The Penitent Damned

by Django Wexler

  He'd taught her a few other things, too. She'd been trying to avoid thinking about that part. But as she crouched in the corner of the darkened room, waiting for her eyes to adjust, she heard the soft tread of boots coming closer.

  "Don't kill if you don't have to," the Old Man said. "Killing will make them quicker to chase and less likely to give up, and it'll be worse for you if you're caught. Besides, it isn't elegant." His lip twisted. "But if you do have to, you need to be quick, and quiet. Like this …"

  A door opened, admitting a sliver of lantern-light. Alex blinked and swore silently. She was in one corner of a long, low-ceilinged room. Heavy, padlocked cabinets lined both walls, so wide that the space between was barely more than an aisle. It seemed terribly mundane for a place with such a dread reputation: one of the bottomless archives of the Concordat, where every dark secret in Vordan eventually came to rest.

  There were two doors, at the near and far ends of the room, and it was the closer one that had opened. Alex saw a figure in dark clothes outlined against the lit room beyond, but she herself was crouching in a dark corner, a shadow in a deeper shadow. That gave her a moment to act. She raised a hand and sent a shadow-line to snag the door and yank it shut, and heard a heavy lock clunk into place as it closed.

  The startled man turned to look, as she'd know he would, and Alex surged forward. She crossed the space between them with noiseless, cat-like steps, cannoned into the man from behind, and threw her hand up and across his mouth to stifle his surprised cry. At the same time, she brought her other hand up, palm flat, against the base of his neck. A needle-thin wedge of darkness punched out with the force of a miner's pick, drilling through bone to open like a vicious, dark flower into a dozen sharp-edged strands inside the man's skull.

  He jerked once, then subsided, and Alex caught his dead-weight and lowered him gently to the floor. Her throat was dry. This was the fifth man she'd killed in her career, and only the second who hadn't actively been trying to kill her at the time. He would have tried, though, if he'd gotten the chance. She reminded herself sternly that this wasn't some nobleman's household guard, standing watch for the look of the thing before going home to his family. He's Concordat. God knows what kind of blood is on his hands. It made her feel a little better.

  Once he'd stilled, she listened in silence for a few moments, hoping no other guards were nearby. Luck was with her there; she could hear a faint murmur of conversation, but it was distant, possibly on the story below. She got to her feet and prowled along the rows of cabinets, reading the labels affixed to them by the Last Duke's meticulous clerks. She couldn't figure out their system on a moment's notice, so she padded down one side and back up the other, checking each in turn.

  Finally, she found what she was looking for. One of the cabinets was labeled with a neat list of names, and "De Farnis" was among them. That was the client's name, and whatever was inside the cabinet was apparently so dangerous to his reputation that he was willing to pay an absurd price to have it back. Alex rolled her eyes at this typically noble sense of priorities, and extended a finger-thin sliver of darkness toward the lock. Lock-picking was not among the thief's skills she'd studied, but that rarely posed a problem. She closed her hand into a fist, concentrating on honing the edge of the narrow wedge of shadow until it was harder and sharper than any steel blade. When she brought it down on the hasp of the lock, the solid iron parted as neatly as butter, and she tugged the broken pieces apart and set them carefully aside.

  De Farnis had been very insistent that she not examine the material she was recovering too closely, which only made Alex all the more curious as to what it was. She pulled the cabinet doors open, not sure what to expect. A stack of letters, perhaps. A signed confession. A skull? That was needlessly melodramatic —

  The cabinet was empty. A couple of dust motes danced in the faint light filtering in through the hole in the roof. She could see where something had been, a square pattern in the dust, with streaks where it had been recently removed. Someone knew I was coming. And that meant—

  The door at the far end of the room rattled and started to open. Alex didn't hesitate. She was too far from the hole in the roof to make it out that way, but all she really needed was a window. The other door was only a few steps away. She wrenched at the handle, found it locked, and tore it completely away from the door with a frantic burst of shadow. The door shuddered open, and she tumbled through, blinking in the light of several lanterns.

  "That's far enough, Master Metzing," a deep voice said.

  Alex froze. It wasn't the command that halted her, but the sight of two Concordat agents, in their long black leather coats, with muskets raised to their shoulders and trained on her. She was in some kind of common room, with the outer wall of the building behind her and wooden table in the center. An open doorway in the opposite wall led into a stairwell, and the two guards were standing squarely between her and a chance to run for it. She couldn't see any windows.

  Behind the two black-coats was another pair of figures. One of them wore a grey habit, like a monk's, that concealed its figure and hooded its face. The other looked more like a priest, but instead of the familiar dusty white or deep burgundy, his robe seemed to be made of black velvet. There was something strange about his face, as well—he was wearing a mask that reflected the light of the lanterns as myriad fractured gleams and sparkles, as though it were made from a smashed mirror.

  A third black-coat, pistol in hand, stepped back in from the archive room and added his weapon to those leveled at Alex. He had a thick, puffy-cheeked face, a black mustache, and cold, dark eyes. He walked toward Alex in measured strides, aim never wavering. She saw his eyes narrow.

  Alex tensed. There would be a moment, when the black-coat stepped right beside her, when the musketeers might hesitate to fire for fear of hitting him. It was going to be the only chance she was going to get. But I only need a moment…

  Her eyes kept going back to the dark-robed man in the strange mask. She heard the Old Man's voice again, warning her about the Black Priests. But that was stupid. There's no such thing as the Black Priests anymore.

  She could almost see the Old Man's sour grin. "Just like there's no such thing as magic?"

  The black-coat stepped in front of her, pistol trained on her forehead. He looked her up and down, and his lip quirked.

  "Damn," he said. "You're a girl, aren't you?"

  Alex tried not to feel hurt. She knew she looked a little androgynous, with her short hair and slim leather working gear, but still. She suppressed a sarcastic quip—it didn't seem wise, under the circumstances—and simply nodded.

  "Balls of the Beast," the black-coat swore. "This isn't who we're looking for. It must be some kind of assistant, and that means he's still out there." He looked over his shoulder at the other guards. "Get someone back on the perimeter, and—"

  Alex slid sideways, putting the bulk of his body between herself and the other guards. Darkness slid out of her palm, hardening into sickle-like blade as she brought her arm up. The supernatural weapon took the black-coat's arm off just in front of the elbow, slicing through coat, flesh, and bone with equal ease, and the hand still gripping the pistol fell away.

  He stared at it, dumb-founded, and before he had the presence of mind to scream Alex leaned around him and pointed, extending her will across the length of the room. Dark power shot out like a spear, catching one of the musket-wielding black-coats in the chest and pinning him to the wall. The man whose arm she'd cut off started to scream, high and panicked, and she saw the other musket barrel swinging toward her. Alex turned her lean into a dive and hit the ground hard, just as the weapon emitted a flash, an almighty bang, and a plume of smoke. She didn't think she'd been hit, but she didn't spare the time to check—another spear of shadow slashed out, homing in on the muzzle flash, punched the other musketeer off his feet.

  She drew the shadow line back in, rolled onto her back, and sent a third spear in the direction of the Concordat agent still
staring in horror at his ruined limb. This one caught him in the side of the head and ended his troubles for good, and he crumpled on the spot. Alex lay still for a moment, fighting for breath.

  That makes eight. She shook her head to dismiss the thought and looked over at the other two figures—the masked priest and his hooded companion. To her surprise, they were still standing calmly in front of the stairs, not ducking for cover or fleeing in a panic. She got to her feet, palms out and liquid darkness coiling dangerously over her fingers.

  "I think the sergeant was wrong," said the priest. He had a heavy Murnskai accent, all thick Vs and rolling Rs. "The late sergeant, I should say. You are the infamous thief Metzing, I presume."

  "That's right," Alex said. "Now get out of my way."

  "And, unless I am very much mistaken, that was the demon called the Shadow Blade. It was once tamed, you know, but it was lost over two hundred years ago. Clerical error, I understand."

  "I said move. Now." Alex gestured with her shade-gloved hand to the corpses on either side of the masked man. Her heart hammered in her chest, but she tried not to show any nerves. He's not even armed. I can kill him, if I have to.

  "Do you know who I am, child?"

  "You're going to be a dead man in a moment."

  "Once, we were vulgarly known as the Obsidian Order." He tapped his mask, which made a click like dark glass. "Because of these, you see. There were other names as well, but we have always preferred to be called the Priests of the Black. We perform the same function as our brothers, in a different sphere. Those of the White concern themselves with matters of the next world, while the Priests of the Red manage the affairs of the Church in our mortal realm. And we attend to … the rest.

  "Once you would have known all of this from a glance at my mask, as well." He sighed. "Alas, times have changed. We are victims of our own success. But I don't imagine you care about my troubles, do you?" He smiled, his mask flexing and glittering darkly as the facets realigned. "Now. Are you going to come along quietly?"

  Alex had never killed a priest before. But she'd never met a Priest of the Black before, either, and a deep, atavistic terror overcame whatever reluctance she might have mustered. She raised her hand and sent a spear of darkness right at the center of that gleaming mask, with a force that ought to have spattered his brains against wall.

  Instead, the hooded figure moved. It had been standing so quietly that Alex had nearly forgotten it was there, huddled so deep in its robe that no part of it was visible. When it slipped in front of the Black Priest, it was as startling as though a statue had sprung to life. One arm came up, revealing a gray-gloved hand, fingers splayed.

  Something sprang into existence between them, a wall of fizzing, dancing sparks, accompanied by a tortured whine like a knife scraping across glass. The shadow spear splashed and spattered against the barrier. Alex lowered her hand in astonishment.

  "My friend here," the priest said, calmly gesturing at the silent, hooded figure, "represents the greatest heights of nobility to which the human soul can aspire. The Ignahta Sempria, the Penitent Damned. They carry demons, as you do, but they have willingly accepted the burden and thus condemned themselves to damnation in order to work for the salvation of others. Truly, we are blessed to be in the presence of such selfless glory."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Alex said. "I don't carry any demon."

  "A common misconception," the priest said. "But where else could your power originate, if not from one of these monstrosities? If you come with me, we will remedy your theological education, and in time you will come to understand your plight. Who knows? In time you, too, may aspire to turn your life to higher ends."

  Alex couldn't take her eyes off the gray-clad form of the ignahta. Under that hood there was someone like her, someone who shared this power that she'd never understood. If only we could talk —

  But with the priest looking on, that seemed unlikely. Alex eyed the door back to the archives, judging the distance. She put on a thoughtful expression, as though she were considering the priest's offer.

  "I think —" she began.

  She brought her left hand up, but that was only misdirection. Her other hand fired another concentrated rope of shadow, this time in a curving, whip-like path that bypassed the hooded ignahta and curled around to aim for the priest. Without waiting to see the result, Alex ran for the door to the archives.

  The glass-cutter scream of magic assaulted her ears, but this time it was accompanied by a deeper rumble. She caught the ignahta's movement out of the corner of her eye, a slicing gesture at waist height, and some instinct made Alex throw herself flat. An instant later she felt a tug at her clothing as the air above her twisted in a rippling wave with a sound like splintering timbers. The wall behind her exploded outward in a wave of fragments and brick-dust, and the wind whipped in through the hole. Alex rolled onto her back and tasted fresh air, mixed with the scent of pulverized masonry.

  "You see that it's fruitless to resist," the priest said, not unkindly. "Come along. You won't be harmed."

  Not goddamned likely. From her perspective on the floor, Alex saw the ignahta step forward. She pushed herself into a roll, fragments of bricks embedding themselves painfully in her shoulder, and at the same time lashed out blindly with her own power. The wall of sparks sprang into being, deflecting her shadowy assault, but it bought Alex a second or two, and that was enough to make it to the impromptu window and launch herself out.

  The next building was twenty-five feet away. The time it took one of her shadow-lines to reach it, normally so fast the eye couldn't track it, felt like an eternity when she herself was falling towards the unforgiving flagstones five stories below. She felt the shadow-line bite into the brick wall, and willed it tight and springy enough to jerk her rudely into a long swing instead of a plummet, heedless of the strain on her arm and shoulder. She just had time to fire another line to keep herself from smacking headlong into the wall, but not enough to get the perfect angle; she rolled sideway, dangling, and thumped painfully against a window fitting.

  At the blasted wall of the archive, now several stories up, the gray-robed ignahta appeared amid the roiling dust. One gloved hand came up, then slashed diagonally toward her, and Alex watched open-mouthed as a blade-like distortion in space rippled across the gap between buildings. It slammed into the wall above her, blowing a long line of bricks into powder and cutting cleanly through the shadow-line that was holding her up.

  I didn't even know they could be cut, Alex thought inanely as she started falling again. Someone was screaming, inside the building, but she didn't have time to think about that either. She slammed a hand against the wall and willed shadow filaments to take a firm grip, bringing her body to a brutally fast halt. Something went pop inside her wrist when it took her weight, accompanied by a screaming pain. Alex fought through the silver needles grinding against one another under her skin and held on to her will, letting the shadow-line lengthen and lower her toward the ground.

  Another wave of magic slammed into the building above her. Chunks of brick started to fall away, accompanied by more screams. A piece of wall the size of a cart tumbled past, bouncing and spraying fragments, and missed Alex's head by inches. The rippling blade lashed out a third time, and she felt her line snap. She clawed desperately at the wall, but before she could get a hold something punched her hard from behind, knocking the wind out of her.

  The ground. She was on the ground, watching the building come apart and tumble toward her in huge, skull-crushing pieces. Alex scrambled to her feet, whimpering when she accidentally tried to brace herself on her shattered wrist, and ran for it. Around her, the street was full of the roused population of Newtown, who were doing the same thing. None of them had any idea what was happening, of course, but they were smart enough to know that they wanted no part of it. Alex slipped gratefully into the crowd, and went to work putting as many buildings as she could between herself and the grim form of the ignahta.
<
br />   Her hand was agony, her legs and back ached, and she hadn't gotten what she came for. But she was alive, and her legs had gone rubbery with relief. She felt giddy.

  I won't even mind letting the Old Man say 'I told you so.'

  · · ·

  It took all the composure Alex could muster to walk casually along the riverfront street, rather than sprint directly to her destination. It was practically deserted, with only the occasional pedestrian hurrying about some private errand. Alex guessed that the sound of the building falling to pieces a few blocks away had sent the usual night-time pimps and purveyors scurrying back to their holes.

  A good thief always had an escape route ready—that was another lesson the Old Man had taught her, and she'd never been more glad to have listened. You never knew when a job was going to go bad, although admittedly they rarely went as spectacularly bad as this one had. Nevertheless, Alex had kept her head, walking a random pattern through the grid of Newtown's streets before heading for the spot where the Old Man would be waiting. He'd procured a boat the day before, a simple flat-bottomed skiff, more than adequate to float them downstream past the water batteries and away from this hellish city.

  And the next time he says it's a bad idea to go somewhere, I'm going to take him seriously, Alex vowed, as she scanned the rows of tied-up watercraft. She found what she was looking for halfway down a lonely pier. The Old Man, huddled in his wool coat with the collar up, sat in the shadow of a larger boat tied up just beside theirs.

  Alex paused, a pistol-shot away, and waved with her good hand. She squinted as her mentor waved back, an odd gesture with thumb and little finger folded in. That signaled that he was in the clear, and no Concordat thug was lurking in the shadows with a pistol trained on him. Alex couldn't help quickening her steps a little as she crossed the exposed space of the pier and vaulted into the little boat, but no shouts followed her. As best she could tell, she'd gotten away clean, but her imagination equipped every rooftop with watchers and riflemen. She wanted to be away from this city, this country, as quickly as she could.