Lair of Killers (3 page)

It was not the Lord Governor there on that fateful day at the docks when Castellan was taken into custody, when our proud city surrendered to a foreign power for the first time in a century. No, it was another man that took control that day that marched hundreds of our citizens across the streets like zombie followers. He ended the martial hostilities with a mere wave of his wizened hand as if he were conducting a choir.

Arc Lector Morlin is the most powerful man, nay, the most powerful force in the city, my beloved home, the only place I have ever lived or would ever want to live. He is a force that can make men do things beyond the scope of everyday mortals and sway kings and kingdoms.

What hope have I should I choose to confront him?

Chapter Two

The jail cell was much more comfortable than it looked. Although it was a bit cramped, it was clean and well kept. It was a beautiful building, with a strong architectural design, and built solid. The wooden beams in the inner halls were oak, and there were tough metal bands across most of the doorframes.

Zandor was all alone, comfy on a cot that was attached to the walls by chains on each end that swung down from the wall. The amnesty had gone into effect not long ago, but there must have been still people they needed to arrest

There had to be another agency to swing against them. It would work better to hit the city officials and the police at once, to make one scared enough to hire his men as secondary security and the other to go on strike in order to increase the need for that security. It would be tricky. The city’s rich were already buying up all the extra security men they could afford to protect themselves and their homes. The thieves crawled out of the woodwork, and the cops were miffed about their lack of respect in the city’s hierarchy. Something had to give.

Zandor had people in place already. Some of the elites were good at what they did, and they had contact with the others, little more than chaff, but somewhat well trained. Zandor’s people were not headhunters or bashers. He needed another option, some hard hitting smashers to be tossed away after it was done.

It was late in the day. He stood and put his ear to the door and listened. Nothing. The skeleton crew present in the jail was slacking off, bless them. The police force needed to be hopping mad and ready for action to get them over the edge.

They had frisked him but not well enough to find a thin wire installed in the sole of his shoe and another in his belt. He pulled it out and went to work on the bulky lock on the door. Moments later he entered the hall. It was eerie there in the dusty dark.

A dim torch hung in a sconce far down the way, glimmering and shifting, pushed by an invisible breeze. It was easy to let the mind play tricks to believe it was something else, perhaps a ghost. There had been rumors circulating of a ghost many months back, floating around somewhere in town. There were things in the world that defied description, and Zandor knew that better than most.

He crept down the hallway. There was a larger holding cell right below him on the first floor, but they put him higher. These were strange days. Maybe there was a ghost in the jail, and it had scared everyone away.

Instead of going downstairs, he went up to scope things out. Not much to speak of, only some general storage rooms and broken wooden cases and boxes. Inside were some old police uniforms, and he put one on, ditching his homeless man disguise. The simple brown leggings and leather jerkin were cheap but serviceable. This was too easy.

The police were too tight knit a group for this disguise to last long, but considering there weren’t too many around, it wouldn’t be needed for long. It gave him the chance to move about the jail for a little bit longer, in case he met any officers in the lower levels, but most would be asleep anyway.

The lower floors were more open, with less storage rooms and more cells that were open all along the walls. The main area had nothing but a normal hallway with bars to each side, reaching from floor to ceiling. Zandor stepped through the narrow opening into the main cell floor, and he wondered what the big deal was.

There was plenty of space and including the large holding area outside, they could’ve held hundreds of inmates. In a city of tens of thousands, a police force of less than eighty was spread very thin. Plus, the city had so many other security agencies, no doubt the police felt marginalized and unappreciated.

The number of private security, hired by rich merchants or the few true nobility in Sea Haven, outnumbered the police by a lot. Zandor did not know the actual number. Maybe the dock security and the city watch combined could sway the balance back to the cops if necessary since they had an affiliation with the city government. It was all a mess, and his attention slipped away from the matter at hand.

Zandor believed the police to be better trained. They had pride too, that was obvious by the work stoppage. They only needed to be reminded of the power they could wield. Pride made a man fight harder. It also made most men choose the wrong solution to a problem.

And the intelligent, well equipped Captain Cubbins was gone. Which meant the force was ripe for exploitation by someone like Zandor if he could only figure out a good way to implement his plan. He didn’t know what the plan was quite yet.

On the ground floor was a little office area where they brought people into the jail. There was only one guard on duty, a small man slouching in a chair by the lone desk. This place
was
a ghost building. Empty as a tomb and about as exciting.

Down the hall another guard snoozed in a chair. The man grunted when he heard him pass by. Zandor clicked his tongue and walked on. The man stirred.

“Tough night, eh?”

Zandor answered with a chuckle and kept going towards the door.

In the outer office he saw empty space and stone walls. On his left near the far wall was a podium with a ledger and quill. A man stood behind it. Zandor approached him and let his face show in the flickering torchlight.

“Hey there, fella. How goes it?”

The man regarded him with a stony gaze. Then he cracked a smile. “Hi Zandor. Took you long enough to break free. You might be losing a step or two.”

“Try me.”

* * * * *

The take was divided quick and easy amongst the toughs. They’d hit two other taverns the same night. Any more than that, and the resistance would be too high to be worth the effort. Jerrod knew word on the street could travel fast, and even days later, similar establishments would be on the lookout for trouble. Forewarned was forearmed.

It was better to let things simmer down until they relaxed. So he and the toughs hunkered down in an abandoned warehouse near the southern docks and counted their money. They had plenty of coin plus a fair bit of jewelry; rings, necklaces, bracelets, and the like placed in bags, taken off the bodies of frightened patrons.

“When we hittin’ the tents, boss?”

Jerrod gave a small grunt and glanced over at the speaker, Donald. The lanky tough sat with several others at ramshackle tables, nothing more than over turned crates stuffed tight in one of the back rooms of the warehouse. A couple others watched the exits for any unwanted guests.

“One thing at a time, fella,” Jerrod said.

Donald nodded and went back to counting coins. Most of them were smiling, content with the impressive haul. A certain anxiety hung in the air as well, and that made him glad, for content men were lazy men, and as long as the fear of reprisal was present, they would stay sharp.

Sure, the police were a bunch of sissified pansies even when they were on the job, and now that they weren’t, things were looking up.

“So where to next?”

Someone else was sticking their heads up and looking to him. Others turned to stare as the speaker, a short and stocky tough built like Marko.

Jerrod eyed him. “You boys sure ask a lot of questions. Seems to me only nosy punks ask a lot of questions. Yeah, askin’ so many questions is bad for your health if you ask me.”

The brawny tough swallowed and closed his mouth. Jerrod scoffed and stood. “All you fucks need to know is what I tell you. Got it?” They nodded assent. “What was that?”

“Yes, sir!”

“You got it, boss.”

“No problem here.”

Jerrod nodded. “Good. I want a tally of all that swap. If I catch anyone skimming me, and I kill the fuck in the worst way, right in front of everyone else.”

Donald looked hurt. “No one here is like that, boss. We work for you.”

Jerrod sniffed. “After you’re finished with that, go about your normal routines. Don’t muck about. I want the reserves rotating back in when I call you boys out in a few days. Get goin’.”

They started counting in earnest.

Marko should have been here. That weak bastard should’ve dealt with these stupid questions. Jerrod was accustomed to giving him orders and then letting him relay back down to the others. Maybe Donald was up for a promotion, or that Renner guy the others talked about. It was implied he was the toughest one among them, now that Marko was gone. Jerrod hadn’t meant to kill him. The stupid bastard. Damn him straight to hell, anyway.

The early morning sun was weak, and whatever heat it provided washed away by the punishing cold wind sweeping over the southern docks. The southern docks were only a couple blocks away.

They were bustling with activity. The tall masts of several ships waiting to be unloaded poked over two massive warehouses behind him as he trotted north. Several workers walked in the opposite direction, dull with lack of sleep and heavy toil. They were apathetic zombies, weak-willed sheep living their miserable lives like slugs, doe eyed fools marching in step with each other towards their graves.

These people are dead already. Too weak to go out and take what they needed, so they worked themselves to death, into lumbering stupor, begging for work.

A worker bumped into him, a skinny little slip of a man with gaunt cheeks and thin dark hair. He locked eyes with Jerrod for a moment. The exhaustion from his work was evident, but there also a hint of annoyance. When he saw the look in Jerrod’s eyes, it turned to dismay and fear. A feral shiver struck him, and he blanched, turning away, raising a shaking hand, thinking Jerrod was about to strike him.

“Oh, sir, s-s-sorry.”

Jerrod glared and waved him off, not realizing his arm was reared back and his hand clenched in a fist. “Keep movin’, bub.”

Watching the pathetic man’s eyes and the complete and utter terror there had made him feel something he hadn’t felt in a long time, perhaps decades; pity. These damn people weren’t strong. But there was a time when he was like them when he begged in the street as a starving child. But you know what? Fuck them. He had bettered himself. They had no excuse not to.

Because of his reputation, there were few inns he could have stayed in around town. The southern docks were different. They would take his money like anyone else, and he wanted to keep things nice and quiet for a while. He planned to rob and smash every tavern and place of business in town, but it was not the most secure one yet. The police were no longer a factor, but there could have been reprisals from the individual taverns they had already hit.

If they could get enough funds, they might even have been able to get a brute squad together, the best force money could buy. Members were former war campaigners that had fought for the king. They were real soldiers, better equipped than the mercenaries Castellan had hired before. They were fewer in number but worth five men each. Some were knights and had the best weapons and armor possible.

Jerrod had run into a few over the years, and they were men that knew how to fight. Worthy opponents, not like the scabs the police would have thrown at him. They were hired by the aristocracy to act as bodyguards. Lord Cassius had a few he used from time to time, but considering how expensive they were, he did not keep many on staff for long.

A dirty hole in the wall, boarding house off of Cowl Street was called Shattered Winds, so named because of the punishing wind that came off the most eastern section of the southern docks where the water met the beginnings of the mountain range. The wind whipped down from the vaulted heights of the mountains and tore into anyone unlucky enough to be caught there. The building was ramshackle, and most people joked it would someday be torn off its moorings and dumped into the water.

Paying an extra copper for a larger bed, Jerrod laid down to stretch his long legs and take some much needed time to heal. His side hurt like hell, and his leg ached. He pulled another healing draught from his belt satchel and downed it.

It seemed he had only put his head down on the crappy straw pillow when he heard someone, a soon to be dead man, knocking on the door.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Jerrod sighed and opened his eyes. The knock came again, lighter this time, and he thought maybe the fool would have left him alone if he didn’t answer, but they knocked once more. He swung his legs over the bed and went to the door but not before grabbing his long sword. It slid out of the leather scabbard with a soft hiss. This was trouble. No one knew his location.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

A bolt of adrenaline surged through him, his lethargy gone in an instant as he stalked towards the door ready for anything. Enemies didn’t knock. No window. No way out except the lone door. The room was the only one with a bed big enough for him to stretch out, and his insistence on being comfortable might have spelled his end.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Jerrod yanked the door open. “Who the fu—”

It was Zandor. With a crossbow. The weapon was armed and pointed at Jerrod’s chest. Jerrod was about to move, but froze because he recognized the look in his former ally’s eyes that brokered no compromised.

“Go ahead and move on back now, Jerry,” Zandor said and took a step forward. “Move!”

Zandor did not raise his voice often, but when he did, it made an impact. For as small as the little shit was, there was a level of command in his voice that men twice his size would envy. Jerrod backed away, lowering his sword arm. Zandor flicked his eyes at the sword, and Jerrod let it slip to the ground. It clattered to the floor as he backed into the room.