Chapter 37. Your Witness

  “This one is quite simple,” said Pete, “All I need you to do is sneak into that home right there and have the man inside ingest a single drop of this tonic.” He waggled a tiny bottle of a clear liquid.

  “I’m drawing the line. I’m not going to poison anyone for you,” said Jeremiah. “Threaten me however you want, but I’m no assassin.”

  “Hush, hush, hush! No, no, dear lad, perish the thought. Ol Pete is no assassin, heavens forbid.”

  “You told me you have people killed just a couple hours ago,” said Jeremiah. His skin still burning from his encounter with Madam Furchot.

  Pete rubbed his eyes. “Er, yes, I suppose I did. Pardon me lad, I find myself in need of rest after a harrowing few days. But no, this is no poison. It’s nothing but a simple tonic that will raise the ire of the drinker. Place him in a foul mood come the morning.”

  “You want me to put him in a bad mood?” asked Jeremiah. There had to be simpler ways to do that. “I could just throw a rock through his window, that’d certainly put me in a bad mood.”

  “Lad, you’ll forgive my impatience, but we are on a tight schedule. Suffice to say I need him in a bad mood. Not defiant in the face of forces arrayed against him. Now, if you please, we have one more stop after this one, and it must be timed precisely.”

  Jeremiah glanced at the house Pete had indicated. “Pete, he’s awake. He’s right there, I can literally see him working.”

  The man was young, in the prime of his life. A lantern illuminated the room where he bent over a reading desk. Beside him was a wine glass and half-empty bottle. He wore the same look of ardent concentration Jeremiah had seen on Delilah’s face during long, challenging nights.The hour was well past midnight, but this man was awake as day, scribbling furiously.

  “Counselor Berard is a hardworking man, to be sure,” said Pete. “Now get to it, if you will, I have a particularly tight schedule to keep.” He pressed the tonic into Jeremiah’s hand and disappeared into the night.

  The home was a first floor apartment. Jeremiah was thankful for that small favor at least. His arms still ached from the tower climb.

  “This guy isn’t going to sleep anytime soon, is he?” thought Jeremiah.

  “He’s likely got a court date in the morning. He’s refreshing and planning his strategy,” said Delilah.

  “So no cat nap before?”

  “Never!” said Delilah.

  Jeremiah watched for a time, obscured by the darkness of the streets. Counselor Berard seemed completely unaware of the world outside.

  “Could cause a distraction and try to slip in,” thought Jeremiah. It seemed risky. If Counselor Berard suspected something was amiss, he would become suspicious and watchful.

  “This calls for a double bluff,” said Bruno. “First you’ll need a filament thread, then-”

  “No,” Jeremiah silenced Bruno’s teachings, “this is a job for a mage.”

  Jeremiah pulled out a dead rat. He carried at least one at all times now, just in case.

  Rise

  The tiny rat bubble sprang into existence. He had missed it. Placing the tonic bottle in the rat’s mouth, he sent it to the front door, only to discover the bottle was too large to squeeze underneath. The rat scampered back to Jeremiah.

  “Gods forgive me.” He unscrewed the bottle and poured the entirety of the liquid into the rat’s mouth, letting the muscle memory of swallowing carry it down into the rat’s stomach.

  The rat, now unburdened by the bottle, slipped inside.

  “That’s step one,” thought Jeremiah. It took only a little maneuvering to get the rat into the same room as the man. But how to get the liquid into the glass surreptitiously?

  Climb

  Jeremiah could barely make out the rat as it crept up the side of the desk. Counselor Berard, engrossed in his work, didn’t notice the small creature hidding behind the wine bottle.

  The tonic was right there, within arm’s reach of the glass, but how to get it in without Counselor Berard seeing it? The rat held perfectly still as Jeremiah thought, as only the dead can wait.

  “Maybe a dropper?” thought Jeremiah, “Something that would fit in those little rat…hands…”

  Rats had hands. Hands tipped with teeny tiny claws.

  The rat touched the wine bottle with a paw. Jeremiah chastised himself. He was wasting time. There was no way to control a rat with that much precision…right?

  He had always made an effort to make his bubbles as small as he could, requiring as little focus as possible. But what if he made the bubble larger? If he allowed it to take up more of his brain space, would it be more him ?

  Jeremiah concentrated on the bubble. He cut out all other distractions and gave it every ounce of his focus.

  The bubble began to grow. At the same time, Jeremiah’s sense of his surroundings begin to fade. The tiny rat bubble was larger now than a horse, larger than when he’d raised Narooka the minotaur. It filled his mind. It was nearly as much him as he was.

  He could feel the smoothness of the glass. He could feel the pressure on his sharp claws, already biting into the surface. Jeremiah raised his hand, raised his claw, and together they began to scratch. Jeremiah could hear the sound through his tiny sensitive ears; close and loud, but much too quiet for the big oafish ears of people.

  Decay

  Except that wasn’t enough. The bubble snapped back to minuscule as Jeremiah’s frustration flared again.

  “Stupid! I can’t charge the rune without being able to touch it. I can’t cast through the rat…can I?”

  Jeremiah reinflated the bubble, expanded it as large as he could. He smelled the wine, he felt the warmth of the room, the wood under his feet. Jeremiah spoke the magic words aloud through his human mouth, but placed his rat hand upon the glass.

  A vast surge of energy sucked the air from his lungs. He was aware of nothing until his head smacked the cobble street. The rat’s bubble snapped back to tiny as Jeremiah’s consciousness tried to reassert itself.

  Hide

  The command was weakly conveyed, but thankfully hiding was a rat’s first instinct and little force of will was needed.

  “Oi! On your feet! Move!”

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” thought Jeremiah.

  “You think I’m having a laugh?” growled the guard. Apparently Jeremiah had spoken aloud.

  The baton struck Jeremiah in the liver, just as guards were trained. Jeremiah spasmed in pain and scrambled to his feet.

  “Just fell, sirs, knocked my head,” said Jeremiah pointing to where he could feel blood trickling down his jaw.

  A movement caught his eye, and he glanced over just as the Counselor Berard’s wine bottle exploded. The man jumped to his feet and cursed so loudly it caught the attention of the guards, who followed Jeremiah’s gaze.

  “A peeper, is it?” said the guard. The baton swung again, this time into Jeremiah’s stomach. Jeremiah doubled over, his guts churning from the blow.

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  Counselor Berard left from the room, likely looking for something to clean the mess.

  Climb

  “Climb? Climb what?" The guard lifted Jeremiah’s chin upward with the baton. His partner glanced up at the apartment’s roof, scanning for signs of danger.

  The rat scaled the desk, navigating around broken shards of the wine bottle. It stood on its hind legs to reach the rim of the glass. It was imperative the rat not tip the glass—this was going to be his one and only shot. Jeremiah increased the size of the bubble, gripping the rim of the glass tightly. There was pain and his head shot back, the rat mimicking his motion as the guard yanked on his hair.

  “You’ve picked the wrong man on the wrong night, boyo,” said the guard.

  Jeremiah had no idea how to make a rat throw up. It wasn’t something rats frequently did. He had only one idea. The bubble shrank.

  “Picked the right little lady for a tummy tickle though, didn’t I? What do I owe you?” Jeremiah wheezed out. Jeremiah had no idea what it meant, but it meant something to the guard.

  The bubble grew.

  The rat vomited the liquid contained in its stomach into the glass. The clear tonic mixed with dark red wine mixed, along with other assorteds that had been left behind when the rat expired.

  Hide.

  The bubble shrank, and Jeremiah lay in a puddle of his own vomit, being bludgeoned mercilessly by the guards for his defiance.

  When Jeremiah stopped responding to the blows, something he had learned to do very quickly, the guards relented. One of them turned Jeremiah’s head with his boot. “I’m gonna to take a walk around the block, and if you ain’t gone by the time I get back, we’re gonna wallop you again. And we’ll keep walkin and keep wallopin til you’re gone or dead. Got me?”

  “Yes sirs,” whimpered Jeremiah.

  The guards left. Jeremiah raised himself high enough to see into the window. Counselor Berard was holding a wine-sodden rag and looking dejectedly at the mess left behind. With a sigh, he grabbed the wine glass and downed the contents in a single gulp, then spent a few minutes gagging and drinking as much water as he could swallow.

  ?

  ?

  Jeremiah leaned on Pete’s shoulder as Pete hurried him along. The sky was just starting to lighten. Jeremiah’s entire body ached, various contusions swelling where he had endured the worst of the beating.

  “Come now, lad, come now. We musn’t dawdle, we have precious little time,” said Pete. His typical air of utter control was fraying. People were starting to appear in the streets, laborers mostly, but they were still sparse and had no interest in the two of them.

  “Pete, please,” said Jeremiah. “I’m really beat up. Can this wait? Even for a breather?” Everything hurt, everything continued to hurt. The miracle of either enchanting or necromancy he had discovered was pocketed away for when the excitement of the revelation wouldn’t be marred by the concussion likely he had.

  “No! We have very little time,” said Pete, his pace quickening. He shot a furtive glance over his shoulder at the sliver of sun.

  He pulled them up to a small townhouse home, one of many in a row. No longer were they in the presence of lawyers and men of high trade.

  “Very simple,” said Pete, propping Jeremiah up and smoothing his blood-slick hair. “You are going to enter that home there and you are going to tell the man of the house to say that Darcassin Aewarin was with him for the entirety of the night in question.”

  “I’m just delivering a message?” asked Jeremiah.

  “Ah, I missed a critical component. You are going to do whatever you need to do to make sure he agrees to this, whether he likes it or not. He won’t,” clarified Pete. “Off you go!”

  “The facade is fracturing,” said Delilah, “the pressure is mounting. Time is running out."

  "He is…fill in the blank, Jay,” said Bruno.

  “Desperate.”

  “Sorry, Pete, I think I need to tap out,” said Jeremiah. He slumped against Pete and let his head hang. “I’m really hurt.”

  “Dear lad, I truly do not have time to once again explain to you the consequences of your petulance. Now, if we can—”

  “I’m sorry,” Jeremiah interrupted. “You do what you need to do, but this just isn’t happening.” He disentangled himself from Pete and began limping home, defeated and broken. It was an easy role to play.

  “Let him think he pushed too hard. Let him offer a little carrot instead of all this stick.” Jeremiah put a bit more sway in his limp.

  “Jay, wait!” Pete ran in front of him and held him by the shoulders. “I know it’s been a long night and clearly you’ve suffered, but there’s just one more task ahead of you. An easy one, compared to the truly inspired performances you’ve managed this evening. I ask you to reach down deep, find that hidden well of strength you know you have, and repay your honest debts. I’ve been good to you, haven’t I? Do it for ol’ Pete.”

  “Gotcha,” thought Jeremiah.

  “Sorry Pete, I just can’t. I’m sure you’ll be fine without this one piece of your plan. Or you can always go do it yourself, right? I’m sure you’ve got time.”

  “I don’t do things, Jay! I…” Pete huffed in frustration. “Okay, what do you want?”

  “A favor,” said Jeremiah. “Of the most serious and powerful variety. Whatever I want, whenever I want, with no limits on—”

  “Yes, yes, fine! For godssake, boy, I’ll grant you whatever your heart desires, just get in there!”

  Jeremiah held out his hand for Pete to shake on the deal. Pete raised his hand and froze, staring at Jeremiah’s. Something about the action was both alien to Pete and intimately familiar. There was fear in his eyes, real fear. Then Pete grit his teeth, shook Jeremiah’s hand, and pushed him toward the door.

  Jeremiah turned. “Hey, actually, do you have any kind of a pick-me-up? I could really use—”

  “Top shelf!” declared Pete and jammed a glass bottle with an atomizer into Jeremiah’s mouth, like a perfume bottle. Pete puffed it once and Jeremiah inhaled. The pain dulled, colors got brighter, the night receded just a little bit more, and he was flooded with energy.

  “Woo! Alright let’s do this,” said Jeremiah.

  “This is wrong,” said Delilah and Allison.

  “I am aware,” said Jeremiah.

  Jeremiah knocked, and a matronly elven woman opened the door. She wore a simple apron, her hands were dusted with white flour, and her hair was pulled back in a tight bun. She smiled at Jeremiah. “Good morning, how can—”

  Jeremiah punched her in the face as hard as he could. She screamed and spun away, blood shooting from her nose. Jeremiah grabbed the back of her dress and pulled her against him in a choke, pressing the blade of his dagger to her throat.

  There was a loud clattering as a boy appeared. Fists balled and shaking, years away from manhood, he screeched, “Let her go! Momma, get away from him!”

  “Get on the ground!” Jeremiah shouted, with as much authority as he could muster. The boy raised his hands in compliance and knelt, tears springing to his eyes.

  An elven man turned the corner wielding a loaded warbow as long as Jeremiah was tall. He had all the fear of a lion facing down a mouse. “Wrong house.”

  “Eh, eh, eh!” Jeremiah pressed the knife harder against the woman’s throat, drawing a dot of blood, “Don’t do anything stupid. You loose that arrow, you might hit her.” He yanked on the woman’s neck, drawing her up higher between him and the arrow.

  “Won’t,” said the man.

  The calmness. That terrible calmness. The prospect of shooting Jeremiah around his own bleeding and struggling wife was nothing short of boring.

  Jeremiah pointed his free arm at the man’s son, spoke the magic words, and launched a ball of acid on the floor just in front of the boy. The wooden floor degraded instantly, pitting and smoldering, and the boy retreated with a cry of pain as a few errant drops found his skin.

  “It gets worse,” said Jeremiah, “You put that bow down now or I’ll whisper a word in your wife’s ear and drive her insane. I’ve got the magic to do it.” That particular detail was a rumor he had heard about himself back before he had met his friends, fresh from Flusoh’s tutelage.

  The man grumbled, like he was annoyed magic was involved, but he angled the bow away from Jeremiah. “What do you want?”

  “When you get on the stand, you’re going to tell the court that Darcassin Aewarin was with you for the entirety of the night in question. Fill in whatever details you want, but he was with you. Do you understand?”

  The man didn’t answer at first, only gazed dispassionately at Jeremiah. His eyes flickered.

  “ He’s eyeing a shot! ” said Allison.

  “It won’t be worth it!” Jeremiah shouted. “You’ll never get her back! You can still have a long and happy life together. Wake up from this bad dream or live an endless nightmare—it’s up to you.”

  The man’s stony facade fractured, finally really looking at his wife and son and not at a problematic target. “Fine.”

  “Good, good answer,” said Jeremiah, “Now, set the bow on the ground.” The man didn’t move. “I’ve got no interest in hurting this woman but gods help me, I will break this family if you don’t do as I say.”

  Without breaking eye contact with Jeremiah, the slowly man bent and lowered the bow to the floor.

  “Kick it over here, hard.”

  The bow slid across the floor to Jeremiah’s feet. There was a moment of silence as he and the man stared at each other.

  Jeremiah whispered into the ear of the woman, “I sincerely apologize,” and shoved her away. Then he fled from the house, dodging quickly into the maze of alleys in case the man decided to pursue him.

  “If I knew about this, I couldn’t look at you the same way ever again,” said Allison and Delilah as he ran.

  “They don’t understand. It’s okay. I would.” said Bruno.