Covenant's End (6 page)

At this distance, though…at this distance, there was something about the overall shape of the head. Something nagging at her, scratching at a door to awareness that she abruptly knew she did
not
want to open.

“Olgun…” She was pleading, and she didn't even know what for. Waves of caring, of sympathy, washed over her, and broke against the rock-hard tightness in her soul.

It was then, only then, that she noticed—that she allowed herself to notice—the dull and faded colors on what remained of the corpse's finery. What had once been a deep red, a dark blue, a wine purple.

A scream pierced her ears, so loud it was agony; her throat burned, rough and raw, but Widdershins lacked even the facility to put those facts together, to recognize the cry as her own. Like a madwoman—no, not “like,” for in that moment, she
was
—she yanked the sheet from the bed, sending it fluttering across the room. She clawed desperately at the corpse's hand. Patches of papery skin flaked off in her fingers, drifted to cling to her clothes, and she didn't care. She was beyond disgust, beyond revulsion, beyond everything but the hunt she wanted so terribly to fail.

It didn't.

The ring slipped from the body with a faint pop, taking the finger with it. And there it was, embossed into the signet, just as she'd known it would be, needed it not to be.

A lion's head in a domino mask.

Trembling violently, spots dancing before her eyes, Widdershins staggered back from the bed. From the bed and from the body of the kindest man she'd known, her adopted father in all but name, Alexandre Delacroix.

She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Primal screams and wracking sobs, a wounded animal lashing out at anything within reach. Jagged rents in her glove, and the flesh beneath it, wept crimson runnels down her fingers to splatter across the filthy floorboards. It barely registered at all, and when it did, she only vaguely made the connection between that pain and the jagged hole punched into the flimsy wood of the wall.

Her gut burned, hot, corrosive. The room tilted, until she couldn't understand how she failed to tumble and slide across the floor. She spun, trying to toss her sword across the chamber, but either the twist itself or the fact that she succeeded only in yanking herself sideways by a scabbard still firmly fastened to her belt sent her reeling to the floor. There she lay in a gangly tangle, chest heaving, face drenched with sweat and tears. The shrieking had finally subsided, replaced by soft, mewling, primal sounds.

Only then, finally, was she able to feel Olgun's touch, his frantic efforts to reassure her, to calm her. Even without the need for words, with the emotions washing directly through her, they felt distant and meaningless.

Until she sensed the tiniest flicker of the fury beneath it. A divine rage, feeding off of and feeding into her own, roaring just below the surface. A rage that Olgun fought tooth and nail to control, to hide from the reassurances he offered her.

And
that
was enough. If he could make that effort for her, she could do it for him. She took no peace from it, no comfort, but what it could provide her was
control
.

Clutching the furniture, her breath coming more slowly albeit still in ragged gasps, she staggered upright. A careful check of her sword, and her injuries, first. Then, gaze carefully averted, she felt around until she located the ring. Shaking its gruesome burden free, she wiped it clean on one corner of the sheet and slipped it on her own hand. With the glove, her finger was large enough to wear the band with little chance of slippage.

Only then did she allow herself—or was it force herself?—to look once more over the bed. Emotion roiled up inside her again; she clamped down, hard, nearly suffocating before it subsided.

“I'm going to find whoever did this to you, Alexandre. And I'm going to kill him.”

Widdershins had never been casual about death. She'd killed, yes, but only under the most violent or extreme of circumstances. Yet her promise here was cold, as matter of fact, as stone.

She very carefully latched and locked the door on her way out, though she knew it wouldn't stop anyone sufficiently determined. Scuffs and whispers sounded from the other flats as she passed down the hallway. The morbidly curious, no doubt, their attention drawn by her earlier screams, but wise enough not to open their doors until they knew the place was safe.

Safe as it ever got, anyway.

One door did open, just a crack, revealing only blackness and the dull yellow-white reflection of a single curious eye. Shins snarled something, deep and unintelligible, and it quickly slammed shut.

Back down the stairs, not pounding or stomping, no, but certainly without her earlier caution. They quaked, groaning with the effort of clinging to the wall against which they'd sagged for so long. Shins didn't notice, didn't care.

The sky above, the one time she glanced upward—searching, perhaps, for guidance—held no stars. Just gray on black, a night choking on clouds. The moon, presumably bright and crisp beyond
the overcast, was to her nothing more than a careless thumb-smear of lighter hue against the darkness.

It felt appropriate. The world tonight
should
be shrouded, shadowed, black as Widdershins's thoughts and intentions.

“I don't know!” she snapped at an almost tentative question from her partner. She knew, could hear it in his not-voice, that he forced himself to calm, shared her fury but held it at bay so he might balance out her own. To continue feeding her some measure of control.

Her reaction even to that, though understanding and even grateful, was tinged with irritation. She
wanted
to lose herself to her anger, or part of her did; felt that it might just be the only way, in the long run, to stay sane.

“I don't know,” she repeated—more calmly, if only by a sliver. “I don't know who would, or who
could
. How they knew about the bolthole, or my connection to Alexandre. And no, I don't have the first idea how we're going to figure it out. But purple, steaming pits, I
am
going to find them, no matter what it—”

“You, there! Halt where you are!”

Had the racket she'd made up in the apartment carried? Had someone in the building actually gone for help? Or was their appearance here sheer happenstance? Didn't really matter, she decided. Whatever drew them, here they were: a half-dozen guards, tromping around a distant corner and down the street toward her.

And they
were
proper guards, this patrol, not private house soldiers as some of the prior squads had been. During most of Shins's life, that wouldn't have been a good thing, but at the moment, it made them a tad more predictable, if nothing else.

Actually, come to think of it…

Shins held her hands to her sides, not a posture of submission or surrender, and not only made no effort to flee into the Davillon night, she actually began walking
toward
the oncoming guards!

“We'll let them do some of the work for us,” she responded to
Olgun's bewildered squawk. “I doubt they'll find anything, but if they're taking care of all the little details of an investigation, we can focus on more important stuff.” Much louder, she politely announced, “I'm so glad you're here, officers. I need to report a crime.”

“In this neighborhood? Who doesn't?” They crashed to a halt a few arms-lengths away. Their leader, the absolute spitting image of what a guard “should” be—his black and silver tabard flawless, his medallion of Demas polished to a shine, his hair and thick mustache meticulously trimmed—advanced an extra step and touched a finger to the wide brim of his hat in a polite but perfunctory greeting. “Kindly identify yourself, mademoiselle?”

“Clarice deMonde,” she responded immediately. Not one of her usual or preferred aliases, but it
was
the false name under which she'd rented this festering roach-trap of a flat. And her preferred alter ego, Madeleine Vallois, wouldn't have been caught dead
thinking
of a neighborhood like this one, let alone in it.

Granted,
any
false identity would have been more believable if she wasn't still wearing road-dusted leathers, but…

“And what appears to be the trouble, Mademoiselle deMonde?”

“Well, uh…Constable…?”

“Lieutenant,” he corrected.

When it became clear that he was not, in fact, going to append a name to that title, Shins continued. “Right. Lieutenant, someone broke into my rooms and left…” She choked off, very much
not
part of her act, overwhelmed again for an instant at the thought of Alexandre's desecrated rest.

In that window of opportunity, one of the younger guards called out. “Excuse me, Lieutenant Donais?”

The patrol's commander sighed and only half turned. “Can this wait, Constable? I'm just in the midst of something.”

“Uh, I don't think so, sir.” Clearly tentative, nervous, but he didn't let that stop him. “Please, sir, I just need a moment.”

“Very well.” Another cursory hat tip—more of a hat nudge, really. “Your brief pardon, mademoiselle.”

“Of course.” She barely waited until his back was turned before calling on her god in the faintest breath. By the time Donais had reached the young soldier who'd called to him, Shins was able to hear their words clearly, despite the distance and the low whispers.

“Sir, I think it's
her
!”

Well, figs. That wasn't a hopeful start.

The lieutenant, it appeared, had little more idea of what his underling meant than Shins did. “Her who, Constable?”

“From that notice Maj—I mean, Commandant Archibeque was passing around a few weeks ago. She's wanted…”

What? I shouldn't still have any warrants!

“…for murder,” the young constable concluded.

Shins's throat did something that, as best she could tell, was an attempt to swallow her ears in shock.

“Now that you mention it—” Donais began.

I don't think I'm going to stick around for explanations
, the thief decided. “Olgun? Bang.”

At the rear of the patrol, one unfortunate soldier's bash-bang discharged; it'd been trickier than normal, as the hammer wasn't cocked, but Olgun had long since mastered the technique. The flintlock launched itself from the bandolier, going one way, while the ball tumbled off in the other. Slightly singed by the flash and startled so severely his first child would be born quivering, the constable screamed, high and piercing.

More than enough, the lot of it, to attract the sudden and complete attention of every man and woman in the patrol.

Widdershins bolted like a kicked cat, her skin humming and prickling with Olgun's magics.

Her tenth step (or so) came down on a remarkably solid chunk of nothing whatsoever. Boosted by her deity's will, she leapt from that
impossible spot, easily clearing the first floor of the nearest building. Tucking in tight, she landed snug in a windowsill of the second floor, arms outstretched to grab the edges, toes barely finding purchase between the edge and the old wooden boards. The entire ledge groaned, and she could feel it starting to shift beneath her.

The soldiers, of course, had turned their focus back toward her, but as of yet, between the distraction Olgun had arranged and the utter impossibility of what they'd just witnessed, none of them had managed to target her.

“If
that
bothered them…” she whispered. “You ready?”

Rather than provide a stationary target for even a heartbeat longer, she jumped without waiting for Olgun's reply.

Not up for the third (and uppermost) story; not back to earth; not even for the ramshackle house across the street. No, Widdershins launched herself sideways, paralleling the wall to which she'd just clung. Propelled by her own acrobatic skill and a helping of divine might, she would easily clear the building's corner, leaving her with nothing to grab onto, nowhere but the open street to land.

Except she and Olgun had other ideas.

Just as she started to clear the wall, she slapped both hands against the corner. It was an impossible grab, should have been nothing more than her futilely smacking the wall as she hurtled past. Using a variant of the same trick he'd used many times to give her an invisible leg up, Olgun braced her fingers against the stone,
just
enough so that—flat and straight as they were—they managed to find purchase.

A hard yank, also augmented by her guardian deity, and Shins flipped around the corner, heels over head—a somersault turned on its ear, performed sideways in apparent defiance of gravity and momentum both.

Even Olgun couldn't defy said forces for more than an instant, though. The trick had yanked Shins out of the guards' sights (and
line of fire) far faster than they could have anticipated, but not even she could regain a hold on the wall after that. Teeth gritted, she braced herself, twisting so that at least she landed on her feet when she struck the roadway. Ignoring the protests in her knees and the burning ache in both arms, she took off at a dead run. A quick left, as soon as she'd cleared the dilapidated structure, and then another after that, found her standing directly behind the spot the guards had been gathered only a moment before.

They, of course, having given chase, were now on the other side of the building, wondering where their quarry could have disappeared to.

Wondering what else could possibly go wrong, and why everyone seemed to have it out for her—even more than usual—Widdershins disappeared down the nearest side street, casually but carefully making her way toward the busier parts of town.

She needed time to think. Needed to know what in the name of Banin's belt was happening in this madhouse of a city. Needed a chance to rest, and to talk to a friendly face.

And with everything else going on, that could only mean one place.