“I hate subtle demons,” Kari muttered, and Eli laughed. “I prefer the ones that just come at you screaming and spitting and trying to tear you limb from limb.”
“Maybe the last two hundred years have taught them they need a better strategy to kill someone like you,” he quipped, and Kari chuckled.
They turned their heads back toward the stairs at the quiet bootsteps of the marshal. As the human appeared on the steps, he gestured for the guests to follow him, and Kari and Eli rose and ascended in his wake. The steps were steep and narrow, making them somewhat difficult to ascend, but they allowed for more room at each of the tower’s levels. The second and third floors were closed off with polished, carved wooden doors. When they arrived at the tower’s fourth floor, Marshal Saracht knocked twice before opening the door. He gestured the guests into the room and closed the door behind them without entering.
If the ground floor suggested Kaelin Black was wealthy, his office on the tower’s top floor screamed it. From the moment Kari’s feet touched upon the soft fur of the carpet and her eyes took in its color and pattern that suggested both wolf and bear, her senses reeled at the sheer amount of wealth the room boasted. Where the ground floor was filled with treasured curiosities and works of art, Black’s office was a stockpile of artifacts and priceless antiquities. On every painstakingly carved or crafted piece of furniture sat relics from the farthest reaches of the world and its past, and over the upper floor’s fireplace was a painting of Garra Ktarra so lifelike, Kari had to wonder if it was made when the deity was mortal.
Sitting at the far end of the room was a brooding creature unable to appreciate the beauty or the vastness of the wealth before it. He sat behind a sprawling desk, one leg crossed atop the other, a cigar perched carefully in his hand while he looked out the massive window. Kari came to a stop before the desk and awaited Black’s attention and his permission to sit, and she saw a stark contrast to the obnoxious half-demon who had come to DarkWind seeking aid. He looked now like a man who truly needed it, as though the events of the past few weeks had piled an incalculable sense of helplessness upon him and he was unable to mask it behind his typical bravado.
A short sigh escaped him before he took a puff from his cigar, blew the smoke considerately away from his guests, and placed it aside so he could rise to his feet. He fixed Kari with one of the coldest stares she’d ever seen, and the look he gave Eli was a hair shy of homicidal. “What do you want?” he grumbled at the demonhunter.
“I’m here, just as you requested,” Kari said after a moment of surprise. She gestured toward Eli and added, “I’ve brought Eli along to…”
“As I requested?” Lord Black interrupted. “What game do you play, Vanador? I don’t make a habit of inviting demonhunters to my city.”
Kari hesitated, and she put her hands on her hips to be near the hilts of her scimitars if it turned out Aeligos was more correct than she thought. She knew their previous encounter hadn’t ended warmly, but there was something in Black’s expression that said he wasn’t going to wait to spring the trap Aeligos had suspected. The earl’s eyes swung to Eli every now and then as if he could barely contain the desire to literally throw the half-corlyps out of his city.
Kaelin Black was about the same size as Serenjols, if a bit less muscular, but there was none of the protectiveness or gentle nature in the noble. At the same time, however, the anger and hatred that seemed to boil just below the surface was carefully held in check, and he hardly moved but to blink as the long, silent moments accrued.
Kari started to speak, stopped herself, and tried to make sure she took a more tactful approach in light of the danger that she could feel playing across her skin. “Lord Black, you came to the campus of my Order just over two weeks ago, asking for our aid with an assassin…,” she started, but she trailed off when he cocked his head and fixed her with a questioning gaze.
“I came to the Order?” he asked venomously. “You must be joking. I’d sooner ask the Black Dragon Society for help…”
He held Kari’s gaze for several long, silent moments, his expression daring her to speak. He straightened out, paced around his desk, and opened the door. “Everett! Get up here.”
The marshal’s hastened, booted footsteps shortly preceded his appearance, and Black closed the door behind the marshal. Kaelin Black returned to his position behind the desk and gestured toward Kari. “This demonhunter says I went to DarkWind a couple of weeks ago to ask for her Order’s help with an assassin,” he said evenly.
Marshal Saracht beheld Kari, but then he turned to Black and nodded. “BlackWing,” he said simply.
“You think he could pull that off?” Black returned. “Things are worse than I’d thought.”
“What do you mean?” Kari interjected, though she suspected she already knew.
The marshal turned to her. “Lord Black didn’t go to DarkWind to ask for help; you must have met BlackWing posing as the earl,” he explained. He glanced to Kaelin Black, who nodded ever so slightly. The marshal continued, “We do indeed have a problem with an assassin in the city, but we didn’t send for help. We believed it was some plot by the Black Dragon Society, but if BlackWing went to you for help, then perhaps they are having issues with this same killer. What details did BlackWing provide when you met with him?”
“So, you really aren’t BlackWing?” Kari asked the earl. Eli let forth a small sound, and Kari realized that was probably the worst thing she could’ve said at that moment.
The lord of the city looked up and away, blowing out an exasperated sigh before he fixed that cold gaze upon her again. “And you people wonder why I hate dealing with you! Of course I’m not BlackWing. He’s been trying to take over my city with that damned Black Dragon Society of his for decades. Your Order conveniently does nothing to help with it, but now look: He comes to you, posing as me, and convinces you to stick your noses where they don’t belong effortlessly.”
“Would you rather I leave?” Kari shot back. “I came here to protect the people of your city, not to listen to you complain about my Order. And I assure you, he didn’t convince me to come here effortlessly.”
The anger cracked finally, and the earl half-smiled and let out a brief chuckle. “You’ve got spirit in you,” he said.
“You’ve no idea,” Eli muttered, but he went silent again when Black glared at him.
The earl sat down at last and gestured for his two “guests” to do the same. The marshal moved to stand beside Black’s chair, and they waited for Kari to answer the marshal’s question. Black picked up his cigar and put it back between his teeth, and Kari stared at him, wondering how he and BlackWing could be nearly identical if they weren’t the same person. He seemed genuine about the issues he was having with BlackWing, but Kari wasn’t so naïve as to think it couldn’t be an elaborate deception. She’d seen Aeligos clean out his siblings playing poker enough times to know that a good actor could sell nearly any performance.
“Tell me something first,” Kari ventured after some thought. “Who is BlackWing?”
The marshal began to speak but the earl stopped him with a raised hand. Kaelin Black took a puff from his cigar, sat back, crossed one leg over the other, and then blew the smoke up toward the ceiling, away from his guests. “Quite frankly, Lady Vanador, I’ve long suspected he may be exactly what the name of the society he took over would suggest: A black dragon posing as a half-demon. Or rather, posing as me.”