Hell and the Damned

"Opium," Knight-Captain Hell reported authoritatively. "It's opium."

I stared at her blankly. As per my prediction solving the mystery behind the smuggling operation had kept Hell busy for weeks. She had spent the first several days pacing back and forth waiting for the samples to arrive. Recently, though, I would walk by and see her either sleeping at her desk or carefully studying a bottle of white powder and pile of leaves. Only once did I walk by and see the door closed. Where she had gone that day I had no idea.

"Opium." I repeated stupidly.

I wasn't surprised by the actual word itself. I wasn't even surprised that Hell had scaled up to a three story window at dawn's first light to give me this information. Both things were well within the realm of possible behavior that would be considered normal for our charming Hell-Knight. What was utterly shocking was Hell had completely ignored the half dressed young lady who was burying her embarrassed faced in my shoulder.

"It's medicine," Hell explained. "It's made from a flower and used in countries without clerics to treat pain."

"Right," I muttered.

I patted the young woman's hair absently as I tried to process what was going on. All the knights knew I was far from perfect, but they always went out of their way to pretend I was and keep up the image. It was completely out of Hell's character to interrupt my before breakfast… well, to interrupt my breakfast. The young lady and myself were just about to have another go at… playing cards. I'm an exceptional poker player when there's no betting involved. Normally Hell would wait until I was alone to ambush me with new information or see that my date was canceled altogether. She had never interrupted my…ah-hem- "personal study" time before.

Knight-Captain Hell leapt into the room itself and picked up the scattered garments, sorted mine from the young lady's and tossed me my shirt and cloak. Sensing that this was not the time or place to argue I kissed the lovely lady goodbye and let Hell escort me out. Hell's eyebrows were knit together, but she didn't say another word even after we had exited the inn.

"What is it?" I asked irritably. I was more worried about the fate of my wine at this point and being caught with my pants down.

"Opium," Hell was muttering quietly, "Mixed with hemlock it's used to give people a quick and painless death."

"Huh?"

"Nineteen smuggling operations have been broken up in the past month and all of them were carrying opium." Hell explained. "I haven't seen opium in years. Holy light is so much better." She began mumbling, "It was used in ancient times as an anesthetic…mutter mutter …crossed over into…mutter…prescribed by alchemists for infant colic..."

"What does that have to do with church?" I asked irritably.

I would have to wait patiently for Hell to finish her history lesson. Something must have given her quite a shock and babbling was how she was mentally processing it. I knew it was better just to wait until she got to the point.

"Medicine and poison are the same," Hell admonished herself as a steely glint shined in her eyes.

I was taken aback by this. Her expression rudely reminded that the person next to me was not just a spy, but a formidable assassin as well. As far as I knew neither myself or the pope had ever ordered the untimely demise of any enemies to the church. In most cases a known enemy was better than chancing that their replacement would end up just as bad or worse, but that didn't mean Hell didn't know how to give someone a clean and natural looking death.

When mixed with hemlock, I mused. Does that mean that the medicine isn't harmful by itself?

Hell didn't seem to think so, but she had suddenly fallen silent again. I thought about the matter carefully. First of all, she had obeyed my order and waited until she was fully recovered to find me. When she did report to me she timed it rather poorly which was unusual. Another thing that was extremely odd was rather than running off on her own to solve the problem she had reported to me directly. This sting of occurrences made me feel unusually anxious myself.

"I doubt the merchants are planning to kill of all the nobles," I told her. "And it's not like the church would interfere any- …Where are we going?"

It had suddenly dawned on me that we were not returning to the Temple. Instead Hell walked with ease through the dark back alleys and narrow roads of the less favorable side of town. This was all well and good since I was not in my Sun Knight's attire and Hell was armed with her trademark weapon. We left the mix of finely crafted wood and painted bricks to a much older stone-crafted and rotting place in the city. I equated it to a gentleman dressed from head to toe in fineries and a feather accented hat, but all that was merely a show to hide a chronic spot of syphilis.

I shuddered at the thought, but I knew that the filth covered stones were older and would last much longer than the cafes I adored or the fine inns I coveted. As we moved along Hell seemed to be muttering something unsavory about pedestrians and how rooftops were a faster means or travel. I wanted to agree, but I wasn't as agile when it came from leaping from building to building. We would both have to make do with baths and a gallon of boot polish later.

Our destination was a tent of sorts. More specifically, in what had to be the seediest parts of the darker side of the capital, between two buildings standing barely half a man's height apart some unfortunate souls had strung up some blankets to keep the rain and excrement from falling on what few processions they had. I covered my nose to keep from throwing up and tried to imagine what events had allowed the Temple's spy to realize this spot even existed. We stepped over ten or so occupants that lined the tiny alley until we reached the very back. Hell knelt beside a dirt covered woman and said something I couldn't hear.

"A healer?" She asked. The woman looked at me with an expression of hope.

My face was shadowed by a hood, but I still felt extremely uncomfortable. 'Healer' was a suspiciously nonspecific title considering who I was. Hell whispered something else and the woman's face fell. She nodded understandingly and moved aside. In the building's shadow I saw a figure lying listless on a pile of old news papers. His clothes might have been very nice at one time, but had been crafted to fit another man entirely. Even as old rags the clothes didn't suit the pile of skin stretched over bones that lay curled up in a pathetic ball.

Hell stripped off her helmet and pulled of her mask. I blinked. Had it really been that long since Hell had cut her hair? Her hair fell unevenly over her shoulders as she shook the pile of skin and bones awake. The man looked more like an undead creature than a human when he opened up his sunken eyes.

"Your…highness?" a scratchy voice croaked.

"Highness?" I repeated completely mystified. What could he possibly mean by that?

I was ready to wake up, roll over and find myself wrapped up in my own bed sheets. There were too many strange things happening today. First Hell walks in the middle of my date, drags me to the parts of the capital that I go out of my way to ignore, and is called "highness" by a guy who looks old enough to have known my great-grandfather personally. I would learn soon enough, however, that the man wasn't nearly as old as he looked and there were a great many things about my personal spy that I did not care to know.

"Can you heal this man?" Hell asked softly.

"What?" It took me a second to realize Hell had been talking to me.

"Can you heal this person or not?" Hell repeated impatiently.

I growled under my breath and knelt beside her to get a closer look. The man was covered with scars and old wounds, but I couldn't see anything in particular that needed to be stitched up with holy light. Except for a couple of bruises there were no recent injuries. I summoned a ball of holy light to see by and still nothing stood out.

"What's wrong with him?" I was about to ask but the sudden flash of holy light startled the man.

He jumped up with unexpected speed for a dying man and lunged at me. Hell was equally quick and grabbed the "gentleman" before he could damage my precious face. The man screamed and struggled against Hell's grip. Half the words he said were gibberish. The other half were more befitting of a banshee. Finally the man quieted down a little and started whispering eerily. "...away...away...the voices...Shhh... I hear you...I hear..."

"Fits of anger followed by depression," Hell described the man's condition. She let go him and he sunk down to being a bundle of bones that rocked back and forth babbling witlessly. "And hearing voices no one else hears."

"He's a mad man," I summed up her explanation. "I'm afraid holy magic can't fix madness."

"...I did this."

"Excuse me?"

"I said-"

"I heard what you said." I snapped.

"So if I did this then you should be able to do something about it!" Hell shouted almost mutely between gritted teeth. "He wasn't born this way. He was poisoned."

"Well, I can't fix it so don't go around poisoning people." I shouted back. "I'm a holy knight not a god."

"...Right. I know that." Hell cooled her emotions and stood up. She removed a vial from her pocket and a decent sack of jingling coins. She passed both objects off to the woman who nodded gratefully.

"What is that?" I asked suspiciously.

Hell ignored me. She replaced her helmet and marched off back to the main street without saying anything.

Feeling very upset about her dark and mysterious act I sped up and grabbed Hell's shoulder with a little more force than I had intended. I shouted. "Don't play games with me! I asked you what that and what the hell is going on!"

"Nightshade and financial compensation," Hell replied without emotion. "I needed a test subject. He knew the risk. The coins are for his family."

"Risk?" I almost gagged at the idea. "You just killed a man and pay off his family like it's nothing?!"

"I was saving-"

"You just murdered someone!"

"Actually, his wife will finish the job for me." Once again Hell spoke without any real feeling. "I only-"

Since I was at lost for words I settled for punching my subordinate in jaw. Once I had done so I instantly regretted my decision. The force had caused Hell to stumble forward a few paces. She didn't straighten up right away and just felt the purpleling of her flesh gingerly with one hand. Her hair concealed the rest of her face. She didn't even bother to cast heal on herself. I realized with horror that she probably couldn't. Her limited power had already been used up on someone else.

"Opium." I started from the beginning again.

"It's made from a flower..."

"We've moved passed that."

"Used for..."

"And?" I urged her on.

Hell swallowed before continuing, "When used recreationally the body begins to crave for it. After a while the person goes mad and when the opium is taken away they die, quickly."

"Holy..." I swore. "And this stuff is here? In the capital city?"

"How does this affect the church, my captain?" Hell's expression finally turned sour. "Is it enough to know that soon enough your little sheep will be lead astray by a worldly desire?"

I did the decent thing and ignored that last bit. Instead I reached over to heal the lump forming on her face, but Hell swatted my hand away stubbornly. If she couldn't heal it herself then it didn't need to be fixed at that moment. I disagreed.

"Don't." I ordered and tried again. "Or I'll regret having stuck a girl."

This time Hell relented, but even as her flesh returned to its proper color she still looked like she was in pain. I sighed.

"I need to alert the Pope." I mused.

"Probably."

"His majesty will need to know too."

"Probably."

"Parliament will need to get moving on this."

"Yeah."

I got the distinct impression that Hell was responding absently and the single word answers were getting to be obnoxious. Swearing silently I rounded on my nearly mute companion rather harshly demanding an explanation for this whole field trip and Hell's odd behaviors.

But I was not at all prepared for Hell's reply.

"That man," she said almost inaudibly, "He's my uncle."