by Marmell, Ari
“Investigation?” Despite herself, Widdershins felt her voice quiver.
“Why, yes, into the deaths of William de Laurent and Alexandre Delacroix. Which will, of course, eventually be pinned on you.”
She couldn't weep again, not so soon—it was just too much. Only Olgun's strength kept her on her feet as the world swayed around her.
But inside—inside she cried, not merely for the loss of friends, of love, but of a future she had almost thought she might regain.
“I don't understand,” she whispered. “Gods, Claude, do you truly hate me so much?”
“You?” Alexandre's former servant actually laughed. “My dear child, this was never about you at all. This is about your friend.” The hatred suffusing that last word was nearly heavy enough to cast its own shadow.
And Widdershins saw it all as clearly as though someone had painted her a diagram. “You knew!” she accused. “You knew about Olgun all along!”
“Of course I did,” Claude told her, suddenly snarling. “I knew from the moment Alexandre betrayed our god for that barbarian idol! He couldn't hide his heresy, not from Cevora and not from me!”
Widdershins's jaw hung slack at the fanaticism she saw in his eyes, blazing to shame the lanterns. And it wasn't even his own household god!
“After all Cevora had done for him, for his family, to turn away over a few years' misfortune? The bastard! Ah, but I knew better, didn't I? I knew the lion could never be tamed. I knew from the old texts that Cevora was a hunter, a predator, from the days before the Pact! And I knew that he had laid upon me the task of shedding the blood of those who had drawn Delacroix from his embrace!”
“And your pet demon, Claude?” she demanded, ignoring the creature's rough chuckle at her description. “How does Cevora feel about that?”
But the Apostle merely shrugged. “Those gods hostile to the Pact were cast down into darkness, and their servants with them—but not all those servants are so content to remain in hell. How does Cevora feel about me calling one of them up? So long as the demon remains loyal to him, rather than its former master, I doubt he cares one way or the other.
“It shouldn't have been necessary,” he continued, a bit more calmly as he realized that even Jean Luc and his hired thugs were gawping at him somewhat askance. “I'd hoped that when you and your ilk were dead, he would turn himself back entirely to Cevora.”
“But he did!” Widdershins protested. “He abandoned Olgun!”
“His heart was never truly in it. I don't think he'd ever have accepted his part in restoring Cevora to his rightful glory. I suppose I should thank you, in a way. Had I not had to eliminate your tawdry little sect anyway, I would never have had the opportunity to do what Cevora demands be done. And speaking of what must be done…” Claude raised a hand, and the demon tensed, awaiting his command.
But Widdershins's mind was racing faster still, spinning over every unanswered question, every detail left unspoken.
And in her mind, she heard a voice. Not Olgun, no; for all their years, he'd never come to her with actual words. She didn't think he could.
No, this was the voice of William de Laurent. And whether his spirit was truly with her still, or Olgun was using another's words as his own, or she was simply recalling what he'd had to say, they resounded within her soul.
A dark power in Davillon. The gods of the Pact.
Sacrifice.
And Widdershins knew.
“You're not murdering me!” she exclaimed, understanding finally how truly mad Claude must be. “You're murdering Olgun!” She felt her patron's outrage mix with her own, the fury of an immortal contemplating his end.
Despite himself, the Apostle of Cevora grinned, and for an instant stayed his hand. The demon grumbled, but made no move.
“Go on,” Claude said, sounding almost eager to see if she'd figured it out.
“Your god is stagnant,” Widdershins continued, stalling desperately for time. “You can't exactly spread his worship. Alexandre has no heirs and his heart's not in the faith, and you've got no pull with Cevora's worshippers beyond House Delacroix. Maybe you sacrifice a few people here and there, but that's a pretty big risk for very little reward.
“But if you kill me…”
“You are Olgun's last living worshipper, Adrienne,” William had told her. “If you perish, so, I fear, does he.”
“He's the sacrifice,” she concluded firmly. “You're sacrificing a god to a god. No wonder the High Church sensed this coming. That must be an enormous amount of power!”
“Bravo, Adrienne. Alexandre really was right about you.”
“Yeah, maybe. I'm no priest, Claude, but even I know that sacrifice is a violation of the Pact, no matter who or what the victim is. I've got to think killing a god is another one, even if he's not part of the Pact.”
“It is,” Claude agreed. “That's why de Laurent had to die.”
Widdershins actually smiled, though it was a smile that could have frozen saltwater. “So it looks like an attack on the Church and the gods of the Pact from outside. I kill the archbishop, my god and I come after you, and you kill us in ‘self-defense' while everyone else in the Church is looking for an enemy that doesn't exist. By the time anyone knows otherwise, Cevora's got his influx of power, and it's not worth the trouble to try to boot his faith out of the Pact.”
This time, Claude actually applauded. “I expect Cevora to be potent enough that the others cannot take action against him—but otherwise, correct again! I never did give you proper credit, I'm afraid.”
“You,” Widdershins told him pointedly, “are insane. Stark-raving. Six heifers short of a herd.”
“So say all who cannot see. I'd hoped to offer Cevora the power of the sacrifice years ago, but of course, you spoiled that by escaping.”
“So sorry to inconvenience you.”
“Indeed. But you're here now, and—”
“No, I didn't mean then. I meant now. Sorry to inconvenience you, but I'm not Olgun's last worshipper. Killing me gains you squat.”
For the first time, Claude seemed shaken. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on, Claude, what happened to giving me due credit?” The man scowled, but still he listened. “It's been a couple of years,” Widdershins reminded him, as though hammering home a simple concept to an even simpler child. “Do you really think I've kept Olgun a secret from everyone?” She paused thoughtfully, as though mentally tallying sums. “There's at least, oh, eight or ten of us now. After seeing the boons he grants me, how could they not believe?” It was her turn to shrug, doing her best to ignore Olgun's startled bleat. “Not a large following, even compared to his old one, but quite large enough to royally muck up your little plan, yes?”
The Apostle went rigid, and then laughed aloud. “Oh, Adrienne, you had me going for a moment there. But—”
“I'm quite serious, Claude. And either way, can you afford to risk it?”
The scowl returned, tenfold. “I could just let my pet kill you. Cevora would know instantly that you lied, as he fed on Olgun's essence.”
“And if I'm not lying, I'd be dead, and you'd have no way of finding the others.” Widdershins smiled.
Claude drummed his fingers on a nearby chair. “Are you offering to lead us to them, Adrienne?”
She shrugged. “This has always been about survival. You go after them, not me, I renounce Olgun, like Alexandre did, and everyone's happy. Maybe I can even help you in running the Delacroix businesses—for a percentage, of course.”
Please, Olgun…please understand…. Trust me….
“Agreed!” Claude said instantly, holding forth his hand.
Widdershins took it, and for a moment they stared into one another's eyes. Both of them were lying, and both of them knew it. Claude only needed to know how much of what she'd told him was a lie.
“I'm looking forward to it, Claude.” She gestured toward the northwest. “If you leave the market heading that way, you go abou
t seven blocks, make a—”
She stopped at his sudden laughter. “Oh, I don't think so, Adrienne. I'm not remotely that stupid. You'll lead us to your former brethren. Personally.”
Ah, well. It'd been worth a shot.
“Of course,” she told him. “Whichever.”
“And you'll be leaving Alexandre's rapier here, as well.”
Widdershins just shrugged, struggling to keep all emotion from her face. “It's a ways across town; I hope you're all in the mood for a walk.”
The Apostle craned his neck, wrapping his heavy cloak around him to fend off the late-night chill. He watched for a long moment, scowling at the peeling walls and missing shingles.
“A pawnbroker's, Adrienne?” he asked skeptically.
“Why not? The company's not doing well, so they've plenty of extra room for rent. It's as good a shrine as any.”
“Oh, please.” Jean Luc stepped forward, giving the demon a wide berth. “This is the Finders' Guild, sir.”
“Is it indeed?” he asked, turning to Widdershins.
She shrugged and offered up a nervous smile. “Well, where else would I be sharing my faith, if not here?”
This was it. If Jean Luc knew too much about the guild's practices, about its faith, she was dead.
A long minute passed before the Apostle nodded, and Jean Luc said nothing more. Widdershins all but quivered in relief.
“Very well,” he said. “Are there any guards?”
“One outside,” she admitted, her voice reluctant. “Dressed as a vagabond. Not sure how many might be inside. It varies based on who's got what assignments.”
Claude made a calm, collected gesture, as though ordering a servant to fetch him a drink. The demon darted from the alleyway, elongating to its full height as it moved. Widdershins could only hunch her shoulders, her stomach twisting in knots, and try to ignore the abbreviated shriek, and the horrible tearing, snapping, splashing sounds to follow.
Holding her breath against the sudden stench of blood and human waste, Widdershins stepped through the front doors as though she had every right to be there, setting foot, for the second time in two nights, in the very heart of the Finders' Guild.
On they came, first in ones and twos, then larger bands. With rapiers and crossbows, then with flintlocks from behind heavy doors and ad hoc barricades, the thieves of Davillon fought to defend their home.
And they failed. The hall grew thick with smoke; the walls gleamed with blood. Weapons careened from the creature's hide, flesh tore beneath its talons, bones broke betwixt its jaws, and those who followed behind slipped and slid in the rising gore.
Even the beast of Cevora wasn't fast enough to slay them all, however. For every corpse it left in its wake, three or four of the Finders' Guild fled through passages twisted enough to confuse even a god's emissary.
Widdershins forced herself to watch, flinching but refusing to look away as rapier, claw, and blood flew. And when she saw that the hideous beast was not invulnerable, that the occasional blade bit through its hide, the occasional ball left its mark, her spirits dared, ever so slightly, to rise.
So they continued through twisting halls and sliding doors, ever deeper into the catacombs, and the inhuman thing cavorted along beside them, now ahead, now behind, an anxious child at carnival eager to rend more unsuspecting souls limb from limb.
Until, mere steps from her goal, Claude reached out a hand to stop her. “I think that's enough, Adrienne,” he said darkly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“We've already slain a great many thieves, sent a great many more fleeing in terror. And not once have I seen, or has my pet sensed, the sorts of abilities we know you possess. I don't think anyone here shares your beliefs after all.”
“Oh? Then how do you explain—?” and she was off, bolting so abruptly that even the demon was caught briefly by surprise. Hair flying out behind her, she ran as though the hounds of hell were at her heels, for indeed one of them was. She knew full well, as her pounding feet echoed off the stone walls, that she couldn't keep ahead for long, but maybe for just long enough…
When the fiend appeared from around the corner, Claude's fastest men just steps behind, they stared in puzzlement at what they found. Their quarry had vanished through another sliding door, hiding somewhere in the peculiar room beyond. They peeked inside, stared at the towering shape across the chamber.
Claude, chest heaving and forehead glistening with sweat, emerged from behind his minions and glared around him. “You wait outside,” he said, gesturing to one of the men. The others, along with Jean Luc and the demon, followed him inside, their boots muffled by the worn carpeting.
The door slid shut behind them, but their sight adjusted rapidly to the sickly light of the uneven lanterns and torches, the artificial gloaming that presaged the fall of a night that never came. Claude quickly recognized the chapel for what it was, and his gaze slowly traveled across the humanoid form of the idol, coming to rest upon its heavy hood of black cloth.
“Here,” Widdershins said, appearing from behind the statue. “Your proof.” With an almost contemptuous flip of her wrist, she sent the mask drifting unevenly down to the floor.
The chapel filled with horrified screams, as men and monster looked upon the unveiled face of the Shrouded God.
Beneath the upraised hand that shielded her eyes, Widdershins saw the assassin Jean Luc collapse to his knees, screaming until his cheeks had reddened and his eyes bulged. All around, she heard other men following suit, though she dared not look.
And as it seemed he could scream no more, that his lungs must collapse for lack of air, his voice took on a horrible, liquid tone. Jean Luc thrashed on the floor, vomiting everything in his gut, heave after heave until there was utterly nothing left.
Still it refused to stop, for the curse of the Shrouded God was nothing less than the most primal font of thievery itself.
Need. Want. Hunger.
When she could actually see the flesh, the meat, the muscle fading—when his skin sank ever nearer his bones with each purge, as the substance of his body was eaten away, almost deflating before her eyes—Widdershins finally had to look away, her own whimpers scarcely audible above the hideous gurgles that had once been screams.
Only when the noises finally stopped and the chamber began to reek of purged and rotted flesh did she open her eyes. Bodies lay strewn across the room, gaunt as famine victims and glued to the matted carpet by a viscous sludge. Even the demon lay sprawled, its leathery hide clinging to its bones. It moved, struggling to rise, apparently too potent for the curse to slay, but for the nonce, at least, it was vulnerable.
Keeping her eyes carefully downcast and her back to the idol, Widdershins reached down and, with a shudder of revulsion, peeled the statue's hood from the carpet where it lay. She felt her way along the sculpture until she finally found the head, and gasped audibly in relief as she pulled the hood back over its face.
All right, all she had to do now was find some way to keep the demon down, and—
Olgun's scream was almost too late. A long, wide blade flickered from the darkness, and Widdershins's desperate forward roll might have saved her life, but only just. Fire flashed through her as the steel punched into her back just above the kidney, and her blood rained down to mix with the vile mire soaking into the carpet.
Struggling through the pain and the crawling of her skin as she rolled across the foul floor, Widdershins rose to her feet and spun, hefting the rapier that had fallen beside the body of Jean Luc.
Claude stood before her, sword in hand. A trickle of blood running down one side of his chin was the only sign of the Shrouded God's curse. Perhaps the Apostle had averted his eyes before the magics had taken hold—or maybe, just maybe, he had taken shelter behind his own divine protection.
“Well played,” he growled, the tip of his sword slicing abstract patterns through the air before him. With a scowl, he shrugged the cloak from his shoulders. “You almost had us. B
ut Cevora protects his own, and none can stand before him.”
“I'm not standing before him,” Widdershins grunted, rapier steady in one hand even as she pressed the other to her bleeding wound. “I'm standing before you.”
She lunged, ignoring the tearing in her back. She had to end this fast, turn her attention back to the demon before it recovered its strength.
The Apostle's blade, though far heavier than her own, swept up with astounding speed to meet the assault. They stood a moment, steel against steel, the stares they exchanged sharper than any sword.
Widdershins's rapier was gleaming lightning, striking from one direction almost before she had completed her thrust from the last. It whistled as it cut through the air, and the ring of metal on metal was so rapid it became a single prolonged screech.
But through it all, Claude's blade intercepted even the swiftest strike. His heavy sword was more than enough to turn her weapon away, yet quick enough to slice through the gaps opened by his overwhelming parries. Widdershins bled from half a dozen wounds, tiny scrapes that sapped away her swiftly fading strength, yet she delivered none in return. Sweat poured down her face and his, gleaming in the light reflecting off the flashing blades.
Claude was good, but he wasn't that good; not as skilled as Lisette had been. But in that earlier struggle—gods, had it been so recent?—Widdershins hadn't been weighed down so terribly, by grief, by exhaustion, by the pain of her vicious wound.
She hadn't faced a foe who, just perhaps, had his own god guiding his hand, even as she did.
And she knew, she knew, that this was a fight she could not win.
Widdershins spun, wincing at the pain of her injury even as she ducked under a slash that would have opened her scalp had it connected. Dropping almost into a crouch, she reached out with her empty hand and—struggling not to think about what she was doing—scooped up a handful of the semiliquid remains spread across the floor and hurled it at her foe. Claude saw it coming, turned his face away to avoid getting the horrible stuff in his eyes and mouth—but it was enough to halt him in his tracks, if only for the briefest instant.
