Eric Lustbader - The Testament

Pulling the hood of his appropriated robe up over his head, he walked with the sword-cane hidden behind him and his head down directly toward the Guardian. The man, a young, slender Venetian with a face still in the process of maturing, said, "You're ten minutes early, but I could use the relief."

Rule threw a punch to his solar plexus and then, as the Guardian doubled over, chopped down on the exposed back of his neck with the edge of his hand. Rule caught the Guardian as he slumped into unconsciousness and dragged him further down the hallway into a corner, where he piled him into the shadows.

Returning to the closed door, he put his ear to it. He could hear a voice he recognized as Zorzi's and someone else replying, but the second voice was too far away for him to be certain it was Bravo's.

He breathed deeply and slowly, his fingers tightened on the hilt of the sword-cane. His other hand gripped the doorknob, turning it slowly to the left. He was opening the door slowly and silently when he felt a tiny flicker of pain in the side of his neck. He started, turning instinctively, his senses already swimming as if he were drunk, and saw a face leering at him like a Carnevale mask.

Struggling through the chemical fog of the drug, he understood what had happened, and he pulled out the tiny dart that had embedded itself in his neck.

"Too late." The leering face laughed.

A moment later, the world disappeared from view, and Rule toppled over.

Bravo's eyes were bulging and there was a burning in his lungs. He knew if he didn't get oxygen soon he'd lose what was left of the strength in his limbs. Once that happened, he would be helpless. He couldn't let that happen.

In his mind's eye, he saw his father, and he a boy of eleven, learning how to use his body, to stretch it past its assumed natural limits.

"Relax, Bravo," his father said. "When you try too hard, your body will resist you. Mind and body need to work together, like a team."

Instead of continuing to fight Anzolo, Bravo let his limbs go limp. He allowed his eyelids to flicker, his breathing became erratic. His reward was the grin on Anzolo's face as he bent forward to apply more pressure. That was when Bravo slammed his forehead into the bridge of Anzolo's nose. A fountain of blood gushed out, and Anzolo reared back.

Bravo twisted from his hips and Anzolo lost his balance. Bravo rose up and brought the full force of his fists against the other's ear. Anzolo went down and Bravo was on him.

"Where is Zorzi?" He slammed the back of Anzolo's head against the stone floor. "Tell me where he went!"

Anzolo told him.

Bravo released him and began to turn away. Anzolo grabbed at him in desperation, trying to gouge out his eye, but Bravo used the Guardian's own momentum against him, swinging his body around in a shallow arc, using the entire force of it behind his cocked elbow. He felt the clavicle shatter, and then the Guardian collapsed onto the refectory floor.

In an instant, Bravo was up and sprinting out the door.

"The neurotoxin will only last two or three minutes," Alvise said.

"That will be sufficient," Paolo Zorzi said as he stared into Anthony Rule's slack face. Rule regarded him with the peculiar wide-eyed stare of the newly paralyzed.

He and Alvise had carried Rule into the room, setting him down on a chair to whose legs they had lashed his ankles. His hands were tied behind his back.

Alvise already had a knife out, its gleaming point pressed against the hollow at Rule's throat.

"How d'you like the feel of this, Rule?" he said. "How d'you think it's going to feel when I push the blade in inch by agonizing inch."

"Careful," Zorzi said mildly, as if he did not mean what he said.

"I want him to pay for each and every sin he has committed."

"I'm afraid that would take several lifetimes." Zorzi took a handful of Rule's hair. "Wouldn't it, Anthony?"

"You were asked a question." Alvise dug the point of the blade in, turning it so that a drop of deep-red blood was held on the forged stainless steel. "Rude of you not to answer."

"Your time has run out." Zorzi bent over him, staring into his ferocious half-glazed eyes. "You no longer have Dexter Shaw to protect you. You're alone and naked in front of your judge." He jerked on Rule's hair. "I will now pronounce sentence and Alvise will act as executioner, a mantle he is all too eager to don in your honor."

Zorzi's lips pulled back from his teeth. "You are guilty, Rule, guilty on all counts. And now I have the satisfaction of informing you that the sentence of death will be carried out."

Zorzi was aware of a blur of motion, and then Alvise was falling and there was blood spattering on him like rain. He jerked erect and looked at Bravo, who was pointing the SIG Sauer at him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Untie him," Bravo said, gesturing at Rule.

"That would be most unwise. You have no idea what you're doing, what a grave mistake you're-"

"Shut up and do it!" Bravo said. He stood far enough away from Zorzi that the other had no chance to reach him.

"I won't." Zorzi shrugged. "Go ahead and shoot me while you have the chance. No? I see, you haven't the nerve or the fortitude. Coward! Of what use are you to the Order?"

He rushed Bravo, who pulled the trigger of the SIG Sauer. Nothing happened: the trigger was frozen in place. Zorzi was upon him, slamming him backward against the wall. He was grinning grotesquely, like some evil ogre out of a Grimm's fairy tale. "The gun is useless, it won't fire, and now where are you, do you suppose?"

Bravo slammed the butt of the gun into the spot behind Zorzi's ear. Zorzi went down, just as Alvise had, and stayed down.

Quickly, Bravo untied Rule. "Uncle Tony, can you hear me?"

Rule's lips moved slightly but no sound emerged. His eyes were clearer and more focused.

"What did they do to you?"

"Neurotoxin." Rule's voice was thin and reedy, as if he hadn't used it for some time. "Delivered with a blow-dart."

"Can you stand up? Here, let me help you." Bravo put his arm around Rule and lifted. He grunted with the drag of the dead weight, all the bruises and contusions he'd sustained in his hand-to-hand combat with Anzolo burning into him like tattoos.

Then Rule began to regain some motor control, and he took more and more of his own weight into his legs and hips.

"How did you find me?" he said.

"I came looking for Zorzi."

Rule nodded, still groggy. He turned back toward Zorzi. "Kill him, Bravo. It's the perfect time."

"Uncle Tony, we have to get out of here now."

Still Rule resisted. "Do it, Bravo."

"No, Uncle Tony, not in cold blood."

"You'll regret it. The sonuvabitch will come after you."

"I'm not a murderer."

"This isn't murder, it's an execution." Rule held out his hand. "Give me the gun."

"Uncle Tony, no."

But Rule had grabbed the SIG Sauer and, aiming it at Zorzi, pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Taking advantage of Rule's surprise, Bravo wrested the gun away from him. For a frozen moment they stood staring at one another.

The next instant, they heard a noise in the corridor just outside the door, and the two of them froze. Rule put his forefinger across his lips, crossed silently to the door, and without a moment's hesitation, swung it quickly open.

A Guardian with his hand still on the doorknob stumbled in, and Rule drove a knee into his midsection with such ferocity that he broke several ribs.

"Come on!" Bravo whispered, taking the opportunity to get Rule out of the room and away from Paolo Zorzi. As much as he hated the traitor, he could not be a party to his cold-blooded murder. Did that make him weak, a coward? Would his father have made a different choice? This was the Voire Dei, after all-he was far away from the civil and criminal laws that governed other people. But what about the laws of morality? Did being a part of the Voire Dei give him the right to abrogate those? Even if it did, he still had a choice in the matter and, for better or worse, he had made his.