But she didn’t. She wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of becoming like the Fallen, like Catarina. Though it meant staring back at her grief, she forced herself to look at Lucian. Maybe this terrible misery wasn’t meant to end; maybe they were meant to bleed on one another forever.
The tip of his blade wavered. “Rachael?” His voice cracked halfway through her name. He knelt before her, crumbling slowly to the dirty floor. He reversed the sword to present it to her hilt first.
Her heart twisted, but she brought a hob-nailed boot down on her pity. “I have a directive from the Seraph that you are to surrender yourself to my authority.” Her voice didn’t belie the doubt gnawing her resolve. John would have been proud of her.
“I will.”
She accepted his sword and power surged from the weapon into her palm. He had recently summoned God’s authority through the blade. Rachael frowned and sheathed her weapon before she retrieved Lucian’s scabbard from the floor. As she rose, she noted the disarray in the room beyond the kitchen. Where was the foundling?
Caleb entered the other room and barely glanced at the scattered possessions. He carried his sword in one hand and manacles in his other. “The other door was blocked. I had to come through the chapel.” He stepped into the kitchen as she draped the strap of Lucian’s weapon over her shoulder. Caleb threw the manacles at Lucian, who caught the cuffs before they fell to his lap.
“Put them on. Then hand over the cane.” Caleb pushed the point of his blade against Lucian’s throat.
“Wait,” she said to Lucian and he froze. Even as an exile, Lucian’s status from his days as a Council Elder demanded a modicum of respect. “I have his sword. He’s surrendered to my authority. Why don’t you take care of the horses?”
Caleb’s blade pressed into Lucian’s flesh and a drop of blood wept across the steel. “As soon as he’s subdued.”
Lucian stared at the scarred cabinets, his head against the wall. It was evident to her that his subjugation had come long before this day. She bit down on her anger at Caleb and said, “Go get the horses.”
Caleb shook his head. “I’ll stay with him. Just so there’s no appearance of impropriety.”
Was he deliberately trying to undermine her authority with Lucian? Rachael’s eye narrowed at the constable. Caleb usually threw his weight around with prisoners, but he was never unnecessarily violent. Yet if Lucian made one wrong move, Caleb’s blade would open his jugular.
Rachael felt Lucian’s fear as clearly as if it were her own. Stunned by his willingness to open his thoughts to her, she looked down to find his eyes on her. Pleading. Something was very wrong.
Both men awaited her decision. To allow Caleb to stay while she retrieved the horses would make her weak in Lucian’s eyes. “Get the horses, Caleb.”
The constable wavered for another second then jammed his sword into its sheath. Lucian closed his eyes and sagged against the wall.
As Caleb brushed past her, he leaned close. “I need to talk to you.” He went to the porch.
Rachael reached down and grabbed the manacles out of Lucian’s hands. “Don’t move until I get back.”
He nodded and she met Caleb outside, leaving the door open so she could see Lucian. “Talk.”
Caleb whispered, “There’s a body in the alley. It’s been burned beyond recognition. The remains stink of Mastema’s spells.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve never seen the like. It reminds me of a golem. That one,” he whispered as he nodded toward Lucian, “probably created it for protection and it turned on him.”
“So he destroyed it?”
“Obviously.”
“With Mastema’s magic?”
“What else?”
A Citadel sword, perhaps? she thought as she fingered the strap on her shoulder. Caleb apparently hadn’t paid attention to Lucian’s blade. She made sure to keep the scabbard aligned with her body and out of his sight as she untangled the layers of magic surrounding the church.
She sensed an echo of Lucian’s magic and another reverberation from someone she didn’t know, possibly the foundling. The child’s spells were fragmented, prayers started and ceased without focus until her charms became wild with her panic. Yet there was nothing dark about these enchantments.
Something else had walked the streets, and Rachael sensed Mastema’s tainted resonance. Lucian and Mastema were in her blood and bones; Rachael would know either of them by the vibrations they left in the air. Beneath Mastema’s taint was a fourth layer of magic that carried a weak malevolence, barely remembered like a tickle at the back of her throat.
Caleb leaned forward, but before he could speak, she reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. “Good job.” When he started to move away, she seized his arm. “And Caleb,” she whispered so Lucian wouldn’t hear, “regardless of his crimes, past or present, he was once a Council member. I will not have him manhandled like a common thief. Am I clear?”
“You are.”
She released him. “Take care of the mounts. I’ll be fine until you get back.”
He nodded and stepped off the porch. “Mind your blind side.”
It wasn’t bad advice. She turned so he couldn’t see the sword and waited until he rounded the corner before she returned to Lucian. She wanted to say something to tear his heart from his chest, but every clever riposte fled her mind. All her words had been spent through the years, and though she had once yearned to see him debased before her, she found no joy in his degradation. Revenge was highly overrated. She placed the manacles on the counter and held out her hand.
“Rachael.” He took her hand but didn’t rise. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t even start.” She cut him off. His fingers stiffened around hers. “I’m not interested.”
Instead of a rebuttal, he knelt before her and offered no resistance. The relief and hope she had seen on his face when she’d first entered the kitchen was gone. His palm slid across hers to leave her hand empty. He had let her go again, this time at her request. The edge thinned around her anger. She offered once more to help him stand, but he rose unaided.
“Where’s the foundling?” she asked. The question rang hollow, a white noise to fill the empty space of his silence.
He gestured at the adjoining room with a casual wave along with a tilt of his head. It was a movement so uniquely his, Rachael felt a surge of nostalgia. “Lindsay was hurt last night when we were attacked,” he said as he limped into the room.
“Who attacked you?” She followed him, wincing at his pained steps. Caleb’s golem?
“One of my sister’s creations. It’s dead.” His contemptuous tone wasn’t lost on her as they reached the bed where a chair sat by the headboard.
Of course, that was the resonance she couldn’t place. Catarina. Now that he named it, Rachael didn’t see how she could have missed his twin’s spell. Yet she’d always been blind to Catarina’s magic. Lucian was a part of her, but his sister kept herself inviolate, cold as a winter queen, sharing herself with no one but Lucian.
Rachael redirected her attention to the foundling. Lucian had obviously been in the midst of bandaging the girl’s arm when Rachael entered the kitchen. Her wrist and forearm were still swollen and red, and a few deeper blisters festered in her flesh, but Rachael saw where Lucian had healed the worst of her injuries. The girl’s arm still glowed in the room’s half-light. To have healed her meant he called on the name of God, because the Fallen couldn’t heal. Never had Woerld known a Katharos who could walk between God and Hell’s Fallen with impunity. Rachael was pragmatic enough to know she wasn’t witnessing a new phenomenon. Lucian was not complicit; he couldn’t be and do what he’d done.
Lucian lifted the girl’s wrist and finished bandaging her arm. “Her name is Lindsay Richardson.”
She started. “What?”
“Lindsay. Her name is Lindsay Richardson.”
“Her brother’s name was Peter.” She resisted the urge to touch Peter’s
wallet.
“Was?” Lucian tied off the bandage and turned to Rachael.
“I told you. Jackals took him while he was in the Veil.”
The girl murmured Lucian’s name, and he brushed his fingertips across her forehead. She quieted and fell back into peaceful sleep. “The Veil closed and broke the connection before I heard your answer. I didn’t know.”
Lindsay’s pale lashes were still against her dirty cheeks. Only people who had never known privation slept with such abandon. Like Lucian, she was obviously a child who had always been loved.
He limped to the chair and eased himself down, holding to the bedpost as he sat. “I’ll tell her when she wakes.”
“The sooner you start withdrawing your influence, the easier it’ll be on her. I’ll break the news to her.”
“That is up to you. As Judge.” The only sign of his agitation was his white-knuckled grip on his cane. He tilted his head against the wall and closed his eyes, his movements heavy with grief. “Just don’t let them say I corrupted her. I have not.”
“That’s out of my hands and you know it.” This was his foundling, his burden; he should have maintained an emotional distance from her. Don’t make this my responsibility. I can barely take care of myself, but she halted the words before they spewed from her lips and said, “John will judge her impartially as he’s judged every child before her. If he says she’s pure, they’ll accept her.”
“They will talk about her no matter what John does. You can teach her how to survive, Rachael.”
“All I know is how turn a heart to stone. Would you have me teach her that trick?” She realized from the look on his face it would have been kinder if she’d struck him. She rubbed the patch covering her eye as a headache whined through her brain.
He pressed his lips together and said nothing else. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with the tense silence so she let it stand between them. She feared when the wall came down her defenses would be laid bare.
Lindsay’s eyelids fluttered; she would awaken soon. Lucian’s magic was losing its hold as her body finished healing. Rachael couldn’t take her rage out against this child. Peter had wanted his sister saved, and though he’d asked Rachael, it had been Lucian who had rescued her. In spite of all his failings, he had Lindsay’s best interests at heart. A person didn’t have to be a judge to see it.
Outside, she heard the jingle of tack as Caleb led the horses into the backyard and within minutes he appeared in the bedroom. “It’s starting to rain again.”
Rachael didn’t acknowledge him; she didn’t trust her voice.
“Gonna rain,” he said.
Gonna come a drowning rain, she thought as she swallowed past the knot in her throat. “Is there a place to stable the horses?”
“There’s a carriage shed out back that’ll give them some shelter.”
“Take care of it.”
He left them after a lingering look, which she didn’t acknowledge. When she was sure Caleb was gone, she went to squat beside Lucian. She lowered her voice and spoke as gently as she knew how. “I believe her Elder should tell her about her brother.” She reached in her pocket and, though it broke what was left of her splintered heart, she pressed Peter’s wallet into his palm. “Give it to her. It’s all I was able to save of him.”
He looked at her as if calculating her intent before he accepted the wallet. “Thank you.”
“We’ll wait out the storm and leave in the morning if we can.” She reached up and touched the gash on his cheek. “You can rest this afternoon. Then we’ll talk.”
He looked away from her and she followed his stare to the shadows hovering in the corners. She hid behind his stone silence and waited. Minutes passed before he spoke again. “I will tell you things,” he said.
Just that.
Nothing more.
CHAPTER TWELVE
lamentations
Lucian stared into the shadows to avoid Rachael’s gaze. She gave his arm a gentle squeeze, but he didn’t respond. If he touched her, he was afraid he wouldn’t stop. Beneath her scars, he saw the woman he loved.
The Wyrm was close to taking her. Only an exorcist could see the blue-black shadow in her eye that indicated her possession. Lucian calculated the depth and color of the Wyrm’s reflection; Rachael didn’t have long. Worn down by her constant battle against the demon, she was too weakened to survive a sustained attack. Yet he could only exorcise the demon with her permission. There would be no opportunity to save her if he couldn’t win her trust.
The kitchen door slammed, causing both of them to jump. Rachael rose as Caleb stalked into the room and tossed their packs into a corner. He shook the rain from his coat and hung it from a peg by the stove. “Nasty out there.” He dropped the manacles on top of the packs.
Lucian touched the cut on his throat where Caleb’s blade had nicked him. He remembered Caleb from the group that had brought Rachael back to the Citadel. Even as John stepped onto the wagon beside her, he’d singled the constable out with praise for rescuing Rachael. The other Katharoi took note, and Caleb preened in his sudden celebrity.
Now the constable went to Rachael and put his hands on her shoulders. She tilted her head as he whispered in her ear. He slid her coat off, and Lucian noted Caleb made sure his knuckles trailed down her arms. She nodded and murmured a reply. She didn’t chastise him for his intimacy; she seemed to take it in stride. Caleb smiled at Lucian over her shoulder.
His touch bespoke familiarity with Rachael’s body. Lucian’s fingers massaged the head of his cane. Apparently she had wasted no time mourning his exile before she decided on his replacement. He observed them through his lashes as he tried to dampen his jealousy. Had he seriously expected her to spend the last sixteen years pining for him after he’d sent her Hell?
Caleb had rescued her, so she should be grateful to the constable, but even gratitude had its limits. The man was so utterly beneath her in both intelligence and station. She should have thanked him and moved on to a more suitable arrangement with a man of her rank.
Rachael touched Caleb’s wrist lightly as she spoke to him again. The constable was so distracted he didn’t notice her check the Citadel insignia on Matthew’s sword before she put the strap over her head. She made sure the side of the sheath bearing the Citadel’s motif was to her back and out of Caleb’s sight.
Lucian frowned. She must want him dead very badly to hide his use of the Citadel blade. His ability to call on the power of God through the sword might be the only evidence standing between him and a noose. A new ache filled his chest. While he hadn’t expected her love, he had not anticipated her to use subterfuge. He had hoped she would at least find it in her heart to forgive him. Instead, she planned to subvert his chance for a fair trial.
Caleb went into the office. Rachael lingered on the threshold and spoke to Lucian. “I’m leaving the door open.”
There was nothing veiled in her warning; she would be listening for his movements. Lucian didn’t bother to answer. She frowned, but she must have thought he dozed, because she didn’t push the point. She left him alone, and he was grateful.
Fingers brushed the back of his hand and he sat up with a start. Surprised to find his cheeks wet, he rubbed his face dry and found Lindsay’s pale gaze fixed on him. She must have sensed his discomfort, because she looked away while he composed himself. Her hand never left his.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
She looked down at her left arm and wiggled her fingers. “It still burns, but I can handle it. Did you fix it?”
He nodded.
“Thanks.” She nodded toward the office. “Is that Rachael?”
“Yes.” He wondered how long the girl had been feigning sleep.
Lindsay craned her neck to look into the other room. “There’s something wrong with her. She’s got some kind of shadow in her eye.”
“What?”
“In her eye, there’s a shadow. It makes her pupil shiny and blue, but it moves like a clo
ud. It’s never in one place for long. What causes that?”
“You saw it?”
“Can’t you?”
Now he knew why the child had been drawn to him; she was an exorcist. The telekinesis alone was a worthy talent but her ability to detect a possession made her a rarity. When John saw her talents, he would know her potential and her future at the Citadel would be assured. Lindsay would be safe.
He realized he would never see her take her vows against the Fallen. She would grow up and he would be nothing but a memory of her first days in Woerld. “The Wyrm,” he said and swallowed past the hollowness in his throat. “You are seeing the evidence of Rachael’s possession. Whenever a demon possesses a mortal, the demon casts a shadow in the person’s eye.”
“Can anybody see it or is this another talent?”
“Only an exorcist can see it. It’s your talent. Like it’s mine.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Rachael had slipped back into the room to watch them. He knew she expected him to use the ritual words to renounce his rights as Lindsay’s Elder, but he couldn’t summon the phrases to his mouth. Not yet. He didn’t speak until he was sure he controlled his voice. “Lindsay, this is Rachael Boucher, the Judge I’ve been telling you about. Present yourself to her and do as she says.”
Lindsay hesitated. “You okay?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Go.”
Lindsay didn’t ask any more questions. She glanced back at him as she crossed the short distance to Rachael. She walked up to Rachael and thrust her chin out and cocked her hip; her arms crossed her thin chest. Lucian held his breath, although her stance indicated defiance, Lindsay didn’t openly challenge Rachael. Yet.
“Let’s go in here,” Rachael said. “We can talk in private.” She gestured for Lindsay to go into the office and, after another quick nod from Lucian, Lindsay obeyed her.
In her own way, Lindsay let Rachael know where her allegiance rested, and it was with Lucian. He was simultaneously proud and frightened for her.
Miserere: An Autumn Tale Page 18
