Darren Craske - The equivoque principle

Quaint ground his teeth. 'I wish that were so.'

The two men patrolled around the street, circling each other slowly, neither one removing their eyes from the other. Both were now so focused upon the other that the world could have erupted into flames around them and it would have gone unnoticed. The street's merchant stores and guest houses were derelict and beyond repair. A ghost town, it provided the perfect setting for these two foes. The thunder echoed about them, the lightning throwing white cracks of radiance around the sky.

Renard waved his pistol through the air like a bandleader conducting an orchestra. 'Let me hear you ask for it, Cornelius…let me hear you beg for it.'

'The antidote, Renard,' said Quaint.

'And the rest…'

'The antidote, Renard…please.'

Renard clapped his hands with glee. 'I propose a trade: if you give me what I want-I will give you what you want.'

'What could I possibly have that you'd want, Renard?' asked Quaint, his calm exterior belying the maelstrom of emotions churning in his insides. He was watching his foe vividly, trying to guess what he would do next, but trying to outfox Renard was like trying to pinch quicksilver. Whereas Quaint's demeanour was reactive and defensive, Renard's was self-assuredly confident. He was effortlessly in control, and the Frenchman knew it. A crooked lightning vein sparked silver-white overhead, scarring the sky, and Renard was enjoying every second of his triumph.

'What do I want, monsieur? Hmm, well that's the fun part. All I want is to test your loyalty to my mother. You are more a son to her than I, and I am interested to see whether you could make the right choice if given a difficult dilemma,' said Renard, the sudden flash of light accentuating the crooked scar down the left side of his face. 'You can have the antidote for free; the only price I ask is this: I want to watch as you drink the poison too.'

Quaint scowled at him intently. 'You wish to poison me? Come on, Renard, where's the sport in that? Would it not be simpler to just put a bullet in my brain?' he asked, pointing to the gun in Renard's hand.

'Simpler, perhaps-but nowhere near as satisfying for me. You see, the problem is…there's only one vial of antidote…just enough for one dose. I thought I'd make this task a bit more of a challenge for you-I know how you have a flair for the dramatic. Such a choice…' gloated Renard, standing with his arms outstretched like a crucifix. 'Your life on one side…Madame Des-tine's on the other. Who lives-it's up to you!'

'You're insane! How can you have so little regard for life?'

'I am a killer for hire, Cornelius…having a cold heart comes with the job.' Renard flashed his eyes wider at Quaint, as if showing him the darkness inside his soul. 'But this is your decision; I do not wish to sway your judgement.'

'This is your decision, Renard, not mine! And it is you alone whom I will hold responsible should Destine die.'

'Sounds fair to me,' grinned Renard. 'Of course…you need to live if you wish to make good on your threat…and that is highly unlikely, monsieur. If you choose to drink the antidote yourself in some vain attempt to try and stop me-my mother's death will be on your conscience. Her blood will be on your hands, and you must hold yourself responsible. Tell me, Cornelius; are you ready to make the ultimate sacrifice?'

YOU'RE TWISTED, RENARD,' said Cornelius Quaint ardently. 'I always knew you were a cad, but to gamble your own mother's life…that's low even for you.'

'I do like to surprise, now and again,' Renard curled his tongue around his thin lips. 'So…what do you say? Do we have a bargain?'

'You already know what I will choose.'

'Indeed, for you truly have no choice,' said Renard. He thrust his hand into his jacket pocket, pulling out the glass vial of the deadly liquid. 'Don't worry about me. I've got enough poison to go around. I only need one single vial to do my job, and by now, the rest are well on their way to their destination.'

'The rest?' asked Quaint. 'How many of those damned things are there?'

'Enough.'

'And where is their destination, Renard?'

'Cornelius, I'm surprised at you, I really am…and you call yourself a conjuror? Do you really expect me to give up all my secrets? Where is the drama? Where are the surprises? Where is the suspense of it all?'

Unmoved by Renard's sarcasm, Quaint pressed the Frenchman with the one thing that he had as ammunition. 'What does the Hades Consortium plan on doing with the rest of the poison, Renard?'

Renard's expression fell. 'What do you know of the Hades Consortium?' he snapped, resighting his target with the pistol.

'I thought you liked surprises,' said Quaint deftly.

'It doesn't matter what you know, or think you know, Quaint. The Hades Consortium's plan for Egypt will proceed without interruption whether you know of it or not, unless you have a way of communicating from beyond the grave. In less than a month, the River Nile will run red with blood, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.'

'The Nile? I thought you planned on poisoning the Thames?' asked Quaint, trying to tease as much out of Renard as possible in case he needed to make use of it later. If there was a later, of course-an optimistic mind is easily fooled.

'The Consortium has many irons in the fire, Cornelius, and in many locations. Egypt's fate is but one of these. But back to business…poor Madame Destine doesn't have all night, you know,' Renard said. 'I went easy on her…I only gave her a small dose, and the antidote is only effective within sixty minutes. This poison is very punctual.'

'What exactly does it do?' asked Quaint.

'It kills,' said Renard, holding the vial up to the moonlight. 'With a hundred per cent success rate-that's all you need to know. Once this stuff mixes with the river, the current will do the rest for me. You should have seen what it did earlier. I have to give the stuff its due, although it's positively ghastly-it really is quite spectacular. Were Bishop Courtney still alive, I'm sure he would concur.'

'Bishop Courtney? That name keeps cropping up all over the place. On Tom Hawkspear's release papers from Blackstaff prison, for example. By now that Irish fiend should be long dead.'

'Well, that's your fault,' said Renard. 'Poor old Hawkspear is only a pawn in my game because of you.'

'What are you talking about?' said Quaint.

'Bringing Hawkspear to Crawditch was all for your benefit, did you not know? This scheme has been well planned, Cornelius, that is the way the Consortium does things.'

'How do you mean for "my benefit"?' It was then Quaint's turn to falter. 'Was Sergeant Berry correct, then? You involved me in your scheme intentionally?'

Reynolds laughed under his breath, squinting into the night sky. 'Simple physics, Cornelius. Sometimes you need to apply force from obscure angles to cause the right amount of pressure elsewhere,' a thin, crooked smile crept onto his face. 'I have orchestrated everything, my dear Cornelius-what, who, when, where -even Hawkspear's release from Blackstaff prison was on my command.'

'Twinkle's death, Prometheus taking the blame…Hawkspear was the one that did the killing…but you were pulling his strings all the time?' asked Quaint. 'Why Hawkspear specifically?'

'That maniac's appearance on the scene was engineered for one reason and one reason only-to occupy you, the great Cornelius Quaint, to keep you out of my way. I needed someone with the right amount of passion to become our killer, and once I'd discovered that Hawkspear shared a history with your strongman, it was too deliciously perfect to believe. Your man was nothing more than a very visible target. With your mind focused upon him, I knew it would be off the Bishop's plan.'