Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 8 of 57

The smoke had cleared, but the trail was cold. Damian sat on a stone in the temple courtyard, the iron token in his palm. Its unknown mark meant the killer no longer ran on his own. Someone gave the orders. Someone would send him back. Damian did not know when. He only knew he was waiting again, and this time the enemy chose the hour. Rolo Nash landed beside him. She had climbed the temple's steep arch to think, the way she always did. Her patched red jacket was still gray with ash from the ravine. She dropped the way a cat drops, silent, and held out her hand. "Give me the token." Damian handed it over. "It's just a mark. I've stared at it all morning." "You stared. I look." She turned it in the light. Then she stopped moving, which for Rolo meant something. "I've seen this. On a wagon. Back with the circus. Men bought two of our knife-throwers and paid in coin stamped like this." She tapped the mark. "They came from the east road. Always the east road." Damian stood. "You know where he'll come from." "I know where his masters are." She met his eyes. "You don't have to wait. You can pick the ground." His pulse quickened. For weeks the killer had struck on his own terms. Now Damian held the thread that led back to the hand behind the blade. He gripped the gemmed sword. The blue stone caught the pale light. "Then we stop waiting." "There's a cost." Rolo did not flip or grin now. "If we ride east, we leave the temple open. He could come here while we're gone." Damian looked at the great stone doors, the tall carved arches where he had learned control. His mother's scarred face rose in his mind. He breathed, cleared it, the way the master taught him. "He wants me, not stone. He follows the sword. The sword goes with me." He wrapped the blade in cloth. "He comes to us on the road, or we reach his masters first. Either way, no more sitting." Rolo pocketed the token and pointed her chin at the raven perched on the arch. "Bring the bird. We'll need eyes." The raven dropped and glided ahead, as if it had already chosen the road. They walked out through the temple doors together. Behind them the empty hall waited, silent. Damian did not look back. The waiting was over. He had turned the hunt around. Somewhere east, the masters who scarred his family did not yet know he was coming.