Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)(4)

Gideon blanched. “How …” His expression hardened as the truth dawned on him. “Of course — Maria.”

“Do not be too angry with her,” Damien said. “She needed the silver. And her husband … well, he’s been a guest in my dungeon for years. She really had no choice.”

Gideon brushed the dust from his shoulders. “I should have known,” he said bitterly. “Even with me, you use spies.”

“Your mind is agile,” Damien said. “You have apparently found a way to increase your perception. But even this cannot change your fundamental nature, my friend. You are too trusting. You see the best in people. It is your most glaring weakness. Now tell me, what secret have you uncovered?”

Gideon glowered at him. “I once believed you supported my work because you wanted a cure for the plague — because you wanted to help your people and build a better world.”

“I do want a cure,” Damien assured him. “It might safeguard my own life, for one thing. It would also be a valuable thing to sell. But what you’ve discovered is obviously of even greater importance. As for helping the peasants out of the goodness of my heart — please! If the Black Death has taught us anything, it is that life is cheap.”

“It teaches us life is precious!”

“Bah. I am not interested in stopping death, only in … directing it. This cure of yours … well, it was potentially valuable, but now you seem to have stumbled on something quite amazing — something that could help me immensely. I am interested in weapons, my friend. Power! That is how I’ll build a better world.”

Slowly, Gideon’s face turned waxy with horror. Damien had seen that look before on the faces of his test subjects as it slowly dawned on them that they would never be leaving his workshop. “You are truly evil.”

“That goes too far, Gideon. Even for you. This alchemy you’ve discovered, the process for strengthening the mind and body — it could give me an army powerful enough to drive the English from Ireland at last. King Henry is old and weak. His lapdogs in Dublin have been powerless for years. With your formula and the weapon I’m working on, Gideon, I could invade England itself. And after that …” He swept his hand across his newly acquired map. “A whole world awaits.”

Deadly silence.

Gideon wrapped his bleeding knuckles in the hem of his shirt. His hands were beginning to shake. Damien made a note of that, as he might with a test subject. Perhaps a side effect of Gideon’s formula? He would have to find out.

“Damien, I’m going home now,” Gideon said. “I think you should return to the mainland in the morning. You’re no longer welcome on my family lands.”

Damien felt a twinge of regret. So this was what it felt like to lose a friend. Such conversations they’d had in better times! Such excellent dinners! Peasants were easy to replace. Gideon Cahill would not be.

“You’ve known me for ten years, Gideon,” he said. “Have I ever failed to get what I want?”

“Good-bye, Lord Vesper.”

“Before I am done, you’ll wish those stones had crushed you,” Damien warned.

Gideon met his eyes one last time, but his expression held no more anger — only disappointment — as if he dared to believe this break was Damien’s fault.

Gideon left without another word.

Damien cursed and overturned his desk. Secret reports and Leonardo da Vinci sketches fluttered through the air, slowly settling in the rubble of his limestone trap.

Damien had tried. Truly, he had tried to be reasonable. But sometimes even the best plans must change. Tonight, Balthazar might get to use his sword after all.

Gideon cursed himself for a fool.

He was well acquainted with Damien’s ruthlessness, but he still couldn’t believe his old friend had tried to kill him. Worse: Damien had tricked him into revealing his newfound skills. Gideon had had enough trouble keeping Damien in check the past ten years, quietly thwarting his efforts to gain power, using his influence to calm Damien’s tempers and spare the peasants from the worst of his wrath. Now Gideon’s new discovery had upset the balance. Far from being a gift, the serum could ruin everything.

Halfway across the beach, Gideon almost collapsed from a wave of nausea, worse than before. The side effects of the master serum were becoming more pronounced by the hour. He held up his hand, his knuckles still bleeding. A few minutes ago, he’d had the strength to crush stone. Now his fingers shook like an old man’s. The more he used his new abilities, the more he deteriorated.

He needed twenty-four hours more to complete his new variation of the serum. Perhaps this time the balance of humors would be correct, and Gideon could counteract the damage he’d done to his body … if he had twenty-four hours.

Why couldn’t Damien have waited another day before confronting him?

As the nausea passed, Gideon took a deep breath and tried to clear his thoughts. The morning was unseasonably pleasant. Waves washed against the rocks. Gideon could see the mainland clearly, but he knew that from the mainland, this island would not be visible.

He could not stand to think that this ancestral stronghold, a refuge for generations of Cahills, might soon be his grave.

A square mile wide, the island was shaped like a cupped hand, with a palm of meadows in front and a protective curve of sheer limestone cliffs along the back like a row of fingers.