Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella

could lead the Sa’kagé yourself.~
    Leadership is best left to the idealistic and the arrogant.
    It would be best if he could get in without killing anyone, but he couldn’t do that alone. Not without the ka’kari’s help.
    ~Very well, Acaelus. I shall serve.~
    Gaelan felt the ka’kari form in his hand. He squeezed it and it sheathed his entire body. He dropped into the alley.
    He wasn’t quite invisible. Not in the rain that hit his body and gave a weird distortion to the air. But the alley was narrow. The rain came in gusts and fits as the wind blasted it periodically into the cold, damp space between the rickety buildings.
    One blast threw a torrent as he walked between a torch-carrying basher and the wall.
    “Herrick, you see something over there?” the basher said to another.
    “No. Want to check it out?”
    The basher swallowed – but went toward what he’d seen.
    Gaelan was already past them. He came to the door. Rubbish was piled high in front of it to disguise what it was, but the door opened in, so the rubbish was no problem.
    Gaelan wrapped sound-dampening magic on the hinges and looked once more at all the men guarding it.
    When no one was looking, he opened the door and slipped inside.
    Inside, there was nothing but a short hall, a false wall that lay open, and a stone ladder beyond it. Gaelan got on the ladder and began sliding down.
    He was almost all the way down when someone carrying a torch stepped into the stone tube and began climbing. Whoever he was, he was nimble as a monkey, climbing fast for a man with only one hand on the ladder.
    Gaelan stuck one foot against the wall, then hopped, stuck the other foot to the other wall. Pushed his hands against opposite walls and flattened himself against the back of the tube. Being invisible wasn’t much help if someone actually bumped into you.
    The climber paused just below Gaelan, switched which hand was carrying the torch.
    It brought the flaming brand within inches of Gaelan’s face.
    But the ka’kari, true to its word, true to its nature, devoured the light, devoured the heat, turning it into its own magic, making Gaelan feel even stronger.
    The climber continued on, and Gaelan slid to the bottom of the narrow tube and stepped out, invisible, into the Chamber of Nine.
    The Nine’s subterranean chamber was a horror and a wonder. A relic of a bygone age. It was circular, but with a ceiling so high it disappeared in darkness, giving the impression that a person inside was at the bottom of an inescapably deep pit. The floors, the walls, even the stone desks and chairs were carved with every kind of loathsome animal: rats and snakes and hydras and spiders and twisted dogs and skeletons. All glittering obsidian, sharp, cutting angles. The numerous entrances were well-hidden. A crescent-shaped dais held the benches for the Nine, and over them, the Shinga’s throne.
    The only illumination came from an oil-filled ridge set in the wall behind the Nine, casting all of them in shadow.
    But their hoods were back now. Some had shed their cloaks completely, like Gwinvere. Gwinvere’s beauty was sword and armor both.
    Scarred Wrable had told Gaelan, “You never get to see the whole drama. When you’re a wetboy, you only come in at the end.”
    “The fact is,” a tall, fat man was saying, “I think we need to be ware of this young Gyre lord, Regnus. I don’t think we can control him.” A muscular man with lots of scars and a flattened nose – he had to be Pon Dradin, head of the Bashers – said, “I say we continue to support Bran Wesseros. If – ”
    “He’s too martial. The Gunders – ”
    “Are morons,” the tall, fat man said. “Every last one of them.”
    “Where is Scarred Wrable? I thought he was supposed to report by now,” a hawkish little man said.
    “Enough,” the Shinga announced, standing. “I’ve decided.” Then his head fell off.
    The ka’kari made a very sharp blade.
    The Shinga’s head hit the table in front of him and rolled off. His body collapsed a moment later.
    Nine pairs of eyes widened. For an instant, everyone was speechless. Then the room was plunged into darkness.
    Gaelan flipped into the center of the chamber. Some of the men shouted, but the room was warded against eavesdropping. Six recovered enough to pull alarum ropes – each of which had been cut.
    Opening the oil channel full, Gaelan waited until the oil circled the entire chamber, then ignited it with a spark. Light flooded the room,