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An excerpt from Shade II:
Kingsblood
By J. L. Ficks & J. E. Dugue
Chapter One:
A King Among Thieves
In the wee hours of the night, a man lay captive. His wrists and ankles had been tied to his bedposts. A shadow sat over him. The shadow’s face housed a pair of glowing yellow eyes that burned in the darkness. The two prostitutes who had tied the man up in a harmless game of lewder pleasures lay unconscious on the floor.
The man was a handsome Shamite, a competent conman, a mere twenty-nine years of age. He had long curly blonde hair and a charming grin that had been the undoing of many maidens. His lips found no smile this night. He fought against his binds, but they would not budge. He opened his mouth to scream, but his tortured throat exuded nothing but an indistinct numb choking.
“Scream,” came a callous voice.
The man’s heart jumped.
“Scream,” the voice said again. The shadowy figure leaned forward from a chair beside the bed. Those piercing yellow eyes carved into the man’s soul.
The man tried to scream again, but it came out as nothing but a miserable muffled shriek. He trembled and stared at the door, eyes wild with desperation, but no one came. There was no escape. Not from the hands of this assassin. An Unseen killer whose very name had become intertwined with fear.
Shade grinned darkly at his latest victim. He leaned further in. “Your guards are right outside your door, Oisleean,” he whispered in the Shamite’s ear, “they could still save you if only they could hear you, so, scream.”
Oisleean struggled for words, for the familiar peal of sound off his tongue, but nothing came. The shadow of one of his bodyguards in the hallway shifted in the torchlight that shone from under the door. The man whimpered.
“What’s the matter, Shamite?” the Dark Elf mocked him, “Don’t you want to live? You can scream, can’t you?”
The Shamite thrashed his arms and legs, but his restraints held fast.
“Muffle Juice,” Shade said. He leaned back in his chair. He shook a half-empty vial of amber-colored goo. “It’s a wonder back in my own dark country. Sprinkle a dash of freshly ground Mummel Flower in molasses and you have the world’s only known mute agent. It finds much use in the dungeons of Aaagdensool when our ears tire of our victims’ screams of horror.”
Oisleean yanked so hard at his binds he burned his wrists.
Shade watched him and chuckled softly. His victim had not come to terms with the hopelessness of his situation. He supposed he could not blame the man. After all, few men understood the many secrets of Jui-Sae. Muffle Juice caused aphonia—a bilateral disruption of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which supplies nearly all the muscles to the larynx. In layman’s terms, it strips the voice box of all sensation and motor function. Of course, he would not bore his victim with some dry old scientific explanation. The inability to call for help in the company of one’s executioner was terrifying enough.
“You really should hire better help, Oisleean,” Shade mused, “one of these days someone dangerous might come looking for you.”
Oisleean whimpered at the cold hard door.
“Oh, don’t feel so bad,” he patted the man’s chest. He tucked the vial away and retrieved a dagger.
Oisleean watched in arrested horror as the assassin played the blade over in his fingers. The razor edge flashed in the darkness reflecting off the moonlight that poured in through the window. The Shamite gasped.
“You see, I’m not usually so sophisticated in my methods of execution. Slide an acute piece of metal into a vital organ and the victim will die quick and without much fuss,” he continued as he rubbed the razor sharp edge against his thumb, “crude, but effective. Assassins have neither the time nor the creative vision to entertain so elaborate deaths as, say, your common serial killer.”
The man stared vacantly at Shade.
Shade leaned forward in the chair. He traced the tip of the blade across the man’s smooth features. The Shamite shook even more violently. The Dark Elf’s voice died to a hiss, “But I’m afraid your lifestyle has made it personal.” The assassin flicked the blade drawing a trickle of blood from the man’s cheek.
Oisleean breathed out a short hoarse soundless scream. He kicked and yanked at his binds, but he could not escape. He wept hot desperate tears.
Shade stood up and casually paced the room. “You see my father was quite an accomplished thief,” he said softly, but his voice had not lost its hard edge, “he acquired a mass of wealth before he died, just as you. He grew rich robbing the helpless, the blind, the foolish,” he paused and turned around, his glowing eyes ablaze with anger, “he too preyed on weak-willed women and fathered many orphans. He too surrounded himself with thugs and filled his bed with whores, but in the end nothing could save him.”
The Shamite blubbered like a pathetic wretch.
The assassin stopped and leaned over the bed. He brought the blade to the Shamite’s neck to ensure he kept the man’s rapt attention. “Do you know the difference between me and you, Oisleean?”
Oisleean flailed and kicked desperately at his restraints.
“I no longer prey on the weak,” Shade whispered in the man’s ear, “I have evolved, moved onto larger, more worthy prey. I am now the hunter of hunters, the killer of killers—the very top of the food chain.”
The Shamite shut his eyes tight and prayed to every god that had a name and even a few that didn’t. He held his breath and prepared himself for the killing blow. Two tears squeezed from his eyelids.
Shade traced the tip of the blade down the man’s neck and across his chest. He paused at the man’s ribs. “Arctavian sends his regards.”
The man shuddered and gasped.
“Tisk, tisk, Oisleean,” Shade whispered in the Shamite’s ear, “you could have gotten away with it. A young naïve lovesick daughter. An only child. A perfect target. You could have swindled her out of her father’s inheritance, and left, moved onto the next town, like you always do, but that wasn’t enough for you. Not this time. Instead, you had to murder her and dump her out on the streets like a common whore.”
The Shamite trembled with violent sobs.
Shade turned the blade suddenly. He drove it deep into the man’s spleen.
Oisleean’s eyes shot wide open. He opened his mouth and cried out in voiceless pain. He managed a faint indistinct scream, barely a whisper.
The assassin yanked the blade out. The Shamite would bleed out in a matter of minutes. The Dark Elf retrieved a long rolled up cloth from the back of his belt-pouches. He quickly unwrapped the cloth revealing a black rose native to his homeland. He laid the rose on the Shamite’s chest and closed the man’s fingers around the stem.
Oisleean shook violently as his life slipped away.
The Faelin turned his back in remorseless indifference. “Consider it his bride price,” Shade said coldly. He walked over to the window. He climbed up onto the windowsill and disappeared. Just then a bloodcurdling scream rang out loud and clear from the bedroom cutting deeply into the night. Shouts of alarm sounded as Oisleean’s bodyguards barged into the bedchamber. The Dark Elf grinned darkly. It appeared the Muffle Juice had finally lost its effect…