Published at 31st of October 2024 10:17 pm

Book 3 Chapter 17: You Don't Need to Flex

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Dantes spent the next two weeks consolidating his power while working with Jacopo to determine the problem with the rats he'd encountered. He took personal visits to his gardens to tend them. He went to each of the shopkeepers that paid up to him and paid them personal visits with no expectation of payments. He personally intervened in a number of jobs his men were undertaking, began to work on his pigeon dust delivery plan with a few of his smarter dealers, and closely monitored his steady acquisition of the Gatemen’s territory. While he did all of this, he maintained his regular contacts with the Fingers, monitored Godfrey’s every move as well as any changes at the Academy, and the slow, but frighteningly steady spread of whatever corruption was starting to touch the edges of his domain.

Jacopo found no more rats outside of their control, nor did he find any reason why they’d been able to resist them in the first place. With nothing else to do, he began to train with Vampa and Zak in a fighting pit, honing his fighting skills in human form.

While Dantes filled his days and most of his evenings with work, he made time to spend with Sevryn, even going so far as to have dinner with her nearly every night between her sets on stage.

Sevryn deftly speared a piece of shrimp off of Dantes’s plate and quickly ate it while he was distracted watching a small scuffle by one of the card tables in the corner.

“You know, I own this whole place. If you want more shrimp I could get you a table full.”

She smiled, her eyes and jewelry twinkling in the lantern light. “You own this whole place, you can request more shrimp for your own plate if you feel I’ve taken too much.”

Dantes took a sip of his wine to hide his own smile. “You still haven’t worn the dress I bought you.”

“I needed to take it to the tailor, the measurements were just a little off.”

“I have a tailor that I call in here once a week. I could’ve had him make the adjustments.”

She laughed a little. “I already know you own Midtown, you don’t need to flex with every other sentence you know.”

“To keep a woman like you on my arm? I’m fairly certain that’s exactly what I need to do.”

Dantes paused his flirtation for a moment. He could tell through the eyes of a pigeon on a nearby roof that something was happening at the Silken Sin. He turned his focus more fully there and saw that there was some kind of fire. A number of men and women were running out of it in various states of undress.

He spread his awareness further to see a number of men and women in gold masks moving away from the Sin at a quick pace and heading west toward the docks.

“Excuse me," he said standing up from the table, and as he did so he felt a hand touch his shoulder.

Sevryn’s eyes widened a bit as she looked behind him.

It was Gren, Argenta’s pet demon, still wearing his immaculate suit with his head of smoke.

“Godfrey is on the way to the docks. He’s leaving the city on a frigate with goods stolen from the Silken Sin, the Temple of the Many Gods, and the city itself.”

Dantes wiped his face with a napkin, relaying a message to Jacopo as he spoke. “The guard? Will they be able to seal off the docks in time?”

Gren’s smokey face flickered. “We are the only ones fast enough to stop him.”

“Zak!” Hollered Dantes across the club, causing everyone’s attention to snap to him.

Zak himself ran dramatically from the bar, threw himself up the stairs, and waited silently for whatever it was Dantes was going to ask.

“Rally the men and get them to the docks. I’ll send a white dove to guide you once you have them together. Got it?”

Zak nodded, and immediately moved to action, hollering at a few of the bouncers to gain their attention.

Dantes left the main hall of the club and went to his own chambers, climbing his staircase to the flat portion of the roof he kept. Jacopo leapt up his arm as he walked. The whole time he was moving he began to gather all of the vermin under his control, sending out his will across Rendhold and aiming all of it toward the docks like an arrow.

He ran and launched himself off the roof of the building, taking the form of a pigeon and launching himself quickly forward with rapid wingbeats. Jacopo flew just a few feet behind him and they were quickly enveloped by a cloud of bats and pigeons that he’d summoned.

There was only a sliver of moon in the sky as they flew to light them, but through their connection to Dantes every single creature moved in perfect formation toward the docks. Before he even made it to them, he sent all the rats and roaches to scan for which ship was Godfreys. It wasn’t difficult to find, with more than two dozen gold masked servants of greed on ship preparing it to leave. The ship itself was large, a warship re-fitted for someone’s personal use. He could see sails, but he was also a small chimney that meant that there was a steam engine on board as well. Dantes sent all of those vermin he had swarming across the ropes that still tied the ship to the dock and they attacked.

Two of them died to the swarm before the rest could even react, buried beneath a tide of fur and chitin. When those that had time to do so reacted, they did so calmly, keeping their cool and killing the vermin that attacked them in stark contrast to how others had reacted to such assaults in the past. Several of them cut through the ropes connecting the ship to the dock, removing those vermin's access to the ship and speeding up their ability to cast off, unfortunately for them, that was when Dantes and Jacopo arrived.

They crashed onto the deck of the ship, Dantes shifting into his own form and Jacopo shifting into the shape of a man. The cloud of flying vermin they’d brought with them joined the rest of the swarm and began tearing into the masked guards on the deck.

Dantes lifted his wooden hand, extended a wand through it, and pushed two of the goldmasks off the deck with a wall of force.

Jacopo threw himself at a goldmasked woman that was drawing a wand, broke the hand that was holding it, threw her to the ground with that arm, then snapped her neck with his foot using the broken hand as leverage.

More goldmasks began to come up from belowdecks and the ship began to move, causing Jacopo to lose his footing for a moment.

A goldmask struck at Jacopo with a shortsword at that moment, but it was caught in a cloud of black mist that quickly solidified into Gren. With his free hand that hadn’t blocked the sword, he chopped and cut the goldmasks throat, nearly beheading him before pushing the body to the side casually.

Dantes found himself cornered by three goldmasks wearing heavy armor that made them less vulnerable to the swarm he’d summoned. He shifted things around in his wooden arm and extended it in front of himself firing out a cloud of purple mist. It was risky, but the night’s air was still and he was able to create enough pressure in his wooden arm to shoot the mist so that it hit his targets with ease.

They all started coughing, but kept pushing toward him. Unfortunately for them, the coughing didn’t stop and the steps toward him grew shorter and shorter until they’d fallen onto their hands and knees clutching their chests and helmets as if they could somehow rip the poison from themselves that way. Dantes aimed carefully and extended his wooden fingers like stakes through slits in their armor to grant them mercy. He'd need to thank Mor-Gan-May again for her advice.

Jacopo drew a wand from his belt and called the vermin off of two of the goldmasks before immolating them with a powerful and concentrated blast of heat that left nothing behind of their faces other than their sparkling masks.

In less than a few minutes, the three of them had cleared the deck completely. They walked toward the entrance to the lower deck.

“Is there any way to stop the boat's movement?” Dantes asked as they moved.

Gren shrugged his shadowy shoulders. “There aren't boats in the hells. We’re here to kill or capture Godfrey. The rest is secondary.”

They climbed below decks, and Dantes was relieved to see that unlike the last ship he’d stormed, this one appeared to be the same size on the inside that it appeared to be on the outside. Gren led the way as they moved through some tight corridors toward where the captains cabin would’ve been on a ship this size, cutting through any of the goldmasks he encountered like a knife through butter. Dantes found himself wondering why he was even there, or why Argenta seemed to need his help at all if she had a tool like Gren on her side.

When they reached the last cabin, Gren pushed open the door and stepped inside. It was large, and there was no furniture inside, just a wide space with a small ceiling. Embedded in the wood, were gold coins. There was one every foot or so, and the entire cabin glittered from them. Godfrey Stood in the center of all of it, a wide smile on his golden face.

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