Dominick's Heart VI

Dominick's Heart

Part VI

Rowan was asleep on the portico, the red-orange sunset playing off her dark hair and olive skin, when Dominick arrived in a soft burst of teleportation. The soft thunk of his gloves hitting the chair beside her woke her with a start. She smiled a greeting, stretching.

"Where's my father?" he asked. "I need to know where he sent that ring for repair, so I can hurry the job."

Rowan sent a servant to find the Prince. But, the nervous servant reported far too long after, His Grace did not appear to be in the manor.

Gasconi waited anxiously in the shadow bordering the canal outside the Burning Blueblood, one of the city's rougher drinking establishments. One of those fashionably pale young aristocrats would meet with nothing here but the butt end (and perhaps, if they were persistent enough, the business end) of a short sword. Gasconi appreciated places with that kind of reputation—they discouraged his clients from becoming too high-handed.

He blew on the tips of his fingers to keep them nimble (damn the cold rain!), and waited. Soon enough, a public gondola with curtains pulled (didn't those aristocrats ever notice that regular people didn't use those?) slid up to the docking post near the shadows where he stood. A cloaked figure stepped cautiously out, and Gasconi moved slowly to meet him.

"Sunny?"

That was the arranged code. "Perhaps in Darokin," he replied. The buyer relaxed visibly beneath the cloak.

"It's all here," he said, holding out a leather pouch, opening it to prove that it wasn't trapped, and rifling his hand around in it. The glint of gold flickered between his fingers.

Gasconi held out the small velvet pouch containing the gem, and their hands touched briefly as they exchanged bags. He was relieved; in a moment it would be done, and he could flee Her wrath in sunny Ierendi...

A sudden blast of cold air hit them, and all at once his client was sprawled on the pavement in front of the tavern in a hailstorm of ice, scrambling to get to his feet. Gasconi, in his panic, could make out a dim figure standing in the shadows opposite him, across the narrow canal. He could hear him chanting another spell; drawing the symbols of power in the air before him in an ice-blue trace glow. The casting was abruptly interrupted as his buyer unleashed a spell of his own: a jet of fire which streamed in a burst of reddish orange from his fingertips and across the narrow canal, to catch their attacker dead-on. Gasconi heard a muffled gasp of pain as the attacker regrouped. He jumped back into the shadows, preparing to either cast (though he had nothing prepared but travel and protection spells) or run.

But before he could make his decision, in that split second, the next spell burst upon him, catching him full in the chest. All at once, he was on his feet, on the pavement, but he was nonetheless drowning. He could not breathe; he clawed at his throat, water spraying from his nose and mouth. As he sank to the ground, the last thing he saw through the haze was a monster rising up out of the canal—made of the very canal itself—to engulf his screaming buyer...

Author: Jennifer Guerra