Called to Battle: Volume Two Read online

  “Porter.” Gorman corrected. “I would never needlessly risk the life of one of my employees, even one as depressing as Reinrik. They’re such a pain to properly train, after all.”

  Falks leaned up against the headboard of Gorman’s bed and covered her mouth as she yawned. If there had been any justice in the world, she would still be asleep in her own bed, curled up next to her husband rather than interrogating this arrogant charmer in the dead of night. It would have been simpler to drag him off and let her captain—and then the judge—have his way with Gorman.

  Captain Bensen wouldn’t appreciate the early wake-up call either, however, and would be sure to take it out on the man. Falks held Gorman’s fate in her hands, and unlike him, she took that sort of responsibility seriously. She wasn’t going to take him in without giving him a chance to explain himself, reluctant though he seemed to be to do so.

  “Am I keeping you up?” Gorman said. “We can finish this later, if you like.”

  Falks blinked her eyes hard and forced them wide. “You’re not from here. I can’t just let you go and assume you’ll still be in town in the morning.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “So, let’s continue—Reinrik got himself killed.”

  “In as spectacular a way as I’ve ever seen. The acid he was carrying sprayed everywhere. It not only obliterated him but also melted the skin off half of the bandits. The rest of them fled in sheer terror.”

  “And what did you learn from that?”

  “Not to let anyone carrying the launcher enter battle without a great deal of protection.” Gorman noted the scowl on the inspector’s face. “It caused me to shelve the design. While I might be able to handle such a device myself, I can no longer trust anyone else to tote such a hazardous cargo into battle.”

  “What makes you so special?”

  Gorman smiled. “Where would you like me to start?”

  Falks refused to be charmed. “How about entering a fight with an acid bomb strapped to your back.”

  “I’ve accomplished riskier things. Luck always seems to smile on me. So far, at least.”

  “But not on Reinrik.”

  “Much to his sister’s dismay.” Gorman shot a guilty glance at the corpse. “She blamed me for his death.”

  “And she came here to have her revenge.”

  Gorman rubbed the back of his neck. “At first, I didn’t know that, of course. I thought she was simply an assassin one of my enemies had sent to finish me. Fortunately, I was able to get her to talk before she tried to slit my throat.”

  “And how did you manage that?”

  Gorman tugged at his collar, exposing the nick on his neck further. The blood had congealed there, turning sticky. “She was an amateur. A professional would have dispatched me and been done with it.”

  “Why didn’t she, then?”

  “She wanted to justify herself. She needed me to know why she had come to kill me.”

  “She talked?”

  “She talked. I suspect she wanted me to fall on my knees and beg forgiveness for my sins—against her and anyone else I’d wronged. Instead, I protested the injustice.”

  “That stopped her?”

  “Long enough.” He frowned, thinking, remembering.

  Falks motioned for Gorman to go on, and he acquiesced. He slipped down from the railing and narrated in a distant voice as he replayed the incident in his head. Falks would almost have thought he had put himself in a trance but for the animated way he used his hands to tell the story.

  “I awoke with the tip of a knife’s blade already in my throat. If I had jerked as I returned to consciousness, I might have died right there. When my eyes fluttered open, I saw her kneeling at my side, close to where she lies now.

  “She looked as if she might spit in my face before carving out my tongue. I whispered one word to her, and it brought her up short: ‘Why?’

  “Keeping the blade at my throat, she explained herself—that Reinrik was her brother and that she was here to avenge his death. I explained I hadn’t killed him, he had killed himself, and she called me a liar. I know what you’re thinking. Why would I want to aggravate a woman with a knife at my throat? At the time, it seemed to me she would kill me either way. I saw no reason to lie. I closed my eyes and waited for the end to come. Then I heard her sobbing.”

  Gorman paused, and his eyes refocused on the inspector. “Honestly, at that moment, I was conflicted. I should have taken the opportunity to defend myself, but instead I listened. And she told me why Reinrik had sought work with me.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “He was my porter, not my friend. I paid him. He carried things for me. He did a fine enough job of it until he blew himself up.”

  “So? What did she tell you?”

  “It turns out that my porter was a wealthy scion of Ord, the eldest son of a castellan, who’d long planned to step into his father’s shoes upon the old man’s demise. Unfortunately, Reinrik had been a little too impatient about his inheritance and had made an attempt on his father’s life. He failed miserably, however.”

  Falks’ eyes narrowed. The castellans were nobles who owned most of northern Ord, and they were powerful families, one and all. Now it seemed that Gorman was culpable for the deaths of two children of a highly placed Ordic noble. She covered her reaction by being flippant about it. She said, “Seems like that runs in the family.”

  “Even so. He did a particularly miserable job of it. His father loved him enough not to credit the botched attempt as genuine and forgave him, but his younger brother wasn’t so sanguine. He challenged Reinrik to a duel and thrashed him. Being a merciful soul, though, the brother banished Reinrik rather than slay him.”

  “And he somehow wound up in your employ.”

  “I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was looking for me—or someone like me, at least. He heard of my reputation with alchemical weaponry, and he decided he would become my apprentice.”

  “Which he wanted because he hoped his talents lay in mass destruction.”

  Gorman arched an eyebrow at Falks’ deadpan sarcasm. “Clearly a fool’s errand.”

  “He wanted revenge on his family.”

  Gorman sighed. “Sad, isn’t it? He had a fresh chance at life, a blank slate on which to write his future, and all he could think about was how to blast—or melt—his way back into whatever would have been left of his old life once the smoke cleared. And when I cut off what he saw as his only path back to that life, he decided to kill himself rather than face his fate.” He waved at the bed again. “She tried to murder me again when I told her that.”

  “For letting him blow himself up?”

  “For suggesting he triggered the explosion on purpose. She accused me of sabotaging his gear.”

  Falks considered this. “Maybe it was an accident. You said he charged out ahead of you. One can be headstrong and stupid without being suicidal.”

  “There’s a thin line between the two sometimes. In this case, however, upon my return through the same area, I took pains to inspect the wreckage and determine exactly what had happened.”

  “Wouldn’t that be hard weeks later?”

  “I came back the next day. It turned out my client in Ord had sent the bandits to intercept me. He apparently thought he could take my inventions for himself without the added burden of having to pay me for them.”

  Falks made a face. “So this Reinrik was both vengeful and suicidal. Which was it? And this merchant just happened to betray you at the perfect moment for Reinrik to take advantage of it? And poorly at that?” She snorted. “It’s all just a bit too complicated and convenient at the same time.”

  “Life is complex. Mine more so than others, perhaps, but that may be the price I pay for possessing unique and desirable skills.”

  “Do your employers double-cross you often?”

  “I don’t expect I’ll have any such worries for a while. I took the trouble to make a vivid example out of my treacherous clien
t.”

  “And you’re not afraid he’ll come after you for revenge?”

  Gorman shook his head.

  “What about his family?”

  “Not much chance of that either, I’m afraid.”

  Falks made a pointed decision to ignore this indirect confession, given it had likely transpired in Ord, rather far out of her jurisdiction. “I suppose the castellan posed a much bigger problem.”

  Gorman chuckled. “I took the time to examine the scene of the initial attack as I left Ord again. I found the failed launcher and spotted something suspicious. The reinforced barrel I’d designed to contain the launcher’s compressed air had blown clean in half.”

  “Someone had tampered with it.”

  He gave her the kind of smile a teacher might show a favored student. “If you’d seen as many things explode as I have, you’d realize that nothing so well built ever comes apart so cleanly. It makes a fairly distinctive mess. In this case, it seemed someone had shortened the barrel.”

  “And you think Reinrik did it?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense, isn’t it? He had both the opportunity and the motive.”

  “Perhaps someone else sabotaged it?”

  “To what end?”

  Falks yawned so wide she wondered if she might fall over on the bed herself. “You said a lot of people want you dead.”

  “None of them work for me. I have a strict policy against that.”

  Falks gave Gorman a wry smile. “Reinrik worked for you. Maybe someone paid Reinrik to kill you by sabotaging your equipment, except it blew up before he could get close enough.”

  Gorman strolled to the window and inspected it, holding his hands behind his back. “I admit, I read him wrong, but he was no assassin. After I upbraided him for insisting on becoming my apprentice, I should have kept a closer eye on him. I allowed a particularly exciting alchemical discovery to distract me instead.”

  “That doesn’t explain why he would have killed himself in such an elaborate way. If he wanted to do himself in, there are simpler ways. He could have just thrown himself in the river.”

  Gorman turned back to look at the inspector who slouched against the headboard of his bed. “Suicide isn’t solely an act of despair. It’s often also a final act of aggression, literally the ultimate revenge, one that places the perpetrator beyond any retribution or recriminations.”

  “You think he killed himself to get back at you?”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  “You think a lot of yourself.”

  “Of course.” Gorman spread his arms wide and flashed her a disarming smile. “For reasons that should be obvious.”

  “Why wouldn’t he just kill you and take your things to use them against his real target?”

  “Besides the fact I’m not that easy to kill?”

  Falks shot a pointed glance at the dead girl sprawled across Gorman’s sheets.

  “Point taken, but—well, you’ll see. The real reason Reinrik didn’t kill me is because it wouldn’t have done him much good. He could have taken my grenades and my launcher, maybe, but they wouldn’t be enough for him to have his revenge on his brother. For that, he needed more.” Gorman tapped his forehead with his index finger. “He needed what I know. All his plans hinged on that, and once I denied that to him, he decided to execute his backup plan.”

  “And you think he did all this to have his revenge on you by spoiling your reputation, too.”

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  “Your story begs belief. I can’t believe he would put aside his original grudge just to bring you some indirect embarrassment.”

  “Whether you believe it or no, that is what I deduce happened.”

  Falks put her pistol down on the bed and wiped her face. She was so tired, her fingers felt numb, and her irritation showed. “You still haven’t told me how the girl in your bed wound up dead.”

  “Claretta,” Gorman said in a soft voice. “Her name was Claretta. At least I think it was. She wasn’t speaking too clearly at the end.”

  “Why is Claretta dead?”

  Gorman gritted his teeth. “Poison, I’m afraid.”

  Falks shook her head to clear it. “Your poison?”

  “That’s the breakthrough I alluded to earlier, the one that absorbed so much of my attention and made me fail to notice young Reinrik sabotaging my launcher.”

  “What’s so special about poison? Can’t an alchemist like you whip something like that up in your sleep?”

  He snorted as if she’d insulted his entire profession. “There are a dizzying array of poisons to employ and ways in which they can be prepared. Each has its best time, place, and purpose, and none of them are to be trifled with. The finest of these concoctions represent the zenith of the alchemist’s art.”

  He pointed at the open window. “This particularly elegant creation of mine is so effective that the victim doesn’t have to actually ingest it. You just need to get it on your skin. It’s colorless and mostly odorless. It’s sticky and hard to wipe off, but that just gives the poison a bit more time to work. That was the progress I made: coming up with a delivery system that ensured the poison had enough time to get into a victim’s bloodstream.

  “The trouble is that my contact poison requires a little too much time to be of much use in a fight, which means it’s often not much use in my chosen line of work. There’s always room for improvement, but still, I struck upon the perfect application for such a substance: security.

  “All I had to do was smear the poison on an area an intruder might touch but anyone else would be unlikely to accidentally encounter—for instance, on the sill of a window that always remains closed.”

  Falks realized what had happened now. She wasn’t just tired; she’d been poisoned from the moment she’d inspected the point of entry and touched the windowsill herself.

  The inspector tried to stand, but her legs had turned to lead. She struggled to push herself off the bed, but she realized she couldn’t feel her arms at all. She fumbled for her pistol, but she couldn’t find it. Was it even still there on the bed with her? She drew in a breath to scream, but all she could manage was a low groan.

  “Ah.” A faint smile of triumph spread across Gorman’s face. “It’s finally working. It didn’t take nearly so long with Claretta. It was enough time for her to tell me what she was here for and for me to refute her reasoning. She realized what was happening at the end and rushed me, a last attempt to kill me before the poison took hold, I suppose.”

  Gorman assessed the distance between himself and Falks with a clinical eye. “Fortunately, I was too fast for her, and I slipped out of the way; however, it taught me to keep my distance from the victim until I was sure the compound had entered its final phase.”

  He glanced at a clock on the wall. “I suspect Claretta removed the bulk of the compound from the windowsill as she went over it, which would only leave a small amount for you to interact with. And you were cautious enough that you wound up with just a little bit of it on your fingers. In truth, I was starting to worry it would not take effect from such a miniscule dose. I have outdone myself yet again.”

  Falks tried to spit at him, but she only managed to drool down her chin. Instead, she gathered her remaining strength to snarl, and when she spoke, it was in a hoarse, low voice. “I’ll be missed. They’ll send people after you. You won’t escape.”

  Gorman laughed as he strolled up to Falks. He reached down with great care and brushed her hair from her eyes. “I’ll be long gone by then. I’d already given up on this place; there’s nothing keeping me here. If you hadn’t interrupted me, I’d have put Clockers Cove far behind me already.”

  Gorman leaned across her and scooped up the dagger lying next to Claretta. He hefted it and weighed not just its mass but its potential.

  “If you kill an inspector,” Falks said, “they won’t stop hunting you until you’re dead.”

  “Possibly,” Gorman said. “But as I haven�
��t committed any such crime, I think the chances of that happening are small.” He chuckled as if at a private joke. “You see, the poison affecting both you and young Claretta isn’t lethal. It paralyzes your muscles enough that you might wish you were dead—and others who find you might think you are dead—but you should recover in just a matter of hours. Hopefully long before anyone decides to bury you alive, right?”

  Gorman waited a moment for an answer, then nodded, satisfied, when none came. He turned to the other woman. “Of course, that means my business with you may not be finished, eh, Claretta?”

  The youth whimpered. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Hmm, it’s starting to wear off, I see. You won’t be able to move for some time, though. ” Gorman took the blade that she had used to nick his neck, and he held it against Claretta’s throat. “I don’t mind killing. In fact, it can sometimes be invigorating. But only on the field of battle. Not in my bedroom. No matter how misguided the girl.”

  He reversed his grip on his knife and stabbed it down hard. It plunged straight into the mattress, directly in front of Claretta’s face. She whimpered again.

  “Consider this my gift to you,” Gorman said. “I’m not often a merciful man. Don’t give me cause to regret it—or to ever consider this a mistake I need to correct.”

  He patted Falks on the shoulder. “And no hard feelings between us, I hope. You were just doing your job, I understand. And even if you didn’t believe every bit of that little story I spun for you, I hope you found it entertaining. It did serve its purpose, at least.”

  With that, Gorman di Wulfe left the two women—the assassin and the inspector—lying on his bed. He took the stairs down from the loft and moved quickly about his workshop, grabbing items from shelves and tables. He unlocked a chest bolted to the floor near the door and removed a pack full of his traveling gear.

  He then walked out into the night, closing the door behind him. By the time either woman could raise the alarm, he would be miles away.

  Despite the loss of his laboratory, he acknowledged things hadn’t gone as badly as they could have. He supposed Claretta or Falks could have killed him, but then he dismissed this thought. He was Gorman di Wulfe. His poisons performed exactly as they were meant to. He was never in any real danger.