SUPREME WAR GOD The Despised Son-in-Law Returns

Chapter 5: Seven Needles and a Dead Man's Heart

"Charge the paddles!" the grey-haired doctor shouted. "Clear!"

The old man's body jumped on the marble floor, and the green line stayed flat.

"Again! Clear!"

Nothing changed. The line didn't even flicker.

Damon twisted out of the guards' grip so fast that they were left holding nothing. Three steps later he was on his knees beside Dr. Henry Moore, and the silver needles were already out of the paper bag.

"Don't touch him!" Elena grabbed his shoulder with both hands. "I swear I'll have you arrested!"

"Arrest me when he's breathing."

He didn't look at her. His right hand moved, and the first needle slid in just below the old man's collarbone. The second went into the center of his chest, and the third and fourth on either side of his throat; the fifth and sixth went into the insides of his wrists, and the seventh into the very top of his head.

Each needle went in with a tiny twist, and each one shivered when it stopped.

"What is he doing?" a young nurse whispered.

"Killing him faster," the grey-haired doctor said. "Somebody pull that lunatic away!"

Nobody moved, because something in Damon's face told them not to.

He laid two fingers on the old man's chest and pushed the last thin thread of his inner power down through the needles. It was almost nothing; at Body Tempering, it was barely more than a breath, but he knew every turn of the path, and he guided it like a soldier guiding a blind man through a minefield.

Thick black blood began to drip from the old man's fingertips.

It was dark like ink, and it ran slowly onto the white floor, one heavy drop at a time.

The monitor gave one small beep, then another.

Then the beeps came steady and strong.

Dr. Henry Moore dragged in a long, rough breath, and the black color began to drain from his lips.

The whole lobby was silent. The grey-haired doctor stood holding the paddles, staring at the screen as if it had lied to him; then he mumbled something about checking the machines and hurried away, and Elena slowly sank to her knees on the other side of her grandfather.

"That's impossible," she whispered. "His heart stopped for almost a full minute."

Damon pulled the needles out one by one and wiped each on his sleeve. "It's called Seven-Day Ash. Somebody's been putting it in his food or his drink or his medicine, a little every day for a week. It builds up quietly in the heart until the heart gives up."

"Who would do that to him?"

"Someone close. Someone he trusts enough to let near his tea." Damon stood. "Keep everyone from his office away from him until you find out who."

The old man's eyes opened. He blinked at the ceiling, then at his granddaughter, and finally his eyes found the scarred young man in grey clothes standing over him.

"Who... are you, son?" His voice was paper-thin.

"Nobody important, sir. Rest now."

"Elena," the old man breathed, gripping his granddaughter's sleeve, "whatever this young man asks for... give it to him."

Damon turned to leave, but Elena caught his arm. This time she didn't push him away; she held on.

"Wait. Please." Her voice cracked a little. "I called you a fortune teller. I was wrong, and I'm sorry."

"You were scared. It happens."

"I've never seen anything like what you just did. Not in Valoria, not in any hospital abroad, not in a single book." She searched his face. "Where did you learn it? What's your name?"

"I'd rather my name stayed out of this," he said. "As far as anyone here knows, the doctors saved him. Can you do that for me?"

She looked at him for a long moment, then gave one firm nod. "My grandfather is the only family I have left. You just gave him back to me." She pulled a card from her coat and pressed it into his palm. "Elena Moore, head of research. Whatever you need and whenever you need it, I owe you."

"I'll remember that, Dr. Moore." He lowered his voice. "One more thing. Your purchasing director, Pell, was on the phone with someone named Kane two minutes before your grandfather fell. I'd watch him closely."

Elena's face hardened. "Kane Pharmaceuticals has been trying to buy a seat on our board all year."

"Then you already know where to start looking."

He walked out through the glass doors, and this time nobody tried to stop him.

Night had fallen when Damon reached Lantern Street.

It was a narrow road near the docks, strung with red paper lanterns and thick with the steam of food stalls. Fish sellers shouted their prices, and dockworkers in rubber boots crowded around cheap plastic tables.

Damon walked slowly through the noise, thinking. In one day, the name Kane had come up three times; Kane Treasure House had held his ring for a year, the Grants owed the Kanes their lives, and now a hospital director was reporting to a man called Kane. Three times wasn't luck, and it wasn't chance either. It was a pattern. At the very end of the street, under a crooked wooden sign, stood a tiny shop called Old Gus's Noodle House.

Damon knew this place well. Five years ago he had chosen it himself as a secret contact point for the Legion, because no spy alive would look twice at a noodle shop full of sweaty dockworkers.

He pushed the door open, and a bell jingled. The smell of beef bones and star anise hit him, and for a moment he was back in a field kitchen at Frostgate, with Gus shouting at young soldiers to stop stealing dumplings.

The shop was hot and loud, with six small tables and a long wooden counter. Behind the counter, stirring a pot of broth big enough to bathe in, stood an old man with a bald head, a stained apron and only one ear.

"Sit anywhere," the old man grunted without looking up. "Pork or beef?"

Damon sat at the counter. "Beef," he said. "Cooked the northern way, with snow pepper and black salt."

The ladle stopped moving.

Snow pepper and black salt; it was an old Legion recognition code, nothing more than a bowl of noodles to anyone else. Only men who had served in the north knew it.

The old man raised his eyes slowly. They went first to Damon's face, then to the fresh scar on his temple, and finally down to the black jade ring on his hand.

The ladle slipped from his fingers and fell into the pot, splashing hot broth across the counter. Two dockworkers looked up from their bowls.

"You okay, Gus?" one of them called.

"Eat your noodles," Gus snapped, without taking his eyes off the ring. He was staring at the ring, and his chin had begun to shake.

"No," Old Gus whispered. "No, no, no. You're dead. I stood at your memorial in the rain and cried like a baby."

"I'm not dead, Gus," Damon said quietly. "I'm just late."

"Five years late," Gus said, his voice breaking. "Five whole years, Commander."

Gus wiped his eyes with the corner of his apron. Then he leaned across the counter, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and very fast.

"Commander, listen to me carefully. Don't ever come through my front door again." His eyes flicked toward the window and the street outside. "The Kane family has had a man watching this shop for five years, day and night."

"Where?"

"Across the road, in the tea shop with the green door. Grey cap, a newspaper he never reads." Gus swallowed hard. "And he just watched you walk in."