Death's Reckoning Page 11

  “And we are all the lesser for your absence, my lord.”

  Count Strickland inclined his head. “You are too kind.”

  One of his aides whispered in his ear while Madam Dreary glanced at another man in his retinue, a strapping, hulking brute of a bodyguard. He looked at her, lust in his eyes, and she smiled a genuine demure grin. She fluffed her hair with one hand.

  Here was a prime candidate, a man for her to get to know better. A strong impulse to be with him, to court him, to mate with him, struck her. It was overwhelming. The count excused himself for a moment to speak more with his aide, and she stepped closer to the armored bodyguard.

  “What a wonderful design your armor has” she said and traced the embossed symbol on his chest, an eagle with its wings spread. “I believe this to be a derivative of the Walchester line, if I’m not mistaken.”

  The handsome man blinked and looked impressed. “Why, why yes. My family line can be traced back to the original Walchester dynasty across the sea to the east.”

  “Wonderful. And now your line of knights pays homage to the count.”

  “Yes. My family is attached to Count Strickland’s duchy by way of blood. Excuse me, but how did you recognize this crest, a derivative as it is?”

  “I study history, my stalwart fellow. I am more than a pretty face and have other, more savory skills.”

  He smiled and kissed her knuckles in a very sensual way. It was a boon the count allowed his men to enjoy themselves. She wondered how far it would go.

  “I have no doubt of your claim, lady.”

  “Tell me love, do your duties allow you free reign by choice? Or does the count require all of your attention? I hope not.”

  He smiled. “The count is a generous man. And my sworn duty allows me a wide latitude of activities. I assure you.”

  Madam Dreary smiled and ran her hand down his arm, feeling the hardness of his muscles. “Come with me. I have some literary tomes on your ancestors you might enjoy.”

  He kissed her hand again. “That would be wonderful.”

  The noble guard was an energetic lover and fit, although a bit too enthusiastic to her tastes. She had him slow things down at times, but seconds later his ego would turn the intensity up again. An older man would have more patience.

  Afterwards she let him sleep on her silken red sheets where even his bulky form was swallowed up by the huge splash of red, like a fleshy rock in a bucket of blood. Her room was in the back of the building and thus had access to the alleyway beyond. She entered a small anteroom and approached the back door.

  A heavy lock and straight bar propped against the center metal framework. A steel rod also connected with that to the floor. Numbness griped her body as she undid the latch, and with no small effort lifted the bar. She opened the door, and a warm gust of air wafted through and brought with it the stink of death.

  “I have something for you,” she said, and her demeanor slackened and vacant eyed like a sleepwalker.

  Malthus Benaire stepped into the anteroom. His face exposed to her for that one brief moment, and had she been herself, she might had grown mad at the glimpse of those unreadable features. So deep and dull were his eyes, they might have been attached to a corpse. A zombie lord, a dead thing full of hunger and avarice.

  His voice was the whisper of the grave. “Show me.”

  Madam Dreary, like a sorcerer’s golem, walked back into her room and pointed to the prone form of the man she had enticed. Her arm stayed rigid like a fox hound pointing to its fallen prey.

  Malthus Benaire swooped by her, a carrion bird, smooth and fierce. His cape swept the ground behind, a dark black blot of ink across a red sea of carpet. Madam Dreary’s arm slumped, and she was no more a part of the proceedings than the paint on the walls. Benaire glided over to the bed and stared down at the motionless form, his eyes the blackest pit of earnest.

  The man, young and virile, snored and drooled on his back. His neck sloughed to the side as if drugged. Malthus reached into the folds of his black leather vest and plucked out a gleaming scalpel amongst a row of similar instruments. He held it up in the light. The edge gleamed.

  Tone of body was a beefy flesh that was both prideful and boastful. He could smell the man’s incredible ego, feel the very smugness of his attitude, and how he treated others from his elevated position. How delicious.

  Malthus poked the muscular shoulder with his gloved finger, and the man shot awake. His warrior instinct kicked in, and his face grew fierce. “Who are—”

  The question never finished. Malthus sprinkled powder over the man’s body with one swift motion, and it went stiff. The sinews on his neck bulged and strained under his mental alert. His muscles locked tight, and the tendons in his back popped and bucked as his bones protested the sudden paralysis.

  All that wasted effort. The concoction was ancient and infallible. The man’s body rocked on its backside like a ship at dock, bobbing from the false momentum of his initial movement.

  Malthus stabbed him below his left upper arm muscle a few inches above the elbow and carved a wide swath of loose meat up the side. The skin and underlying flesh peeled away smooth and clean with no loss of muscle or spillage of blood.

  His tool shone in the candlelight as the macabre work continued. The meat of the doomed body created a wicked collection, the metal the only piece with any blood. It hung there and did not drip down to the bed as it should have.

  Continuing with the bigger muscles of his torso, Malthus carved and stacked the muscles around the body like stones around a cairn. Malthus went slow, relishing his work. Soon he had every major muscle in its proper place while the man stared at him. Life clung to his ruined form. Disbelief mixed with morbid fascination at the evidence of his own demise, for indeed he felt every single cut, every pull of tendon, sinew, and muscle.

  Malthus Benaire paused his work for a moment, laying the scalpel down on one of the many cushions on the bed. He reached into a pouch at his belt and drew out a small box. Therein was a blunt stone, a dull looking block, rectangular with irregular edges like a chipped sharpening stone. It sat in his palm lifeless as he studied the eviscerated form of the still living man.

  Waving the stone over the exposed muscles, the object glowed with a yellowish light similar to a warm candle flame. The stone sucked in the pulp of muscles, and the separate pieces disappeared like scattered leaves. The stone pulsed and glowed brighter with eldritch energy.

  He drained every available piece of flesh and filled the stone, along with three others before the work was finished. The man’s eyes stared in horror, and Malthus knew the inner workings of that tortured mind. He could read the disbelief that the body still lived. He, could feel the extra energy the man gave him and provided to his stones by the soul’s tie to his corporeal form, knew this pain was far beyond what a human could endure, and he soaked in every ounce of life force he could.

  In a way the man was dead. His physical form drained, but his soul lingered, Malthus Benaire’s leeched off the man’s pain. So intense the physical pain, it translated into a tremendous pool of power for him. This was the best way to work, for it brought the most delicious end product.

  Malthus put away the smaller, more delicate scalpel. It was time to delve deeper with a serrated knife as long as his forearm and half as wide. It plunged into the man’s chest, where the upper ribs met the sternum.

  The chest cracked open, and with an effortless sawing motion, Malthus split the upper chest down through the rest of the torso, all the way to the pubic area. He flayed two flaps from the newly formed hole and pinned them to the side. The man’s entire abdominal cavity exposed. The man’s eyes bulged, and his face contorted.

  Malthus smiled and stood back for a moment. The torchlight flickered on his malevolent features. He studied the marvelous intricacies of the human form sprawled out on the bed. The internal organs packed tight. The rippling, snaking intestines pulled together with sinew, the large flap of the liver on the left center, t
he half covered stomach on the center right, and below, the still beating heart.

  The evil entity looked in his victim’s eyes, and in that instant a deep understanding, far more intimate than the sex he shared a few minutes ago with the madam, passed between them. Malthus kept the man’s soul trapped within the tortured frame and pumped in his life force. Malthus in turn fed the stones.

  He used a single stone for each organ, as these were far more valuable than the mere musculature of a man. A brown stone, dark and almost full, sucked out the essence of his intestines, large and small alike. The stone grew darker and heavier as it neared completion. The ropey entrails dried and shriveled, snaking into the stone like a gross worm burrowing into the earth.

  A greenish stone was used on the liver, minor, gall bladder, and spleen. This man was very healthy and prime, though his intestines had been a bit dirty. It was evidence of a poor diet of foul meat and sweets, and he was either a teetotaler or at the very least a light drinker.

  Next came an orange stone for the kidneys and stomach. He reaped a rather disappointing bounty from them. Malthus would study this strangeness in detail later; most times a healthy liver equated healthy kidney and stomach but not here. Fascinating.

  A yellow stone evaporated his lungs. It glowed bright and full due to his robust health and probable exercise regimen. Malthus almost cackled as he filled this stone.

  At last, the job finished with a red stone for the heart, the strongest, most important muscle in a human’s body. He had no disappointment there. It was a much more difficult stone to fill, and thus more powerful and important to his vocation. He was almost done with this one. Perhaps two or three more able-bodied men, and he would have another full red. Fantastic.

  Malthus left the brain and those wonderful, staring eyes. Tidying up his tools, he exited the room the same way he had entered. The man screamed a voiceless wail as the dark entity Malthus Benaire disappeared into the night.

  * * * * *

  The tavern was more subdued than ever before. So quiet, it seemed the people feared to speak lest someone overhear their innermost thoughts. Cubbins sat back in his chair with his favorite brew, an imported beer from the far south. It was an exotic, spicy draft. The night had garnered new information. There was the tiniest undercurrent of fear of a nameless entity.

  Whatever it was hovered about the city, but only in the seediest parts of town, the hovels, the broken down wrecks. There was some talk, a slight buzz over several missing vagrants, homeless men, and women most people would never miss, but the sheer number in recent days drew suspicion. Sometimes it was near the docks, sometimes the dirty taverns, but it was always in the cold, lonely places in town where people begged for handouts.

  Rumors were often hyperbole, exaggerated tales, but Cubbins had no choice but to accept these stories and whisperings of dark happenings in recent days. There was a solid grain of truth to the words because the people had no reason to lie when they thought no one was listening.

  If he asked them a direct question, even if they liked and respected him, most of these men and women would lie or stretch the truth, unless they were being paid, coerced or in their best interest to tell him.

  He sat for some time past midnight and spoke with a few old chums about unrelated topics while the rest of the tavern spoke of other things as well, the conversations shifting back and forth from the missing people to the continued presence of the Janisberg soldiers to whatever they wanted to bitch and moan about.

  An hour or so later found the police captain on the streets, and then on a roof top a few blocks over from his last meeting with Craven Mills. Several lanky strides and Cubbins climbed the rickety metal frame to find the informant already waiting for him. The short man held his hat and wrung his hands. A split second before Cubbins rose over the lip Mills had been looking somewhere else; he snapped his eyes to Cubbins and waited.

  His words were rushed as if he were trying to get them out faster and faster and couldn’t hold them in long enough. “There’s nothing, Cubbins, nothing at all. Leave well enough alone on this.”

  Cubbins stopped short. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I said leave it alone!”

  Mills’ eyes bulged, and his voice rose to a terrible shriek. Cubbins was wary and took a step back, his hand on his sword hilt. The sound was familiar, the sound of the insane. Mills pulled up short as if the rant ended as fast as he spoke. He stared at the roof tiles, his head slack.

  Cubbins studied him for a few moments. Mills looked pale and thin, thinner than even a week ago. Mills scratched his forearm. His nails were filthy, covered with crust and dried blood. He fidgeted and squirmed as if fleas infested his clothes and body.

  “Mills,” Cubbins said. “Mills, talk to me. Tell me what happened to you.”

  The man shook his head like a petulant child and slapped his hands all over his body. He smacked his arms hard as if something crawled inside them. He stamped his feet, made a gurgling noise in his throat, and spun around in a complete circle. Cubbins grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard.

  “Mills! Craven Mills! Hold it together, man. Talk to me!”

  No response except to swat at Cubbins’ arms, but there was no strength or commitment to the blows. He acted so afraid Cubbins thought the man’s wits were taken. It took Cubbins several minutes and no small amount of patience to calm him down enough to make him sit and relax. He rocked back and forth on his backside, arms cradling his knees, and looked much like a lunatic.

  The police captain’s mother had been placed in the city asylum by his father, and young Cubbins visited her often. He watched as her mental acuity waned away in a scant number of months. By the time Cubbins reached adolescence, she had progressed far beyond the ability to recognize husband or child. Later, she began gnashing her teeth and pulling her hair.

  Craven Mills wasn’t quite there yet, but Cubbins could recognize the signs. He sat down with him for a few moments, letting the tortured man play out the manic energy that befuddled his mind. It wasted away but glimmered with twitchy mannerisms.

  Cubbins prodded his shoulder after a while, thinking he might be more coherent. “Speak to me, Mills. Tell me what happened to you.”

  The inquiry was repeated several times, and at last Mills looked at him with something resembling recognition. When he spoke, his voice almost sounded normal, clear, and sure of what he said. “Leave it all alone, Captain Cubbins. Only death awaits you.”

  Cubbins stared at him. A moment later his eyes glazed over, and Mills went slack again, gibbering and drooling. Sea Haven’s asylum would have a new tenant very soon, and the police would need another informant on the streets.

  * * * * *

  The water felt cool and refreshing. So clean and so necessary to life, it was a shame not to take more advantage of it. He would not make the same mistake again. Muldor changed the bandage on his head for the second time that day and washed the wound above the bridge of his broken nose. He had medicine the surgeon gave him, but it stung his skin something fierce. It could have been acid for all he knew. These medicine men needed refinement of their practice, though in truth the surgeon had done a fine job of resetting his broken nose.

  Glancing at his bruised face and bloodied nose in the mirror above his wash basin, Muldor understood well why Castellan always had bodyguards. Being Guild Master had its share of danger.

  Quite a bit of blood remained on his hands and clothing. The surgeon had never cared for hygiene. A crusted glob of red on the front of his shirt made him look like a butcher without an apron.

  A meeting was set that afternoon with the Dock Masters; however, bruised and battered might convey a weak image of the leader. He sat at his desk for a few minutes, mulling it over. Forces were moving against The Guild. Trust was hard to come by. His informants had said nothing of recent, and it fed into Muldor’s paranoia. He had no inkling. Perhaps it was Janisberg agents only, and no one from Sea Haven was involved, but somehow that was doubtful. It was
always more complicated than it seemed.

  They met in one of the largest warehouses on the Western Docks, all five Dock Masters, along with market liaison Carl Tomlinson. They set up a large table, and all six men sat across from Muldor in the back room. Boxes and crates stacked in a haphazard manner around them. To Muldor, the disorder felt like home.

  “Gentlemen,” the Guild Master said, “our recent trouble over our former leader’s embezzlement and other transgression pale in comparison to our current predicament. Castellan has left our Guild in dire straits.”

  The declaration hung for a few moments. Samuel Becket, youthful despite his middle age, handsome clean cut cheeks, and curly brown hair, looked upset but determined. Muldor knew The Guild was his life.

  Melvin Crocker, old and gruff, with wild hair was unreadable. Muldor was never certain where his loyalties lay, so it was best to keep a closer eye on him.

  Mal Dollenger, tall and lanky as a crane, with a smallish head that belied his intelligence. He sat back and looked at Muldor with a studious glare. As the highest ranking member of the Dock Master cadre, it was impossible for him to be ignorant of Castellan’s indiscretions from the beginning.

  Gunnar Lawson, young and brash, his blonde hair long enough to reach his shoulders, he appeared ready for anything. He glanced around at the others with murder in his eyes, and Muldor fought the urge to smile. Here was a man on his side, someone to shift the balance of power towards total compliance.

  Del Maggur was the most senior member, the longest tenured Dock Master, and a high ranking Guild member years before Castellan ever set foot on Sea Haven soil. He stared at Muldor with a bored yet frustrated expression. Muldor knew he had never been happy being relegated to the Southern Docks. It was seen as a slight.

  His hideous features grew uglier as he sneered at Muldor. “Why don’t you stop being so melodramatic and get to the point, Muldor. All of us are busy.”