Page 20 of The Malevolent Eight
There!I thought, catching the first flicker of animosity in the stranger’s eyes.She doesn’t appreciate being called a child. But why? It’s hardly an insult compared to what anyone who’d been spying on our conversation has to anticipate will soon come from—
‘Only whores are entitled to be enigmatic,’ Corrigan declared with the finality of a judge passing sentence. ‘Are you a whore, sweetheart?’ He leaned closer to her. Apparently, thunderersalsolike showing their teeth. ‘You’re too skinny to be any good at it. Business must be bad. Did you come here in search of a hearty meal or a fat co—?’
‘Where I’m from,’ the stranger interrupted, saving us all from what would surely have been an extended oration from Corrigan about what he– and no one else– insisted was his finest attribute, ‘I’d be called a Spellslinger.’
‘That’s not a thing,’ Corrigan insisted. I guess he didn’t appreciate being shot down before being given the chance to demonstrate just how offensive he could be. ‘Also, it’s a stupid name.Spell-slinger?No self-respecting wonderist hurls spells with slings. If they did, I’d be hunting them down and murdering them for denigrating the profession even more than luminists do with their stupid light shows.’
His irritation appeared to be compounded by the beers, which he clearly craved but wouldn’t drink because imbibing poison that’s literally been handed to you by a mysterious unknown stranger is an embarrassing way for anyone to die.
I figured it was up to me to get answers out of her. Glorian Justiciars practise all sorts of intricate facial expressions and vocal mannerisms designed to induce varying degrees of terror in the suspects they interrogate. I chose the least overtly threatening option, because in my experience it was the most menacing. ‘Who– or what– are you?’
She leaned across the table and placed one hand over mine. ‘I have been a great many things, Cade Ombra, and lived a hundred lives in only a handful of years.’ Her gaze softened, her bottom lip quivered. ‘Right now, though, I’m just a girl, sitting in front of a boy, hoping he’ll tell her she’s the most beautiful, perfect person he’s ever met and that, from this moment until his last breath, he’ll devote every second of his life to making each day happier than the one before.’
‘Gross,’ said Alice.
‘Ah!’ Aradeus exclaimed, slapping a gloved hand to his thigh. ‘I understand now. This magnificent lady has come to join our esteemed coven.’ He gave me the sort of dashing, I-told-you-so moustachioed smiles for which rat mages are rightly reviled by civilised folk. ‘Did I not tell you, Brother Cade? Did I not predict that heroes from across the continent would flock to our banner once word spread of our noble endeavour?’
‘Bands of mercenary wonderists don’t have banners, Aradeus.’
Well, plenty of covens do strut around with elaborate banners covered in mystical sigils and esoteric heraldry, which does make it convenient when tracking them down after someone’s hired you to kill them.
‘Besides, we don’twantanyone else,’ Corrigan insisted. ‘We’ve already got those Arsehole Eight or whoever they are horning in on our action. Too many chefs spoil the stew, just like too many co—’
‘We need everyone we can get,’ Galass retorted. ‘Or were you too busy contemplating your genitals while the rest of us were risking our necks in Cade’s doomed scheme for stopping the war?’
That hurt.
‘Well, you’re wrong,’ Corrigan declared, standing up as if this somehow added to the authority of his argument. ‘Not the part about Cade’s plan being awful, obviously. I mean the part about us needing more wonderists.’ He jabbed a finger at each of us in turn, counting off as he went before finally ending with himself. ‘Seven,’ he finished. ‘Seven deadly motherfuckers who are going to save the world, which is why we’re called theMalevolent Seven. Not theMalevolent Eight. Not theMalevolent Nine. Those names are stupid and I refuse to throw away my life on Cade’s idiotic mission if people are going to be giggling at us behind our backs whispering, ‘Look, there goes the Malevolent Eight! That’s right, they call themselves theMalevolent Eight!’
‘Got that out of your system?’ I asked.
‘No. I also want uniforms. Cool ones.’ He tapped a finger against his chest. ‘With a big number “seven” embroidered in silver thread.’ He sat back down heavily. ‘I need a drink. Or a prostitute.’ He shot the Spellslinger a sideways glance. ‘Not you, honey. Aproperprostitute with meat on her bones andwithoutthe gleam in her eye that reminds me of the time my mother tried to strangle me in my crib.’
Corrigan’s mother really did attempt to murder her infant son. Several times. The tale of how he survived is quite fascinating. Ask him sometime. Get him drunk first, though, so he can’t access his Tempestoral magic. He tends to blow up large land masses when he talks about his childhood.
‘I can see how you must put a terrible fear of oblivion into the Auroral and Infernal forces,’ the Spellslinger observed. She wasn’t an angelic, then, as she was clearly capable of sarcasm.
‘Are you one of the other coven of wonderists?’ Shame asked. ‘Did you come here to brag, child?’
That same flicker of ire sparked in her eyes, but it faded even more quickly this time. ‘I’m just passing through. You know, a little business, a little pleasure.’ She removed one of the pewter steins from the tray and placing it in front of me, added, ‘Mostly, I dropped in to buy my old friend Cade a beer.’
The Infernal concoction inside the pewter container swirled ominously. That didn’t necessarily mean it was poisoned; Infernals do like their alcohol to have a little life in it. ‘Well,’ I began, sliding the beer back across the table to her, ‘first, hello. Second, thanks for the beer, and third’– I set my heels against the floorboards and shoved myself back. The legs of the chair screeched along the oak planking in a promisingly threatening fashion. I brought my hand up, my left palm open towards the Spellslinger, my right clenched in a fist as I summoned the first twisting, buzzing energies of my mystical attunement– ‘third, I’ve never met you before, “old friend”, and I’m pretty sure you’re not the sort of gal a guy forgets.’
Her expression didn’t change. According to my old master Hazidan Rosh, the human face contains forty-three separate muscles. Not one of them so much as twitched.
Think what you want about my track record as a war mage, but nobody–nobody– remains that calm in the presence of a wonderist summoning up a spell.
Maybe she’s not clever or cunning, I thought, watching her watch me with that placid, knowing expression.Maybe she’s just some insanely hot halfwit who has no idea what magic is, never mind wields any of her own. I mean, Corrigan wasn’t wrong: ‘Spellslinger’ is a stupid term for a wonderist.
She picked up the beer stein I’d refused and downed its contents in one gulping, distinctly un-dainty swig, then wiped her mouth with her shirtsleeve. ‘Guess I can’t blame you for not remembering me, Cade. As I recall you had that. . . what’s it called again?’ She waved her fingers in the air negligently. ‘The Celestine Fog or the Auroral Mist or some such thing?’
‘The Glorian Haze?’ Alice demanded, leaping up from her chair and drawing her whip-sword. ‘Cade, what did you do to this wom—?’
‘Time to shut your mouth, little girl,’ Corrigan said in a pleasant, sing-song voice. Much as he delighted in playing the big, brutish boor, the fact was that Corrigan Blight had one of the finest strategic minds of anyone I’d ever met. Had our mission been to destroy the entire world rather than attempt to save it, he’s the one I would’ve put in charge. Right now, those highly attuned military instincts of his were warning him that our present circumstances were far more volatile than they appeared.
The Glorian Haze.
I still had no memories of the Spellslinger from my days as a Justiciar. That wasn’t entirely unexpected: our missions were always infused with the transcendent zeal granted us by the Aurorals. We’d stride the world like demigods in a trance, directed by the guiding hand of a Lord Celestine. In that blissful, righteous state of spiritual certainty, we could perceive every shading of sin around us, even pick out our fugitive from a crowd of thousands on a starless night. And yet the details, the sights, were never truly in focus. The memories became a blur. That’s why it’s called the Glorian Haze. It’s also why the faces of those we imprisoned or executed never haunted our dreams: we simply forgot them and moved on.
