by Ari Marmell
“Oh,” Genevieve said, her tone only vaguely contrite. “It's just your friend. Sorry, Renard.”
“Sorry? Sorry?! What the hell were you-ah. Um, hello, ah, Widdershins.”
Widdershins, who had lurched to her feet as the door opened, was suddenly and forcibly reminded by Renard's stunned stare that Genevieve had disrobed her in order to get at the rapier wound. Blushing as furiously as a nun in a brothel, she ducked behind her blonde-haired friend and groped desperately for her shirt.
“Didn't mean to take your head off, Renard,” Genevieve said, mainly to distract him. “But you rather startled us.”
“Quite understandable,” the popinjay responded absently, his eyes flickering madly as he fought to locate some safe place to put them.
“Were you here for any particular reason?” Genevieve asked icily. “Or did you just come by to ogle my friend?”
“There bloody well better be a reason!” Widdershins chimed in from behind Genevieve, her voice muffled by the tunic she was currently pulling over her head. “Assuming,” she continued, stepping once more into view, fully clad if somewhat rumpled, “he wants to leave here with all the parts he carried when he entered.”
Renard straightened. “I most assuredly did have a higher purpose in coming here, dear ladies, though if I were to grow crass enough at my age to make a habit of ‘ogling,' I could only hope to find two subjects as lovely as-”
“Get on with it!” they snapped in unison.
“Right.” Renard's expression fell. “Widdershins,” he said seriously, “the guild's coming for you. Soon.”
“Tell me something I don't know, Renard.”
“They've already murdered one Guardsman to do it.”
Pain and blood loss could no longer account for her pallor. “What?”
The flamboyant thief offered an abbreviated recounting of the tale that was making the rounds throughout Davillon's underbelly, concluding with “You're lucky you got out before he arrived.”
“Well, yes, but that's Brock holding a grudge. I don't-”
“Not anymore. Maybe it's just been a personal vendetta so far, but now the guild itself is involved. The next time they come for you, it'll be fully authorized, with the word of the Shrouded Lord behind it.”
“Why?” It came out as a child's whine.
“It seems that someone's been spreading stories about you making some foolish attempt to rob the archbishop.”
“Oh, Shins,” Genevieve lamented, sinking down into the nearest chair.
“It can't be! Renard, that's not possible! No one saw me there except the archbishop himself!” She seemed oblivious to the fact that she'd just confirmed to Renard that the story was true. “Except…”
“Yes?”
Widdershins, too, fell into a chair. “De Laurent must have described me to Julien Bouniard. That, or the assassin could have had an accomplice who spotted me warning the archbishop.”
Renard blinked. “Assassin?”
“Uh, yeah. Long story. I'll tell you later.”
“But-”
“Long. Story. Tell. Later.”
“Um, right. Whatever the case, Shins,” Renard told her, “you need to get out of here. I can't be much more than an hour ahead of them. Right now, their orders are to take you alive and relatively unharmed, but you know how unpredictable these things get. Especially since Brock's leading one of the packs.”
“All right, let's go.” Stiffly, Widdershins rose once more, wincing as she bent to retrieve her rapier and tools from the floor. “Gen, you're coming with me.”
“What? I-”
“Look, Gen. Normally, you being my friend wouldn't be sufficient cause for the guild to bother you. It's bad for business to pester the merchants when they haven't done anything wrong. But right now, they just might be angry enough to take it out on you. So you're coming with me. You can come back later, during business hours, when it's safe.”
“But-”
“Now.”
Genevieve sighed, but she knew better than to argue. The oddly matched trio were out the door almost instantly, leaving nothing but bloodied cloths and a newly stained table behind.
Jean Luc and Henri Roubet met in a small outdoor cafe, illuminated only by candles on the tables, where a group of friends would draw no attention, and nobody on the street could see them well enough to make out a face. The Apostle's two thugs sat nearby, the bandage-wrapped figure looming behind them.
“…sound very happy,” Roubet was reporting. “Seems she never showed the first night, and when they set up to watch the place tonight, they found the tavern empty. They don't have enough people to keep an eye on it every minute of the day, but they'll be back there eventually. They seem pretty sure she'll appear there sooner or later, and right now, Brock's willing to watch and wait.”
“And does this tavern have a name?” Jean Luc asked, sipping at a small cup of tea, pinky finger pointing skyward.
“The Flippant Witch.”
“Show me.”
Both men looked up as the otherworldly thing spoke behind its mask of bandages, its voice causing the table to tremble, the candle flame to dance.
“Of course. Do you mind if we just finish-?”
“Show me now.”
Technically, Jean Luc was in charge. That didn't stop him and Roubet both from rising instantly to their feet, unwilling to argue.
For just a moment, as they took to the streets once more, Roubet wondered what had happened to the thieves assigned to follow Jean Luc and his demoniac ally. And just as swiftly he decided that he really, really didn't want to know.
“This is stupid, Shins!” Genevieve hissed for roughly the sixth time as the fugitive trio slunk through yet another filthy, trash-strewn alleyway. The aromas of rotting garbage, alcohol, vomit, and human offal intertwined to form a vulgar scent that caressed the dank streets with all the false affection of a diseased trollop. It even kept the rats at bay. Things squelched underfoot as they walked, each spurt of unidentifiable ooze adding a new and poignant layer to the near-poisonous miasma.
“I'm inclined to agree with Mademoiselle Marguilles,” Renard added, pausing long enough to lift up one boot and sadly examine the encrusted sole. “Even leaving aside the danger to our well-being-which is, I feel constrained to point out, quite substantial-there are other, no less immediate concerns. This outfit, I fear, is quite unsalvageable. I shall perforce be required to burn it.”
Widdershins, gliding silently through the alley ahead of them, drew to a halt, her shoulders rising in a sigh. “All right, that's enough, both of you! This is important, so hush up and let's keep moving. The faster we get there…”
“…the sooner we can leave,” the barkeep and the thief parroted in unison. “So you keep telling us,” Genevieve added. “But that's only if you survive, Shins.”
“Look!” Widdershins turned, wincing as the motion tugged disagreeably at her bandages. “We've got to hide, yes? Maybe for quite a while. Therefore, ergo, and to wit, we need money. Where am I losing you two?”
Renard cleared his throat, a fist hovering just before his face. “I believe, Widdershins, that it would be at the part where you decide to go back home and gather up your stash of coin, even though the people hunting you may well know where you live.”
The young woman idly kicked a clump of something from the road before her. It hit the left wall of the alley with a moist plop, and stuck. “I've told you, I don't live here. It's one of several rooms I keep around the city. Under fake names,” she added as Genevieve drew breath to speak, only to come over vaguely green as the atmosphere of the alley flooded her lungs. “I've got funds stashed in each. Enough to keep us going for a while, if need be. And it's perfectly safe!” she insisted in the face of their continuing glare. “It's not humanly possible for anyone to know about this place. There's no way to trace it to me. None!
“If it'll make you feel better,” she continued, “the two of you can wait here while I run up and gather the mar
ks.” She pointed at a dilapidated building, four ugly stories in height. There were more holes in the wall than there were bricks. The wooden staircase-running up the side of the building and sagging like a dying vine-leaned several feet from the wall at multiple points, and pretty much looked to be about as sturdy and well designed as a glass battering ram.
“You know,” Genevieve replied dubiously, “that might be for the best.”
Widdershins smiled despite herself. “I'll just be a minute or three, I promise. There's nothing to worry about.”
“Worry?” Genevieve asked Renard as their mutual friend faded into the shadows. “Why would we possibly be worried?”
“I'm sure I can't imagine.”
For long moments they stood, trying their damnedest not to breathe for fear their lungs would rebel and physically fight their way free of the alley. Until, eventually, Genevieve turned, her gaze meeting Renard's squarely for perhaps the first time.
“She doesn't know, does she?”
“I beg your pardon, my dear? Who doesn't know what?”
“Widdershins. She doesn't know about you.”
Renard's eyes widened briefly, then narrowed. “I'm sure I have no idea what you're-”
“Oh, please. You're a professional thief, you're a member in good standing of the guild, and you're risking your life and your position just being here. I love Widdershins to death, Renard, but she can be a real idiot on occasion. I assure you, though, that I am not.”
The fop just about deflated; even the garish colors of his outfit seemed to go suddenly dull (though to be fair, that might simply have been the miasma of the alley eating away at the dyes). “You won't say anything, will you?” he all but begged.
“Why won't you?” Gen asked, not unkindly.
“Look at me, mademoiselle. I am many things, and I make no apologies for most of them-but do you believe me to be a man Widdershins could ever take seriously?”
“You might be surprised,” she told him. “But no, I won't tell her. It's not my place.”
“Thank you.”
And there seemed, at that, to be nothing more for them to say.
Widdershins's unshakable confidence lasted almost precisely to the midpoint of the first flight of stairs, which was, not coincidentally, the exact same point at which the entire structure emitted a mighty groan and shifted several inches to the left. She froze, hand clasped so tightly to the guardrail that the rotting wood began to disintegrate in her fist.
“Olgun?” she croaked. “Olgun, can…umm, that is, you can make sure this thing doesn't fall out from under me, can't you?”
There was no reply save another faint shift of the rickety stair. Dust cascaded from above, sifting into Widdershins's hair, tickling her nose. Only several heavy gasps prevented a sneeze that might have brought down the entire contraption.
“Olgun?” Little more than a whisper, this time, for fear that even so tiny a sound might have deadly repercussions.
Then, accompanied by a burst of silent laughter, Widdershins sensed the familiar pins-and-needles in the air, felt the decaying wood shore up beneath her feet and her ever-tightening grip.
“Oh, very funny, Olgun!” she growled, face inflamed at the laughter that sounded around her soul. “Hysterical, even.”
The mischievous deity continued to chortle.
“When you're through entertaining yourself,” Widdershins told him haughtily, “we can just be on our way.”
It took a moment more for the god to get a hold of himself-a long moment during which Widdershins stared irritably upward at the constellations not washed out by the light of the moon or hidden by long streaks of cloud. We’ll probably have rain by morning, she noted absently.
Finally, Olgun decided the joke was over, and they continued up the now steady stairs.
Widdershins halted at the top floor, not beside the door but at the right-most edge of the tiny landing. Fingers expertly found the cracks and crevices in the wall, feet sliding easily into the gaps that were, to her, as good as carved steps. Scuttling sideways, sure-footed as a spider, she passed over several windows, stopping finally at the fourth. She flipped a well-concealed catch on the pane, lifted the window, and slipped inside, all as silently as the moonlight pooling thickly on the floor.
“All right,” she commented, though whether to herself, to Olgun, or to the empty room at large was debatable. “That was easy enough.” Unhindered by the darkness, she made her way around the room, gathering her supplies. Within moments, she'd stopped by the cheap wardrobe in the corner. The gold lay hidden in a tiny hollow low in the wall behind it. She knelt, preparing to shove it aside to get at the prize beyond. “Let's get this done and get out of here.”
“I couldn't agree more.”
It was a hard voice, guttural, rumbling, a mastiff speaking through a mouthful of gravel and broken glass. Widdershins rolled backward and came instantly to her feet, rapier in hand. It was too dark in the chamber for her to see her opponent, though she was certain there had been no one present a moment before. Who was it? How did he get in?
More importantly, why had Olgun not warned her about him?
And most importantly, how the happy horses had they found her?!
“It's not possible!” she whispered as she braced for an attack, unaware she'd spoken aloud.
“Actually, what I believe you told your companions waiting outside in that filthy little alley was that it wasn't humanly possible,” the voice grated at her. “And in that, you're entirely correct.”
Widdershins lunged, blade aimed unerringly at the horrible sound, and connected with nothing at all.
“Who do you intend to stab with that needle, little girl?” The question came from off to her right. In that horrible voice, Widdershins sensed nothing human, nothing but contempt.
“You, if you've the courage to show yourself!” Fine, so it was mostly bluster, but she needed to see who she faced.
“As you wish.” A shadow moved, a darker blot in the night-cloaked room, and a shape appeared in the sickly moonlight.
“Is this more to your liking?”
Widdershins couldn't speak, could barely even breathe. Nothing save a primal whimper of hopelessness emerged from between her lips.
It was tall, bent low to avoid the ceiling overhead. All four limbs were hideously long and slender, as though some demented sorcerer had taken a normal man and stretched him like taffy to half again his starting height. Its flesh was the decomposing brown of poorly tanned leather, its jagged talons rusted iron, its head a misshapen amalgamation of man and boar. Thin patagia fluttered between its arms and distended rib cage, and a thrashing, serpentine appendage protruded obscenely from between its legs, complete with jagged fangs and forked tongue.
And it smelled, incongruously, hideously, of honey.
But it was neither horror nor fear that had drawn such a primitive, despairing sound from Widdershins. It was recognition.
“Hello, Adrienne,” the hell-spawned beast purred, thoughtfully stroking its twisted chin with claw-tipped fingers. Widdershins felt the space around her grow darker, heavier, as though the creature's very shadow were a palpable presence. “Or would you prefer Widdershins now? I would so hate to offend you, after so many years apart.”
It lunged, its enormous stride taking it across the room in a single step, and Widdershins had nowhere, nowhere at all, to run.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Two years ago:
Adrienne allowed the rhythm of the music, the ebb and flow of the dance, to sweep her through the hall of whirling couples and spinning bodies. The musicians were magnificent, the strings and winds weaving a tapestry of pure emotion. Dresses and gowns of the finest cloths, formal coats with silver buttons-all flashed past as her feet carried her the length of Alexandre Delacroix's massive ballroom. Her every move as graceful as those who were born to this life, Adrienne found herself smiling with a foreign sentiment she only scarcely recognized as contentment.
And if she h
ad more difficulty in finding a dance partner than other women; if she danced alone more often than not; if some of the aristocrats fell back as she drew near, lips curled in a moue of arrogant disdain…well, it was their loss, as Alexandre had told her again and again, in the long nights when their disrespect had sent her sobbing or raging to her chambers. Some of Davillon's nobility had indeed learned to welcome this strange addition with open arms. Those who didn't, didn't matter.
The waltz wound to a close, the minstrels taking a much-deserved break before launching into their next piece, and Adrienne breathlessly worked her way through the milling throng. Her gown was modest, a deep lavender with tight sleeves of rich blue, a gift her mentor had insisted upon giving even though Adrienne could easily afford such things on her own, now. It was just that sort of behavior that kept the rumors of their nonexistent romance alive. For two years she'd lived in Delacroix's manor. Today, she could afford a place of her own as easily as she could the gown.
She loved the old man, true enough-as family, not as the gossips suggested-but this wasn't why she stayed.
Adrienne was afraid-afraid that without Alexandre at her side, her hard-won acceptance in Davillon's upper echelons would blow away like so much dandelion fuzz. She feared that, once she grew only a few years older, custom and propriety would force her to hire servants of her own, to throw her own parties, to play her own politics-all elements of high society she could happily do without.
But most of all, she feared that stepping out that door would bring her old life rushing back. She'd pushed it down, crushed it beneath the weight of stubborn determination, but still it haunted her at night, when such terrors shamble from their dens to torment innocent insomniacs. The sting of hunger and the itch of matted filth were never far from her thoughts. She'd never shaken the notion that this was all some majestic dream or fantasy, and she clung unconsciously to the childish notion that it was Alexandre himself who kept that fate at bay. As long as he remained in her life, the dream would continue.