by Tanya Huff
Yves snorted again. “Don’t ask me. I stay well out of anything the women in this family are doing.”
“Very wise,” Annette murmured quietly.
Dmitri jerked back as Chantel seemingly appeared out of nowhere at his side. “Where did you come from?”
“Down there.” Her other hand tucked snugly into the crook of his elbow, she pointed to the esplanade. “I didn’t exactly sneak up on you, but I guess you were thinking about other things.”
“Yeah,” he muttered despondently, “I guess I was.”
“Were you on your way to join us?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t even know you were there.”
“Oh.”
Her tone of hurt disappointment was so obvious it cut through his own misery. “I’m sorry, Chantel. But I wouldn’t be very good company even if I did join you.”
“Please. It’s like something’s missing now when you’re not there.” Pressed close to his side, she smiled hopefully up at him, wondering if she were laying it on just a bit thick.
Apparently not.
Well, at least someone wanted him. He smiled back at her. “I didn’t really have anything else to do.”
As they started to walk toward the others, Chantel turned her head and showed her teeth at the humped shadow nearly on Dmitri’s heels.
Although Chantel’s warning was clear, Jean did not consider Chantel herself a threat. She was young; he could beat her easily, especially now, when layers of fashionable clothing would hinder her change. But because she was young, she still kept a group of friends close about her, and he had no intention of finding himself in the midst of six-to-one odds.
With an answering silent snarl, he slunk away.
There would be other times.
“Well, now the evening is complete.”
Dmitri bowed elegantly at Yves’s welcome. Yves had never figured out whether Dmitri was too stupid to recognize sarcasm or too polite to respond. Perhaps it was a human thing; by family standards, humans were irritatingly nice to each other far too much of the time.
With Chantel staying possessively close to Dmitri’s side, the seven of them wandered down the esplanade, window shopping and loudly discussing which café they’d honor with their presence, the earlier argument forgotten in the certain knowledge there’d soon be another to take its place. Passing a display of fall fruit outside a small mercer’s establishment, Henri snatched up an apple, tossed it to his twin, and grabbed another one for himself. Georges, protesting both his exclusion and his hunger, took two just as the mercer burst out of his shop, a hefty switch swinging from one hand, his face twisted with rage.
“I’ll stop you stealing from me you miserable little …” His sudden stop and abrupt change of expression brought laughter from the group.
“Miserable little what?” Yves asked, eyes glittering in the spill of light from the shop.
Ruddy checks pale, the heavyset man—large enough to make two of any of them save Dmitri—backed up a step. “I—I didn’t know,” he stammered.
“Let’s hope not.” Plucking the switch from between trembling fingers, Yves swung it lazily through the air. “He thinks we’re stealing his apples.”
“Who, us?” Georges protested through a mouthful of fruit.
Henri threw his half-eaten apple aside and grabbed another. “I’ve never heard anything so …”
“Slanderous?” Aubert suggested, mirroring his twin’s action.
“Dangerous,” Annette corrected, lips lifting into a curve only a fool would mistake for a smile.
Chantel stepped forward, and with one dainty foot kicked away the support under a corner of the display. Fruit tumbled to the cobblestones as the stand collapsed, red and gold and green apples rolling and bouncing down the esplanade. The other people on the street worked very hard at not seeing what was going on.
The mercer’s gaze slipped past Yves to rest on Dmitri, who scowled and booted an apple into the river. The older man closed his eyes for an instant, as if in pain, then returned his gaze to Yves. “I thought you were thieves,” he said with quiet despair.
He jerked back as Yves started to laugh, and barely stopped himself from jerking again when Yves grabbed a fold of his cheek and pinched it, hard, saying with poisonous sweetness, “You were wrong.”
Georges picked up two more apples as they left, and Henri laughed so hard he cried as they continued down the esplanade. “Did you see his face?” he kept repeating, though he knew all of them had. “When Yves handed back the switch, I thought he was going to piss himself.” Aubert rolled his eyes. For the moment, it became relatively easy to tell the twins apart.
Dmitri shared in the laughter as he’d shared in the power, resenting the mercer’s silent plea. These were his friends.
Ash. Louise crouched just inside the door to the workshop and stared at the destruction. Whatever had been in the room had burned so hot that nothing had been left behind but ash.
She sat back on her haunches and groomed her whiskers while she thought. Under her theory that a distressed wizard was easier to control, this could only strengthen her position. Whatever Aurek Nuikin had found here had clearly been very important to him. And now he’d lost it.
How nice. Pity I didn’t think of torching it myself.
As she turned to go, she paused and lifted her muzzle toward the ceiling. Just for an instant, she thought she’d caught—and lost—a familiar scent.
Rising, and continuing to rise as she changed, she stood and took another look around. Finally, she shook her head, turned back to rat form, and left the workshop.
The place stank of the catacombs, of goblins, of the fire; anything else she imagined she smelled was just that, imagination.
Or possibly, she admitted, irritably shaking ash from a hind foot, paranoia.
Emerald eyes watched Aurek leave the house just after dawn. His movements exhibited a certain quiet desperation Louise hadn’t noticed in them before. He walked like a man determined not to let the world see he was in pain.
And not succeeding. How nice.
She assumed he was off on yet another search for magical artifacts—a scholar looking for scholarship. Actually, his reason for being out of the house was unimportant. It only mattered that he was gone.
Assuming that the windows of the study were now warded, she ignored the scent trail Jean and Lucien had left and moved down the wall on the north side of the building, claws easily finding purchase between the pale stones. Tail balancing the weight of her body, she crouched on an impossibly narrow ledge, muzzle wrinkled as she checked the scent wafting through the closed shutters of the room she planned to enter.
Satisfied, she took a slender dagger from the harness strapped across her chest—a belt was less than useless as full rat form had nothing that could be called a waist—and slid it through the crack between the shutters, silently lifting the catch. As she’d expected, the shutters opened noiselessly on oiled hinges. The big blond servant would’ve seen to that. Anyone who washed the steps of a house in Pont-a-Museau had a fetish for cleanliness and would never allow the hinges in the occupied rooms to squeak.
She slipped into the room, latching the shutters closed behind her, and rose up on two legs. Her ears pricked forward at the sound of heavy, regular breathing, and she glanced toward the bed.
Golden curls tousled on the pillow, one muscular arm outside the quilts, Dmitri was asleep and likely to remain so. After all, he’d had a late night. Louise wasn’t sure she approved of him enjoying himself without her, but as his night of revelry now served her purpose, she supposed she’d let it go. This time.
Servants, doing whatever it was that servants did in the rooms below, would not be surprised to hear movement in this room or coming out of it. Although more than willing to kill if it became necessary, or even possible, Louise believed strongly in minimizing personal risk.
The hall was empty, and she sped along it to where Aurek Nuikin’s scent was the strongest. The first door sh
e opened led to his bedchamber, the second to his study. There were no wards on the inner door—but then, she asked herself as she rose again to two legs, why should there be?
The stink of Lucien’s terror and death still hung in the room, overlaid by the smell of strong soap and magic. All four were strongest in front of the alcove containing the pedestal that held the figurine.
Squatting beyond the edge of the magical perimeter, Louise shook her head. If Lucien had been paying attention, he wouldn’t have died. The boundary was so obvious to wererat senses that there might as well be a sign that said: This far and no farther. Of course, if she’d warned the brothers of what to expect, Lucien wouldn’t have died.
Her lips curled in silent laughter. She was neither her cousin’s keeper nor responsible for his being such an idiot. Fortunately, he died before he could breed.
Tail twitching, she studied the figurine. Why, she wondered, would a human commission a portrait of a supposed loved one in such a position? While she personally appreciated the expression of horror, she couldn’t see how Aurek would. Her eyesight, much better than a human’s, noted the perfection of each tiny feature. It was amazing, and far too perfect. Aurek’s wife seemed frozen in time, as though the right word would allow her to complete her warding motion, to voice her scream.
Louise frowned. There were no answers here, only more questions. The ebony fur between her eyes still creased, she turned her attention to the desk.
Few members of the family bothered to learn to read, but Marie Renier had insisted that all of her children acquire the skill. “Knowledge can be a powerful weapon,” she’d been fond of saying. Louise acknowledged that her mother had been right, though perhaps unwise in thus arming her offspring. She wasn’t certain which of her siblings had poisoned dear Mama and planted the list of ingredients in the kitchen, but she rather suspected it was a parting gift from Raul before he left for Barovia. Poison was a coward’s way, and Raul had always been a foppish coward, even by family standards. Besides, he’d always hated the cook, who’d been messily slaughtered upon discovery of the list—a list that the cook, of course, had been unable to read.
The rest of the family blamed Jacqueline, and Jacqueline had been quite willing to allow them their mistaken suspicions.
Fanning through Aurek’s papers, Louise found the handwriting barely legible and many of the notations completely incomprehensible. One word, however, appeared over and over, often heavily underlined, sometimes the only word on the page. Polymorph.
To change one thing into something else.
Slowly, Louise turned to face the alcove once again.
The figurine was too perfect.
Louise smiled. She’d believed that acquiring the statue of Aurek Nuikin’s much beloved and dearly departed wife would help her manipulate him. She’d been right … almost.
Once she had the statue, if she said jump, Aurek Nuikin would ask how high on the way up, because his much-beloved wife had not actually departed. She’d merely gone through a somewhat precipitous change of life.
As the study’s windows had not been warded to keep something in, Louise took the more direct route out of the building. Enthralled by her discovery, caught up in new plans, she didn’t notice Jean crouched in the shadows on a neighboring roof.
Neither of them noticed the white wererat watching them both.
Heavy gray clouds buried the sunset in gloom. Dmitri scowled up at the western sky and shoved his hands into his gloves. The weather exactly matched his mood.
He contemplated not showing up at Chateau Delanuit, though he was expected. If Louise had better things to do than be with him, then he had better things to do than to be with her. Except that he didn’t. When he was with her, he felt ten feet tall and invincible, able to slay monsters at her command. He felt necessary.
Usually.
Last night had been the exception.
The single exception.
“So I’ll give her another chance.” Having made his decision, he set off, with a lighter heart, toward the nearest bridge. There was one thing that growing up with four older sisters had taught him: women occasionally behaved in inexplicable ways.
“Dmitri!”
He turned at Chantel’s call and waited while the whole group of them caught up.
“We’re all going to dinner before we make an appearance at Laurent and Antionette’s boring little affair,” Yves told him when they were close enough. “Come along.”
“I can’t. Not tonight.” He spread his hands and shrugged apologetically. “Louise is expecting me at the chateau.”
Yves shot a quick, warning look at Chantel, but she only said, “Then we can all walk together as far as the second bridge.”
Dmitri smiled down at her. “I’d be honored.” He offered her his arm.
Although overcast and likely to rain, the evening was the warmest the city had seen in some weeks. The more popular promenades were crowded with the fashionable and those hoping to be seen as fashionable. Nodding to family and ignoring or recognizing the townspeople as whim took them, Dmitri and his six friends crossed the first bridge and started down a shadowed and nearly deserted street—the buildings a dark wall to their left, the river a darker barrier to their right.
When an elderly man approached, Yves murmured, “Let’s have some fun.”
Uncertain of what was about to happen, but willing to be a part of it, needing to belong, Dmitri watched his companions spread out across the street, leaving only a narrow path between Annette and the river.
Shuffling along, the weight of his clothing appearing to be almost too much for him, the old man eyed the only route allowed him if he intended to pass, and sighed audibly. With a weary shake of his head, he turned and headed back the way he’d come, unwilling to play the game.
Dmitri heard Yves snarl and, though no word had been actually spoken, the six surged forward as one and cut off the old man’s retreat. They’d moved impossibly quickly, and while Dmitri hurried to join the circle, Yves’s voice lifted in exaggerated surprise.
“You weren’t avoiding us, were you, old man?”
“I’m tired. I wants ta go home.” He was a laborer by his accent and still more irritated than frightened.
“No one was stopping you from going home,” Yves pointed with poisonous reason. “You haven’t answered my question. Were you avoiding us?”
The man’s head sank lower between the rough edges of his upturned collar. “What if I was?”
“Then you owe us an apology.”
“I owes you an apology?”
“That’s right. One for each of us.”
He sighed again and Dmitri, filling the space between Chantel and Georges, could smell the ale on his breath. The man’s mouth opened, but whatever he’d intended to say got lost in his astonished glance at Dmitri’s face. “What’re you doin’ here?” he demanded. “You don’t belongs with these vermin!”
The six exchanged pointed smiles.
They gave him a moment to realize his mistake, a moment for the dawning horror to blanch the color from his cheeks; then, in a sudden swirl of movement, they were standing on the river’s edge, and the old man was in the water.
He surfaced, lank hair plastered against his scalp, arms thrashing as he fought the pull of his clothing. His terrified gaze locked on Dmitri. “Help me …” He didn’t have breath enough to scream it.
Feeling as though he were caught in some kind of horrible dream, Dmitri stepped forward, only to find Chantel blocking his way.
“He called us vermin,” she reminded him, her voice and manner more like Louise’s than they’d ever been. “Vermin. Are we to ignore such an insult?”
“No, but …”
“Oh, look, he’s almost made it back to shore.” Georges dropped to one knee, reached out over the dark water, and grabbed the pale wrist below the desperately grasping hand. A gentle shove put the shore out of reach once again.
“Please …” Voice and thrashing both had grown
weaker.
Dmitri stared down at the pale face in the water. It was a joke. Surely they weren’t going to let the man drown. But when he lifted his eyes to the semicircle of fashionably dressed young people avidly watching a man die, he knew it was no joke.
“Are you one of us, or not?” Yves asked quietly.
One of them or not? He felt more like the man in the river, darkness closing over his head, knowing he was dying and knowing he could fight all he wanted but there was nothing he could do to prevent it. And more terrifying still, he had thrown himself from the shore. Then all at once, it wasn’t fancy, it was memory. He could feel the river greedily dragging him down.
He fought his way free and swallowed his fear before it could show.
Was he one of them or not? And if not, where did he belong?
He closed his eyes and made no answer at all.
Which was answer enough.
He couldn’t just stand there with his eyes closed, so he stared across the river at the lights in the distance and tried to remember the last time he’d seen the day; the last time he hadn’t returned home at dawn, slept until late afternoon, and emerged at dusk.
“Shouldn’t have called us vermin,” Yves declared cheerfully, when all sounds of thrashing had stopped.
During the answering murmur of agreement, Dmitri drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and looked at his friends. They didn’t look any different. The old man shouldn’t have called them vermin, he told himself. He was a common laborer; they’re members of the leading family of Pont-a-Museau. How could they ignore an insult like that?
They couldn’t.
Obviously, they couldn’t.
But he didn’t join in their laughter as they walked with him to the second bridge—the bridge leading to Isle Delanuit and Louise—and he stood watching them until they disappeared around a corner, heading for their favorite café.
He walked slowly to the crest of the bridge and stopped again, his attention captured by a shadow drifting by in the water below. A body? Perhaps. Not the old man, the current would’ve taken him the other way, but there were plenty of bodies in the river. Everyone knew about it. No one seemed to worry about adding one more.
