Malthus grasped her hips and ground his pelvis into hers. "Yes, indeed I will. And all night long too."
* * * *
Malthus stood for a moment, staring at the front of Baroucha's dingy shop on Main Street a block and a half from the Difficult Horse Tavern where he spent many afternoons drinking with his friends from Sanctuary. The green paint had cracked and peeled. He shook his head at it, wondering that she had any customers at all considering how badly she had neglected the outside.
Like most shops in towns and villages, whether lycan or human, Baroucha's living quarters were upstairs above her work rooms. Ordinarily a village as large as Wolffgard practically a small town in size would have had several healers and midwives. Yet, until Cahira Sinclair had set up shop, Wolffgard had had only Baroucha.
It had not taken Malthus long to discover why. Baroucha resented competition. Gossip was her chief weapon and she wielded it with great effect to drive out anyone who dared to set up a competing shop and business. She tolerated the human apothecary, Atreius Ivanstern, only because he had access to drugs and herbs that she could not come by mostly through connections in Creeya and he was willing to sell to her at discount.
The bell on the door rang as Malthus entered and Baroucha looked up from the table where she sat discussing a bottle of medicine with a middle-aged bitch wearing one of the traditional lycan robes that wrapped around and tied with a sash.
A tiny sneer touched Malthus' lips at the high collared dress Baroucha wore despite the blazing heat of late summer. He had not been by to feed on her in weeks, yet she still wore those dresses as if expecting to find his fangs in her throat at any moment.
"I need to talk to you for a bit. Privately."
"Just a moment." Baroucha turned back. "Just one teaspoon, morning and evening."
The bitch slid Baroucha two coppers, took the bottle, and left with a backwards glance at Malthus. He flipped the sign on the door to "closed," and dropped the bar across it so that they would not be disturbed.
"What do you want, Malthus?" Baroucha's hand went to the mottled skin on her neck, her eyes filling with tension. She looked like an oversized toad and Malthus doubted that the old bitch had ever been pretty.
"Let's go into the backroom for this."
She preceded him into the backroom, which was a maze of cabinets, tables, and bookshelves with a sofa along the farthest wall. Malthus noted with satisfaction that Baroucha had replaced the ratty old thing she had had before his visits began with one covered in an overstuffed burgundy brocade that had pillows piled high in the corners.
She settled in a corner against the pillows and unfastened the bodice of her dress. "Payment first?"
"Always." Malthus seated himself beside her and ran his finger along the loose, wrinkled skin on her neck.
She watched his fangs descend from their sheaths, her heartbeat quickened, and she breathed in small rapid pants. "Go on. I'm ready."
Malthus' sneer broadened. Baroucha had been one of the smart ones, and never fought him. His coercions had gone into her mind with ease and he had not been forced to layer them as he did with the others.
She shivered as he licked along her neck and stiffened for an instant as he sank his fangs into her. Because Baroucha was always so cooperative, Malthus triggered her endorphins once the first taste of her blood was in his mouth. She relaxed with a sigh, eyes distant, and a smile playing across her face. He wondered what she dreamed of as he sucked.
"Alistar Alistar" She moaned.
She always says that name. A lover perhaps?
He pulled out of her and wiped his mouth off on a handkerchief. "What have you been giving Claw for his heart trouble?"
Baroucha blinked, shaking off the visions he had given her. "Foxglove extract."
"Excellent. When do you send him his next bottle?"
"Morcar is picking it up this afternoon. Why?" She fingered the tiny wound before closing the neck of her dress.
"Give me the bottle."
"That's it sitting on the table."
Malthus rose and followed her pointing hand to the table nearest the door. A cluster of jars sat in the nearest corner of the table and just beyond it, a six ounce bottle. The bottle had a colorless liquid in it with instructions, written in a neat hand, pasted to it. Malthus carried it over to her work table. He took a slender chain from his pouch that had nine globes of various colors on it. He tapped a lavender one and a small crate appeared on the table with an assortment of bottles, spoons, an eyedropper, glass mixing rods and other.
"Carrying globes." Baroucha pulled out a chair and sat down across from him. "What are you doing?"
Malthus' sneer became a true smile that lit his eyes. "I'm killing Claw."
"I'll get blamed for it." Her voice took on a nervous edge. "They'll kill me."
Malthus chuckled. "They'll never know. I started killing him weeks before my marriage."
"Poison?"
"Nothing so primitive." He unstoppered the bottle, and took a bottle from his crate. He unstoppered that and dipped an eyedropper into it, he added a precise nine drops to the foxglove extract. He dipped a glass rod into the bottle and stirred it well. "That should bring the heart attack on faster."
"You're going to kill them all, aren't you?"
"Of course."
She sucked in a deep breath as an expression of wonder took years from her face. "Alistar's curse. You're delivering Alistar's curse."
"What's this?" Malthus closed the bottle of foxglove extract and put his tools away.
"Alistar Weems. Tarrant Redhand and Todd Sinclair murdered him. He cursed them as he was dying said all the Redhands would die."
"Interesting." Malthus stroked his oak leaf beard.
"You'll have to kill Kynyr too." Baroucha's word sped up as her excitement grew. "And Branduff Maguire to get them all. And his daughters too."
"What do you mean?"
"Branduff Maguire Kynyr's father he's Tarrant's bastard."
"Sooo." Malthus licked his lips. "The resemblance everyone speaks of isn't a coincidence."
"Cahira thinks she can elude the curse that my Alistar my precious Alistar laid upon them by not letting anyone know Kynyr's a Redhand. Not even Claw knows. She threatened to kill me if I said anything. But I want them dead. I want them all dead. They killed my Alistar."
"We'll have our vengeance, Baroucha. I promise you. They killed my brother."
Malthus realized that he would not need to play with her mind any longer: she saw him as an ally, rather than a master.
"And Todd Sinclair, too. Please?"
"Of course." He reached across the table and patted her hand. "I'll arrange it all. Be patient. This isn't something that can be rushed."
"I understand. Oh, praise the dark gods you came."
"Yes. Praise them indeed."
* * * *
The information that Baroucha had given Malthus burned in his mind like a bonfire. Until then, his desire to see Kynyr Maguire dead had been purely personal; now it had become business and business always came before pleasure. Had he not returned so recently from Hell's Widow, he would have set out again. Heironim Traxton needed to know this about Kynyr. The messengers that Hoon used to carry missives between them kept erratic schedules they only appeared when they had something to bring Malthus so he could not trust that they would appear in a timely fashion. That meant trusting one of his lycan cat's paws further than he liked. They all worked at the Sanctuary, so he headed for it.
Passing the Difficult Horse, Malthus saw three of them emerge from the tavern: scrawny Yren who always looked half-starved; huge Torquil the smith's apprentice; and Preece, the one he wanted to talk to. Preece's only loyalty was to his purse and the person who put the most coins into it, which happened to be Malthus.
"Hey, Preece!" Malthus made a come here gesture.
Preece excused himself from his companions and swaggered across the street. "What you need?"
The tall, raw-boned lycan went shirtle
ss in the late summer heat and wore his drawstring pants so loose they hung around his narrow hips. The sheaths of the long knives hanging from his belt were strapped to his thighs for an easy draw. Preece's dead, world-weary eyes at odds with his youthful face spooked his peers, yet intrigued Malthus. His thin lips disappeared into an off-kilter twist that passed for a smile as he regarded Malthus.
"Well?" Preece rested his knuckles on his hips.
"Meet me at the cottage. I have a task for you."
"Coins in it?"
"And more."
"I'll see you there." Preece's gaze slid sideways and Malthus glanced to see what he was looking at.
Kady Wiggins walked away from the door to the dry goods store with her head down.
"Promptly, Preece."
"Yeah."
Preece overtook Kady in three long strides, caught her by the shoulders, and pushed her up against the side of Atreius Ivanstern's apothecary. "Hello, slut."
"Let go of me." She twisted in his grasp.
"Have a drink with me at the Striped Dog tonight?"
"No."
"Either the Striped Dog tonight, or stay off the streets after dark, Kady."
"Are you threatening me?"
Preece shrugged. "The weapon's friendly."
Malthus did not wait to hear the rest of the exchange, but started walking. He reached the Sanctuary and strode past the Willodarian shrine that marked the entrance. The shrine, built of yellow stone and white pine, was a simple box with two wings that contained the priest's apartments on the right and the school room on the left. Children played across the open ground beyond the shrine, enjoying an unexpected holiday with the priest gone to visit her relatives in Silverpaw and not there to teach her morning classes.
He slipped around to the back on the shrine on a whim. An arch and a low, white stone fence marked off the cemetery. There were only two graves in it: Tempest Anstey, their former priest who had died of heart failure, making him Malthus' first victim in Wolffgard; and Cullen Blackwood. Malthus puzzled over how Pandeena had managed to locate his remains. He stood beneath the arch and gazed across at the head stones. With any luck, Maguire would be joining them beneath the ground in the next few days.
"Malthus?" Clodagh stepped out of the shadows, wringing her hands. "Three new females arrived today."
"Human?" Malthus turned away from the graves.
She nodded. "And one sa'necari."
"They spellcorded her?"
"Yes."
"Good. I'll take care of it before I leave today."
Malthus walked off.
His cottage lay on the far west side of the camp, beyond a dense stand of sheltering forest and almost upon the banks of the Bonnie Draw River. He had picked this spot for the privacy it gave him. The house was a human style dwelling and far nicer than the traditional longhouses that were going up elsewhere on the camp grounds. The large front room served as both kitchen and living room. It had two bedrooms and a study. Malthus fetched pen and paper from the study and carried it to the square table in the living area, along with sealing wax and a candle. If it started to get dark before Preece arrived, it would not do to let him discover how well Malthus could see in dim light a talent the sa'necari shared with the lycans.
He quickly wrote two letters, one to Heironim, and the other to Dymier Bianco who ran the Devil's Dance Inn. Malthus had just gotten them sealed when Preece gave a perfunctory knock at the door before sauntering inside and joining him at the table.
"So what's this about?"
"Letters. They must be delivered today. No questions asked."
"What's in it for me?"
Malthus slid two silver nobles across the table and Preece scooped them up.
Preece frowned. "You've given me far more for nothing."
"There's more. Take both letters to Dymier at the Devil's Dance Inn. He'll you lodging and all the liquor you want on my tab. Plus a token that will get you into the Crimson Lady to fuck any and all whores you wish. You'll spend the night at the Inn in case there's a reply coming back for me and return tomorrow evening. I'll have more coin for you then."
Preece shoved the letters into his belt pouch and stood up. "The sooner I'm gone, the more time for fun."
"One thing." Malthus gestured for Preece to wait a moment. "There's a chance you might encounter Maguire tomorrow. I'd prefer he didn't see you."
Preece's face lost all expression and his hands settled on the hilts of his blades. "I'm not afraid of Maguire."
"That's not the point. Just do as you're told."
"So long as you're paying for it." Preece turned and left.
CHAPTER FOUR
HEART'S DESIRE
They rode west for a day toward the town of Skullbones. The nearer they got to the town, the quieter Caimbeul became. Pandeena had stopped shoving Kynyr in his face, yet the subject still came up. The way that Pandeena's eyes brightened at his name bothered Caimbeul in a way that sent a poignant ache through him, which in turn forced him to realize how much he still wanted Pandeena. He assessed himself, and reluctantly admitted that he had nothing to offer her compared to a young wolf. Female yuwenghau were not as promiscuous as the males. Therefore, Kynyr Maguire had to be an impressive individual.
"But so was I once," he muttered under his breath.
"What did you say?" Pandeena nudged her horse closer to his.
He glanced at her with his head lowered. "An idle thought. Not worth repeating."
"Come on. Tell me what you said."
"You must need me desperately to come all this way just to drag me out of my hovel."
"Mother insists that I work within the laws. If we break the laws and customs we spent generations encouraging, then we will destroy all that we have achieved."
An idea sparked, but he decided to bide his time. Caimbeul straightened in the saddle. "She's right. It probably would. But not all change is bad."
"Vigilante justice is wrong."
The vehemence in her tone made Caimbeul straighten in the saddle. He suspected that far more was going on in Wolffgard and Hell's Widow than Pandeena had yet told him. "Agreed. What is it you are expecting me to do?"
Pandeena's mouth tightened. "Find the evidence we need to nail him into a chair."
"Into a chair?" Caimbeul had never heard of doing that as a punishment before.
Pandeena's expression tightened still more. "That's what he did to Cullen drove spikes through his shoulder blades, hipbones, wrists and ankles nailed him into a chair."
"Shit." Caimbeul flinched at the image. "And you think it's this Malthus fellow?"
"Yesss." She hissed, wrapping her tongue around the word. "Yess!"
"Because of Cullen?"
"Among other things. I've reached for his spirit, but he doesn't answer."
"Could they have rited him?"
Pandeena shook her head. "I would have sensed that." Her face darkened. "There wasn't much left of him. They shoved him into several layers of canvas sacking and buried him. Parts of him were missing."
"Testicles, liver, kidneys, and heart." Caimbeul's eyes went distant. "Probably took his entrails as well. I'll wager you found his body cavities emptied."
"How did you know?"
Caimbeul shrugged. "Maybe I'm not as out of touch as I seem. There has been a vogue among the sa'necari for the last ten years. Their bio-alchemists have been using lycan organs in fertility potions."
"Ghastly."
"Irony is it doesn't help. They're still going sterile at thirty."
"They'll try anything even butchering our people because we're fertile."
"They've started marrying their children off as soon as they can consummate."
"They must lose a lot of girls in childbirth."
Caimbeul shook his head, his eyes going hooded. "Before marrying, the girls get their first rite. It strengthens them. Girls as young as eleven having babies with no difficulty. They'll never match us for numbers but they don't have to. They're deadlier than we are
."
"I'll never understand why the humans support them."
"Perceptions of Authority, Pandeena. Same thing that keeps our people going."
"You've explained that before, but I'll never grasp it."
"You don't want to."
Caimbeul let the conversation drop as they entered Skullbones.
It was a dirty town, filled with dust from the dirt roads and a few scattered trees that looked half dead from lack of care. The buildings were thrown together, ramshackle wooden structures and those in the center were dead stone and brick, sharing side walls.
"Which inn, Pandeena?"
"Three Lizards. It's lycan-owned."
Caimbeul gave a nod. Lycan establishments located away from clan lands tended to have threes and sevens in their names because of the religious aspects: three gods, Tala, Navaryn, and Pandeena; and according to legend, Pandeena had borne seven sons at a single birthing and those sons had founded the first clans. Caimbeul had always intended to ask Pandeena about whether that had been true about her sons but never found an opportune moment to ask. He had, long ago, discovered her reticent to speak about the old world from which their people had come and the things that had happened there. The last time she had been to old Yurth had been at the site of a battle she called 'Culloden Moor,' and any of her people who had failed to get through the Gate Arcane, during the three weeks she managed to hold it open, had been abandoned. Neither she nor Navaryn had ever gone back after that.
He eyed her for a moment, with more questions in his head than she would ever answer and asking the wrong question would serve only to get them quarrelling again. "I'll meet you there later. I'm going to see if the Scarlet Angel mage shop is still here."
Pandeena's face flushed. "Go on and get your damned crystals so you can start shoving your bloody bone into every available hole."
Caimbeul winced. He had always been circumspect in scratching his itch, never doing it among his own people, always crossing the border into Waejontor when he felt like playing Jack in the Orchard. Clan wolves tended to look down on it more than city wolves. Even the custom of the Wild Cousins a form of unwed serial monogamy, practiced originally as a way of determining that a bitch was fertile before marriage had begun to noticeably die out, and Caimbeul had never been able to decide whether that was a good thing or bad one. "Maybe I should get you some considering you're going to open your legs to Kynyr Maguire as soon as we get home."
Janrae Frank - [Lycan Blood 02] - Fireborn Law Page 5
