The liquid glowed green from the vial. Glass cylinders were bubbling with boiling fusion from within. Hideo wiped the teaming sweat from his forehead and used a cloth to rub the mist away from his bifocals. Steam was filling the alchemy chamber. The whole ordeal was harder than some physical fights he had recently been in. But he had it. He lifted the vial. The lime green liquid was luminous and was a comforting warmth in his hands. He and Anastasia had failed to find a cure for the red plague, but at the very least, this would still prevent some deaths. He heard the chamber doors slam open, and he jumped back like a cat that had been cornered.
Athena ran through the doorway with her crossbow drawn. When she saw Hideo stood there, sweaty and in ragged clothes, she raised a perplexed eyebrow. “I heard noise and saw smoke seeping from under the door, you fool.” She rolled her eyes and lowered her weapon. “You are aware that you were terminated from your position?” she asked bitterly. “I’m not surprised it happened when I heard about it. You have a habit of abandoning those around you.”
Hideo raised a placating gloved hand. “I know I’m trespassing, Athena, and I know I hurt you, but you have to listen to me.”
“I should be dragging you by the collar and tossing your drunken arse from the palace gates.”
“Drunken? You’re one to talk,” he replied, and swiftly regretted his words. The City Watch Deputy grabbed him by his tattered jerkin and slammed him into the alchemy desk. “I’m sorry,” he said. Honestly. Genuinely. Remorsefully. As a Night Fang, he had suppressed the guilt since arriving back in New Jade. Deep down, it still festered in him. “It was bad enough that my sister left the both of us. I should have known better than to do the same thing to you. To inflict the same emotional anguish.”
Hideo saw something in her eyes that he had not seen since first leaving the city for Arkovia. She released her grip and stood back. “You didn’t even tell me where you went,” she said with a trembly voice. “I was alone again. For years.”
“You found the watch.”
“You think I had family in the watch?” she scoffed. “Half of them want me demoted, another large quarter want me dead, the Sheriff is downstairs, drinking and snorting himself to death. At least I had my reasons to hit the bottle.”
And I thought I would find family with the Night Fangs. Yet I feel empty. He gingerly stepped to her and softly placed his hands on her shoulders. He expected a harsh and metallic punch to the nose and was surprised when she did not shake him away. “I want us to go back to how things were.”
“Like it will be that easy.”
He nodded solemnly. “Can you at least tell me if there is some chance that you’ll forgive me in the future?”
She did not answer. Her eyes wondered towards the glowing green vial rolling around on the alchemy desk. “Why are you here? What is that?” she started questioning, becoming a hardened deputy again.
How do I explain myself without being hanged? “Don’t ask me how, but I managed to obtain a sample of the venom that the Velociraptor uses on his victims. I’ve managed to reverse-engineer it into a remedy.”
“How in bloody damnation did you manage to get your hands on such a sample?” She was askance, frowning, with a myriad of suspicions. It was clear to see. Athena managed to reach the rank of deputy for a reason. He had to tread carefully. Honest, but not fully disclosing all the truth. “I might have snuck into Elizabeth’s masquerade ball,” he admitted. “I was there when she died, but I couldn’t save her.”
“You got this from Elizabeth as she was dying?” she blazed.
“It was after. Whilst paying my respects at the morgue. I want to help bring the man who killed her to justice, Athena.” He raised the vial in his hand. The liquid within glimmered as it swirled within the confines of the glass. “I’ve managed to make a couple of these. Administer it quickly enough and whomever he infects next can recover.”
“If only you and Anastasia were this efficient at coming up with a cure for the Red Plague.”
Hideo had endured torture and slashes from Xerxes’ tiger claws, beatings from the Gargoyle’s street thugs, Inferno assassins, and the giant samurai. Endured agonising deadly venom from the Velociraptor… yet that comment hurt the most.
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“Sorry,” Athena said after a long silence, contrition clear on her countenance.
Whilst basking in the uncomfortable silence, Hideo noticed something dusty and old tucked between her upper arm and breastplate. “What’s that?” he asked. He could see her eyes widen.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
Hideo dashed and snatched the leather-bound ledger from her. She cursed at him as he swiped through the pages. It was nonsensical. Endless lists of names with crosses etched next to him. “Who are these people?” he asked her.
He did not like the despairing gaze she met him with. The unbearable amount of time it took her to answer him, the tremor in her voice as she struggled to get the words out. “King Sigismund had them all burned for witchcraft.”
No. Denial could only protect him for so long. The impact of her words draped over him like a boiling blanket. This couldn’t be the kind of man the Empress would have me protect. This is the kind of man she would have me end. He brushed through more pages.
The names nearly stretched into the hundreds. He felt ill. His stomach churned again. Sweat beaded his forehead and unkempt hair.
“This is why the assassins want him dead,” Athena concluded.
Hideo solemnly agreed. “The Inferno worship fire. In their eyes, King Sigismund has abused it with this cruel misuse of power.”
She raised another discerning eyebrow. “How do you know who the Inferno are?”
“I learnt of them during my travels in Arkovia.” That was true. She did not need to know that he specifically learnt it from the Night Fangs or that he was the one dressing as a ninja and fighting them at night. “Their modus operandi fits with these assassins.”
She gave him a studying and curious gaze. Eventually the Deputy in her faded. “You need to get out of here before my watchmen find you. Meanwhile, I’m going to attempt arresting a King, which will be interesting.” She nabbed the ledger back and packed it into her satchel as she made her exit from the alchemy chamber.
“What of Rosamund?” Hideo called out. “Does she know what her father did?”
“I don’t think so. She’s distraught over Dorian right now.”
“What happened to the knight?”
She scowled and looked away from him. “She claims a shadow monster killed him in the night. I don’t know whether she had a breakdown or-”
“Shadow monster?” he questioned sharply. He was back in the Wailing Siren. He thought of Greyheart, the red-eyed woman. The sharp pinprick of the needle. The ants and spiders that crawled out of her mouth. The way the illusion was washed away upon hitting the bed of water. “Has anyone seen Dorian since?”
Athena looked back at him, appearing confused. “No.”
No, no, no…
He was standing next to the Princess, sat amongst the Royalists as they made their grand plans. As Reynard Woodard gloated about his grand opening of the New Jade City Library. As Elizabeth raved and expressed her excitement for her masquerade ball. As Anastasia drank her endless goblets of wine under his gaze. “Get back to Rosamund!” he ordered. “Now!” He did not care that he was just a dishevelled alchemist in her eyes. He darted past, running out into the corridor. He snatched the satchel from under Athena’s arm. He needed it. He needed answers from his oh-so-gracious King.
He could hear her yelling in protest from behind.
He glanced back at her. “Have a watchman put an all-points bulletin out for Dorian Ambrose.”
Athena chased after him and pulled at his jerkin. “Wait, why? You think he’s alive?”
Hideo gave her a grave glare. “I believe he has traded his jade knight armour for a raptor skull.” He did not have time to explain further. He dashed down the hallways in his ragged and unwashed alchemist garb, the ledger firmly tucked under his arm.
My suit, he thought frantically. I have to get my suit. He dashed past oil paintings of the King’s lineage. He knows every secret entrance to the palace. Every weak point. He took a sharp turn at the end of the corridor and sprinted. He knows which on-duty guards are drunks and deep sleepers. He has enough land and money to own the stationed watchmen.
It became apparent that he was too late when he encountered three iron-clad men in demonic oni masks patrolling down the other side of a hallway instead of the Palace Guards. They chased after him. He ran in the other direction. He couldn’t be seen fighting and using his charge without his suit. As he turned a corner into another hallway, he saw dead Palace Guards piled atop each other, their blood staining into the green carpet. He stepped over their bodies. Whatever Dorian had planned for Sigismund and Rosamund, it was already in place. Where’s my damn suit!
He was becoming lost in the maze of corridors. Any guards or watchmen he did encounter were already dead. Anyone living he encountered wandering the halls possessed a bronze oni mask. He turned another corner. He ran to a window, in the hopes of climbing down to the lower floor to where his armour lay. He saw orange hues in the distance from a window. Dozens of them. He did not believe the torches belonged to watchmen. He finally made a correct corner and found a marble stairway. He leapt down the stairs and rolled across the marble floor. He sighted two watchmen passing down the ends of another hallway, accompanied by two assassins. Whether they were hostages or co-conspirators, he could not say.
When he reached the cupboard where he left his burlap sack, he found an Arkovian chambermaid sprawled down the side of the wall opposite. Her eyes were haunted and open. He cursed and closed himself in. He pulled out the half-shadowed, half-sapphire mask. He needed to get to Sigismund before Dorian did. Whether I rescue him or kill him myself, however…