Free The Romulus Equation by Darren Craske

down there? Not very attractive, is it? So, one more time: where can I find your employer?’
    The man began to laugh.
    â€˜Sorry, did I miss something?’ asked Quaint.
    â€˜You are a very tall man, Signor Quaint. Tall men never look down,’ said the short man, flicking his eyes to the floor.
    Quaint followed his gaze, down past the stocky man’s shoulders, down past his chest, and down to the man’s hand that held a dagger to the conjuror’s groin.
    â€˜Oh, very good,’ said Quaint.
    In a second the tables had turned, not for the first time in Cornelius Quaint’s life. He slowly backed away towards the window, the glass crunching underfoot, and he had a nasty suspicion that it might be him that was to become a bloody mess on the pavement, and that just wouldn’t do.
    â€˜Look, perhaps we can talk about this,’ he suggested. ‘I only need to have a few words with Romulus. It’s important!’
    â€˜Romulus? Never heard of him.’ Quaint’s attacker lunged.
    As Quaint raised his arms to defend himself, he heard a strange whoosh of air and he was mildly confused to note that his body seemed absent of any pain. He lowered his arms and his confusion multiplied. His attacker was statuesque. As Quaint guided the tip of his attacker’s knife away from him, the stocky man collapsed – and then fell, quite dead, to the floor.
    â€˜That’s unusual,’ said Quaint, bending down for a closer look.
    It was at that moment that he spotted another knife, embedded deep into his attacker’s chest. It had entered the man’s heart, killing him instantly.
    â€˜Why do people keep dying on me?’ Quaint murmured, rushing to the open window for a sight of the assassin. His eyes dropped down to the street below, where a small crowd had congregated around the two dead men. Then Quaint looked up. His hotel room was on the third floor. The angle of the knife meant the perpetrator had to have been elevated. He quickly scanned the adjacent rooftop for signs of activity, but found nothing. He was utterly baffled, and as he pondered this latest near miss, a sudden thought occurred to him, causing him to reword his previous sentence.
    â€˜Why do people keep dying on me right before they tell me where Romulus is?’
    Whatever the answer was, there was obviously more going on than met the conjuror’s eye. These intruders had not known just his name, but also his place of residence and his room number. That did not bode well. But there were other complications to consider also. It stood to reason that the same assassin had killed both the stunted man at his feet as well as the youth in the marketplace, which meant that he did not seem to be the target. Or perhaps that was not this assassin’s style; perhaps he took sport from killing and he liked to see the whites of his target’s eyes. He was obviously a killer that took his art seriously, and evidence proved that he was very good at it too. Driven, determined, obsessive almost to the point of madness, Quaint was familiar with that sort, sharing some of the same characteristics himself.
    With a mind determined to find some answers, he pulled on his jacket and packed up his things. Staying at the hotel was no longer an option. If Romulus was determined to silence anyone that dared speak his name, perhaps the easiest thing to do was to make enough noise to be heard…

Chapter XI
The Romulus Equation
    Leaving his hotel, Quaint hailed a horse-drawn carriage to take him to the Gothic quarter – although it cost him double the fare after dark. The strange goings-on in his hotel room still plagued his mind, and try as he might, he could not shift the feeling that he was being watched. Every rooftop and building had become his enemy’s stronghold and the assassin could have been hiding on any one of them. Quaint’s keen eyes scoured the roofs as the horse trotted along the cobbled stone