Darren Craske - The equivoque principle

With his back pressed hard against the rear wall of the Weir House, Quaint mouthed silently and counted upon his fingers. Renard had surely emptied that pistol of his by now…but had he reloaded it? He would be gambling with his life if he just strolled in through the front door. Quaint looked up at the roof of the building, but his pulsating left shoulder screamed against him doing anything even remotely strenuous, so an aerial entrance was out of the question. Quaint knew that a frontal assault was his best option…it was probably the last thing Renard would expect and, truth to tell, Cornelius Quaint did so love a good gamble.

Inside the Whitehall Weir House, Renard held the small glass vial in the palm of his hand. Not much bigger than a fountain pen, the deadly liquid looked harmless to the naked eye, and even Renard himself had questioned its potency, until he had watched the Bishop's veins implode as the acidic parasitic liquid devoured him from the inside out. That was just the latest image in a long line of nightmarish scenes that the man had seen-and caused -during his adult life. This current plot would certainly be his most ambitious, but the only drawback was him not being able to see for himself the deaths that it would surely cause. He usually enjoyed seeing the fruits of his hard labour blossom in front of his eyes, but it was an acceptable loss.

Renard was lost in this world of his. Above the din of the swirling weirs, he was oblivious to the sight of Cornelius Quaint stumbling into the Weir House through the two large wooden doors behind him.

The circus-owner-come opportunist, come sometime conjuror-took advantage of his foe's fascination with the swirling waters. His face knotted into a grim mask of fury, Quaint slammed his sizeable bulk into the wiry Frenchman. Both men crashed to the metal floor of the house's observation platform. Quaint's shoulder lanced a spark of acidic fire as he hit the ground. Every molecule of his body cursed him, but still he pressed onwards, his fists flailing wildly as he pummelled the French mercenary with rapid, powerful punches.

'Quaint? Alive?' Renard yelled. 'You're signing your own death warrant.'

'No, Renard,' Quaint said. 'I'm signing yours.'

'And what about my mother, hmm? You just left her to rot?' Renard said, trying to twist his body from under Quaint. He punched Quaint's wounded shoulder, and the conjuror screamed with an uncommon wail of agony.

'There's more at stake here than just one life-even Destine's -what you propose is mass slaughter, Renard!' shouted Quaint, a spray of spittle forming between his clenched teeth. 'You're planning on killing hundreds of people.'

'Actually, our analysts predict thousands.' Renard pulled at Quaint's coat, and kicked him aside. Getting to his feet, Renard towered over Quaint's hunched form. 'Do you really think you have it in you to stop me, Cornelius? Look at you-lying there…half-dead. You're a washed-up, middle-aged, has-been conjuror…fit enough only to run a bloody circus!'

'Better what I am than what you are, Renard.' Quaint lunged with his fist towards Renard's face, but the Frenchman easily avoided it.

Quaint gripped onto the metal railings of the platform and hoisted himself up to his feet. The worrying thing was that Renard was right. Quaint was practically running on fumes, his energy reserves depleted.

'You know, it's funny,' laughed Renard. 'You tell everyone that you're a magician…but in all the years I've known you, I've never actually seen you do any magic tricks,' Renard lashed out with his fist, catching Quaint another blow square in his wounded shoulder. 'You had a chance! You had a chance to save your precious Madame Destine…and you have squandered that chance. Now, both of you will die.'

'You know me better than most, Renard,' said Quaint, glaring menacingly at his foe as he nursed his bloodied shoulder. Red trickles of blood oozed between his fingers. 'You know I'll stop you…even if it costs me my life.'

'Well, you've got about five minutes, if you last that long; I've seen lepers who look more healthy.' Renard stepped closer and looked Quaint up and down. 'If you could only see yourself, Cornelius, you are nothing but a husk. A mere shadow of your former self, monsieur! It is almost unsporting of me; I think that maybe I should shoot you like the lame old nag you are, non?' Renard reached into his mud-stained jacket, and pulled out the revolver. 'You may have got lucky before, but at this range, even you can't pull a vanishing trick.'

'I won't have to if I've counted correctly,' said Quaint dryly.

'Enough pithy conversation, Cornelius,' Renard said. 'Au revoir.'

Renard pulled the pistol's trigger.

An empty snap sounded out around the Weir House.

He squinted at Quaint, and then the gun. He pulled the trigger, again and again. The pistol's hammer struck nothing but an empty chamber. Quaint's gamble had paid off-luckily for him. Renard threw the gun furiously at Quaint, who side-stepped out of the way. His legs almost gave way beneath him, his muscles still unsteady. He gripped onto the railings for balance.

'You are a tired old man, and I hardly need a gun to finish you off,' Renard said, edging slightly closer to Quaint. 'It looks to me as if you are already dead.' Renard crossed his arms, and a smug grin emerged on his gaunt face. 'That poison's not eating away at your insides already, is it? I told you this was potent stuff.' He removed a vial of the poison from his pocket, and waved it in the air. Quaint clutched at it drunkenly, miles off target, and Renard snatched it from his flailing grasp. 'You're lucky that poison you consumed wasn't mixed with water, Cornelius, or it would be ten times as strong. You will soon have a front row seat to watch its effects!'

'You monster…I'll stop you!' said Quaint.

'How, mon ami? Look at you! Look at your hands. You are shaking like a leaf in autumn.'

Quaint stared down at his quivering hands. Renard was right. They were gradually shifting from side to side, blurred into nightmarish mutations, replaced by mirror images of multiple hands, each one seeming to emanate from his wrists. This was the poison inside of him, transfixing his vision, betraying his eyes. His stubbornness alone had battled its effects so far, but now, in his weakened state, the poison was gaining the upper hand. It was reaching a crescendo inside of him, and his strength had finally given up the ghost. It was pointless to fight a battle you could not win…

He collapsed onto his knees, trying desperately to decipher what was reality and what was illusion. His mind was feeding his eyes falsehoods. His ears were hearing non-existent sounds all around him. Up was down and down was up, and the room was spinning like a feather in a hurricane. The more he tried to focus, the more blurred his sight became.

'If you think you are in trouble now, mon ami, just imagine what it would be like to drink a whole one of these vials,' Renard gloated, tapping the vial with his fingertip, watching Quaint's face change from aggressor into something akin to a child experiencing pain for the very first time. 'But you should be proud of yourself for getting this far, Cornelius.'

Quaint looked up in confusion. 'You'll hang for this.'

'They will have to catch me first,' said Renard with a vicious grin, strolling around behind Quaint. He snatched at the conjuror's scalp, wrenching his head back sharply, and he sneered close to his ear. 'I may have been dead to you, these past fifteen years, but that doesn't mean you've been dead to me. I've kept an eye on you, Cornelius. Oh, yes! And were it not for you choosing now of all times to bring your circus here to London, our paths might never have crossed again.' Renard let Quaint's head go, and it nodded limply. 'And now…I really must conclude this little tete-a-tete of ours. I have more pressing things to do.' Renard uncorked the glass vial, and held it teasingly over the side of the observation platform.