Death's Reckoning (9 page)

Players could also take side bets on any of the rollers. Up to ten per round. But these were laid off between individuals looking for a grudge match with someone. It was an advantage to go later along the line of ten players on the main table, for each remaining winner had to ‘carry’ whatever bet the people that go after them lay down, regardless of whether they beat their score or not.

It was an individual choice; carry through each roll after and gain their own winnings; run the table all the way down the line, or cut out after each person went. It was a big risk because any loss after your roll meant all winnings up to that point were forfeit. But then anyone winning the whole table from the first round stood to gain a small fortune in the process.

Jerrod had only seen two people roll all the way down the table from the first position, and they both had mammoth rolls in their groupings. They took the chance and won out. It was better going last even if the total winnings had potential for less coin because it afforded him a chance of a better pick up not only survivor’s bets who went head-to-head with his roll, but also any lost betters’ amount along the way. Plus it was less risky.

Third position for him was not a total slap in the face, but it was damn close. The current finished up with the man in seventh position making it head-to-head with the person in tenth. He made rolls of nine, ten, and eight on his groupings of two dice for a total of twenty seven. Impressive.

The tenth position roller, an older woman who smelled of money, rolled perfect double sixes on her first roll, a ten on the next, and an eight on the final for a total of thirty. She won it all and cheered along with several people near her, including a very beautiful young girl, perhaps her daughter.

The dealer with his sissy vest counted out her winnings, a sizable stack of coins much to the consternation of every other person at the table. The woman was forced to retire from the game for at least one round. The same was true for the losers, so all ten people left the table to make room for the next set of players.

Jerrod took his spot at the third position on the oval shaped table. His fingers itched. He had a way to prove they were cheating him, and with proof he would gut every one of these motherfuckers where they stood.

The first player took their turn, a smallish, nervous looking fellow with a blue doublet overlaid with silver buttons up the front. He rolled two dice. His look of excitement dimmed when the dice came up a one and two for a dismal total of three. Grimacing, he took his second bet, doubling the wager, and rolled again and got a six. He took another turn and rolled well, an impressive ten for a total of nineteen.

Not a horrible total considering his first two dice. Overall the average total was twenty-one. Jerrod knew it wouldn’t last long, though. Not with nine people yet to go. The man was smart enough to option out of the game and stood there with a defeated look on his face. It wound up being the correct choice as the next player rolled an impressive score of twenty-five.

Jerrod’s turn.

He snatched the dice up, rubbed them against his shirt for good luck, and did a quick, undetectable switch with an identical looking pair and rolled them out.

Bam! A perfect double six, as his doctored dice were tailored so, and the crowd murmured with impressed mutterings. Jerrod smirked and snatched them up again fast in case any of the attendants got some smart idea to examine them. He rubbed them on his chest again, to make it look like a superstitious habit. Most players had a routine they used, and Jerrod rolled again.

Another twelve hit the table, and now the crowd noise turned. Some gasped in disbelief, others in impressive calls of support. People from other tables came over, wanting to see what the commotion was.

Jerrod snatched the dice back up again, having to reach across the entire breadth of the table. Before he rolled the third and final roll, he switched them back and took his chances with a normal third roll.

A solid roll, a real ten, a six and a four. His total was a thirty-four, a nigh impossible score to beat. In all his years of coming to this place, he had never seen someone roll higher, and he had seen a thirty-four only twice in seventeen years.

There was a smattering of applause from those wanting the house to lose. Many of these slugs hated them as Jerrod did, but several glares from the rest of the table’s players came his way as well, but they could all stick it. Either he’d won or proven they wanted to cheat him, and then things would be easier to work out from there on.

The massive enforcer had his bet laid down equal to the next person in line, and the game continued. The next two players were women who rolled a dismal sixteen on the first and an average twenty-one on the second. Both elected to stop betting any further because they had already lost to Jerrod’s epic roll. From a mathematical perspective, it was almost equivalent to finding a clover with four leaves.

The next two players hit nineteen and twenty. They opted out, but Jerrod still won their first bet. He would later be awarded a bonus if no one else that night rolled higher for the entire evening. That prospect was looking good.

The eighth player rolled a very high twenty-nine on six dice. If not for Jerrod’s loaded dice, he would have won the game in a walk if not the entire night’s. The man was forced to withdraw from the main line of betting but made several side bets on the side with his roll to other players and spectators alike. No one after him would beat his roll. He was counting on it.

Jerrod focused on the next man. A roll of a pitiful seventeen, but some activity began behind the table. The ninth player stood down, cursing his low roll. There was one man to beat, but the hubbub in the attendant’s circle increased, and then a manager joined them, a thin man with bad teeth and silk clothes. He and the dealer whispered to one another, along with the game runner. The three men tried to hide it, but it was obvious who they were talking about. A fourth man came up to them and handed them something. He walked off and they tried to act casual.

“Son of a bitch,” Jerrod said under his breath. He crossed his arms and fumed, but there was nothing that could be done but watch them fuck him over. For now.

Another man came up behind the tenth player and whispered in his ear. The player smiled, the little shit, and took his dice from the dealer. He placed them in his hand with careful attention. Then he rapped them hard on the tabletop in some pathetic attempt at concealing what he was doing and rolled them out.

It was two sixes, and the crowd muttered. He rolled another twelve on the next two dice, and the crowd gasped.

Jerrod steamed. At least he had been covert when he cheated, not rubbing it in their faces. Cock sucking bastards.

The player looked nervous. His earlier bluster replaced by terror for the reality of the situation. Jerrod’s hard glare drove a hole in his head.

He swallowed, even managed a meek smile before rearranging the dice again in his hand. Only an eleven was needed to win, and of course that exact score was rolled. The crowd erupted in applause, and the man shouted in joy. A release of tension gave his cry a surge of energy.

People around him slapped him on the back to congratulate him. He smirked at Jerrod. His victory gave the stupid prick confidence. Jerrod made a note that this fool would be the first one he killed. The former prime enforcer of Murder Haven was down a lot of money. The point was taken; he wasn’t wanted there.

The next game started, and he glared at every employee with pure rage and murder in his eyes. They all avoided his gaze. As he stepped off to the side amongst a lot of foot traffic, people walked around him like water around the bow of a ship. During the next dice game, the winner rolled a twenty-four.

The woman in second position groaned in dismay at the result. She had rolled one better but decided not to risk it due to her poor position in line. If she had been brave enough, she would have won a lot of money. These pigs were cowards, not willing to risk anything. They deserved their plight.

Jerrod found the bar, plotting what to do to them. Schemes and plans ran through his mind. He made a mental list of each person that wronged him, what they looked like, their positions within the betting tent hierarchy, and all the delicious torture they had coming to them.

It was time to get his crew together. They had work to do.

Chapter Seven

“It’s like no substance I’ve ever seen, Captain Cubbins, sir. Strange it is indeed. Don’t know.”

Cubbins took the apothecaries’ word for it since no one else had a clue either. The officer took the proffered jar filled with the greenish residue and put it back in a pouch.

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help, Captain.” The older man shrugged and shook his head in disappointment.

“Don’t apologize. If you had to make a guess, though, on what it is, I’d like to know what you think.”

The apothecary crossed his arms, folding his drooping robes over his arms. “Hmmm, good question.” His frizzy hair was a weird contrast to his intelligent eyes and calm demeanor. A vein jumped on his temple. “I suppose if I had to guess, I would say it is the secretion of some kind of insect; that’s the closest I can come to classifying that substance.”

Cubbins mulled it over, the possibilities staggering. “I see. Thank you for your time, Benny.”

“Not at all, Captain. I’m at your disposal.”

Another frustrating dead end for the police captain of Sea Haven. The mid-afternoon sun rose over the mighty warehouses that dominated the dock district, as he headed towards police headquarters. Several buildings near the governmental portion of town remained damaged.

When Cubbins reached his secondary home at the police precinct, a disturbance was noticeable before he even climbed the steps that led to the front booking room. There was something wrong in the eyes of the two police officers stationed there, something in their tense stances, and their worried glances.

He jumped up the stairs and entered, almost gagging in the doorway. An overwhelming stench of offal and death filled his nostrils. It mixed with shit and blood from dozens of corpses. The room looked like the aftermath of a battlefield.

Several officers stood with cloth over their mouths and mops in their hands. Spots of blood and grotesque globs of goo belonging to former human beings covered the floor.

Cubbins fought the urge to gag again and covered his mouth. Lieutenant Dillon spotted him and handed him a towel to wrap about his face. It was soaked in some kind of perfume and helped little.

Cubbins nodded his thanks. “Explain this, lieutenant.”

Dillon sighed and shrugged his rugged shoulders. “It’s the damndest thing, sir. They found all this shit this morning. Every inmate on the first floor has been slaughtered. Can’t explain it. Most of the inmates is them thieves we’ve picked up these last couple of weeks. All dead now.”

Cubbins widened his eyes in involuntary shock but kept his mind calm. “All killed. Show me.”

Dillon grunted and walked with him back to the first row of cells where the smell was even worse. It penetrated the perfumed cloth like it was nothing. Cubbins was thankful for it, though. His subordinate coughed and pointed down the hallway. Visceral remains of human beings laid in and out of the enclosed cases of metal bondage.

A severed arm laid there, mauled at the elbow, not cut or even chewed, but ripped out of the socket. It hung out the bottom rung of the lowest level of bars as if some freak explosion had separated it from its proper place. A pile of gore stacked in the center of the hallway about as high as a normal man’s hip, red and garish. Blood covered bones jutted out from the slop of viscera like splintered innards of an eviscerated beast.

Flies buzzed everywhere about the room as a group of fanatics might’ve worshipped a shrine. Dillon coughed again.

“This is an abattoir,” Cubbins said. “This is more than we can handle on our own. Hire some house maids and dock workers. Get some serious cleaning supplies and clean this mess up. In the meanwhile, get everyone but a skeleton crew outside this building; transfer the surviving inmates to the yard. I don’t care what their status is. Go now.”

Part of his deductive mind screamed at him to hold off that order because there must have been clues left over within this morass of madness, but his pragmatism won out. No one could get any kind of work done within these conditions. There was nothing but death here.

His duty demanded him to stay and oversee the clean-up. Hours later they had several men and women with mops in their hands, scarves on their faces, and grim eyes.

Cubbins needed to speak with the men on duty the previous night. There were four men that pulled graveyard duty within the building, including one shift sergeant, one turnkey who was not an official part of their ranks, and two other officers. Four more patrolled the outside, including the jail yard where the overspill of inmates dwelled.

All eight men crammed into his office, still within distance of the smell, but it was livable. The captain sat at his desk and eyed each man in turn. They looked nervous. Some wilted under his gaze, which wasn’t so stern but rather incredulous. A few of the men looked angry and confused. Disbelief and consternation clouded their haggard features.

Others looked lost and despondent as if they awaited a trial from an unfair judge. They were innocent, befuddled, and slapped around for no reason like little children berated for running too fast. It was more like they were looking to him for answers, instead of the other way around.

Cubbins looked the shift sergeant in the eyes. “Tell me about this evening, sergeant.”

The sergeant, Hawkins was his name, shifted his shoulders and bumped into the man next to him. He in turn frowned and elbowed the man next to him. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, their sardine like position within the room would be comical.

There were few answers to be had. The sergeant began, but the others finished or continued the story. Bits and pieces came together with loose strands but no final solution. From what they told him, Cubbins had no reason not to believe them at face value. He trusted his men.

Yet none of them had any clear recollection of what happened. They each had gaps in their memories between two and four hours past midnight. They could remember two hours before dawn, two after midnight, but nothing else. Up to the point of this gap, it had been a normal night, boring, filled with card games, and several patrols around the premises per usual.

Cubbins couldn’t help but think of the similarities here with what they experienced the other night at the cemetery. The gap in memory would explain what the men on stakeout went through and why they hadn’t seen anything. It was all more than coincidental.

“And that’s all, Captain Cubbins,” Sergeant Hawkins said when the last man spoke, looking deflated. “All of a sudden we was standing where we had been, and everything looked like it did when you came in. We just don’t know.”

Cubbins heaved a noncommittal grunt and rubbed his chin. “All five of you tell me the same thing, so I am inclined to believe you. Fine, I want a detailed report, written, by each man on patrol, your exact route, what you saw, and
everyone
you talked to,
everyone
.” Each man knew what that meant. Cubbins wasn’t blind to their visits with prostitutes, and there would be no confusion with his orders “And, what doors you opened, which ones you closed, what time everything occurred, I want it all.”

Some of them frowned. The amount of paperwork he was asking for was daunting on top of the already difficult task of cleaning up this disaster. But, Cubbins wouldn’t tolerate any insubordination today. After a glare from him, they capitulated. They’d have to deal with it.

He sent them on their way, telling the sergeant to stick around for a few moments to go over some details about the shift change. Before the men left, Cubbins told Hawkins to give him a copy of his shift report, including what he and the other shift sergeant had discussed that night.

Cubbins sat in his office for a few minutes, staring at the walls. Death and dismemberment jarred his vision and jumbled his thoughts. He couldn’t get the idea of his own demise out of his mind. The reality of his mortality was clear and omnipresent. Everyone died. There was nothing that could stop it.

* * * * *

Giorgio found the sunlight did not much agree with him in recent days. So he slept during the sunlight hours, curled away in his little hole of a room like a rat gnawing away in the walls. He spent his time tossing and rolling on top of his grimy sheets. The dog whimpered in the corner of the darkened space. It wasn’t how a thief should live. It befitted only a killer.

Awake on his dirty cot, the lone man stared at the ceiling as night fell. It was discolored. Leakage caused the material to warp and flake from something dripping down the roof. It might’ve caved in and fall on his head if sleep came. Better to keep an eye open at all times.

His hand came up before his face. The hue of the skin was much the same color as the ceiling, and there was no surprise at the ability to see in the dark. The veins on the back of his hand looked like worms crawling in the dirt.

The dog whined in the corner. It was a pitiful wail that encapsulated every ounce of regret the mutt could heave from its emotional intelligence. It sounded raw and mournful, like no human being could utter.

Giorgio glanced over to his only companion left in the world. The vestiges of humanity still stirred within his breast. He could see the glowing nimbus of its eyes and reached down to pat the side of his bunk. “Come here, boy.”

It wailed. He saw it nibbling at its foreleg, and curled into a ball and whimpered again. He couldn’t remember the last time he fed it.

“
Come here!
”

His voice rang out, and the dog barked, but the fierceness in his demeanor made the pathetic animal wilt. It whimpered and stood. Giorgio clicked his tongue and snapped his fingers. It slinked over to him but did not touch.

Anger flared within Giorgio’s tortured mind. He sat up and the dog barked and backed away, its hackles raised. Its teeth snarled like a mad thing. Giorgio stared it down. He approached the animal, put his hands up, and coaxed it to sit.

Forcing his now considerable will onto it, the animal was coaxed into compliance by his aggressive stance. He would dominant it, overwhelm its mind, and break its spirit.

Night fell.

He left the cramped quarters with the dog three steps behind. It was broken and beaten from the mental assault. It would follow him into the abyss if need be.

They walked the city of their birth. Thoughts of megalomania filled his mind. He could rebuild the Thieves Guild. With his new abilities, people would listen to him.

They needed him. They were lost and disbanded. Most were in jail. Without the protection of the Guild, they were picked up when they tried to continue their trade He would save them. No one else could hope to change things.

There was a tavern on the outskirts of the shipping yards called The Twisted Sail, a better establishment than the ones frequented near the docks, a familiar haunt of his where everyone knew him, everyone liked him. He floated past the stout doorman named Hugo. He didn’t notice the odd look the man gave him as Giorgio walked by and went to the bar.

He ordered a beer, and Giorgio felt the bartender’s heart beating in his chest. He heard the pound of his blood traveling in his veins. His heat pulsed and flickered by the motion to and from his position, the physical body a living vessel for the energy Giorgio craved.

The dog stood ready down by his feet. Its hind legs bent, the fur raised on its back, and drool dripped from its open mouth.

Giorgio sipped at his drink. The habitual routine of humanity held strong as he went through the motions. The ale had no taste.

Someone patted his shoulder. Giorgio turned and a young man, named Paige, stood before him. The sallow faced youth sported long bangs that went down to his eyebrows and rubbed his hands in nervous agitation.

“They have food for you, sir,” Paige said, giving an awkward smile. “You look like you need it.”

Giorgio looked around the room. Fear gnawed his belly. “Says who? I didn’t order any food.”

“No, but look here.” He turned and pointed to a table by the hearth where a single man sat. “That gentlemen there, a Master Benaire, wishes for you to join him.”

Giorgio peered. Though the man was alone, his aura was palpable even from the distance. The thief shrugged and walked towards the man, wary and slow but helpless to turn away. He felt hungry for the first time in weeks. But it was a different sort of hunger, almost a hunger for companionship.

The wide brim of his hat stirred memories that were not his own. Some hidden knowledge revealed. The man stood and bowed as Giorgio approached. He swept his hand out towards the table where a veritable feast had been prepared.

“Ah, my good man, please be seated. I have taken precautions for us to have every possible nicety afforded to our table.”

Giorgio almost gaped at the bevy of delicious foods presented: roast beef succulent and juicy, fine wine poured into beautiful goblets, thick potatoes and high quality vegetables heaped on huge plates, other delicacies such as pies and cakes made to the highest standard. The dog barked by his side, but it was a happy yelp. It wagged its tail, and everything seemed back to how it was.

“Please,” said the man. “Join me.”

Giorgio’s stomach grumbled, and he was compelled to sit. The dog yelped, and it made the man laugh. “A fine animal! Yes indeed. Here,” he said and grabbed the roasted leg of some dead animal off the table, “I’m sure the beast will enjoy this.” He held it down to the dog, and the mutt munched on the proffered meat. It licked the man’s hand. “Ha, ha! Wonderful beast, yes, wonderful beast. Have a seat, my dear friend, sit. You look famished.”