Chapter 6:

 

Artemis Entreri awoke with a start.  He sat up and immediately his hand flew to his temple.

Damn this headache!  He thought with a groan.  Ever since his battle with the Hunter mage, a terrible stabbing pain had plagued his head if he moved too quickly.  Bloody stupid wizards and their gods damned potions!

Even though his gauntlet had caught the holding spell, the assassin did get an eyeful of whatever that terrible stinging powder had been.  Certainly it had hurt for a few hours, but Entreri was sure that he’d gotten it all out of his eyes and after that, the effects had gone away.  But now this headache… it was as bad as when he’d been sick!

He growled and swung his feet onto the floor.

The worst bit, according to Entreri, was that Dusk had told him that there might be some lingering effects.  She had offered to help, of course, and of course he had refused.  It would be traitorous to the man’s nature to allow someone to tend to his injuries so often.  If he couldn’t take care of himself, the assassin knew, then perhaps he really was getting too old for this kind of living.  But what other life did he know?

He stopped that line of questions then and there.  Not because it bothered him (though it did, indeed), but because it felt like something was moving about his ankles.

Entreri jerked his legs back up onto the bed, peering warily at the floor.  Or rather, at the fog that positively blanketed the floor.  The entire room was covered in it… so much so that it his bed appeared to float on shifting clouds.  And he hadn’t even noticed because of this damned persistent headache.

Perhaps, he thought, I should ask for the lady’s help… just this once.

The assassin stepped gingerly onto the floor.  Sure, it looked like regular mountain fog that he was stepping into.  Where he came from, though, the fog never slithered into a second story window and took up silent residence inside the house.  It wasn’t so thick in the hall, thankfully… at least there Entreri could see the floor.

“Dusk?”  He called, knocking lightly on the lady’s door.

No answer came.  Ceremony set aside, Entreri walked into the room anyway. 

Of course.  When I actually want to see the woman, she is nowhere to be found.  Thought the assassin bitterly.

The fog was much thicker in the lady’s rooms.  Even so, Dusk had quite obviously gone out.  The balcony doors stood wide open, and nothing moved but the swirling vapor.

“By hell, the world is gone…” Whispered Entreri after stepping out onto the balcony.

Indeed, it seemed that he was correct.  Inside Dusk’s room, the fog was thick, to be sure.  But one could see through it and didn’t have the feeling that the sky had fallen on top of them.  Outside was a world of a thousand shades of white, and even Entreri’s keen eyes could only penetrate a foot of so in front of his nose.

The assassin was suddenly aware that someplace out in the fog, someone hummed a quiet, melodious tune.  Exactly where was impossible to determine.  Sound came from all directions on nights like this, and unless one particular sound was indeed what he thought…

Someone must be playing a joke… she cannot be out swimming in this mess. 

“Lady, are you really out there?”  Entreri called to the general direction of the lake.

A low splash sounded, as though someone very lithe had just dived underwater very quickly.

“Perhaps,” Dusk’s reply came moments later, rebounding off the mist.  “You truly can’t see?”

He sighed.  “Of course!  I can see that you will ever be a pain in my backside, but that won’t clear up this damned fog.”

The lady laughed at him.  “Apparently you need something, or you would not have sought me out.  Come down and join me!”

Entreri shook his head at his own folly with the woman.  He balanced himself on the ledge of the balcony, preparing to dive off into the lake as he had seen Dusk do from time to time…

“Don’t come that way!”  She cried.  “You’ll hit the rocks and drown before I can get to you!”

He snorted.  “The rocks are the only things I can see, thank you!  If you would like to explain how you miss the damned things and I cannot, you have my full attention.”

“I mean the rocks at the bottom, assassin!  They come up rather fast from that height, and even I don’t miss them every time!”  Dusk let out an exasperated sigh.  “Just use the door, my friend.”

Reluctantly, Entreri did.  He came all the way downstairs and out to the lake mumbling something along the lines of –-ing rocks at the bottom, my ass.  I would honestly like to know how she doesn’t drown if she hits her head on them… ---ing infuriating woman, I’ll have to kill her someday, she leaves me such little choice…

“Would you bother to tell me if I were about to fall in the water?”  He asked when he reached the transition from grass to rock near the lake.

Dusk snapped her fingers, the sound bouncing off the fog like a kick drum in a gymnasium.  A small flame licked up from the palm of her hand.  The assassin could see her by its light, if only just through the haze, and she was grinning.  The lady held herself up by her arms on a protruding rock, propping her chin in one hand.

“Do you honestly think me capable of being so cruel to you?”  She asked with a shake of her head.

“Sometimes you do not make it easy to believe otherwise.”  He growled in reply.

Entreri sat down cross-legged a few feet in front of the woman.  He winced unconsciously, as the light from Dusk’s small flame glinted off the fog rather fiercely.  On this night, even something so small as the light caused him terrible pain.  Dusk doused flame at once.  Of course, such was both a blessing and a curse.  On one hand, the assassin didn’t have to try and avoid looking at the light… but it meant that the lady had noticed his moment of quiet agony.

He sighed, opened his mouth to speak and shut it as soon as he’d opened his eyes.

Two points of light, brilliant green in color, shimmered out of the murky darkness.  It didn’t take Entreri long to realize just what he was seeing.

“What are you?”  He asked, and not for the first time, with a shake of his head. 

All he received in return was a cheeky smile.

“Heat sensing eyes glow red, not green…” Reasoned the assassin.   “Human eyes simply do not glow at all, not without magic, and for once you are using none at all.  What you are doing right now rules out just about every race I have personally encountered!”  He paused.  “What are you doing, anyway?”

Dusk sighed.  “Another time, perhaps, I shall tell you.  For now, I see that your need is more pressing.”  The assassin dropped his querulous expression in favor of a scowl at that.  “Really, you shouldn’t look at me so!  I do not read your mind, but I know perfectly well your pain.  The powder blown in your eyes yesterday morning was not meant to be used on humans… of course it is wreaking havoc on your head now.

“It feels as though someone is driving a nail through your skull every time you move, am I correct?”

“Indeed.”  Entreri furrowed his brow at her.  Why did the lady always seem to know far too much?

She gestured that the man come within her reach, pulling herself just a bit farther upon the rock.  At her motion the assassin moved closer.  He sighed in mock despair and averted his eyes… and again, it was something that he’d found himself doing more than once.  For someone who seemed so worldly, Dusk apparently had quite an aversion to clothing.   The lady tactfully ignored his disdain.  She reached out for him and placed her hands over the assassin’s dark eyes.

Or at least, that is what she meant to do.  Entreri jerked back reflexively at the movement. 

“Have no worry, my friend.  If I were going to harm you, I believe that I would have enough respect to warn you first.”  She chuckled. 

The assassin nodded, even going to far as to bring his face just a little bit closer.   Dusk’s little smile fell away.  Again she sighed.

“And do have faith that this will hurt me far more than you.” 

And when she touched the face of her only human companion, pulling the effects of the Hunter wizard’s potion onto herself, she cried out in pain.

 

 

 

Bang bang bang!

Such came the sound that awoke Dusk, floating up to the second floor as gently as a hammer to the skull.  The lady opened one bleary eye.  Someone with no apparent sense of decency was pounding on her front door.  She went to get up but immediately thought better of it.  Anyone with a pressing need of her this day was either already in the house or wasn’t the type to knock.  Holding her head she lie back down, settling to simply hollering as loudly as she might toward the open window.

“Piss off, we don’t want any!”  At a gesture, Dusk shut the window, bolted it and drew the curtains.

“Now I am certain that you aren’t feeling well.  Never have I heard you use the phrase ‘piss off’.”  Came the chuckling voice of Jarlaxle to the left side of the lady’s bed.

She pulled a pillow over her face.   “’Bugger off, then.  Is that ladylike enough for you?”

“Ah, but you wound me.”  The drow sighed.  “There is an elf at your door.  A dark haired one… I believe I put a dagger in his knee last week, though now he looks a little overdressed for being out in the middle of nowhere.”

Dusk growled.  “Please tell me that this description is wrong… high boots, a green satin tunic, black pants, probably velvet, and a white half-cape?”

“Sorry dear.  That description is no less than perfect.”

The lady cursed.

 

 

 

Artemis Entreri awoke to the sound of someone hammering on the front door.   He was fully awake and half dressed in half a heartbeat.  From two rooms away he could hear Dusk whispering harshly to Jarlaxle in a tongue he didn’t understand.  Something was wrong, but what?  Well, beside the fact that he now shared living space with a very powerful but apparently crazy woman… and Jarlaxle, he alone was enough… oh, and a vampire.  In that light, the assassin pondered, what could possibly make things anymore out of place than they usually were?

He changed his silent quickstepping course from the window to the door with merely a turn of his heel.  Entreri reached beneath his pillow for his shirt and sword belt.  The belt he found, his shirt was strangely missing.  He didn’t even bother with an exasperated sigh, for he knew already who had taken the shirt and that sighing wouldn’t get it back any faster.  That was Dusk’s little joke… she thought it the height of comedy to steal various articles of his clothing while he slept. 

            The assassin firmly latched his belt and drew his dagger in a motion.   Little out of the ordinary was amiss this morning, but it never hurt to be sure.  Therefore, Artemis Entreri was only slightly surprised when, while reaching for the doorknob, he was seemingly yanked up by the back of his pants and stuck quite firmly to the ceiling. 

Staring at the floor with a positively murderous expression on his face, Entreri at last sighed.

“Have it as you will, lady.”  He growled.  “Tonight, there will be no more folly, no more games, only my blade at your throat.”

The assassin promised, fully confident that Dusk could hear him. 

“Oh dear.”  Came the answer.  The half open door admitted Anton, to the assassin’s distaste.  He glared down and the lady’s adopted sibling.  The vampire prince’s silver gaze zeroed in on him.

“Good morning to you, assassin.  I shall pass the message onto my sister.  No doubt she was too busy cursing her clothing to hear your challenge.”  Anton grinned quietly, hiding his teeth.  He splayed out his slender fingers in a thoughtful gesture, as though the fact that the person he was speaking to was stuck to the ceiling hardly mattered.  “It is the pants, you see.  You have no idea how my sister hates them.” 

Entreri crossed one arm over his chest and rested the opposite elbow in his palm, his dagger held by the tip and cocked to throw.

“Get me down.”  The assassin demanded slowly and deliberately, so that Dusk’s brother could not possibly take any other meaning from his words.

Anton sighed.  “Although it is likely not in my best interests, I shall do as you ask.  But,” He began, only to sidestep the jeweled dagger that came hurtling at his chest with alarming accuracy.  It thudded into the wall behind him.  “If you will only listen to me momentarily, you will see that my sister only put you up there for your own protection.  We have a guest.  Had you exited this room any sooner, you might have been seen.  That would not, I believe, have been in your best interests.  I will get you down now, as promised, but I ask that you hear me out before exiting this room.”

Anton raised a hand, pointing his fingers in Entreri’s general direction.  The assassin winced.  He had never liked spellcasters, especially when they were casting at him.  Then he shivered… something odd was happening.  His stomach felt like it wanted to swoop down to the vicinity of his knees.   He stared down at the vampire, wondering what exactly he could be doing.  The silver eyes were closed and the pale lips did not move. 

Whatever had been holding Entreri suddenly let go.  The assassin dropped.  Though he wasn’t prepared for this, he managed to get his arms over his face just before he hit…

Nothing.  He heard a small exhalation of relief and dared to uncover his face.  Entreri looked up at Anton.  The vampire still held one arm outstretched, though now it was level with the assassin’s wide-eyed gaze.  Silver eyes, now open, flicked down for a brief moment.  Entreri’s gray ones followed.  He hovered perhaps a foot and a half above the floor.  He dropped his hands to the floor, and Anton let him drop from there.

“My apologies once again, assassin.  Dusk’s telekinetic hold is quite difficult to break.  Vampires thrice my age have trouble managing it… though she usually does it with furniture, not people.  Broken furniture is far easier to repair than broken limbs, after all.”  Anton added the last with an amused grin.  “Anyhow,”

“What?” A shaken assassin stood up. 

Dusk’s brother gave him the most sincere look of bemusement at being interrupted.  “The comment about furniture confuses you, yes?”

Entreri nodded, one eyebrow raised high.

“I am sure my sister will explain, should you deign to ask her to.”  He answered with a dismissive wave.  “Now, to the matter at hand…”

“Dusk stuck me to the ceiling.”  The assassin pressed.  He was still unsure of what had just happened, and that bothered him.  “But you brought me down?”

“Yes, assassin.  Have you a point to make?”  Anton’s maddeningly long line of patience was wearing short, and it showed in his voice.

“Which one of you caught me when I fell?”

The vampire sighed.  “I did.”

“Why?”  Entreri asked with some urgency.  “I tried to kill you.  If you weren’t so quick, you would be dead.  Why spare me the pain of broken limbs, knowing that I am no friend to you, when it wasn’t necessary?”

Anton chuckled.  “My dear fellow, have you any idea how cross Dusk would be with me if I had let you fall?  You look as though you are going to ask me ‘why’ again.  I beg you not to do so.” 

Seemingly out of thin air, Dusk’s brother produced Entreri’s missing shirt.  He threw it to the man.

“This guest, is it someone the lady cannot handle on her own?”  Entreri asked while he pulled the shirt over his head.  He would get no further answers from the younger sibling, he knew.  He would make it a point to ask the elder before knocking her head in.  For now, the assassin would play along with whatever task Dusk had for him this time.

He received a slight contemplative growl before any answer.

“She is capable of handling him alone, but as she put it, Dusk would rather not have to kick him back to his tree.”  A fleeting smile crossed Anton’s face.  “My sister told you of an elf, one bearing the name Dareenfeil?”

Entreri narrowed his gaze and gave only the slightest nod.  He remembered that conversation well enough.

“Doubtless she told you what this elf sought when he followed you and your companion last week.”

Once more Entreri nodded, this time in understanding.  He knew what the lady wanted of him before Anton had said it.

“Doubtless, then, you understand why she could not allow this elf to see you before I had the chance to speak with you.”

Of course Entreri understood.  Had he exited his room when he’d planned, he would have done so with sword and dagger at the ready, silent, poised and deadly.  The elf would have seen Artemis Entreri, the famed assassin… the very man whose head he had come looking to take.  A sick man no longer, Entreri knew that he could take one elf with ease.  But, as Dusk had put it, how far could he run?  How many would he have to kill before someone with the same intent for his head finally caught up?

“What would your sister have me do?”  Entreri asked with a groan, knowing that he wouldn’t like the answer.

The fleeting grin returned.  “Dusk does not wish Dareenfeil to see you for who you truly are.  For perhaps half an hour, for she intends on having the elf here no longer than that, my dear sister needs her fiancé.  Your drow friend tells me that you are very good with disguises.  Dusk has suggested a less a disguise of appearance, but more one of personality.”

Anton might have said more, but Entreri waved him away.  Why do I do this?  Why?  He asked himself.  Nonetheless, he already had a clear mental picture of what he must do.  He held back yet another groan of displeasure while he untucked his shirt.  The assassin undid his shirt buttons, only to re-button them completely cockeyed with the top few buttons left open.  He carefully mussed up his hair before tying it back with one hand and unclasped his sword with the other.

With furrowed brow, Entreri turned his attention back to Anton.  He hardly believed the words coming out of his mouth… but then, did Dusk not want him to appear entirely unlike himself?

“Your sister has some rum about the place, does she not?”

The vampire laughed, not loudly, but with true mirth.  This man knew his sister very well.