4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

It took nearly an hour to reach his destination, twisting and turning through deeper alleys and less-populated parts of the city before Rafael finally arrived at the dead zone. Over a century had passed since a tremendous fire had raged through this part of the Lower City, leaving blackened and skeletal ruins in its wake, but the terrain was still extremely treacherous. The Upper Half didn't want to pay to rebuild and the Lower Half didn't have the means, so no one had ever returned. Eventually the whole place would fall down around itself and perhaps then something would be done, but for now it was left to the rats, the desperate, and the suicidal.

Magic was the foundation of Clare, and not just because of the potent power of the High Ones. It literally helped to shore up the island city. It was the only way the land could withstand the weight of the changes people had wrought on it. Heavy stone had been imported to build with, tunnels dug, spires erected, and the earth beneath it all became a lacy lattice of tenuous support. That lattice was fueled and strengthened by magic worked by the High Ones, but fire was one of the few things that had an immediate purifying effect on such spells. It consumed them like it consumed nearly everything else, and the effect had been devastating.

Whole sections of the ground had fallen away, some becoming yawning craters that went deeper than the eye could see. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Bottomless chasms sat side by side with piddling gutters, and the landscape changed constantly. No path was safe to tread; no skeleton of a building was immune from the entropy that pulled at it. Going into the dead zone was almost certain death.

Nevertheless, Rafael had been determined to explore the dead zone. It had worried Feysal at first, fearing that his friend hadn't gotten over his death wish, but while the prospect of dying didn't bother Rafael, he hadn't been seeking it when he'd started feeling the place out. It was inevitable that he would someday come up against someone more skilled than himself. He could minimize their advantages by stacking the odds in his favor, and knowing how to stay alive in the dead zone certainly did that. If he'd known more about whom his last kill was beforehand, he might have―

No. He had to stop thinking about that. What-ifs would drive him insane, and Rafael needed every bit of his sanity to help him through what was coming. He wasn't just referring to the inevitable confrontation with Xian. The dead zone never stayed the same, even if it looked that way, and he needed to be sharp.

The ground fell away from under his feet twice as he explored. The first time he saved himself by leaping out of the way, the second by grabbing an overhanging beam and crawling along it to dubious safety. His reflexes were standing him in good stead so far.

It would be the same for Xian in the beginning. Rafael wouldn't be able to outrun him. He needed to draw him into the dead zone, find a perch and kill him from a distance. Getting too close to his former master would be disastrous.

Rafael smiled wryly as he surveyed the paths in front of him, contrasting his future peril with the current danger. It felt oddly appropriate to his situation. Any way he looked at it, there was a very good likelihood he would soon die. The only positive thing that would come out of the impending confrontation was the fact that, no matter who perished, Daeva would be denied a body. He would never risk coming into the dead zone to search for it.

Rafael's first choice for a perch had dissolved since he'd been here last. That was a shame. It had looked out over the remains of an open plaza and would have afforded him an incredible range advantage. His second choice was at the apex of the spindly husk of a cathedral. It was a treacherous climb, and a fall from that height would be fatal, but the stones held firm and he could see for a long way in every direction.

The alcove he secreted himself into was barely large enough for his body, but it concealed him well enough to make him feel safe from projectile weapons while facilitating his use of them. There were some obstructions, but he couldn't afford to be too choosy. He didn't know when Xian would come after him, but he had to count on it being soon. Possibly even immediately, depending on how much he'd loved his former apprentice.

Stop ! He had to stop thinking things that gave him such deliberate pain. Xian wouldn't come immediately. He always made a plan. He always took his time, was never hasty, never rushed. He seemed immune to anxiety and outside pressure. Maybe it was the calming weight of so many years behind him. Xian was one of the oldest High Ones, his life stretching back nearly to the founding of Clare centuries ago. He had been killing for over five hundred years. He wasn't going to be rushed into anything by anyone, especially not by his prey.

Rafael closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed hard. It was difficult to maintain the pretense of initiative when he thought about how incredibly proficient at murder his former master was. Rafael's life was like the turn of a page in the book of Xian, perhaps no more than a footnote. He didn't want to kill Xian, didn't want to bring his considerable skills to bear on his master, not just because of their past, but because he didn't want to have his suspicions confirmed. He didn't want to show him just how poor a student he'd truly turned out to be when he failed.

No . Age was no proof of skill. Many masters became less proficient as they aged, more self-satisfied and less cautious. Rafael had taken advantage of that time and again. The young ones were often harder to kill, with the memory of their mortality still fresh. Xian's great age would be his undoing; his skill and confidence would make him take risks. He'd come into the dead zone, and Rafael or the earth itself would kill him.

If Rafael repeated this mantra often enough, he might come to believe it.

Now to the matter of timing. Proper timing was an important part of any assassination, and right now it lay in the hands of his target. Rafael needed to usurp control of the situation; he needed to steal the initiative. Xian was forming a plan? Make him change it. Rafael didn't want to wait to have his attention. Waiting would drive him mad.

The following morning Rafael left a severed head on the floor of the grand council chamber of the Upper City. It wasn't the head of a High One, which was important. However, it was the head of the highest-ranking human servant of the council's current chairman, which was also important. Every death should have a reason, be a message. Rafael sent his loud and clear. The crossbarred hilt of his athame protruded through the head's gaping mouth, mockingly gagging it. The tip of the blade was barely long enough to glint out the back of the skull.

A decent mixture of contempt, deliberate crudeness, and pressure, Rafael thought as he witnessed from afar the reaction his present garnered. Every High One was beholden to the council's will, and the council itself wasn't immune to pressure from their human servants. That burden was certainly there now. The victim had been their spokesperson, their pride, the one of them whom they had safely assumed would be given the First Draught and inducted into the High Ones' august company. The killing was an embarrassment for the council—that they should be reduced to worrying about what their slaves thought of them, and that they had been put into that position in the first place by the dawdling of one of their own.

Xian would come fast now. He would have to. He had said it himself—to be a true member of any society, you had to abide by their rules.

Message delivered, Rafael headed into the dead zone. He didn't bother to make his trail obvious. Xian would find him no matter where or how he went along his way. He had water, a little food, and a large assortment of weapons. He didn't intend to close with his former master if he could at all help it, but he did need to be prepared.

He reached his perch a few hours after noon. Xian wouldn't be able to come into the Lower City until nightfall—it had none of the safety measures against sun exposure that the Upper City did. Direct sunlight was one of the few things a High One needed to avoid, and even the shadows weren't proof against damage. Strange that the First Draught should give them so many abilities, yet take away even the most basic inheritance of man—the freedom to move about in the sun. Their skin couldn't take it; it crackled and shrunk as the magic within them shied away, searing layer after layer of flesh as it burrowed deeper and deeper. This weakness was the primary reason they kept regular humans around, to run their errands and mind their affairs in the larger world when the sun ruled the skies. Night was their balm, twilight their hour of ascendance, and Rafael had to be ready for it.

He lay on his back and unstoppered a small vial. Very carefully he tilted it and let two drops of tincture of belladonna fall into his eyes. The stinging was immediate, and he shut them and kept them shut. The belladonna would improve his night vision, forcibly enlarging his pupils, but it made the hazy afternoon light filtering through the dust painful. He lay there, calming his mind and body and extending his senses until he could hear the wood slowly rotting in a beam twenty feet away.

Now to wait. Wait for nightfall. Perhaps an hour after twilight, Xian would be here. He would see him again…

Time crept by, unrelentingly slow, forcing Rafael to battle his own thoughts for second after agonizing second until finally he felt the balm of evening cover his face. It was dark enough to get ready, to lift himself out of his self-imposed soul-searching. The introspection hadn't done him any good. He felt anxious, prickly, and confused. His nerves were on edge and his newly enhanced eyes darted this way and that, staring penetratingly into the darkening recesses below him even though he knew it was too early, too soon. Xian might be leaving now, perhaps. Perhaps he'd wait until full night. He should, for his own sake. He had—

A shift. It was so fast he barely caught it, just shadows moving within deeper shadows. Black on gray, like a hole in the night. Rafael narrowed his eyes. It couldn't be. He couldn't have gotten here by now. It wasn't safe enough for him to move in the Lower City before the sun went down, much less pick his way through the dead zone.

Instinctually Rafael readied his crossbow, drawing the slide back and inserting the first bolt even as he continued to strain into the darkness, looking for another hint of movement or, better yet, nothing.

No, there it was again, damn it ! Too fast to see more than the vaguest silhouette, but it was him. It had to be. Gods curse him, how had the creature managed it?

Rafael wasted a few more seconds mentally swearing before he pulled himself together. He'd been surprised. It didn't matter. If Xian wanted to flit around the cathedral floor like a wraith, he could do that. If he stayed in one place for longer than it took to draw breath, he would be shot. Rafael hoped he could injure him badly enough with the first few shots to slow him down. He'd have to take Xian through the brain stem or the heart to kill him, and even for him that was practically impossible at this range without inflicting some serious damage first.

He positioned the crossbow on the stones and peered down the length of the stock, staring with wide, unfocused vision into the gloom of the old cathedral's floor. The first hint, the first twitch… There, a fluttering of black, and he loosed the shot instantaneously, then cursed as the bolt skittered in a shower of sparks off the battered marble pillar.

His position was compromised now, if it had ever really been secure in the first place. Xian had undoubtedly tracked the shot. It didn't matter. He couldn't get up to the alcove without exposing himself long enough for even an untrained man to shoot him. Rafael loaded another bolt and tried to relax.

It quickly became a game of cat and mouse between them, hunter and prey, only Rafael had the sinking feeling that his prey was toying with him. There weren't that many pillars down there, not that many places to hide. Once a section of ground collapsed, but even as his pulse quickened with excitement, he saw the shadow of his master flutter effortlessly away from it, and he wasted another bolt venting his frustration at the apparition.

Not a hit. Not one single hit, and he'd been trying for nearly fifteen minutes. It was ludicrous. He was an excellent shot and he had all the advantages; surely he should have grazed the bastard by now. He was running low on bolts as well.

There. Finally ! Xian moved backward at a diagonal, not as fast as he could have, and Rafael tracked him with the bolt and loosed before his target could change directions. He saw a falter mar the fluid movement, and his lips curled in a snarl of satisfaction. Unfortunately, his success was fleeting. His target was slowed, but just barely, and before Rafael knew it he had used the last of his bolts. Fucking hell, what would it take to grind him down?

Rafael gritted his teeth and grabbed his blades and dart gun. He'd have to close the distance some if he wanted to get any sort of residual advantage out of that first injury. He resolutely blocked his mind to the idea that his wounded prey was drawing him out of his safe haven and swung down from the ledge, moving cautiously even as his eyes continued to seek out Xian's movement. He kept stone between him and his former master as best he could. Rafael knew if Xian had bothered to bring a long-range weapon with him he'd already be dead, but it still didn't hurt to be wary.

He fired darts from the gun as soon as his feet touched the ground, spraying the silver-tipped needles in a rapid staccato rhythm as he tracked Xian. The darts wouldn't kill him, not even close, but the silver acted like a magic sink and made the flesh of a High One crawl as it consumed their life force.

He was within twenty feet of the creature and at this distance, in the last pale tatters of light, he could make out some details. Xian was covered with dark, glistening fabric that billowed with every move he made. It also, Rafael noted, seemed to do an excellent job of stopping projectiles from reaching his body. The fabric glowed briefly when a needle struck it but held the silver fast. As quickly as he could fire, the fabric moved, swirling in a protective pattern in front of that powerful body.

It captivated him at the same time as it frustrated him, and that frustrated Rafael even further. Furiously he worked his way closer, trying to force the elusive figure toward less stable footing, but somehow he found himself being maneuvered in a circle, drawn into a dance he didn't have control of.

Realizing what was happening, Rafael jerked his eyes away from the mesmerizing figure that kept evading him and tried to regain some control of the situation. He stepped backward toward the shadows and a chance to regroup. He found a flaw in the stonework instead, and the marble, one moment so solid beneath his feet, crumbled to nothingness in the next. Rafael twisted serpentine-like in midair and stretched to catch himself, losing his grip on the dart gun in his effort to find purchase, but there was nothing, nothing but a hungry emptiness beneath him that would swallow him whole.

Suddenly he was flying in the opposite direction. It happened so fast that he barely had time to register the change in his circumstances and the pain of whiplash in his neck before he crashed into a stone pillar. This one held, but he'd barely regained his feet before the apparition he had been chasing suddenly became all too real.

The heavy cloak was gone, and in its place Rafael could clearly distinguish the long limbs and broad torso of his former master. He was still swathed from head to foot with the black fabric, but within the folds he could discern the pearlescent glitter of white eyes. It was like a knife to the heart. His master was looking at him, seeing him for the first time in five years, and it filled Rafael with an inexplicable rage. Why now? Why like this, when the circumstances couldn't have been any worse? Why only when he forced him to violence did his master care enough to come for him?

Driven by demons that had been festering inside him for a lifetime, Rafael launched off the pillar, drawing his sabers and attacking with a speed that surprised even him. The ferocity of his attack caught Xian off guard, and now it was he who was forced backward, driven to defensiveness under the insane onslaught. Rafael was beyond caring about the contract, who he had killed, why they were here or whether he lived or died. His pain was given life in the form of his blades, and it sliced deep.

He cut and was rewarded with a pale flash of flesh opening up over Xian's left arm. He cut again, was parried, and traded blows that nearly numbed his arm before he forced another opening. The slash was high on his opponent's chest this time, and he barely saw skin before the wound welled with that thick, precious magical blood. He could smell it, like something out of his dreams, and the scent of something he'd been denied for so long just incensed him further.

Rafael pressed the attack, oblivious to where they were headed or whether the ground was safe or not. He didn't actively block or protect himself. Every movement was aggressive, every strike an attempt to cut. He left openings, he had to, but his master didn't capitalize on them. Rafael attacked and Xian defended, block for strike and parry for thrust, until a flicker-fast edge cut his opponent high across the forehead. Thick cloth parted, hair tumbled down like a silver wave and Rafael was suddenly staring into the pale, blood-streaked face of his master.

The cut was small, hardly more than a scratch. The blood ran in a slender rivulet down the inside of Xian's brow, past his right eye and onto his cheek. His face was so similar to the one Rafael had seen two nights ago, but it was so different too. It wasn't just any High One's face, it was his master's face. The hideous reality of what he was doing seeped back into Rafael's consciousness, and the sheer wrongness of it made what was left of his soul shriek with pain.

This wasn't his place. He couldn't do this. He couldn't. Fifteen years of conditioning couldn't be undone by five years of neglect.

Before he could do more than hesitate, though, Xian was on him. His feet flew out from under him and Rafael was thrown to his back, the breath driven from his lungs as he impacted the floor. He barely had time to register the negligible, pricking pain in his side and the appearance of his master's face, his hair shielding their locked gaze like a curtain, before it dissolved into silver mist along with everything else as his consciousness faltered. Past the rush of blood in his ears and his own harsh gasping for breath, he vaguely heard the words, "Welcome back, pet," before the darkness flooded in and mercifully drowned him.