by C. M. Lind
Vitoria set her cup down. “What are you doing here?”
Ulrich turned to the table, looking at the options on the tray. “I must finish my words with you.”
“I don’t care for your questions, Ulrich. I didn’t then, and I have much less patience now.” She crossed her arms, her legs planted wide.
“I do not have questions for you—only news.” He took the small mug of cream and poured a few tablespoons worth of it into his cup; he swirled the white into the brown with his pinky.
“And after your news,” she cocked her head up to him, “I will hit you harder this time.” He was taller, she swore. He had always been tall in Queensport, a man that stood easily at 6’3” stands out in a place where the rare, tall Avelinian was just shy of six feet.
He briefly stopped his stirring finger, shrugged, and went back to it. “If that is what you wish.”
Her nostrils flared, noisily venting. “I have work to do, Ulrich. I can’t have you here!”
Ulrich took another sip of his tea, looking slightly more pleased with it than before. “I wanted to let you know,” he took another sip, “that a Justicar came to speak with me—about you.”
Her eyes narrowed, and a cold, quiet stillness hung between them as their eyes locked. Each dared the other to break that sour silence first.
“Go on,” she ventured, hating that she was the first to give—but she honestly wanted to know what Ulrich was going to say.
He nodded, as if in appreciation of her desire for him to speak. “He asked me to meet him at The Cliffs, which I did, to speak about you.” He drug the “ou” out, with a slight, deep rumble.
She thought he was mocking her with his tone. “You spoke about me to a Justicar, behind my back?” Her arms went wide, and she took a step closer to him.
He didn’t flinch. “Not so much. I let him speak about you.” He took another sip.
She stopped mid-step. “What?”
“I wanted to see what he had to say about you.” He set the cup down on the table.
“Really?” She asked him as if he thought she was a fool.
He nodded, serious and severe.
Her arms returned to where they were before, crossed in front of her. “And what did the Justicar say about me?”
Ulrich took a step closer. He smelled thoroughly clean—completely uncontaminated by any foreign scents, as if he had been sterilized. There wasn’t a trace of smoke upon him, or even the slightest fragrance of sweat. “He told me a story about a prisoner who picked the lock on her cage, scaled down the iron pillar of the staircase barefooted, ghosted through his prison without a witness, and stole a set of hooks.”
Vitoria’s eyes did not waver. She kept them locked with Ulrich’s. His dark, umber eyes did not flinch from hers. They did not contain the hatred or disgust that she always thought would enter into them at knowing this tale. But, she supposed, out of all the tales one could tell of her, it was probably the most bearable.
“That this prisoner used the hooks on a boy. That she lashed him from behind, using him as a fleshy, squishy shield, and she rode him like a squealing hog down onto the rocks.” He raised his brow to her. “That she somehow made her way to the harbor on her own.”
Vitoria smirked at his artistic flair. The boy had never squealed—he barely knew what was happening until it was over. But, she supposed, filled with a vile, profane curiosity, if Ulrich wanted the truth, he could have it. She would finally know what he would do with it, and this peaceful, sweet charade of innocent companionship could die. “It’s true, and I would have taken ten more boys that night if I had too.”
Ulrich’s eyebrow dropped, and he returned to his serene expression.
“My only regret is that it was over too quickly.” Perhaps she was finally making him uncomfortable. Did he think that she would have disputed the facts? Did he think that she would justify her actions to him? Never would she. She took another step closer to him, close enough that he, no doubt, could smell her tea-laden breath on her words. Her arms went slack. “I hooked him under the collarbone.” She touched him on his left. “Right here.” Her other arm raised to touch him symmetrically on the right. “And right here.”
He raised his brow to her again, cocking his head slightly to the side. The rest of him was politely composed—sedate almost.
She sunk her fingertips into him, mimicking the meat hook she had used on that guard. “Then all I had to do was topple him over. I struck him on the backs of his knees, throwing my whole body against him.”
His breath faltered. It was minor, and most would not have noticed the inconsequential fluctuation, but Vitoria did. She was watching him closely, like a viper looking for any movement in its prey—any sign of fear.
“Then I fell with him. It felt,” she took a deep breath, and momentarily closed her eyes, relishing the unabridged, raw truth, “divine falling through that air after being told I would die in that fucking cell—and even more so when we landed.”
She moved her hands, and her eyes, down his chest, resting them right above his solar plexus. She pushed against him, and she felt his slightly elevated heartbeat. “The encompassing thump against the stone, the feeling of us exhaling in unison at the impact. The scent of hot blood and cold ocean. The relentless wind and spray stinging my body…” There was a tingle in her chest, and her pulse began to quicken. Never before had she said the heavy truth within her, and it almost felt intoxicating.
She removed her hands from him, and her eyes went back to his. They were filled with an alien intensity that she had never seen in him before. Was it pure disgust that filled him? Contempt? Or was it a sense of horror, hearing his “friend” speak with such pleasure and pride at her crowning achievement of survival?
She licked her lips before she spoke, and a small, peaceful smile crept up on her. “So, is that what the Justicar told you?”
He took a deep breath, eyeing where Vitoria had pushed against him. “That is about right.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?”
“No, not all. He said you are dangerous—a murderer and other such things.”
“I am a murderer. I have killed, and I will continue to do so.” Her grin grew stronger as she looked up into his eyes. “I was seven the first time I killed. I stabbed a man in the eye four times with my mother’s hairpin. It popped like the yolk of a soft cooked egg, the kind I used to eat every morning. I still think of that occasionally. When I dream or eat eggs, of course, but also randomly I’m struck with the image of his bloodied face and cavernous socket.” She felt splendidly naked with him that moment. Casting off the secrets of herself, secrets she hadn’t ever told anyone before—things that she had deemed too monstrous to share with other humans.
Ulrich’s lips went tight, as if he was repressing a scowl.
“And the last man I killed was a lover of mine. He still looked as beautiful as I recalled him being. His fine face, his hungry eyes, bright teeth that practically shined when he smiled—which he did perfectly—and I wasn’t sure if I should fuck him first.” She laughed, a small tittering, sad thing. “Since him, I’ve never been a fan of beauty, and I wanted to destroy that in him. It wasn’t fair that he had that while I was away. It wasn’t fair that he—” Vitoria stopped herself with a deep breath. “Did your Justicar tell you what happened to that man?”
“He said that you disemboweled and castrated him.”
“I did, but only after I took that beautiful face of his.” She brought her hands up to his face. “Broke more bones than I would have cared too.”
His eyes flickered to them, but they were back on her in a second.
“You said you’re going to continue to kill.” He raised a brow. “Then who is next?”
She lowered her hands with a sneer. “Afraid it’ll be you? Because you’re beautiful too?” She stepped even closer to him, her chest almost touching his. No, she thought, he wasn’t afraid. Then what was it that she saw in him?
“When I came t
o Queensport, I tried to be someone else. I thought life would be easier. Maybe life would make sense. I left home behind, so why not leave the little girl who everyone was secretly afraid of?” She exhaled loudly. “It felt strangely honest escaping The Cliffs. Using that boy as I wanted. Even killing that man when I was seven. I didn’t think about it. I just did it. I feel like it is my nature, and,” she cocked her head, “that you cannot escape your own nature.”
Ulrich turned his head away. “We can’t, can we?”
“No.” She shrugged, unsure how to say it best, “But I think can do it on my own terms as best as I’m able.” Like, she thought, perhaps not always hiding herself for fear of what others might think. Ulrich, for example, was taking her confessions particularly well. She was amazed at how soothing it was to hear her thoughts transmuted into words.
His head shot back to her. “But what about your master?” Ulrich blurted out.
She laughed. “You mean Conyers? A master? Mine? No, he was never a master.” She had always thought of him as her friend. A teacher who had helped refine a talent of hers—but she never would have called him her master. “Honestly,” she looked up into him, “after being here, I don’t believe following is for me.” She shrugged. “I’ve tried that a few times and it never works out.”
Ulrich furrowed his brow, as if a great internal debate was raging.
“It won’t matter though. I have one last go, and then I’m done with this entire headache.” She laughed again, sounding exhausted, resigned, yet almost serene. “From what Conyers has told me, in twelve days’ time I won’t have to worry about much anymore.” Because I’ll be dead, she thought to herself, remembering the warning of Conyers that the veritable boogeyman was in town.
His face turned down to hers as he grabbed her arm. “Twelve days?”
His grip was strong and tight. She had never realized that Ulrich was so strong—perhaps because his voice was always so warm and gentle with her that she never thought of him as a strong man. “Yes.”
He broke eye contact with her and pressed his lips together.
She pitied him for that moment. Aimee had told her she was being ridiculous for preparing for her own demise—that such a thing would only happen if she wanted it to—but Ulrich looked worse than when she had struck him before. Part of her was thankful to him, that anyone would listen to her morbid confessions and not judge her, silence her, preach to her, or mock her.
She raised her hand. Tentatively, as if unsure how to be gentle, she pressed her palm onto his left cheek.
He almost jumped at the touch, and he let go of her arm as he stepped back, utterly retreating from her. He cleared his throat and turned his gaze towards the tea on the table. “Conyers spoke to me too.”
Her mouth opened, but the clanging of the chimeric cluster of bells interrupted her words. Her mouth closed as she heard the thudding of Sylvaine’s feet tromping down the stairs like a man trudging to his execution.
Ulrich stepped to the table, grabbing his cup and sipping casually. Vitoria crossed her arms and looked away from him.
“Grandma says it’s time for him to go,” said Sylvaine, oblivious to his interruption.
“Of course,” said Ulrich, shoving his cup back onto the table, nearly knocking the bowl of sugar over in the process.
“He’ll go when he feels like it,” said Vitoria.
Sylvaine rolled his eyes.
“No,” said Ulrich, clearing his throat. “I should go.”
He didn’t look at her as he headed to the stairs, narrowly avoiding the low header at the last second.
She wanted to ask him about Conyers and what the man had said to him—but she didn’t dare with Sylvaine around. No doubt the boy would inform Conyers about their conversation. After the clanking of the makeshift bells upstairs heralded Ulrich’s exit, she raised her hands to Sylvaine, to signal that he had about ten seconds before she knocked him to the ground—for the sixth time that day.
Chapter 36
Saemund slammed the door to Turmont’s Tinctures behind him. He leaned against the doorframe to steady himself. He felt out of breath. Adrenaline coursed through him, making him feel light and jittery. He knocked his head against the doorframe—hard enough to make a small pink bruise on his brow, but he didn’t care.
He felt as if he was about to float away, and the skin on his hands undulated and squirmed as if filled with countless writhing worms. His hairs underneath his flesh had begun to twitch at the woman’s tales, but, luckily, her eyes were on his own and not his freakish hands. All it would have taken were her eyes to wander, and, no doubt, he would have been discovered for the skin thief he was.
Even outside, they were still filled with excitement from the woman’s stories, and his stomach yearned at the recollection of her dead and eviscerated lover—from when he watched her from the seclusion of Iron’s Rest that night she hauled him into the street. Blood had always made him hungry. Hunger was a sensation he knew well, and he could handle it on his own, but it was a different, insatiable sensation further below his empty stomach that vexed him.
Tormented him.
Mocked him.
He pushed from the doorframe and tromped into the street. Countless ordinary humans walked past him. A few nodded their heads at him since he wore the garb of a priest, but he found himself unable to return any gesture or make any inkling of priestly pretense.
He replayed her words in his mind, perfectly recalling her lips as she spoke about her escape from The Cliffs. She had been too close to him, he reasoned. He had let her be too close, and it was, no doubt, her scent that first threw him off.
The sweat from her sparring was so perfectly pungent to his heightened nose—he could taste the tart, earthy warmth on his tongue.
Her calloused hand felt so real and warm on the flesh of the priest, which was only too eager to receive the sensations of her skin.
As he rambled through the street, he practically knocked into a young boy, no older than eight and starved for probably half his life. He growled at the boy, whose eyes went as wide as plates before breaking into tears. Saemund shoved him out of the way with a thrust of his hand to continue on his way—but where he was going he was unsure. His feet moved for him, taking him forward into any direction away from her.
He’d have to kill her.
He knew he’d have to. That was his job. It was his orders. Because the damn woman had to say “twelve days,” there was no doubt that she planned to assassinate that nobleman at his ludicrous party.
Because she had to say that, he had no reason to continue to stalk her.
She had given him everything he needed to know.
His body flushed. His cheeks were hot, and he felt as if he had downed a bottle of dubious bathtub gin: queasy and unsteady.
He ran his hand through the priest’s hair and took a deep breath as he pushed by a loud gaggle of weaver women carrying bundles of thread and wool. One of them whistled suggestively at, what she thought was, the young, handsome priest.
It had been the words she said that rattled him, and the way she had said them was like no human he had ever known.
“I would have taken ten more boys that night if I had to.”
“My only regret is that it was over too quickly.”
“I feel like it is my nature.”
He understood her nature all too well, for he was a slave to his. The woman spoke about fucking her lover before killing him, and he found the imagery delightful—except, for the cursed Saemund, the only hunger he could ever satisfy was that of his stomach, which felt ravenous nearly always.
He had often pondered his nature, and he was told his by his master frequently: “You kill, and you obey. That is all you need to do.”
Oftentimes he wanted to flee the wretched, twisted man, but he could not.
His master was right about him.
Whenever Saemund would try to disregard an order, he could only for a while. Like the hunger inside him, he could only i
gnore it for so long. It would grow in him like an overpowering cancer that would sap his strength and bring him low. It could not be ignored. He needed someone to tell him what to do. He needed a leader.
But the relentless thought of strangling his own master made him infinitely happy, and it was a fantasy he found himself pondering frequently.
He had to kill the woman because he was commanded to.
He pulled at his hair. A few strands came loose, and he found that the strange sensation grounding. He took another breath, trying to focus, but another woman was whistling at him. His eyes shot to her, and his hands dropped to his sides. She was a strumpet whose mulberry dress was so low it didn’t even cover her nipples. There was no doubt that her hair was stained with cranberries because of her scalp. Blotches of pink and red crept down from her hairline, revealing her choice of cheap pseudo-hair dye.
She sent him kisses with her hand. He walked right by her, attempting to banish the whore from his thoughts.
He had to obey a master—unlike the woman. She chose to ignore her own. Her master had no power whatsoever.
He ached to be able to know what that would be like: to simply ignore the old disgusting coot.
His head jerked back as if it was caught on something. He reeled around, and the tart from before was tugging at his hair, pursing her lips to him while lifting her skirt to reveal thigh-length, off-white, stained socks crowned with a patch of black hair.
She winked. She said something to him, but he couldn’t hear.
He slammed his hand onto her throat, latching his fingers around her neck, and squeezed.
He had to kill her, he thought again.
She couldn’t scream or even yip. Only the small sounds of shocked grunting escaped her. Her eyes were wide and dumb like a cow who’d been stunned with a sudden blow to the back of the head. She couldn’t seem to realize that she was about to be slaughtered.
He had to, he thought, didn’t he?
She thrashed against him, dropping her skirt and clawing at his eyes.
He squeezed tighter.
If he didn’t kill her then that spoiled fop would die, certainly, and he would have failed his orders.