Downtown Druid

Book 2 Chapter 61: Are you here to say goodbye? To join me? Or to kill me?

It was almost time. He could feel it in his bones, and his branches. All of his moves had paid off, all of his plans had been carried out, and his contingencies were mapped. He’d stripped Mondego piece by piece, and now with him at his lowest, he’d finally end him. Admittedly, it wasn’t as low as Mondego had brought him, and that did bother him. There were some plans he’d had that involved getting him sent to the Pit, but whatever luck, whatever armor, he seemed to gain from his greedmark seemed to make a complete and utter loss like that an impossibility. The only way to overcome it was some kind of push, and if he was going to make that kind of push, he needed to take his life too. He was just waiting for an opening, some small window with his men distracted or him leaving his manor to go to the club. If nothing appeared naturally by the end of the week, he was going to make an opening.

He sat tying another small bag of gunpowder with an ignition stone inside of it and placing it to the side. He had about fifty, which would probably be all he needed, but it wasn’t like he wouldn’t find a use for any extras. A pigeon landed on his shoulder with a letter smelling of drake-tears, Mercedes. He’d left a few birds with standing orders to bring him any letters she wrote him so he could focus elsewhere. He had her tailed when she left the manor, but when she wasn’t active inside he couldn’t spare the attention. He fed the bird and scratched the top of its head as he removed the note from his leg.

Dantes,

I am leaving. I don’t know where I stand with you and I presume you feel the same about me, but I want you to come with me. Leave Mondego with the rope you’ve given him and I promise you he will hang himself. We can build a new life. Everything bad that has ever happened to us has happened in this city. We can leave all of that behind. Between the two of us, we can rule anywhere we land. Meet me at the docks or let me go, that’s all I ask.

• Mercedes

Dantes tossed the letter aside, he hated the smell of drake-tears. She didn’t provide a location because she knew he’d be watching where she went anyway. He flitted through the eyes of the rats and roaches he had watching the Manor and saw a woman wearing a simple black cloak. She slipped out of a second story window, and slid down the shingles in total silence. She then leapt down, and disappeared. Dantes shifted through the perspective of dozens of vermin until he found her again in an alley a block away making her way to the docks. He set some pigeons and rats to track her. He wasn’t sure how she’d gotten out of the manor. An enchantment of some kind? Some ability she’d picked up? He’d need to be careful. She had a deal of her own and with what Godfrey had been capable of it was possible that it manifested differently than just the cursed luck he’d seen so far.

Dantes moved quickly, cycling through the wands in his hand as he threw on his coat and slid his gun into his belt. He then put his new bronze dagger forged from copper coins into its sheath at his waist as well as a far more practical steel dagger in his sleeve.

Jacopo leapt off a nearby tree and landed on his shoulder.

“We hunt the female?”

Dantes nodded, with just a second of hesitation.

“If we’re lucky we can take care of her and take advantage of the situation.”

“Are we ready for this?” he asked.

Dantes paused his checks of everything he had.

“I didn’t expect caution from you.”

Jacopo wiggled his whiskers in an approximation of a shrug.

“One of the bad habits I learned from you.”

Dantes laughed. “Are you certain? I doubt many would call me cautious.”

“More than a rat, less than the average two-legs.”

“I don’t know if we’re ready, but the time is right, and I can’t let her escape. Besides, with you at my side? I’m sure I’m ready for anything.”

Jacopo nodded. “Let’s go kill this former mate of yours then.”

Once he was certain he had everything he needed, Dantes shifted into batform and flew up into the sky. It wasn’t quite evening, but the sun was beginning to set. Jacopo flew just behind him as they made their way to the docks. Mercedes was making surprisingly excellent progress. She’d always been fast, and it seemed like her wealth and excess hadn’t made her lose a step yet. She eventually stopped at a medium sized boat, the kind a noble might use to sail, that was unmanned. Once she was there she climbed onboard and went below the deck. Dantes was able to get both rats and roaches onto the boat without issue to follow her, and watched as she lit several glass lanterns and poured herself a glass of wine. The cabin she was in was larger on the inside than the outside, reminding him of Felix’s room at the Academy. It was full of expensive furnishings, enough to fill a small home. After taking a long sip of her wine she sat down on a couch and sighed heavily.

It wasn’t too long before Dantes and Jacopo reached her yacht. Dantes did a thorough sweep of the boat with rats and roaches. There was no crew, but there was a large amount of supplies on board. He detected some ambient magic through the animals, but couldn’t identify exactly where it was, which meant it was likely the boat itself that was magical in nature. That made sense given the spatially inconsistent cabin below decks. With no obvious traps Dantes and Jacopo shifted into their usual forms and landed on the deck. Jacopo climbed into his jacket and they both walked below deck.

Mercedes smiled at him. “You came.” she stood and put her glass down.

He hadn’t seen her in person since that chance encounter on needle street. It had been easier to ignore his attraction to her when viewing her through rats and roaches, but in person he had to admit that she was beautiful. With her dark hair pulled back and wearing a simple outfit she looked very much as she had before he’d been thrown into the Pit. That made his hate boil closer to the surface.

“I came,” he said simply, trying not to let his feelings bleed into his tone.

“Are you here to say goodbye, to join me, or to kill me?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he lied.

“That’s not surprising. Any chance I can move you in a particular direction?”

“You’ve been good at that in the past.”

“I shouldn’t have betrayed you. It wasn’t me that pushed the ladder, but… I could’ve stopped it. I could’ve made it so things went differently. Godfrey’s words are hard to ignore, there’s a power to them that’s hard to resist, but I could’ve tried harder.”

Dantes felt a kind of fuzziness on the edge of his perceptions, and pushed it away.

“What happened is done, but I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. We can sail to any city, eat the finest foods, wear the finest clothes, make love on the softest sheets. Rendhold is a shithole. It always has been. We’ve been looked down on our whole lives here, even with all that I’ve built no real nobility gives me the time of day here, but we can write a new story somewhere else, be different people.This boat is magical, it'll sail itself wherever we choose.”

Dantes listened carefully, realizing a lot about Mercedes as she spoke. He also noticed some heavy redness on her cheek that had been hidden by makeup. Mondego had struck her. He also realized he was in her rhythm, in the same way that he’d been in Godfrey’s. Unlike his, this one was much easier to push to the side.

She moved to a small table and poured two glasses of wine before approaching him holding out one of the glasses.

He took it, but didn’t take a sip, instead looking at the full circle of gold on her ring finger. It hadn’t been full the last time he’d seen it, but now it practically glowed in the lantern light. She’d sacrificed to fill it again. Mondego, and her life in Rendhold, that was what it took to fill it this time.

She watched him quietly, sipping her wine.

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“It doesn’t matter where you or I go, people will always look down on us. I can eat good food, wear nice clothes, and enjoy good sex with women here. You’re absolutely right that Rendhold’s a shithole, but it’s mine. I’ve never wanted to be someone else like you, never wanted to pretend I’m anything other than a mutt and a whoreson. When I succeed, I want everyone I crawled over to victory to know they lost to scum. There’s nothing more satisfying than being a rat that slayed a dragon.”

Her face started to contort a bit as he spoke, as if she was in pain.“I love you Dantes. Don’t you believe that? It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“I do believe you actually. I believe that you loved me before I was thrown into the underprison. I believe you loved Mondego while I was there. I believe you love me now. You love whoever can give you what you want, and you do so shamelessly to serve the person you actually love the most, yourself.”

She gritted her teeth, her eyes wet with tears of rage.

“Is this goodbye? Or the other option?”

Dantes shook his head. “I feel sorry for you. For your desire to be something you aren’t. To love so selfishly. Unfortunately, how sorry I feel for you doesn’t even come close to how much I fucking hate you.”

Dantes dropped the wine and willed his wooden hand to extend as a spike, but Mercedes was faster than him.

She smashed her wine glass into the side of his head, and then quickly jammed the stem of it into his side, pushing him back as she did so.

Dantes was blinded by wine, but didn’t panic, instead relying on all of his other enhanced senses to detect where she was.

Mercedes lifted two hand crossbows and fired them at him.

Dantes quickly shifted his wooden arm into a shield, but when the bolts struck it, they exploded, and threw Dantes back once again. He slammed against the far wall, his head nearly denting it, leaving him disoriented and his ears ringing.

Mercedes's crossbows seemed to reload themselves and she took aim at him again before he could recover.

Jacopo shifted into batform and flew quickly toward her, landing on her hair which caused her to flinch and shoot two more explosive bolts at the ceiling of the cabin.

Dantes dove behind an ornate couch and took a moment to recuperate, quickly wiping the wine from his eyes and reshaping his shattered wooden hand. He drew his Bronze dagger, shifted into a roach, and began moving to flank her.

Mercedes tore Jacopo from her hair and threw him against a wall before aiming another bolt in his direction.

Jacopo shifted quickly into his usual shape and skittered horizontally across the wall, which surprised her enough to throw off her aim, the resulting explosion blinding her long enough for Jacopo to vanish from her sight.

Her crossbow reloaded again, and she slowly backed herself against the wall while her eyes looked left and right.

Dantes tried to summon the vermin he’d been massing on the deck of the boat to swarm her, but found that the cabin had sealed somehow, and those small gaps he’d been able to send vermind through were now too tight for even a roach to slip between.

“You thought you’d get the drop on me, huh Dantes?” she continued scanning the room, her crossbows ready. “You didn’t consider that I might plan for some contingencies? Don’t you think I picked a few things up from you when we were together? I didn’t just invite you because I wanted you to come with me, I invited you because I knew that if you wanted me dead, you’d hunt me to the ends of the mortal plane. I’d rather solve the problem of you before I start my new life.”

Dantes and Jacopo both moved to opposite sides of her. They tried to will the wood of the boat to work with them, but the magic woven through it made it too hard to push any lifeforce into it and give it shape.

Dantes crawled along the ceiling, moving slowly until he was just above her.

As he did that, Jacopo moved behind a nearby dresser. He shifted back into ratform, and smashed the side of his body into the dresser.

Mercedes launched two bolts directly into it, which exploded, sending splinters throughout the room.

At that same moment, Dantes shifted into himself, his dagger still in his hand, and landed on her. He tried to bring his dagger down onto her, but before he could the boat rocked and she managed to move out from under him and scramble to the other side of the cabin while her crossbows reloaded.

Being faster than him on that first strike, taking him by surprise, and then this? Dantes could feel the scales being tipped in her favor. This was the work of the greedmark.

She fired two more bolts at him.

He dove to the side before they could explode, and brought a wand up through his palm. He pointed it at her and a bolt of lightning arced out of it in her direction, before diverting sharply at the last minute and hitting the ceiling of the boat, dispersing against it.

“I didn’t think the weather resistance enchantment on the boat was still active,” she said, firing two more bolts.

Dantes was forced to shift into batform to dodge the time, and then flew to close the distance, changing midair and using his momentum to launch himself dagger in hand, at her throat.

She vanished, but Dantes could feel someone grab him low at the waist, under his dagger, and use his momentum to slam him into the cabin wall. He slashed wildly with his dagger as he stood, but hit nothing. He always forgot about her orcish strength at the worst times. Though in his defense, he hadn’t expected invisibility. Teleportation, yes, but invisibility wasn’t something he’d predicted.

He kept his dagger in front of himself as he and Jacopo spread out their senses to find her. She was only about five feet away in front of him. She was also at the back of the cabin, and four feet to his right. That wasn’t good.

He pulled his pistol from his waist and aimed at the one in front of him, firing. The bullet struck true, and a golden figure in the shape of Mercedes collapsed in the middle of the cabin, then faded until there was only a gold coin where she’d been standing.

A fist struck the side of Dantes’s face and he was thrown to the ground a few feet away. Jacopo noticed another of the Mercedes materialize invisibly near the one in the back.

“I’m not like Mondego and Danglars,” said one of them.

“I never took my gifts for granted and saw it only as luck and favors,” said another from a different direction.”

“Godfrey said I was a natural disciple of greed. Even priesthood was possible,” said the one in the back.

“You’ve never been much for religion though,” choked out Dantes raggedly.

“Exactly,” said the closest one as it stepped closer.

Dantes raised his wooden hand, a wand extended out of it, but didn’t aim for any of the Mercedes, instead he aimed it over his head. Darkness overtook the cabin, a blackness so thick it seemed almost as if it could be cut with a knife.

Everyone in the cabin was blinded, but that didn’t bother Dantes or Jacopo one bit.

The three Mercedes began sweeping the cabin, they didn’t panic, but instead moved in a pattern, trying to narrow down where he was. One of them reached a corner, then suddenly died. Mercedes kept her calm and summoned another and continued her search focusing on where the last one was. She could make a break for the cabin exit, but that was suicide, she knew Dantes would have every advantage in the open like that. The darkness spell couldn’t last forever.

Another of her copies died. Then two died at the same time.

“I know where you are you know,” came a voice from the corner. She quickly loosed two bolts in his direction, which were followed by the noise of small explosions.

“Missed.” said Dantes across from where he’d just been.

She loosed two more, and sent her copies that way.

“Don’t worry, I don’t want to go after you until that ring on your finger is empty.”

One of her copies leapt toward the voice, but hit nothing but air. Then she was destroyed as well.

“How much do you think you have left? How many times can it save you before the god of greed needs another sacrifice? If only you could check it in the dark.”

She and her copies all let loose a flurry of bolts all across the cabin, and didn’t stop firing even as the explosions started to break down the enchantments on the boat and tear chunks of it away. When she stopped she could hear the sound of water starting to fill the cabin.

The darkness spell faded, and she felt relief. She must’ve hit him. She looked for a corpse, but saw only her golden copies staring at her in fear. Her eyes widened.

Dantes grabbed her from behind, wrapping a hand around her throat as he raised his bronze dagger.

“Goodbye Mercedes. Don’t worry, I’ll send your husband to join you in greed’s coinpurse soon enough.”

He plunged the dagger into her heart. She tensed, then went limp. Her two copies disappeared. He lowered her gently onto the ground, leaving the dagger in her heart.

“A dagger made of copper coins for you. I always pay whores what they deserve.”

Jacopo climbed over her corpse and leapt onto him. Dantes took a deep breath and exhaled. Then he knelt down with his other dagger, and cut off her ring finger, circled in black now rather than gold. He then slipped her coin purse into his own pocket, and slung her two crossbows into his belt.

“She was tougher than I expected,” said Jacopo.

“She was always at her best when she was pissed off.”

“Would’ve made a strong brood.”

“Almost definitely,” Dantes looked at the water slowly filling the cabin. “We should get out of here.”

Jacopo silently agreed and they walked toward the cabin door. Dantes moved to push it open, but it wouldn’t give. He put more strength into it, but it continued not to move. He slammed his shoulder into it, then tried to extend his wooden hand through it, but it couldn’t get beneath the door, nor could he move it.

“I guess she planned on taking me with her one way or another.”

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