Adam-Troy Castro - The Third Claw of God

…as Hans Bettelhine asked me solicitous questions about my recovery and I said I was fine and Jelaine, walking right behind us, emitted a saucy laugh about what a bad patient I’d been…

…I found myself thinking with more clarity than I’d felt since my last moments on the Royal Carriage.

The AIsource’s warning and Dejah Shapiro’s warning and the last message of the Porrinyards combined with my own continuing certainty that my welcome back into the bosom of my family was too easy, too convenient, too not-what-should-have-happened when Jason and Jelaine asked their father to bring a relative of my controversial reputation back into the fold.

Maybe if he’d been another man, ruling another family. But not a family with a history of exiling its own. Not this family. Not unless.

And then I didn’t have time for unless because even as my thoughts sped up, time itself slowed down to compensate. I saw Philip, who was with Jason, about to pass through the dining room doors just five paces ahead of us, suddenly turn to his right and look not at his brother but over his brother’s head, the filial smile on his handsome face replaced by a look half resolve and half resignation.

I might have missed it any other time. But I caught it then.

And I saw what he was looking at, the one steward who had stepped out of line and was approaching on a course and speed designed to intercept Jason Bettelhine.

The steward wore the impassive, emotionless expression of any servant trained to subsume his own personality beneath a façade of yes sirs and no sirs. And he was making eye contact with Philip and giving him the nod of a man who had just received confirmation that the time was now.

He reached behind that ridiculous red sash and pulled out a black disk of a kind I’d already seen twice before.

I drew back and elbowed Hans in the side, shouting, “Watch out!”

The old man doubled over with a moan of pain and betrayal, releasing my arm and freeing me to launch myself at Jason’s back.

Jason, who must have seen my sudden move through Jelaine’s eyes, whirled just in time to register his father’s impact with the floor. He didn’t see the white-suited servant extending the Claw of God toward his back, not immediately, but Jelaine’s perspective helped him with that too. An instant before the weapon would have made contact he doubled over, spun, and drove a fist into the servant’s ribs. The would-be assassin stumbled back a step and against the wall, an ally that prevented him from falling over. He swung again with the Claw of God, driven by panic and reflex to treat it as a slashing weapon instead of one that only needed to make contact. Jason backed away from the swing only to trip over Philip’s outstretched leg and go down, hard.

I would have helped Jason, but instinct told me that if there was an assassin targeting Jason there had to be one targeting Jelaine and likely one going after me as well. So I whirled in time to catch a tableau that included a battalion of servants rushing to help us from all sides and Jelaine screaming at them to stay away. Their help would be worse than useless if that mass rush to help their employers hid the charge of further assassins, who planned to take advantage of the chaos to plant Claws of their own.

That’s when another of the servants took me down.

It was a very professional tackle, taking me in the midsection and lifting me all the way off my feet before driving me to my back several paces away. I thought I was dead before I looked into the desperate eyes of the young man trying to pin me and saw at once that this was no assassin, just a servant who had seen me elbow Hans Bettelhine and decided that I had to be part of whatever was happening.

I used a well-placed knee to commend him for his dedication and rolled away, getting up only when I thought I was free of the Bettelhine Family’s well-meaning defenders. A quick overview of the chaos around me revealed the assassin who had gone over Jason now on top of him and trying to press the Claw of God against his chest.

Philip seized the assassin’s wrist again and added his own strength to the fight.

I might have been awed by this show of filial devotion had my angle not permitted me the observation that he was doing more to drive the Claw toward his brother’s chest than assist his brother in keeping it away.

Another servant who either saw what was happening or believed it his duty to keep the eldest Bettelhine out of danger grabbed Philip by both arms and hurled him away, an act that threw off the assassin’s balance as well and lent the embattled Jason a few added seconds of life.

I whirled again and saw a quartet of guards trying to drag Jelaine away from the struggle. Another servant, producing yet another Claw of God advanced on her while she was pinned. She spun his head around with a high kick to the underside of the jaw. I think it might have killed him, but I didn’t have the time to tell for sure because that’s when I caught a flash of movement at the corner of my eye and knew it meant that this time I was next for real.

I swept the air around me with a kick not quite as elegant as Jelaine’s, connecting with nothing but driving my own assassin back a step and giving me a chance to face her. She was a snub-nosed, chubby-cheeked, frizzy-haired creature with freckled skin and no expression at all. She drew back her own Claw of God and charged, hoping that sheer determination would manage what stealth had failed to do.

By the time she was finished with her jab I was alongside it, grabbing her by both wrist and neck and using her momentum against her. It was the same move I’d used during the previous attack on me up at Layabout, except that the assassin I’d faced then had been bare-handed and harmless and the assassin whose charge I had now redirected was wielding a deadly weapon that preceded both of us as I drove us forward.

Philip Bettelhine turned toward us just in time to see the Claw of God headed right toward him and screamed like a little girl.

I might have let it strike him if not for that.

My time with the Porrinyards had mellowed me, after all.

So I let go of the off-balance assassin and let her fall down, using the heel of my shoe to shatter the hand bearing the Claw. I didn’t let her scream bother me. Nor did I worry any more about Jelaine, who had wrested herself free of her would-be protectors, ordered them to back off, and retrieved the Claw of her own unmoving assailant.

Jason, his clothing torn and his nose bloodied, stood alive and well as servants dragged away the sole traitor who had gone after him. He saw me looking at him and gave me a grim nod of satisfaction. From somewhere not far away I heard the sound of pounding feet: security, arriving with their usual efficiency now that the war was over.

Jelaine called to me. “Andrea? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” I shouted.

I did not ask how she was, or how Jason was, because I already knew more than I’d wanted to know.

I’d figured out the missing element of the plan that had propelled Jason and Jelaine to power.

Hans Bettelhine remained on the ground where I’d dropped him, hugging himself, unable to muster the will he needed to realize that the crisis was over. It could have been because I’d hit him hard, or because he was an old man and the violence in his home had been a major shock for him. But then Jelaine drifted to his side and knelt before him, her beautiful features shining with the special kind of love that is only natural to find in a loyal daughter. I saw her start whispering to him.

Philip saw the emotions playing across my features, picked up on what I’d realized, and sensed the inner war I was fighting with myself over it. The despair that had stained his features for the last few seconds now turned nasty as he confronted me, his voice low and meant for me alone. “You honestly didn’t know the worst of it until now, did you, Andrea?”