Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 23 of 57

Damian waited until dark before he moved. The guards still watched the tower's front doors. He would not go that way. He circled the block and found a service alley behind the glass tower. A delivery cart stood there, half unloaded. Two men in dark coats guarded the back door. Damian pressed to the wall and watched the cart. Crates went up on a lift inside. He saw his way in. He waited for the loaders to turn. Then he slipped past the guards and climbed onto the lift beside the crates. The cage rose. Floor after floor slid past the glass. At the top the doors opened onto a wide room. One man stood at the far window with his back to the door. Two guards flanked him. Damian stepped out, sword drawn, the blue jewels burning in the dim light. "Turn around," Damian said. The man turned. He was older, dressed well, calm. He looked at the shining blade and did not flinch. "Parker's dead, then," he said. "I paid him twice and he still failed me. Careless work." Damian pulled the bloody envelope from his coat and threw it on the floor between them. "Your name. Your signature. You paid to kill my father. You scarred my mother." The man glanced at the envelope. "I paid for a job. Nothing more." He waved a hand at his guards. They drew clubs and stepped forward. Damian did not wait. He moved inside the first guard's swing and cracked the flat of his blade across the man's wrist. The club dropped. The second guard rushed him. Damian turned, hooked the man's arm, and threw him into a table. Glass shattered. Both guards lay groaning on the floor. Damian set the point of his sword at the mastermind's chest. "You cannot walk out," the man said. His calm cracked now. "I have men on every floor." "You will fight me," Damian said. "A duel. Sword against sword. You answer for my father with your own hand." The man laughed once, thin and dry. He did not reach for a weapon. Instead he backed toward the window and pressed something on the wall. A bell rang below. Boots pounded up the stairwell. "I don't duel," he said. "I hire. That's the difference between us, boy." Damian lunged, but the man threw open a narrow door behind the drapes and slipped through. Damian heard a bolt slide home. He struck the door twice. It held. The guards were coming fast up the stairs now, a dozen at least. Damian had reached the top. He had faced the man who paid for his father's death. He had heard him admit it. But the mastermind had fled behind a locked door, and the tower was full of armed men climbing toward him. He had proof and a face now. He also had one way out, and it was down.