want to talk, sir.  It’s more
likely they’ll just clam up.

“Give them some
inducement to be forthcoming, then.”

Tamir grinned.  “I
can do that.”

“
Without
breaking any bones, Sergeant.  Mention that the duke himself has an interest in
the activity of professional assassins in the city, and anyone helping us
discover who is behind these killings will receive a reward.”

“There’s a reward?”

“No, but a carrot
might work where a stick won’t.”

“I agree, Captain. 
Threatening an alchemist is unlikely to produce the desired cooperation.”

Norwood nodded
respectfully, as if he cared what the wizard thought of his tactics.  Tamir
simply rolled his eyes again.

“Any theories as to
what exactly happened in that alley, Sergeant?”  Norwood had his own theories,
but he wanted Tamir’s opinion.  The sergeant might be thinking more clearly
than he was at this point, and had a good mind for things like this.  He was
the one who discovered the significance of Vonlith’s wagon, after all.

“The dead woman was
dressed like a trollop, and the ring on her finger was already poisoned.  Just
wearing that ring would be dangerous, so she was ready to kill someone.”  Tamir
rubbed his jaw.  “Don’t know why she’d been beat up though.  Maybe whoever
killed her tried to knock the truth out of her before they shot her, but that’d
be dangerous, too.”

“What if someone
interrupted the attempted assassination with another assassination?” Woefler
asked.

“What?”  Norwood
looked at him as if he’d made a bad joke.  “What do you mean?”

“The dart was shot
from a distance, correct?”

“That’s true,
sir.”  Tamir looked at the wizard and cocked an eyebrow.  “We figured that the
angle, assuming she was sitting up or standing, would have put the shooter on
the rooftop.”

“So, perhaps the
dead woman was going to kill someone, and whoever shot her did so to prevent
the killing.”  Woefler looked pleased with his inference.

“That seems
reasonable.”  Norwood looked to his sergeant.  “Tam?”

“Yep, that works. 
And we’ve already know that both were professional killers.”

“Guild war.” 
Norwood had wondered how much of what the assassin had told him was the truth. 
His assessment of the violence, it seemed, was spot on, though he had called it
squabbling between the factions.  It meant the same regardless of the exact
words.

“Seems like it,
sir.”

“Well, sergeant,
see if you can find out who made that dart, and who they sold it to.”

“Yes, sir.”  Tamir
saluted and left the office.

“And I’ll
investigate the poisons,” Woefler offered, grinning like a kid with a new toy.

“Do that.  And be
careful.  You might walk into the wrong apothecary and find yourself in the
company of assassins.”

“Ah, but they will
find themselves in the company of an accomplished worker of magic!”  He pulled
a pinch of something from his pocket and snapped his fingers.  A shimmer of
sparkling motes drifted down, and a dark space opened in the air.  “I’ll be in
touch, Captain.”  Woefler stepped into the dark space and the shimmer vanished,
taking the wizard with it.