I felt one last quick squeeze on my body before the floor beneath Owen gave way with another explosion. Fire ripped through the air where he had been standing moments before sending him flying back into the room. The force that had been crushing me vanished all at once and I sprawled out on the floor, glad to be able to move again. I didn’t have time to rest though, the fight was still far from over. Dante flew out of the new crater in the floor, propelled by a column of crimson smoke. I groaned the instant I saw it, I knew exactly who it belonged to.
“Hey Hope.” Dante mumbled as he landed next to Hope, who was almost completely recovered from her imprisonment. “How’s getting your hands dirty going?”
“I cut an arm off, but apart from that it’s been boring.” She reached down and lifted him back onto his feat. “So, Trish is here?”
“Yeah, she’s here. I’m not entirely sure what she wants, I assume it has something to do with me but she’s not exactly coherent at the moment. Every time I try to talk to her something blows up. I think she’s trying to bring down the whole castle on top of us.” Hope just shook her head.
“I hate to break it to you but you aren’t spectacular when it comes to talking to women.” Dante rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. “Trade me?”
“Why not.” Dante turned to me. “Sam, I need you to handle Amy. She’s in a bit of a bad spot with Julian. Whatever you do, just don’t use that sword on her.”
“What does that even…” Dante pointed back to the hole in the floor before I could finish.
Julian pulled himself into the room from the level below. He looked beat up and tired. I almost didn’t recognize him in normal clothing, although what he was wearing might not have been as good as his toga with all the cuts and tears in it. Trish slowly rose from the middle of the hole after Julian, there was a dark figure hanging limp from one of her hands and crimson mist cascaded from her other.
“You’re not looking so hot there Julian.” I walked over and helped him up. He didn’t look that aggressive, if anything it looked like he was about to collapse.
“I’ll be honest, I’m lost. I haven’t had a fair fight in a long time and I never expected Amy to be the one to finally take me down.” Julian grumbled as I pulled him away from what I knew was about to be a very messy fight. “She isn’t all there anymore though, so I’d hardly call it Amy that actually beat me.”
“I was afraid of that. She’s been exposed to soul fragments embedded in silver, several times actually.” I looked back to Trish. This time I was sure exactly what, or rather who, she was carrying. “She doesn’t have anything on her to take those extra fragments.”
“Do you?” I could see the cogs turning in his eyes. I nodded, if it saved Amy I was all for whatever his idea was. “If you can get her to burn out on you, you can absorb those fragments. She’ll need to use all of it though, and she’s actually accumulated a fair bit since you probably last saw her.”
“How? Did she trigger every cursed silver trap in the castle or something?” If she had rushed through like before it was very probable.
“No, Trish and I came here with a small escort of about fifty men. Their armor was more for fashion, which is how Trish likes it, but they were still competently skilled in combat. That didn’t stop Amy from taking them all down. Every time a wraith kills someone they absorb at least part of their soul, so you can see how we might have just fueled the fire on that one.”
“Well I’m not that skilled in combat myself, I’ve only ever killed one wraith and that was pure luck.” I hadn’t even actually killed it, I had just killed the contractor.
“You killed a wraith?” Julian sounded skeptical. I wasn’t bothered at all by it, I probably would have had the same disbelief if I were in his position.
“Well, I sort of killed the contractor that the wraith formerly worked under. Really the wraith did most of the work for me, all I had to do was finish her off.” Julian looked even more bewildered. “It was a very complicated and involved situation. Long story short, I’m not really fast enough to take on a wraith by myself.”
“You’re not doing it alone.” He let go of my shoulder, which until now had been supporting the majority of his weight, and managed to stay standing. “I’m immune to the effects of soul fragments, but I know I can’t take her out on my own. I can distract her though.” His hand gripped the torn bit of shirt over his heart and tore it away. I could feel the scar on my own chest as I looked at his, his was much more defined. I was caught off guard as he slowly grabbed hold of something I couldn’t see that looked like it was in the same place as his scar and pulled out a long dagger. Strangely there was no indication that it was hurting him in any way, there wasn’t even blood on the blade. “This is the mark of betrayal. It will take much more than a blade to my heart to kill me again.”
“Well then,” I didn’t really know what to say to that, so I ignored that part of what he had just done. “We’re just going to wait for Trish to drop her right?”
About twenty spears of silver mist shot through the air towards Trish, only two missed. The combined force of the attack sent her flying through the air and Amy to the floor. I positioned myself to attack while the dark figure slowly stood.
“Any particular reason you’re helping me by the way? Aren’t you sort of on the other side?”
“Je fais ce que je veux.” He smiled as he said it, but it made no sense to me at all. I was still clueless as he sprinted forward, not bothering at all to give me the proper time to respond.
“Is that French?” I was close behind him as we approached Amy.
“She melts like butter whenever I say no in French. She’s been in a good mood lately.” Julian lunged at Amy with his knife but she was well out of the way before he got close. “Whatever it was that kid did, remind me to thank him later, I’ve had free reign over myself for days now. Though I’ll admit, the new side of Trish is far from stable and more than a little uncomfortable to be around.”
“Never tell him that.” I felt a chill run down my spine and stepped quickly out of the way of a burst of blue flames. I spun around and managed to scrape the edge of my sword against Amy’s hand. The flames along the blade grew brighter as it connected with her. “You’ll never hear the end of how you’re indebted to him. He’s not the most gracious rescuer.”
“I’d say we’re even. I never did get a chance to spill his dirty little secrets to anyone.” He made a quick series of swipes toward Amy, missing every single one but pushing her back closer to me.
“How do you know any of those?” If there was anyone out of Dante’s influence it was probably Julian, and if he knew secrets about Dante, he would be more likely to tell me than anyone.
“I met him before he was a contractor.” Julian made one final lunge, pushing Amy right into me. I jabbed the tip of my sword into where I predicted she would move when she realized I was behind her. The second I made contact I put all of my strength into getting through the thin layer of darkness surrounding her. A shallow groaning noise from Amy confirmed that I had made it through and she was stuck. “But I think it’s best if I leave his secrets for him to tell.”
“Are you kidding me? He’s done nothing but keep secrets from me this whole time, it’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever been through.”
“That’s just what contractors do.” He grabbed hold of Amy, keeping her from pulling herself free as she struggled. “There will come a time when he’ll get tired of it all and tell you everything. The more he lies, the harder it will be to hide everything, though he certainly will try harder to keep his secrets and avoid the shame of being discovered.”
“He’ll talk soon enough.” Amy groaned. The shadowy veil had almost completely dissipated from around her. She was still impaled on the sword, but somehow she had managed to remain conscious. “Remind me never to get shot, or stabbed, or kill anyone ever again.”
“Yeah, you need a good long vacation from your job.” Julian brushed her mess of hair from her face. Her braid had come undone somehow and her hair was a huge mess.
“What you need is a haircut.” I laughed. “And something to stop you from becoming a wraith again. Lucky for you I was here to stop you from losing yourself completely.”
“Yeah. Lucky for me.” Her voice had gotten extremely quiet. “I had Trish on the ropes for a while though, that was fun. I think I’m just going to sleep for a bit though. Give me ten minutes.”
“Yeah, ten minutes.” I pulled the sword from her back as the last bits of shadow disappeared. The flame on the sword was much larger now, it almost made it awkward to hold properly. Amy fell limp to the ground, I was almost worried she was dead for good but then I heard her snore.
“We can sleep?” Julian sounded just as confused as I was, almost a little angry.
“I guess so.” She wasn’t exactly in the safest place to be sleeping, and it would be stupid to just leave her there. “Help me pull her over to the column over there.” I slid the sword under my belt and hooked my arms around hers while Julian thrust his dagger back into his heart and picked up her legs.
“She’s a lot heavier than she looks.” Julian muttered. “No offense to her. She looks great considering what she just went through.” I rolled my eyes, he really didn’t have to worry about being polite to an unconscious girl that wouldn’t care even if she could hear him. “No, I’m serious, she looks… good.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Okay, now you’re just making things weird. You’re married.” He laughed at that, which I kind of understood. Marriage didn’t really mean as much when you were a slave to your spouse.
“Marriage was, at the time, the only way to safely take Trish’s eyes off every other man alive. Arguably I’m not doing so well in that regard now, but at the time it worked beautifully.”
“Really?” I got the feeling that marriage had failed to keep her honest even when it was a fresh idea.
“No.” He sighed. “But it made for great politics.” He sounded aggravated, but at the same time I could tell he longed to return to a past moment, perhaps when politics mattered.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to second guess everything you say. It just sounded a bit farfetched to me.”
“It’s okay, I appreciate the opportunity to admit that my decisions were poorly made. That chance doesn’t come around often for me, it’s refreshing to be honest with myself and the people around me.” He let out a deep breath and shook his head. “So, how do you think we should go about getting in the fight? I don’t think I’ll be much use against Trish.”
“You wanna just split it? You can take Owen with Dante and I’ll take Trish with Hope?” It sounded logical, although I almost wanted to be fighting alongside Dante instead. The synergy sounded more appealing, but if Julian couldn’t handle Trish there wasn’t much other choice.
“I mean if you’re okay with that.” We just stood there awkwardly and silently, watching four exceptionally powerful individuals trying to kill themselves, quietly avoiding the fact that the older and more experienced collector was effectively useless in both potential fights.
We probably would have stood there indecisively forever, but happenstance decided to intervene. Dante was sent flying through the air and into the wall directly next to Amy. For a second it looked like they were passed out together.
“I’m getting tired of this guy.” Dante grunted as he stood, brushing rubble off his clothes. He had actually managed to keep his suit fairly clean despite all the fighting. “Both of you, I need a distraction so I can get Owen moving. The more he moves the less he can focus on attacking.”
“Can you actually kill him though?” The question had been in my head ever since we arrived and it worried me. He was a lot stronger than anyone had expected and, from what Hope had said, Dante hadn’t been so sure when he’d arrived.
“Probably not, we came woefully unprepared to face him and he’s stronger than we had anticipated even then. My plan from the start wasn’t to kill him. Confront him yes, maybe fight, but I need to know what he knows and I need to force him into submission. He needs to want to give up, which means we need to look scarier than whoever he’s working for. However, I think we can rule out Trish now.” Dante looked to Julian, but he just shrugged.
“My freedom keeps me out of the loop, although I never really caught wind of any plot against you before, other than that we were coming here and probably burning this castle to the ground… for fun.”
“Hm, maybe I did more damage than I thought last time I talked to her.” Dante hummed.
“Whatever you did, thank you.” Julian laughed lightly. “I’d say we’re even now.”
“Even?”
“Yes, even. Considering I didn’t spill your little secret to everyone I know.” Julian flashed a wicked grin, it made me think he might have been a terrifying contractor. “I think you almost still owe me, but I’ll call it even.” Dante glared at him. The threat in his eyes was very real, but it wasn’t the time or place for it. “I didn’t forget, but I am a man of my word. Your secret is safe with me.”
“I hope so.” His glare persisted but switched targets. Dante’s only focus now was Owen. “Shadow me until we get close, and keep your weapons at the ready. When I give the signal, split off and cut in at him from both directions.”
“What’s the signal?” I paused a second before going a step further. “And don’t be dramatic and say you’ll know or something corny like that.”
“The signal is a hand gesture, something like a wave or a quick point. Not too subtle but it won’t stand out too much, so be sure to pay attention.” He had started moving before he finished explaining. He wasn’t running or making any sudden moves though, so it wasn’t too hard to follow him. “No rushing.” The last part was a whisper as we approached Owen’s energy bubble.
“Where’s the eagerness from before?” Owen laughed. “Where’s the bravado? You were all high and mighty a second ago. What happened to that kid? Because he’s the one I want to kill.”
“Well I’m still here.” Dante sighed, stopping just short of where I could see the air rippling with heat. “But the fighting is getting boring. I want to talk business.” He folded his arms behind his back and began pacing slowly around the perimeter. “Since you seem to be intent on burning out, I think it’d be in both our best interests to slow down for a few seconds.” Owen looked confused but cautious. His eyes darting between the three of us as we circled around him.
“I hope you don’t think I’ll let my guard down just because you say you want to talk.”
“Of course not. That would be too easy, not to mention polite on your part. While you do strike me as one who normally would do the polite thing, you’re not quite in the position to do that right now, are you.” Dante motioned with his fingers for me to break off. I took a step back and held my position while he and Julian continued to circle. “You’re the bad guy here, aren’t you? You’re the big scary bad guy pulling all the strings, intent on seeking revenge for the death of your brother.” Julian broke off a third of the way around from me, while Dante continued. I could tell Owen knew what was happening. It was a lot more obvious than I had expected. The slow pace of Dante’s attack left no room for surprise. “Or at least you would be, if you actually cared.” He stopped where he had started and smiled. If there was any evil intent in that smile, I couldn’t sense it. It was an honest smile, which didn’t make sense in context. “I know you never wanted to get revenge for your brother. This was never your idea. Your brother had held you back, put you behind the bar, your whole life. You didn’t mind of course, it was safer there, and given the choice you might have chosen to be there. But he never gave you that choice and, even if it’s just a little bit, you’re glad he’s dead.”
“None of that changes anything. I can’t stop now or I’m as good as dead.” He looked as determined as ever. It didn’t feel like Dante had everything planned out. “You probably know that though. So what did you have in mind?”
“My plan is fairly simple. I’m going to give you a choice. You can tell me who got you to do all of this, give me the mirror shard and I kill them.” Owen’s skepticism was tangible. “Or I kill you, take the shard and wait for whoever you’re working for to find me and then I kill them. Either way, I get what I want. The only difference is one way you die and I have to wait longer to get this mess over with.”
“No, the only difference is one way you actually have to fight me. Don’t think I’ve forgotten how easily I tossed you around earlier.”
“Well, if that’s your choice I’ll give you a little time to think things over first. Just long enough to regret your decision.” Black mist rose from the ground all around Owen’s bubble creating a wall of pure darkness all around us. “Thirty seconds, to be precise.” We were completely encased in darkness. Strings of blue light began to stretch across the artificial ceiling led by large inhuman silhouettes of an ever darker black than the walls. Julian looked a little uneasy as one passed behind him silently. “How much do you want to bet that I wasn’t stalling? That I wasn’t waiting for two faces to come along, catch your attention and distract you from my feet… all so I could do… exactly what I’m doing now, because I knew exactly what your answer would be.” Owen looked worried now. I hadn’t even expected this, and I was supposed to be in on the plan.
“Wait…” Owen stuttered.
“I’m sorry, you made your choice.” Dante’s voice was stern and cruel. “And just like I said, I’ll give you just enough time to regret that choice.” He held up a single glowing blue thread that had fallen from the dark webbing above him. “Goodbye Owen.”
Dante pulled hard on the string and all at once the wall of dark mist closed in. It was fast and I flinched as it went past me in a chilling wave. It stopped for a second on what I assumed was Owen’s bubble, but Dante gave the string another hard tug and it closed in completely on Owen. His large frame was outlined by the black veil as he struggled against it. I could hear him scream, but it was quiet, like there was gag in his mouth. Eventually it died out and his body went still.
“What did you do?” I poked the motionless black mass with my sword. Dante didn’t answer and I couldn’t read the expression on his face as he stared at the shrouded figure. “Julian, what did he do?”
“I… don’t know.” Julian sounded stunned. “I think… he killed him. I’ve never heard of that being done before though. Normally the only way to kill a contractor is to catch them in some kind of loophole or breach of contract, or get them to sign away their own soul by accident. Maybe get them to burn out everything they have, but then there’s nothing left to collect.”
The black mist dissolved slowly, revealing a large blue flame stretching from the floor to where Owen’s head had been. Julian looked shocked and confused, and I could only stand there confused with him. I wasn’t sure what to think or feel about what had just happened, I didn’t know enough to understand the significance of it all… but it felt like a big deal, and I trusted that feeling.
“I didn’t kill him.” Dante finally spoke up. “My little gag was nowhere near powerful enough to do that, but I guess I fooled him… because he killed himself. Must’ve thought I wouldn’t be quick, which would have been the case. He couldn't escape, couldn’t go back to whoever it is that was forcing him into this, and I certainly wasn’t going to give him another chance. He’s too clever to deal with properly.”
“So what you’re saying is, we just won… by pure luck.” I was angry that he hadn’t actually had a plan that whole time, but relieved that I was still alive.
“Well it wasn’t exactly luck,” Julian laughed. He looked every bit as relieved as I felt. “It was a confidence play. Our boy Dante was betting on him giving up when it looked like he had no other option but to end things quickly and on his own terms. That’s why the whole thing was so flashy and dramatic.”
“Yes.” Dante shook his head and laughed quietly. He didn’t look that excited. “It was something along those lines. I wasn’t really planning on any outcome though. If he’d waited a few seconds longer he would have realized that the whole thing was a fake.”
“Oh, well then.” Julian rocked back on his heels awkwardly. His eyes slowly scanned the room looking for something to distract from what had just happened. “Oh that does not look good for me.”
I followed his eyes to Hope standing over Trish who was kneeling down defeated with a vacant expression on her face. Hope looked pretty beat up herself but Trish was utterly broken. Julian ran between them and attempted to shake Trish out of her daze but the effort was fruitless. Hope pushed him out of the way and grabbed Trish by the neck, lifting her lifeless body into the air as silver mist swirled around them.
“Hope.” Dante called out to her, a sense of urgency in his voice. She didn’t even flinch. “Agatha. Stop.” She hesitated and turned to face him.
“Are you trying to save her?” Hope’s voice was hoarse, she was breathing harder than when we’d fought Owen, and her eyes were frantic. “Because you know how that would sound to me. Why would you want to protect another girl?”
“Because we got what we came here for, we can leave her to her own pathetic existence.” Dante slowly approached Hope and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m not protecting her, I’m protecting you. I won’t let you hurt someone else like that, it changes things.” He was whispering into her ear now, slowly lowering her hand and loosening her grip around Trish’s throat. “I don’t think I could love a girl that would kill out of jealousy.”
“You love me?” Hope was completely distracted and immersed in what she was hearing. Julian slowly pulled Trish free and carried her away.
“Or course I love you, why else would I keep you around.” He was laying it on thick and it was disgusting. I would have gagged and rolled my eyes if I hadn’t thought that Hope might completely snap if I did.
“You’re such a liar.” Hope giggled. “But I love that about you.”