The Death of Dulgath (52 page)

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Authors: Michael J. Sullivan

Tags: #fantasy, #thieves, #assassins, #assasination, #mystery, #magic, #swords, #riyria, #michael j. sullivan, #series, #fantasy series

BOOK: The Death of Dulgath
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Daniel felt the world fall away. “They
did
this to her?”

The doctor nodded with a sad smile. “Others, too. But we’re going to turn the tables on them. Methuselah will keep Estrella alive, and with her blood I’ll be able to create a vaccine, so they can’t do the same to others. It’ll take some time, but big changes are coming—soon. Your little girl is going to play an important part in that. You should be very proud.”

Daniel looked at Estrella lying on the counter, so small. Beautiful, like her mother. He knew she would help people one day, but he never could have guessed
this
.

“Do it,” he said.

The doctor nodded and raised the needle to her wrist.

From outside, an enhanced voice boomed: “This is the police. We are conducting a building-to-building search for the fugitive Daniel de Montes, wanted for assaulting a Methuselite. If you know his whereabouts, please activate your security beacon now.”

The doctor looked over at Daniel. “You?”

“Please, don’t stop. My daughter—”

“If they find me helping you, they’ll arrest me, too. Then they’ll search the clinic. It will ruin everything.”

“This is the police…” repeated the message from beyond the clinic’s door. Closer now, maybe a few buildings away.

“I’m begging you,” Daniel said. “Give her the injection before it’s too late.”

“It’s already too late. I can’t expose the clinic. I’m sorry.” He slipped the syringe into his coat pocket and pressed a button under the counter.

More noise now, directly outside. Daniel could hear the scruff of boots outside the door and harsh voices.

Daniel lunged and grabbed the doctor’s gun from its holster. He raised and pointed it directly at the doctor’s head.

“What are you doing?”

“Promise you’ll take care of her,” Daniel said.

“What do you—?”

The front door to the clinic crashed open, followed by two large, dark-jacketed police officers brandishing laser pistols. The doctor jumped back at the sound, but Daniel held firm and kept the gun steady. The officers looked from Daniel to the doctor and back, then took aim at Daniel.

Perfect. Now if the doctor will just follow my lead…

“Drop your weapon!” one of the officers shouted, stooping into a crouch.

“Come any closer,” Daniel said, “and the doctor dies!” He meant the doctor no harm, and hoped the young man understood Daniel was providing cover. He would only have a second before—

The crouching officer opened fire, severing Daniel’s gun arm from the rest of his body at the elbow.

He collapsed to the floor in a heap, screaming and clutching his cauterized stump. The other officer ran forward and grabbed him with his Taser gloves, paralyzing him.

“You okay, Doc?” the officer who’d cut off Daniel’s arm asked, holstering his pistol.

Daniel grit his teeth through the pain and looked up to the doctor, trying to read his face or catch a sign.

The doctor nodded—
at Daniel!
“Yes, everything’s fine now. Thank you, Officers.”

The police appeared blessedly oblivious. “This guy is some piece of work. He attacked Kai Ripsen, can you believe it? What’d he want with you, anyway?”

The doctor indicated the girl on the counter. “This is his daughter. Wanted me to save her, but she was already dead when he came in.”

The officer nodded. “You want me to send someone for her body?”

“No need. I’ll fill out the death certificate and call the coroner. You’ve already done more than enough. Thank you again. I’d hate to think what would have happened if you didn’t arrive when you did.”

The officer smiled. “All in a day’s work.” He turned to his partner: “I’ll take his arm; you get the rest.” He picked up the gun and Daniel’s severed arm. “Come by the station later, we’ll need you to sign a statement.” The officer waved goodbye with the arm. The other Tased Daniel a second time and stooped to lift him under the armpits, dragging him across the floor.

Daniel struggled to stay conscious. He wanted to see Estrella for as long as he could.

As he was dragged from the clinic, he watched the doctor take the syringe from his coat pocket and inject Methuselah into Estrella’s wrist.

<<<<>>>>
 

T. C. Powell starves full-time and writes award-winning short fiction on the side. His stories—ranging from science fiction to horror to mainstream and everything in between—have appeared in
Flash Fiction Online, New Myths, Every Day Fiction,
and several other online and print publications. After he took a brief hiatus from the craft for the birth of his beautiful daughter, 2015 has proven to be a tremendous year for T. C. Not only is he the proud winner of Michael J. Sullivan’s Short Story Contest, but he’s also the two-time recipient of the Penn Cove Literary Arts Award and a finalist for the prestigious Writers of the Future competition. He looks forward to building upon this momentum in 2016 and beyond. You can find out more about T. C. at his website:
www.tcpowellfiction.blogspot.com

Acknowledgments

It takes a great many people to produce a work of this nature, especially under the deadline pressure I had for this book. I find it’s impossible to fully express my appreciation. You’d think I’d be able to, given I write for a living. But heartfelt isn’t nearly enough and all other words fail. First, of course, I’d like to thank my wife, Robin. If you were a backer of the Kickstarter or a member of the beta crew, you know just a little about how hard she works. What you didn’t see is all the effort she put into the book before it reached anyone else. Her structural, line, and copyedits have made this book better than I could have produced on my own, and we all owe her a debt of gratitude.

Speaking of editing, I also want to thank three amazing copyeditors for their incredible talent: Laura Jorstad, Paul Witcover, and Linda Branam. I’ve worked with Paul and Laura before (both were editors for
Hollow World
), and Linda joined the team after impressing Robin with her attention to detail and unique perspective during the beta read. I’m not sure anyone but writers fully appreciate just how amazing copyeditors are. Only we see where the book started and know how it differs from the final version. I can assure you their contributions have been monumental.

Which segues nicely into the beta readers! This was our largest beta to date. More than fifty people provided feedback, including rating the chapters and answering survey questions. When all was said and done we had rankings for more than a thousand chapters! Thanks to Robin’s hard work, the book was in really good shape when it went out. Still, there was room for improvement, and the beta readers contributed tweaks to a number of key scenes. There isn’t enough space to go into full detail, but you can learn more in my e-book
The Making of the Death of Dulgath.
It’s free for anyone who is interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of this book. Just drop me an email at
[email protected]
to get a copy.

Once again, we utilized the amazing artistic talent of Marc Simonetti to create the book’s cover. If you aren’t familiar with his work, definitely check it out. Not only has he created covers for the French edition of my Riyria books and
Hollow World,
but he has also developed stunning work for Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles, George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series, and dozens of others. I’m pleased to announce that Del Rey will be using Marc for my new series, The First Empire. The first book,
Age of Myth,
will be released June 7, 2016.

Speaking of Del Rey, I want to thank them on a number of fronts. First, they generously rearranged their editorial schedule so you all could get a sneak peek of
Age of Myth
in this book. When
The Death of Dulgath
went to press, they had just finished structural edit feedback, but even so, they were able to have the first chapter copyedited ahead of the rest of the book. Second, I’d like to thank them for their flexibility, which made it possible to get this book released before rolling out The First Empire series. Again, you can read more about that in
The Making of the Death of Dulgath
e-book.

For those who don’t know, we held a Kickstarter to fund a hardcover print run for this book. Original estimates for printing, shipping, warehousing, and paying the talented individuals listed above were around $33,000. Robin and I decided to foot $7,000 for the book’s production and asked the Kickstarter community for $26,000 for the hardcover print run. If the project failed, the book would still have been produced, just not in hardcover. Well, to our astonishment, the project funded in less than two days and went on to raise more than $73,000, becoming the third-highest-funded fiction project to date. But that’s not all. Afterward, people bought all kinds of cool add-ons (posters, T-shirts, coffee mugs, and such), and even more backers joined the party. When Robin finally locked down the project, it had raised in excess of $90,000 from 1,876 people. How crazy is that?

One of the rewards for the backers of
The Death of Dulgath
Kickstarter is seeing their name in print, proclaiming to all the world their support of the democratization of publishing. Some chose to remain anonymous, so this list isn’t complete, but my gratitude goes out to each and every person who made the Kickstarter such a huge success. I like to treat all backers equally, but there were a large number of people (more than two hundred) who contributed at levels that I never dreamed possible. To them I want to give a little special recognition, so I did divide the list just a bit. Without further delay, here are my amazing backers!

GOLD LEVEL CONTRIBUTORS

Alastair • Pen Astridge • Jon Auerbach • Joshua Axelson • Keri & Patrick Bailey • Heather Barcomb • Jose J. Barrera • Tyke Beard • Brian Becker • Mark Becker • Cheryl Beebe-Skynar • Caleb Billman • Richard P. Bissmire • Airon Black • Dietmar Bloech • Kris Boultbee • Chad & Anna Britt • Kristi Rae Britt • Davonne Burns • Emily Burns • Jennifer Burns • Christopher Buzzard • Guy Byars • Jeffrey Carr • David Lars Chamberlain • Jaime Chan • Martin Forbes & Julia Charlow • Cpl Chris • Christy, Abby, & Jollin • Greg Clinton • Christine A. Cooney • Michelle Cooper • Macy Coward • Leland Crawford • Jackie Cuda • Elizabeth Daly • Ruth Angela Davies • Alexander Davis • Marcel de Jong • The Delicious One • William Demas • Paul Mervyn Dennison • Machikas Dimitrios • Randy, Marla, & Colin Doan • Andrew Doherty • Alexi Dollar • Sean Dornan-Fish • Christy L. Downey • Linda du Toit • Lee Dunning • Britney N. Duston • Mike Dysput • Steven Ede • Shirley Ednave • Angela Bradley & Kevin Enax • Derek Ferguson • Don, Beth & Meghan Ferris • Holly Flumerfelt • Cathy Fox • Emily Fuller • Chris Garrett • John J. Gerber • Andrew Gilbert • Chad & Morgan Gill • Steve Gordon • Cara Gorman • Dion Graybeal • Samantha Greenland • Rita Grensing • Therese Guerette • Allen & Marce Guthier • Jason K. Hackworth • Travis Hammons • Nicholas Hart • Tammy Hayne • Leah Asher • Douglas Hoffman • Sabrina Hofmann • Sir Jamie Howe • Santiago Hoyos • Christopher A. Huddleston • Ed Hunkin • Peter Hutchinson • John Idlor • Neil Illing • Martin Jackson • Erik Jarvi • Jiazheng • Morten Johansson • Erik T. Johnson • Rebecca and Shawn Jones • Jonna in Aurora • Michelle Jordan • Frank Juranich • Gustavo Tomas Lopez Justo • John Kane • Kevin Kastelic • John M. Kelly • Michael Kelly • Jordan Kemp • Adam Kice • Laura Kimble-Buschelmann • Kim Kline • Krendal • Kristina • Kimberly Kunker • Jeff & Ari Kupferberg • Llorente Lacap • S.K. Lamont • Shawn Larsen • Shirley Lawson • Andreas Leathley • Harry Lee • Keir Lee • Lennhoff Family • J. Leone • Viky Lercher • T. Lewis • Sebastian Linusson • Ariel Yining Loh • J. Lee Lokere • Patrick J. Loller • Andrea Luhman • Mark Lusher • Rissa Lyn • Renan Machado • Maile • Tracey Maknis • Brandon Makowecki • Brenda Marshall • Richard Martin • Paul Matchen • Randy & Chris Mathis • Zachary A. Matzo • Shelly McCann • Kevin McCormick • Michael & Susan McCrum • Bobby McDaniel • Hunter McDole • Amy McKenna • Jack & Kayleigh McKinley • Laura McNaughton • Steven Mentzel • Joby Metcalfe • Stefanie R. Midlock • Corinne Milardo • Annarose Mitchell • Christina Moe • Amanda Moore • Charles Moorhead • G. Moos • Calvin Moy • Francis Muhawij • Dianne Munro • H. Murray • NDC • John Neal • Neecy • Heike Nicks • Dino Nowak • Janet L. Oblinger • Jasmine Olsen • Katherine Owen • Gina Palmer • Paul M. Parra • Allison Pauli • Tina Persch • Joleen K. Peterson • Karina Pfleider • Jennifer L. Pierce • Andrew Preece • Heather Quigg • Jay Quigley • Cindy Radvany • David Ramirez • Tricia Reid • Amber Rendmeister • Grant “WereTiger” Rietze • Charles Roque • Abhilash Sarhadi • Eric Schwartz • Ryan Seaman • Gopakumar Sethuraman • Tina Marie Sharp • Shiro • Brian Sieglaff • Cassidy Singleton • Heber Sorenson • Margaret M. St. John • Erik W. Stegman • Theresa Stephen • Sean Stockton • Thom Stratton • StreamCyper • Julian Stribling • Carole Strohm • Jenn Strohschein • Shawn F. Sullivan • Ashli T. • Louise Tarbit • Stephanie Tettamanti • thesfshark • Chadzilla B. Thompson • David J. Thompson • Ben Trehet • Karilyn Turner • Waszer • Charles G. Weller III • Sam White • Lara Whitehead • Philip J. Whyte • Dick Wilkin • Scott M. Williams • Leilani Wills • John Gregory Wynn • Brandon Zarzyczny • Géraldine Zenhäusern • Perrin Zideos

CONTRIBUTORS

A Fan of Words • M.C. Abajian • Zuraida Abbasi • Benjamin Abbott • Zuhur Abdo • David Abraham • Dumont Abraham • Thérèse Abrams • Jennifer Acunto • Michael Adams • Adina • Jeremy Agnew • Kawika Aguilar • Matthew B. Aguirre • Robert Aitken • Baldomero Castelan Alarcon • Lee Albanese • Alfonso Albarran • Cameron Albert • Albert Shafsky House B&B • Robert S. Aldrich II • Alissa • Jeremy Allen • Kate Allen • Shawn Allen • Jacob T. Allenstein • James Alleyn • Almudena • Kenneth & Melissa Alo-ad • Heather J. Alston • Stanley Altfeld • Andrea Alvarez • Trine Lise Alvestad • Ben Ames • AmethystOrator • Rob Amunds • Gary Anastasio • Svend Andersen • Amanda Anderson • Chris Anderson • Dennis E. Anderson • Eric Anderson • Sean Anderson • David Andre • Ron Andrea • Dennis Andrews • Sue Armitage • Pam Arnold • Ash • Matthew Ashley • John Fredrik Asphaug • Chad Atchison • Isabella Phoenix & Xavier Atlas • RJ Ayres • Ariane B. • Joel DL Baass • Kerri Babbitt • Justin Bader • Shannon Badnell • Matt Baguley • Wes Baker • Edea Pitre Baldwin • Tayla Balkovic • Meghan Ball • Dan Banks • Preston Bannard • Joshua Barber • Jan-Michael Barlow • Dave Barfoot • William Paul Barnes • Deborah Barr • Paul Barrientos • Michael Basaldella • Basenji Studios, LLC • Sam Baskin • Michelle Beahm • David Bean • Craig Beaumont • Andrew Beckman • Anne Beckmann • Danielle Bednar • RJ Beem • Nathan Beittenmiller • Dana Belden • Derek Bell • Kate Bella • Jim Bellmore • Férial Benaïssa • Cody Benke • Michael C. Bennett • Steven A. Bennett • Larry Berger • Evy Bernier • Dustin & Nicole Berry • Blake Berryhill • Taylor Besenski • Nathan Best • Oliver Beuchat • Rich Billeaud Jr. • Mick Biondi • Justin Blaske • Richard E. Blenis • Billie Bock • A.J. Bohne • Mircea Boistean • Jeremy Bokus • István Boldog-Bernád • Brian Boles • Amy Bolla • Nancy Bonanno • Seth Bonney • Bookstooge • Mark Booth • Katharina Bordet • Matt Borkowski • Carey Bostwick • Marilyn Bourdeau • Marius Bovet • Chad Bowden • Joe Bradley • Barry Bragg • Melissa J. Brandau • Tiago Bras • Gregory E. Bray • John Anthony Brennan • Zachary Brennan • Chandler Brett • Brick Letter Law • Hannah Bridge • Brijwhiz • Phil Brillant • Alexandra Rose Brilz • Jason Brinkerhoff • Becky Brock • Joe Brodecki • Rachel Broome • Christina & Terry Brown • Matthew Brown • Nick Brown • Rose Broyles • Jana Broz • Meleah Bryan • Ian Buckley • Travis Bughi • Eftichia Bukas • Rick Bundren • Tomas Burgos-Caez • Robert E. 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