Vaughn Heppner - Assassin of the Damned

“This is interesting.”

Erasmo and I turned. There, across the lines and near the Trumpet of Blood, stood a shimmering being. His features were handsome one moment and devilish the next.

“Sound the trumpet!” Erasmo screamed. “Hurry! Do as I command!”

The shimmering being frowned. His arm lifted toward the trumpet. The arm seemed to move on its own accord.

The being said, “This is a hard thing you ask.”

“I order you!” Erasmo shouted. “I ask nothing, but demand it.”

I cracked my knuckles across Erasmo’s face. He struggled. I hit him again, and I had a moment of terrible inspiration.

I shouted, “Demon!”

The shimmering being looked at me, and he kept his features ugly.

I shoved Erasmo. He gave a bloodcurdling scream and staggered across the lines of the pattern. I’d shoved hard. Erasmo staggered and he flailed his arms.

The demon, or whatever he was, caught Erasmo. “This is very interesting,” the demon said with a malignant grin.

“Please,” Erasmo sobbed.

“I release you back to wherever you came,” I shouted. “Begone.”

“No!” Erasmo screamed, “no, no, anything but that. Don’t let him take me.”

“Now we shall see who orders whom, my little sorcerer,” the demon said. He made an imperious gesture, lifted Erasmo and walked through a hazy portion of air. The air closed. The demon, and Erasmo della Rovere, were gone.

***

My shoulders sagged. He was gone. Erasmo was gone from this world. He went to whatever Hell the thing he’d summoned had came from. I knew the legends of demons and sorcerers and what happened to sorcerers who improperly summoned them. The lines of protection, the magical pattern, kept the sorcerer safe from demonic retribution. To break the pattern or step out of it while the demon remained always spelled a horrible doom.

What was a demon but a fallen angel? Erasmo had needed an angel to blow the Trumpet of Blood. What did he care the status of said angel? The power was the thing.

Erasmo was gone. And he had sent Laura and Francesca to another place with Anaximander.

The tower swayed. Stones groaned.

What had Ippolita Conti told me? Ah. Once Erasmo died, the Tower of the East would fall apart. That was part of my last minute inspiration. To see and feel Erasmo die in my arms, oh, I’d yearned for that. Yet to achieve that meant I would’ve had to die with him. Could I survive the tower’s destruction? I had not believed so.

The Tower of the East had stood when Erasmo had crossed to the doomed Earth before. Surely the tower would stand now as the demon took him elsewhere. Demons were demonic, masters of torture. I did not think the demon would simply snuff out Erasmo’s life. That meant the tower would stand, maybe long enough for me to make my escape.

I stumbled to the trumpet. What should I do with it? If someone blew it…a third of the world’s green grasses would burn up.

I picked up the trumpet. It was heavy, and it gave my arm a strange sensation. For a moment, I had the insane desire to set my lips to it and attempt to blow. I smothered the desire. I put the trumpet in my bag. Then I hurried to an open edge and slid my legs over. It was time to flee before the tower came crashing down. It was time to get Ippolita Conti.

***

I waded deep into the Adriatic Sea. I’d trudged for nights. Each day I’d stopped. It was cold down here in the depths. I hated it. Moonbeams struggled to reach this far.

I stopped. I had no idea where exactly I stood. What I mean is that I doubted I could ever retrace my steps to this exact spot again. I scooped mud. I scooped a long time. Then I opened my bag and took out the dread Trumpet of Blood. I set it in the hole and for a long time shoved the mud back. I buried the terrible trumpet in some nameless spot in the Adriatic Sea.

I thought of something to say. Rather, I thought of some grand thought to think. Nothing came. I turned ninety degrees and began to walk toward the east shore of Italy.

I’d killed Erasmo della Rovere, or I had as good as killed him. I’d taken Ippolita Conti to Carlo da Canale for safety.

I walked underwater through a forest of seaweeds. I would find where Anaximander had taken my wife and daughter. I find that place and then I would go there and rescue them. I knew that I would do this thing, for I was once the prince of Perugia, Gian Baglioni, and I was the Darkling.