“His wounds need to be consistent with a Soul Gaunt.” Darius was confused. This was the plan all along. He would break Samuel, then Malachi would make it appear a Soul Gaunt had held him for several days, something he was good at and enjoyed.
He rubbed his chest, feeling the raised line of his almost healed wound there. Glancing up, he caught the ghost of a smile on Thaddeus’s face.
Malachi didn’t answer, but inside his chest Darius started to feel that something was wrong. He turned to Melanie, suddenly aware that she hadn’t said a word since he entered the room. She sat upright in a chair, back straight and head raised. Her eyes were focused on Malachi, then her gaze flicked to him. She turned her head and gave him a questioning look.
The feeling of wrongness grew as he regarded her, faded when he looked back to Thaddeus, and then grew again when he turned back to her.
Yes, there was most definitely something amiss. He smiled and sent a piece of his mind out, trying to probe Melanie’s thoughts.
There was a flash of brilliant light and a stab of intense pain, as if someone drove a knife through his eye. Darius reeled back, falling into the wall behind him.
Malachi sat at his desk, watching this happen with no expression.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Melanie said.
Darius could hardly hear her through the roar of blood in his ears. He shook his head and stared at the woman.
“Finish your plan, then let Malachi know. He’ll do what’s needed.”
She turned away, dismissing him.
Darius pushed himself off the wall and almost ran from the room.
Melanie had slapped him down like an insect. And unless he was mistaken, she had control of Malachi, which meant her rumored lover, Thaddeus, was in on it as well.
He stopped and slumped into a chair along the hallway. He put his temples between his hands and squeezed, trying to push the pain away.
He needed to think. Malachi was no longer in charge. Not of House Subtle Hemlock, and not of himself. Now the question was, should he try to stop it, or try to join in?
Chapter 40
“You’re stupid to even try!”
Doc Mia was furious. It was evident in her body language as she cleaned up the instruments she had used to help him. To say nothing of the names she called him. Solomon liked the short, fiery woman. Her dedication to healing did indeed remind him of Willow, but her disposition was more like Lacy.
“I’ve got to do something,” he said.
“Why? This isn’t your home. What do you care?”
She stayed at her sink, using a hand-pump to let water sluice into the basin, keeping her back turned to him. Old Sam stood in the corner, eyes downcast, not looking at either one of them.
“You helped me, right? And so did Sam. How can I do less?”
“Uh, gee, I don’t know. Maybe because neither Sam nor I were stupid enough to get bit by a plague rat, or to get the snot beat out of us. Now you want to up your game and get taken by those…things.”
She snorted and kept washing, muttering to herself about wasting her time and idiots with hero complexes.
Solomon smiled.
“Doc,” he tried again. “I’m not going to get taken. I already fought one and drove it off. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but there has to be something that can be done.”
“Idiot.” But her muttering lost some of the vehemence.
“A sword. If I can get mine back, or find another, or someone to make one, then I can do something. If not…well, I’ll still try, it’ll just be harder.”
Doc dropped her hands to her sides and finally turned.
“And how will you pay for a sword? Didn’t you say those bastards who robbed you took your money, too? You can’t even pay me.”
Good point. Solomon didn’t know how he would pay for anything. In the Greenweald, if someone were truly in need, they’d only have to ask. That wasn’t the case here, any more than it had been on that other Earth.
“Then I have no choice,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to find mine and get it back. Sam, do you know who those guys were?”
Sam shook his head. “I didn’t see them. You were already lying there when I got back.”
“Well, can’t be too hard to find someone around here wearing a sword. It’s not like everyone has them.”
In fact, Solomon hadn’t seen anyone wearing one since coming to Dunfield.
“And exactly how are you going to fight those thugs?” Doc Mia asked. “You can hardly bend your one hand, and the other still has three broken fingers. To say nothing of your leg, your one remaining eye being almost swollen shut and what’s probably some sort of brain injury from being kicked in the head. And that last is obvious.”
Solomon laughed. “You could be right. But you’ll be surprised at how fast I’ll heal up. I always have. If I can sleep somewhere secure tonight, by morning I’ll be in pretty good shape.”
At least, he assumed he would be. He always was before. But if the rules were different here in Dunfield, it wouldn’t come as a shock.
Ever since he neared the city, he could feel it. Waves of sadness, rage, and despondency pushing at him. Give up, fight, die, it seemed to say, over and over. Solomon didn’t know how the people here dealt with it. It pushed at his mind, trying to overwhelm any sense of decency or memory of goodness that he held.
The infection from the rat bite had made it hard to recognize for what it was, but it was coming through now. How anyone stood up under it for long was
