Ascendant: The Complete Edition by Denoncourt Richard

Author:Denoncourt, Richard [Denoncourt, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Self Land Publishing
Published: 2013-06-08T23:00:00+00:00

Dominic entered the street again.

He’d left Reggie on the roof. Men and whores and Legionnaires rushed out of the Palace and turned to look at the building, expecting a pillar of smoke. The illusion wouldn’t stretch that far, though, and it was flimsy at best. Soon the guards would realize their mistake; the building wasn’t burning down at all.

Dominic ran around to the back of the Palace. The alley was filled with men kissing the necks or lips or shoulders of gaudily dressed women. Light from the building’s elegant windows fell against the brick, illuminating the couples pressed to the walls. There was blood on Dominic’s face and hands. These people might see that as a threat. He went on regardless, looking through the windows as he passed, sending to the boys that if they had to come out, they should meet him here.

Men glanced at him, their faces elongating in fear and surprise. They pulled their women out of the alley. A few of the men, the ones looking for trouble, stood in his way.

“Alleyway’s closed,” one said, all beard and yellow eyes, wearing a stained shirt, torn jeans, and boots. He was inspecting the blood on Dominic’s hands and the knife he held in one of them.

“Put it away,” the man said.

Dominic shook his head. “I need to get through.”

“You put that knife away and give up some coin, and maybe we’ll talk.”

Dominic was silent. He could sense Michael’s illusion waning. The boy wasn’t strong enough yet—Dominic was still stunned he was able to pull off a mass illusion at all, when such a thing was said to be impossible without support.

A surge of optimism rose in his chest. Like the old days. It felt good not to be alone anymore.

A jab to the man’s throat sent him down to his knees like a curtain loosed from its rod. Dominic was behind the other men before they could make sense of what had happened. He was a shadow moving in ways a shadow wasn’t supposed to move. The men were stunned.

A woman screamed as one of the men was lifted and thrown. Another man smiled, but not with his lips; the smile had been cut into his neck. He fell clutching his wound, gurgling his last words, eyes searching for his attacker.

They fell one by one. The women in the alleyway, seeing no attacker, probably assumed that a malevolent force of some kind had been unleashed into the alley, a demon that merged with shadow and had no solid form. People had described Dominic’s work that way before.

Blood pooled. The women left footprints of it on their way out.

The last man to die fell on a pile of bodies, eyes looking up at the sky, hands clutching the wound in his belly. His eyes focused once more to take in the sight of Dominic’s face as he smiled down at the man.

“They should pay me to take the trash out in this city.”

The man blinked a few times and died.

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