The Blood Burns in My Veins by Megan Derr

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fourteen

 

 

"How well I know you by your deeds and how invariably you succeed in living down to what one expects of you!"

― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

 

 

Forthwind smoked a sigaretto as he waited, using a trickle of his magia to ensure the smoke dissipated quickly and the scent kept downwind. Not that anyone would take it amiss if they did smell tobacco smoke in the poorer districts of Verona, if they noticed it over the smell of ocean and fish and neglected refuse. Better to be cautious though.

The moon was fat, but not quite full, overhead, casting a glow over the night that made him wish he was out on the beach with Brom or getting into minor mischief at a party with Dante.

Larger mischief was afoot, though, and people would probably die tonight. As ever, Forthwind hoped the people involved proved to be better than Dante thought them… but was long resigned to the fact that Dante was seldom wrong about such things.

At least Dante had let him start off with the easy job tonight, which was simply to watch the shop and the old man, to be sure nothing unexpected happened. Though as near as Forthwind could tell, the only hitch to Dante's plans thus far were his mother's suicide and the way he was clearly attracted to Ishikawa Naoki. Dante had always had a weakness for beautiful fools who needed to be spoiled rotten, though. It was the caretaker in him, that warred so greatly with the need for blood and vengeance.

Not that Dante would admit any of that.

Footsteps drew his attention, and he looked idly from the tree he was hiding in, a scraggly thing but sufficient in the dark with the surrounding buildings and general 'don't look, don't ask, don't linger' attitude of the neighborhood.

Janshai shuffled slowly down the street from the restaurant and whorehouse he'd been at most of the night. It made Forthwind's job a lot easier that he was so predictable, even if that meant this night wasn't going to end well for Janshai.

Forthwind took a deep pull on his sigaretto, then rubbed the flame out and tucked what remained of it back into his case. Once Janshai had gone into the shop, and low, soft lights came on from the cheap oil lanterns Janshai favored, Forthwind dropped neatly from the tree and slipped closer to the shop.

It was a moment's work to quietly pick the lock on the kitchen door and when Janshai was distracted fussing with the tables and restlessly pulling the key out of his pocket, putting it back, pulling it out again, to slip inside and find some shadows to settle in.

Homeless and desperate, Forthwind had learned quickly that if you were quiet and still, eyes slid right over you with alarming ease.

Janshai prowled restlessly, at least as restlessly as a weak old man could. Life had not been kind to him, or he hadn't been kind to himself. A bit of both, perhaps.

Forthwind called up his magia, brought the wind through the slips and cracks of the ramshackle building. It carried voices to him, the barest hint of Dante's scent, blood and iron, like a blacksmith's anvil that required a blood sacrifice. Always there, no matter what other scents might rest on top of it.

Other scents, most of them unpleasant: sweat, old blood, the stench of people who hadn't bathed properly in more days than Forthwind wanted to know.

He let his magia slip away, and a couple of minutes later the voices grew increasingly audible without its assistance. Forthwind remained where he was. So deep into the kitchen, immersed in shadows, he wouldn't be noticed unless he moved, and he wanted to see this play out for himself, as much as he could, though Dante had only bidden him ensure that Janshai arrived at the shop and notify him otherwise.

The normally open front of the shop had been closed up, the wall pulling down from where it went up and slid back during the day, with a door in it that slid open with a jarring bang. Forthwind startled slightly, even though he'd braced for it, but thankfully the group that spilled in was too preoccupied with themselves to pay attention to the jumpy shadow in the kitchen.

Jinhai led the group, handsome, stern, and flamboyantly dressed, a trend amongst pirates. He had the long, long hair swept up high at the back of his head that was so common to the wealthier men of Hajari, where the women usually kept their hair short. Soldiers and the like had shaved heads. Interesting he wore the hair of a nobleman rather than a soldier.

His boots were the very same from the night before, with heels that made far more sense for a thieving bandit on a horse than a marauding pirate. The men who'd come with him, five in total, were of various ethnicities and mixed ethnicities, though Forthwind couldn't really tell more than that. Not that it really mattered, but his father had taught him to note details, and being with Dante just reinforced the habit.

Every last one was armed enough they could outfit a small army. It was definitely going to be a bloody night.

"Old man!" Jinhai called out. "Get my fellows some of that wine you Veronans love, and get me my key."

"Of course, of course," Janshai said, and hurried into the kitchen, going to the cabinets where he'd clearly tucked aside some bottles of saké for precisely this reason. Bustling back with it, he dispensed the bottles and then, reaching Jinhai, handed over the last bottle and a key.

It was clear pretty quickly why Janshai hadn't bothered with cups for any of them. Forthwind grimaced inwardly at how awful the saké must taste when being guzzled like that. Some things were not meant to be drunk quickly. But it wasn't as though the pirates cared about anything except the end result.

If they knew the end result of the evening would be bloodshed, would they be imbibing now? How sloppy a captain to not just let them drink while working, but join them. He'd thought these pirates were smarter than that.

Then again, they were illegally buying imperial steel from one of the very few families in the empire who received regular private shipments of it. That was a game for fools, and foolish games ended only one way.

After gulping down what seemed to be half the damned bottle, making Forthwind wince again, Jinhai went over to the storeroom and unlocked it. "Come on boys, lets get this haul to the ship!" Then, for no reason that Forthwind could discern, he kicked the door open and stepped inside.

Forthwind breathed in, and out—and on the out, Jinhai bellowed so loudly Forthwind flinched. "Where's my goods!" He stormed out, barreled right up to Janshai, and yanked him in, causing him to cry out in pained surprised. "Where the fuck is everything I paid for old man?"

Janshai started blubbering. "I don't know! I don't know! All I do is keep the key and hand it to you when you come. I never even see the goods go in. They were there, his lordship said they were! I know they were there."

Jinhai dropped him to the ground and gave him a sound kick for good measure. "Come on, we're going to have a word with his lordship."

Once they were gone, Forthwind went out the way he'd come in and headed down the street to the meeting point. Real estate in Verona was too valuable to languish for very long, but much like Brom's stable, sometimes a property simply couldn't remain occupied. The old weaver's hut where Dante waited for him was such a property, lost to the original owners by poor mistakes and debt and not yet repurchased by anyone.

"How did it go?" Dante asked from where he leaned against the far wall, giving him a clear view of the door without giving anyone entering a clear view of him. He was dressed for death, as they said on the continent, with the beautiful broadsword he'd made himself and a mano sinistra to match; his clothes were black head to foot, and his ridiculous hair was for once braided and pinned up out of his way.

"Predictably," Forthwind said. "The old man started crying, even, exactly as you said."

"Chh," Dante replied derisively.

"How's your evening been?" Forthwind asked.

Dante smiled then, as sharp as his precious blades and a hundred times more dangerous. "Well. The city guardie is going to find their morning unpleasant and their lives quite difficult for the foreseeable future. Another stroke against our dear giudice as well."

"Well, I'm glad I didn't dig up a bunch of old bones for nothing. I still don't understand why they didn't just throw the bodies in the water. There's plenty of it around."

"Easier said than done, hauling a dead body, let alone several, to an unoccupied stretch of coast, caro," Dante replied, and pushed off the wall. He pulled a pair of gloves from his belt and pulled them on, flexing his fingers to settle them into place. If it was possible for a sword to come to life, that sword would look very much like Dante right then. Forthwind loved him dearly, as much as had his own family, as much as he would the brother he'd never had… but he was also deeply, forever relieved he was on Dante's side. "Come, let's go watch my meticulously arranged debacle come to pass."

"Meticulously arranged bloodshed."

"That is entirely down to their choices, caro."

"Speaking of you and your florid pet names for everyone and everything, how is your tesoro mio? How does he fit into your plans?"

Dante's mouth tightened, and for a single moment, he looked exhausted and sad. It was a look that fell over him when he thought no one was around to see it. Whatever ruthlessness and vengeful lust for blood drove Dante now, it existed because at his core was a heart as fragile as it was fierce. A heart that had been broken, stomped on, and left for the wind to take. Dante would reshape the ocean for those he cared about, but a heart that loved so fiercely also hated with equal fervor. He wouldn't be Dante if that wasn't true. "He doesn't."

"What are you going to do?"

Dante didn't reply, but Forthwind hadn't expected him to. If Dante knew what he was going to do about Ishikawa Naoki, he'd already be doing it, and so far their course had not altered.

"Good luck, whatever you do. I can only imagine the… mess… it must be for you."

A bitter laugh rolled through the night, and in the weak light of the streetlamps, Forthwind could just catch the edge of Dante's wry smile. "I am the one who made the mess; I'll find a way to clean it up. But dōmo, caro."

Forthwind smiled briefly, and then they fell silent as the shop once more came into view. Dante motioned with a roll of his head toward an alleyway. Slipping into it, they looped around to the shop so they'd come out behind it, well out of notice of the latest arrivals.

Acaeus and Selinah, and it didn't take daylight to see they were stressed—and scared to death.

Forthwind led the way back into the kitchen, crouching and creeping this time, though he honestly could have arrived as part of a full imperial parade and the trio in the dining area would not have noticed.

"Give me the key!" Aceaus snarled, and when Janshai had handed it over, stormed over to the storage room and opened it. He came back out a moment late, pale and shaking. "Where did it go? Janshai, you must have noticed something."

"No, Signore-don. Nothing amiss at all. No signs of break-in, no strangers, nothing. So far as I knew, all was well. If I had suspected even one thing, I would have sent word to you."

Acaeus made several incoherent noises of pure frustration, but they did nothing to hide the underlying fear.

"What's going on?" Selinah asked. "How is this possible? Who just comes in and runs off with all that—" she stopped, then finished awkwardly "—stuff. Father, we have to find it."

"You think I need you to tell me that, girl?" Acaeus snapped. He shoved Janshai out of his way, not even slowing his step as Janshai fell to the floor. Selinah followed him out of the building and together father and daughter headed quickly through the dark streets of Verona, the nearly-full moon gleaming with cold light above them.

Dante and Forthwind followed, careful to keep a suitable distance, though Ferro-donni were in such a hurry, so spurred by fear and anger, they were neglecting their usual cautions.

To Forthwind's surprise, though likely not Dante's, they left Isola delle Ossa, crossing the Harvest bridge to the Isola della vita. The smell of manure and other evidence of livestock washed over them, but they were scents Forthwind was long used to, even after all this time. Beside him, Dante seemed equally unaffected, but he'd said before that nothing stank worse than a prison.

Ferro-donni turned down a dirt path and headed down the winding way of it through fields of various crops and one filled with milling sheep and a few goats that probably weren't where they should be.

"Why are they meeting all the way out here? Can't they be angry and violent closer to my bed?"

Dante snorted softly. "Your bed? Or Brom's bed?"

"I will never be that lucky again, thanks for reminding me, you crusty old goat. Stop trying to be witty and answer the first question."

"Emergency meeting points are for problems, caro. Problems mean blood; blood means a mess to clean up. I'm pretty certain we're headed for a place that raises pigs."

Forthwind grimaced. Pigs would certainly take care of lingering problems. "I'm never eating pork on this stupid island again."

"How charming you think Verona is the only place that feeds inconvenient dead bodies to pigs. Be glad we're not in a place that throws them in while they're still alive."

"Every time I think you could not offer a possibly bleaker, more horrifying piece of information, Dante, you prove me wrong. Do I want to know how you came by this latest bit of morbid knowledge?"

"No."

Forthwind gladly let the matter drop, though he would have had to anyway, as the unmistakable stench of a pig farm reached his nose, and up ahead their quarry dipped out of sight as they walked down a small hill.

After that, it was only a few minutes more before they came to a stop in a field tucked behind a thick line of trees that were probably doing well because of all the fertilizer to be had on an island devoted entirely to farming.

Dante signaled, and they looped well around, following the trees until they came out on the western side, dead opposite where Ferro-donni had vanished. Creeping through the trees and other foliage, mindful of their steps, he and Dante finally halted at the edge. They were hidden from sight by some scraggly, thorny hedges.

In the middle of the field, Jinhai and Acaeus were already arguing, and with every word their voices climbed in volume.

"I didn't do it!" Ferro bellowed, sending some poor birds scattering from their beds. "Why would I? What do I stand to gain?"

"Clearly there is something! No one else knew about your stash location, or so you've always proudly claimed. It's one or the other, Ferro!"

"Keep your voice down!" Ferro hissed, not remotely quietly.

"Or what? All of Verona will know you deal with dirty pirates?" Jinhai laughed meanly. "As if that would touch you. Where is what I paid for, Ferro?" Jinhai drew his sword, the slice of steel against leather ominously loud.

Acaeus's voice was full of contempt. "You really want to resort to this? I'm a Ferro, I know swords better than you ever will."

"You know swords, I know how to kill people. With my own hands. I don't just pay others to do my dirty work and pretend I'm pure. Give me my goods, Ferro, or I'll remove your head and find someone else to work with."

"Stop it!" Selinah said. "Just stop it! We didn't do anything with the shipment. It was there. I would never betray you, Jinhai, you know that."

"Clearly I don't know nearly what I thought."

Selinah made a hitched noise, as though she'd been slapped. Forthwind would feel the same if his lover spurned him so coldly. "We did everything we were supposed to."

"Then where is it!" Jinhai bellowed.

"Keep it down! We're isolated, but not that isolated," Acaeus hissed. "You're going to get all of us caught."

Jinhai's voice somehow turned even colder. "No, as I already said: you will find a way to come out of this safe and sound. You fucking nobile always do, even when you're soaked head to toe in blood. It is only me and my men who will hang, and I wouldn't be surprised if you're cozy with the giudice who will speed along our sentencing so you can sleep well tonight. You have one more chance to hand over what I paid for, Ferro."

"Go to the Deep!" Acaeus snarled. "You worthless fucking pirate, how do I know you're not up to something? You could have taken it and pretended it was gone just to double deal and avoid the fucking price hike. You want blood? I will give you blood, you worthless pirate!"

"Father, no!" Selinah screamed angrily.

Too late, as Acaeus released his magia, throwing it with all his might into the weapons of the pirates, contorting and corrupting them.

Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough with it to block Jinhai, who rushed him like a crashing wave. Steel rang against steel as Acaeus drew his own sword.

Selinah sighed as some of the other pirates, still clinging to their warped swords and knives, turned on her. All pretense of an innocent maiden distressed and confused fell away, replaced by a woman much harder than the iron she could command. She drew her own sword and mano sinistra, and her eyes gleamed with magia as she threw herself into the fight.

A couple of pirates abruptly decided that was the signal to abandon ship and ran blindly away—headed almost directly for Dante and Forthwind in their panicking and the dark.

Dante withdrew and vanished into the woods. Forthwind sighed and maintained his post, watching the fight while Dante killed the runaways. Not that Forthwind was going to lose sleep over some dead pirates, but it was grisly work all the same.

Across the field, the fight had gotten even nastier. Acaeus's face was bleeding heavily and while it was hard to tell in the limited light, it looked as though he'd lost an eye. Jinhai was faring no better, reduced to fighting with his left hand, his right arm dangling uselessly at his side.

Selinah by that point had gotten rid of the remaining three pirates and rushed over to get between the other two. "Stop it!"

"Move, bitch," Jinhai snarled, and punched her while still holding the sword, the force of the blow shattering her nose and sending her reeling back and toppling to the ground as she lost her balance.

Acaeus surged forward and drove his broadsword right into Jinhai unprotected middle, his sword going through layers of fabric like they were nothing, a testament to the skill that had made the sword.

Jinhai swore, dropped his sword, and pulled a dagger that he plunged into Acaeus 's stomach in kind. The whole thing happened so quickly that it took Forthwind a moment to process what had happened.

Acaeus and Jinhai collapsed to the ground, both left to die slow, agonizing deaths from their gut wounds.

Selinah let out a noise that was scream, sob, and pure rage all at once. Breaths hitching, the sound wet and muffled because of her broken nose, she picked herself up and fled—in the right direction, making her smarter than the pirates.

Forthwind rose as he heard Dante coming up behind him. "If they'd just sat down and talked… Did that old man realize all this would happen?"

"Yes, he did. At the very least he knew it was possible. I told you not to waste your time and heart on him. He'll get what he deserves in just a few more days. Come on, caro, the wretched work awaits us."

"You're lucky I love you enough to help you move bodies," Forthwind said with a sigh as they headed off to complete the grisly task. He went to Jinhai and crouched beside him; in the gleam of moonlight, the blood pooling under him, splashed across his face, looked like wet ink. He didn't have much time left, but Forthwind put him out of his misery anyway before setting to work readying the body for transport.

Behind him, Dante dealt with Acaeus.

"Ciao, Ferro-don," Dante said.

Acaeus spit and gurgled blood as he tried to talk. "You! What—"

"Gomen, I am being confusing. Would things be clearer if I called you Father?"

Acaeus 's eyes widened. "Can't be."

"Oh, but it can."

"You died. In prison."

"No. I was harassed. Beaten. Raped. Caught many illnesses. Was left starved and thirsty and freezing. I was tormented for ten long years, Father, but I'm still very much alive. Now I'm come to tell you good fucking riddance."

"Carac—" Acaeus wheezed out on his dying breath, and as Forthwind turned to see if Dante needed anything, he took in the look of horror and shame frozen on Acaeus's features.

Forthwind moved on to the next body, and in short order all five were ready to be transported.

This time, unfortunately, there would be no carriage. Instead, they dragged them one by one out of the field, through the trees, and to the coast. When all the bodies were there, they were weighted with rocks and dragged into the sea.

By the time they were done, Forthwind was exhausted. He collapsed on the beach with a groan, sprawled out on his back, chest heaving. "Could you kill fewer people at a time, please?"

Dante gave a wheezing laugh. "I'll try."

They lay there, quiet save their panting breaths, for some time. An hour or so, perhaps, though Forthwind had no way of knowing for certain.

Eventually, though, Forthwind rolled over and pushed to his feet. "What next?"

"Nothing for you, caro. Go home and woo Brom some more. I am off to deliver the blackmail letter and then will be going back to my rooms."

Forthwind hesitated, but then finally asked, "Why is Selinah-donna the one you're most vicious about?"

"Do you really want to know?" Dante asked as he stood, his eyes glowing briefly with magia as he toyed with the dagger Jinhai had used to kill his father. He then slid it back into its sheath and tucked that into his belt.

"Yes."

Dante stared out at the ocean. "Most of the people in this mess—my mother, father, Janshai… they saw an opportunity, or they panicked. Two people, though… two people were after death that day. Ishikawa-donna wanted Arata dead, and Selinah wanted me dead. For that they will be the ones to pay most dearly."

"Gods grant us mercy or kill us quickly," Forthwind said. "That's enough for me. I hope you get some rest, Dante. You need it."

"Dōmo. Good luck with Brom, caro. I think you two are suited, and he is far more forgiving than me."

"Like that's hard. Stop being an interfering brat," Forthwind said, but smiled briefly as they began the long trek back across Verona to their respective destinations.