Lethal Red Riding Hood (Dark Goddess Chronicles Book 1)

by Leonard Wilson

  In the blink of an eye, she’d simply vanished into her own dress, which then tumbled to the floor. While Elissa still stood blinking her eyes a few more times, whatever remained under that little red dress squirmed about a bit before emerging through the neck hole as a small, white long-haired cat.

  “Bookend?!” Elissa gasped.

  The cat gave a little acknowledging nod before raising up and making a small leap into the air, expanding in a rush as it did, back into the figure of Keely—a figure made all the more obvious because her clothes remained in heap on the floor. Elissa fidgeted awkwardly while she half-watched Keely sort unselfconsciously through the pile of clothes to reassemble her outfit.

  “It’s a pretty smooth transition, really, if you don’t wriggle around and get everything out of place. So I just got down and went feline, let the chains fall off, and back human while I still knew I’d come popping back out in all the right places. You’re not going to freak now, are you?”

  “No…umm…No. But how come the boots…?”

  “Changed with me when nothing else did?” Keely grinned, pausing in pulling her shift on over her head to hold up a still-shod foot for display. “Nobody messes with my footwear. Not even magic. Now are there going to be a lot of questions?” she asked as she finished tugging the hem of her shift into place and reached for her dress. “Because if this is going to take a while, I could really use something to eat first.”

  “How about a few questions, then we take a break if it starts to run long?” Elissa asked.

  “Fair enough.” Keely shrugged.

  “Well, you’ve already answered one of them,” Elissa said. “I was sure you’d come for just the one book, not that whole mess you left in the alley. Now I know how you knew about it, but…No, stop. If you’re Bookend…”

  “Keely,” Keely said.

  “What?!” Elissa asked.

  “My name’s Keely. You’ll ask eventually, so let’s get that cleared up.”

  “All right: Keely,” Elissa sighed. “You’ve completely thrown off my chain of thought…”

  “I do that a lot.” Keely nodded.

  “Look, do you do any other magic tricks,” Elissa asked, “or just the one?”

  “Just the one?” Keely replied incredulously. “Just the one? How many people do you know who can do even one?”

  “Maybe a couple. Miraculata Cosima, of course—she is a miraculata—and…” Elissa stopped at the less-than-pleasant expression growing on Keely’s face. “But I’ve never seen a trick in the same league as that one. Real show-stopper.”

  “Why, thank you,” Keely said, her expression softening again.

  “It’s just, you know, witches are supposed to know lots of different spells, and some of them can turn into cats…”

  “Pfft.” Keely snorted. “All a witch can turn into is a pile of ash when the Inquisition’s through with her. You ever met a witch?”

  Elissa just gave an embarrassed little shrug.

  “I’m not a witch. I’m not a demon. I’m a girl who lucked into exactly one magical talent. I didn’t even sell my soul for it, so let’s move on and stay focused. I’m hungry, remember?”

  Elissa started to speak, but stopped suddenly, and held up a hand for silence. In the ensuing quiet, muffled voices could be heard filtering into the room. Quickly but quietly, she slipped out a dark little hall with Keely trailing cautiously behind. It soon brought them to a row of narrow window slits looking down into a vaulted chapel from high on the wall.

  In the room below, Miraculata Cosima could be seen exchanging words with the High Inquisitrix, while Sir Riordan stood impassively nearby—the tension in the air between the two women tangible even from this distance, despite the fact that their voices remained level.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Jane, dear,” Cosima said, looking up at the slender, dark-haired woman who would have stood a head taller than the full-figured little blond even if she hadn’t positioned herself atop the chapel dais. I know that finding conspiracies in every shadow is your life’s calling, but this…this is a real piece of work. You’ve outdone yourself.”

  “This is not paranoia, Cosima,” Jane said, pulling a book from the lectern—the same journal Keely had brought to the abbey—and tossing it to the floor in front of Cosima’s feet. The echoes of it slamming into the stone floor reverberated through the chapel. “It’s heresy. And we’ve pieced together the whole tangled, sordid story, with you at the center of the web.”

  “Me?” Cosima stifled a laugh only by turning it into a snort. “Jane, even if your accusations were the least bit plausible—which they’re not—I’m not the woman you want to go picking a fight with. You can’t touch me, and if you even try, I’ll take you over my knee and teach you some of the manners you should have learned as a child.”

  “The parlor tricks you call miracles may have you in the good graces of the Angelis,” Jane answered calmly, refusing to be baited, “but I wouldn’t go betting my life on having her support once she reads the lies you’ve been passing around. I have witnesses who saw your little helper in the library pass this off to you, then saw you pass it off to your conspirator—who tried to smuggle it out of the abbey.”

  “She means us, doesn’t she?” Elissa whispered. “That’s it. My life’s over.”

  “Tell me, Jane,” Cosima asked, “did you tell your ‘witnesses’ what you wanted to hear before you had their fingers broken, or did they just make a lucky guess at what words would appease you?” Cosima asked, finally stooping to pick up the book and begin thumbing through it. “What horrors is this filthy thing supposed to contain, anyway?”

  “You mean besides the supposed whereabouts of the Grimm Truth?”

  This time Cosima totally failed to stifle her laugh. “A faerie story? Jane, you’re ready to start killing people over a faerie story?”

  “You didn’t notice the blood you stepped in on the way in, did you?” Jane asked wryly. “Of course I’m not ready to start. The question is how hard you want to make it on yourself come your turn.”

  “No!” Cosima snapped, finally allowing a bit of temper to show. “No, the question is, do you ever think anything through, or do you just act on whatever impulse enters that messed up little head of yours? Antonia Grimm gave her life for the church. She did not slink off like a coward to write some damning book full of fool’s predictions and scullery-maid gossip. No one is going to find the Grimm Truth because it just doesn’t exist. And this…” Cosima snapped the book shut and let it fall back to the floor. “…this ‘old’ journal is some charlatan’s cheap forgery. It’s probably so new I could get ink stains just from handling it.”

  “Of course the book is full of lies,” Jane countered. “That’s exactly what makes it dangerous.”

  “What will make this book dangerous is you sending everyone into hysterics over it. You could have just tossed it in a random fireplace to be forgotten, but no; every person you bully, every person you torture, every person you kill over this book will add the weight of her own belief to its importance until it takes on a life of its own. There is no conspiracy, and this book means nothing. Burn it to ashes right now, Jane, and just let it die.”

  “Hysterics,” Jane said matter-of-factly, “are the fire that cleanse. Why on earth would I want to avoid sending people into hysterics?”

  Just then, the side door to the chapel opened, and a black-robed inquisitrix ushered a graying peddler woman roughly into the room. “Ophelia!” Keely gasped quietly.

  “Ah! Now we get to it,” Jane said with a predatory grin. “Tell me, woman, is this the mysterious ‘Lady A’ who hired you to find this abominable book?”

  Ophelia’s hands shook as she stared studiously at the floor. “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “Don’t you think that might sound a bit more damning,” Cosima asked, “if perhaps she’d actually looked at me? I’m bored with this charade, Jane. We’re done here.” Cosima turned away with a dismissive wave of her hand, and h
eaded out the main doors of the chapel.

  “Oh, no. You do not walk out on me,” Jane snapped, hopping down from the dais to follow Cosima. “I say when we’re done here.” She paused at the doorway just long enough to call back, “Shoshona, get that vagabond locked back up.”

  The doors closed behind the four retreating women, leaving Sir Riordan alone in the chapel. He shook his head and gave a wry little chuckle as he crouched to pick up the fallen book. Holding it at arm’s length, a bit gingerly, he began to dust it off, and was just looking around for a better place to set it down when he heard a loud clang from outside the side door. He stared at the door curiously for a moment, listening for some clue to the origin of the odd noise.

  After several seconds of silence, he gave a mental shrug, and returned to his search, finally deciding to simply lay the book on the edge of the dais. Even as he did, the side door creaked open a few inches. As he straightened up and turned to face the opening door, a small, white blur shot out from the gap. The next thing he knew there was a little bundle of feline fury hurtling straight at his face with a menacing hiss, claws and fangs bared.

  The startled knight threw his arms protectively across his face in anticipation of a collision that never came—or that at least never took the form he expected. Mid leap, Keely transformed back into a woman, slamming into Riordan with the full force of her essentially naked body, with one very precisely placed knee.

  “Now that’s how it was supposed to work,” she smirked as Riordan folded up onto the floor. “You want a mastermind, here’s your mastermind,” she added, delivering a solid kick to his head before he could begin to recover. “Be sure and give your mistress my thanks for wasting so much time on the fools I duped. Now I’ve got a book to go find. The next time you see this little witch she’ll be sitting with the Angelis, going over the passage where it says what a phenomenally stupid idea it would be to establish an inquisition.”

  She gave him one last kick before grabbing the book from the dais and heading for the door. Riordan staggered to his feet just in time to see her blow him a kiss as she disappeared through it.

  Riordan reached the door as quickly as he could manage on unsteady feet—but found nothing beyond it in the statue-lined corridor but a little white cat leaping over the crumpled, black-clad form of Sister Shoshona and out a window into the alley below. Riordan leaned against the windowsill, watching the cat until it had scuttled off around a corner. With a resigned sigh, he went to check on the fallen inquisitrix, then lifted the unconscious woman in his arms and carried her back into the chapel.

  When they’d gone, Elissa slipped furtively out through a drapery behind a statue of a particularly pious looking miraculata, grabbed the book Keely had stashed there, then vanished back into the narrow stairwell behind the curtain.

  “Please,” Ophelia said plaintively as Elissa pushed past the older woman on her way up the stairs. “They’ve got my daughters.”

  “Where?” Elissa asked.

  Night had long since fallen over the city as Ophelia pushed her way through the lamp-lit revelry of the working-class crowds on Dunley Lane. Behind her, Elissa clutched her traveling cloak tightly about her like a security blanket, both to shield herself from the unaccustomed chaos and to keep the postulant’s robes under it from drawing unwanted attention.

  Ophelia’s daughters never lagged more than a step or two behind until the four women slipped at last through the door of the Rusty Mug Meade Hall. They stood for a moment, peering into shadows only marginally less thick than the ones on the street, until they saw Keely smiling at them from a corner table.

  “What are you looking so smug for?” Ophelia glowered at Keely as she pulled up a chair across the table.

  “What’s not to look smug about?” Keely chuckled quietly. “Even forgetting any ‘I told you so’, when do you think was the last time four miscreants slipped right out from under Jane Carver’s nose, much less walked off with her prize in the process?” She hesitated a moment. “You do have the book, don’t you?”

  Elissa pulled the book briefly out from under her cloak for Keely to see. “But what now?” she sighed. “That had to be me she was accusing of delivering the book to Cosima. I can’t go back. And the four of you can only disappear into the city for so long before the Inquisition comes knocking. They have a nasty talent for finding people.”

  “Before I answer that,” Keely said, “I’ve got a couple of questions of my own. Of all the women in the Inquisition, our High Inquisitrix is the only one I’ve ever seen who didn’t dress in black. How many others are allowed to wear red?”

  “None,” Elissa answered with a shrug. “No other priestess wears red, period. It’s her color of office.”

  “And who held the office…” Keely paused for some mental math. “Seven years ago?”

  “Jane Carver’s been leading the Inquisition for a dozen years or more.”

  Keely closed her eyes and nodded slowly, her expression briefly going stone cold.

  “They took the wagon, too, you know,” Ophelia groaned. “Everything was in there. I could have gone straight on the money from those heists.”

  “Not that you would have,” Keely said, the unaccustomed sobriety on her face melting into a smirk.

  “But I could have. I could be a respectable woman right now living in a respectable townhouse, leading a life of respectable debauchery. Instead I’m a pauper living a few steps ahead of the law, just like alwa—”

  Keely interrupted her by sliding a leather pouch across the table toward Ophelia. “My share wasn’t in the wagon. You can take it with my blessing and go buy that town house—in a town far, far away—or you can come with me and make some real money. I’ve got my next game all picked out.”

  “Bigger and more grand than any game we’ve run before?” Ophelia chuckled.

  “Positively epic.” Keely grinned.

  “Then we’ll take the money, thanks,” Ophelia said, quickly scooping up the pouch before the offer could be withdrawn. “I’m tired, Keely, and you were right. That was one scare too many.”

  “Well, I…” Madeline started.

  “Think carefully, girl.” Ophelia raised a cautioning hand. “I know you’ve been having a lot of fun with Keely’s ‘bigger and better’ things, but we just hit the limit. Do you really think you’ll ever call it closer than we just did and still walk away with your life? When I walk out of here, I’m going to disappear forever, and the easy, comfortable life in this pouch is going to disappear with me. Do you want to be a shooting star on a grand adventure, or do you want some creature comforts and maybe live to see twenty-five?”

  Madeline sighed. “Can I sleep on that one?”

  “Of course, dear,” Ophelia said, patting her hand. “I said I was tired. These aching bones won’t be going any further before the sun comes up, and then with any luck they’ll only have to take me as far as the nearest cart for hire.”

  “What about me?” Elissa asked with a little pout.

  “You get to come with me,” Keely beamed. “I can’t ask Ophelia to split the money she earned before we met you, but I’m going to need a girl who can read and write. So come with me and together we’ll get rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

  Elissa looked uncertainly to Ophelia, who simply rolled her eyes very eloquently. “I don’t know,” Elissa said hesitantly as she turned back to Keely.

  “Did I mention we’ll take down the Inquisition, too?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Moving Mountains

  “Rise and shine, beautiful.”

  “Mmph. What gives, Jake?” Keely rolled over groggily at the prodding of a booted foot. She combed her hair out of her eyes with her fingers, spat straw out of her mouth, and tried to focus on the dimly illuminated figure standing over her in the loft. “Did you run out of drunks to hassle?”

  “What have you been up to, girl?” the bouncer of the Rusty Mug demanded, waving a printed page in front of her face.

  The othe
r four women began to stir as Keely sat up and squinted at the page in the gray morning light. “Are you saying that’s supposed to be me?” she asked dubiously. “That’s not a very good likeness.”

  “The crier who was tacking these up says they’re looking for a ‘young, silver-haired witch by the name of Keely’. I kind of think it’s supposed to be you. Not sure about the ‘turning into a cat’ part.”

  “Oh, absolutely. I also sneeze unicorns and turn lead into potatoes. Who comes up with this rubbish?” Keely asked, rolling her eyes.

  Elissa, who’d come alert very suddenly, made a grab for the poster. “Keely, what did you do to get that book back?!”

  “I just paid Riordan back for the headache,” Keely said, still brushing straw from her face. “Oh, and I kind of taunted him about how I was going to find the Grimm Truth.”

  “What?!” Elissa gasped. “Are you suicidal? I knew we were going to have to move fast to keep ahead of them, but this is insane. Keely, you’ve leapfrogged yourself overnight from complete unknown to the Inquisition’s most wanted. They kept some poor print shop up all night just to make these.”

  “Wonder how they knew my name,” Keely mused.

  “My fault,” Ophelia answered as she climbed to her feet a lot more quickly than her body was happy with. “They were very persuasive. Come on girls, we’re disappearing. Now. Sorry, Keely.”

  “Yeah. No, we’re good.” Keely waved a hand dismissively. “Get out of here while you can.” She got up and quickly hugged Ophelia, Madeline, and Colette each in turn. “It’s been fun. Don’t think I won’t track you down someday after the dust settles.”

  “Of course you will, dear.” Ophelia patted Keely’s cheek.

  “I thought you said we’d never see her again,” Colette said quietly to her mother as they hurried down the ladder to the stable floor.