Ghosts in the Snow (38 page)

As he filled her with his seed, her eyes started to grow distant and peaceful. He shuddered inside her, her limp legs alongside his own, her hand twitching on the bed, and he grinned. "All done," he said, kissing her lips and avoiding the blood-drenched sheets. "Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

She didn't answer, merely stared at the ceiling above them. Her hand stopped fluttering.

He kissed her again and climbed off, stretching. "An amazing gift! Thank you for sharing it with me." He smiled at her, the one who had cleansed him. Lifting the dagger, he ran a finger down her warm thigh and licked his lips.

He climbed atop her, straddling her chest, and reached down to remove her lovely brown eyes.

Grinning, he slurped one luscious orb, popping it like a grape between his teeth. Chewing happily, he took her nose and ears, as well.

* * *

Certain that his sitting room contained nothing more dangerous than furniture and books, Dubric boxed the last of the evidence against Risley while Lars told him how his father had come—to his rooms, no less—and invited him home for a visit.

Dubric smiled, happy for the lad's exuberance. "It is about time," he said, folding the last bloody dress. "You have not been home once since you came here."

"It's unbelievable!" Lars cheered, wandering away with his nervous energy. "And he talked to me, Dubric. Can you believe it? A genuine conversation!"

Smiling, Dubric tucked the dress away and hefted the box. He walked toward the closet in the corner while Lars chattered away. Without warning, the horrid, familiar ache of a new ghost fell into his head like a block of ice. He gasped, staggering, and the box fell at his feet and burst open. "No," he said, closing his eyes to the naked girl appearing before him. Slender, petite, and dark-haired, she rose limply from a supine position with blood streaming from her throat and her eyes gone. Clinging to the wall with his eyes scrunched shut, he scrambled away, toward the closed door of his sitting room, but she remained in front of him, her hands fluttering.

Oh, Nella
, he thought, trying not to look, trying not to see, but he had to move, had to catch the monster while he was still trapped. He braved a glance, so quick it was barely a breath, and her face had disappeared, lost beneath a nest of cuts.

"No, no!" he cried, trying to catch her nose, her ear, her pert chin, but they fell through his hands to splatter on the floor.

"Sir?" Lars asked, helping him stand. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Nella's ghost!" he rasped, stumbling through the mangled image. "Run!"

"Oh, Goddess!" Lars turned and bolted, leaving Dubric to manage alone.

Dubric saw Lars kick the door open, pulling his sword with a flash of steel. Somewhere in the madness, a woman screamed. He had nearly reached the door, his head throbbing like the tide, when Lars came through again.

"She's fine, sir."

"She's what? But I saw!"

"Dubric?" Nella said from inside. "I'm fine. Really. We both are. Even with Lars scaring us half to death."

Dubric straightened his back and staggered into his sitting room, pushing past the pain in his head.

Risley and Nella stood beside the divan, their hands locked together and her new bracelet gleaming in the sunlight.

"For Goddess's sake, can't I have a few moments of private conversation with my betrothed without having the door broken down? Why in the seven hells did you have Lars barge in here?" Risley asked. "Surely our time isn't up yet."

"I saw…" Dubric rubbed his eyes and the pressure lessened for a blessed moment. "I saw her die."

Nella gasped and covered her mouth. Risley drew her close, protecting her against his chest, and his voice grew hard and deadly. "You what? How? Where?"

"A few moments ago," Dubric said, falling into a chair. "But she is still alive."

"Of course she's alive! Goddess, I told you I'd never harm her."

"I know that now," Dubric said as his stomach fell to the floor with dark dread.
He is innocent. All this time, all the evidence, yet he is innocent, and the killer is still loose. By the King, I almost killed Risley
! "I am truly sorry I misjudged you," he gasped, his words strangled.

Risley and Nella sat, their hands still locked together. "What are you saying?" Risley asked.

"I was wrong. Someone else murdered those girls." He drew a shaky breath and looked into Risley's astounded eyes. "All accusations are dropped. You can go home a free man."

"But," Lars burst in while Risley and Nella gasped, dumbfounded, "if it's not Risley, who is it?"

Dubric shoved himself to his feet, following Lars through the door. "I do not know, but he is no longer afraid of broad daylight, and we have to find him before he kills again."

Dubric shook his head. The physical proof—the hair, the splinter of wood—were Risley's, but he was not the killer. What if someone had planted them? Could they have been stolen? Lars had reported that Risley had forgotten to lock his suites. Dubric winced. He had been so sure that he had found the killer's undoing with that tiny sliver of wood; instead it seemed that he had simply fallen into the murderer's schemes.

Otlee burst through the main door with a folder clutched against his chest. "Sir," he called. "I found something."

Startled, Lars and Dubric turned, their hands falling to their swords. "Damn, Otlee," Lars sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "you scared the piss out of me."

"Sorry," he said, rushing to them, "but this couldn't wait." He opened the folder and pulled out the killer's letter and a page of notes taken from Risley's office.

Risley and Nella walked through the sitting room door and Otlee frowned, leaning close to Dubric and lowering his voice. "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't think Lord Risley wrote the letter. Look." He pointed to several words and letters common to both pieces. "They're actually written differently. Look at the letter 't' especially."

Dubric squinted at the killer's note, then the sheet taken from Risley's office. While the overall look was indeed quite similar, almost identical, the killer crossed each 't' with a single, straight line, whereas on Risley's notes they were consistently all one piece, loop up, cross over, continue on.

"I'll be damned," Lars said, whistling through his teeth.

"The angle of the end strokes is different, too, but the 't'… It's just not the same person, sir. I think he tried to make it look like Risley's handwriting. It is very similar, but it's not the real thing." Otlee shrugged.

"Nice job," Dubric said. "Faced with this, I would have definite doubts, as would any Council in the land." Smiling, he looked to Risley and Nella. "Hard evidence supporting your innocence. Congratulations."

"That's damn good news to hear," Risley said, relieved. "I'll leave you to discuss the case, if you don't mind." Hand in hand, he and Nella disappeared into the sitting room.

Dubric followed with Risley's sword and ledger, interrupting the pair before they became too involved. "We will smuggle you out tonight as originally planned, but in the meantime stay here, out of sight. I will not bother you again until then." He handed Risley his belongings and backed away. "I am truly sorry for this mistake and I hope you both can forgive me." He paused, not sure what else to say, but at last he added, "Carry on."

Leaving Risley and Nella to their privacy, he closed and locked the door behind him.

* * *

"Something's wrong," Dari muttered, helping Stef stretch a sheet across Lady Helline's bed. "Nella hasn't come back."

"Who gives a rat's whisker?" Stef muttered. "She's been nothing but trouble since she came here. You're just griping because Ker asked to not work today, and with Nella sneaking away to mourn Lord Sweetie, I get stuck working with you. Dammit, I hope they replace Plien soon. I dunno how much more of you and Little Miss Perfect I can stand before I snap."

She didn't sneak; someone lured her away
. Dari grumbled, "Why don't I do towels instead of Mirri the rest of today? How would that be? Then you won't have to look at me anymore."

"
Pfft
," Stef said, tying her last corner. "Better you than eye battings and giggles."

Dari worked in silence for a while, wishing she had a snappy retort. Mirri came and went, restocking towels and humming a sappy tune, and she gave Dari a cheerful wave as she carried out the last of the used linen.

Dari smoothed the embroidered coverlet, letting Stef fluff the pillows, and she was about to pronounce the room done when a bloodcurdling scream filled the air.

Stef froze, but Dari ran. "Mirri!" she called, barely hearing her own voice over the next window-rattling wail. Calling Mini's name again, she skidded through the door.

A handful of other cleaning maids gathered in the hall, their screams and terror adding to the chaos. Dari shoved through, working toward the noise, to see Mini stumble back from a room while screaming her fool head off.

"What is it?" Dari asked, turning Mirri's face away from whatever terrified her.

Mirri raised a shaking hand, pointed, and fainted dead away.

Dari turned and swallowed her own scream. The suite Mirri had pointed to was one of several unclaimed rooms on The Bitches, which occasionally housed visitors. Policy demanded all suites receive fresh linen every phase, even if no one had slept in the bed or used the bath. As she took a single step forward, Dari doubted this bed would ever be used again.

Blood had soaked the mattress and pooled on the floor like buckets of spilt wine. One arm leaned against the bedpost above a mangled mess of flesh and bones. Blood splattered the walls—scrawled in words, she thought, although she could read little beyond her name—and dripped from a neatly stacked pile of flesh on the bedside table.

Waving off cautions and concerns from the girls behind her, she took another step forward, through the doorway. An armload of towels lay on the floor at her feet, probably dropped by Mirri, and had started to soak up the mess. Despite the horror upon the bed, her eyes continually sought the pitiful arm tied to the bedpost. "No," she whispered, over and over, blinking at the simple steel bracelet on the woefully thin wrist.

She reached for the latch and backed away, dragging the door with her. It closed with a sharp slam and several girls screamed. "Find Dubric," she said without looking at them. Banging her head on the door, she cried and waited for Dubric to arrive.

* * *

The crowd growing silent behind him, Dubric opened the door. Someone screamed and Otlee cursed. Remaining in the doorway, Dubric surveyed the scene with dread gnawing at his vitals.

The latest victim's skin and muscle had been removed from both thighs and her abdomen, leaving one uncut arm tied to the bedpost. Blood flowed to the floor like water, still liquid and fresh, while four bright towels sopped the puddle's edge.

He took a step in and checked the inner latch to find it dripping with gore. "Right-hand print again," he said, and all three of his men noted the observation. He turned and tried to take in the scene.

Blood splattered all four walls of the narrow suite, dripping down the plastered surface like rich red frosting.
Nella make me clean Nella make me perfect Nella make me kill make me eat
, the walls said, proclaiming passion and rage intertwined.

"But it is not Risley," he whispered to himself. "Who else? Who else wants Nella?"

"Sir?" Lars asked from behind Dubric, but Dubric shrugged him off and strode deeper into the room.

"Otlee, question the girls who found this."

"Yes, sir," the boy said, and the door closed, blocking out the chaos of the crowd.

"The girl's name is Ker," Lars said. "I met her while guarding Risley. She rarely talked, seemed meek, was nearly invisible."

"A friend of Nella's?" Dubric asked. He examined the wounds opening her belly. The blade had torn the skin, moving up her right hip, across the bottom of her ribs, and down to the void that had once been her left leg in one curved slash. Slicing sideways, the killer had removed her belly skin above her pelvic bone, leaving her pubis and female organs intact and strangely devoid of blood. Unlike the other girls, the leavings glistening in her privates left him no doubt that she had been raped.

Her left arm had been drawn upward to lean against the bedpost, tied securely at the wrist, and her limp hand hung from a bracelet of cold forged steel. It pointed to the pile of thigh meat laid out upon the bedside table. Each slab seemed to have one bite missing.

Tossed beside her like a discarded morsel, the removed portion of her belly lay on the far side of the bed, along with most of her right arm—the skin and muscle stripped from the main bones, yet still attached to her wrists—and one lung. Not bothering to skin or break the ribs, the killer had pulled her chest organs out from below and thrown them aside, leaving the torso an empty husk. Both breasts were bare and covered with bloody smears and streaks, the filthy ardor of a killer's caress.

Only one wound marked her throat, a fatal piercing of the jugular below her jaw on her left side. It had left the nightstand and nearby wall saturated with her life's last blood. Her face was simply gone, every feature and defining mark removed and taken away, while her skull lay crooked and nightmarish under her blood-drenched hair. Her grayed, tiny teeth seemed to scream.

"You are sure this is Ker?" he asked, sketching a diagram of the scene.

"Yessir," Lars said. "I recognize her hair and bracelet."

"Frigging bastard son-of-a-whore," Dien muttered from the far side of the bed. "Our friend left us another present."

Leaving Ker for the moment, Dubric rounded the bed. He stopped and stared at the horror on the carpet.

Ker's intestines lay piled into a neat and tidy nest, cradling both partially chewed kidneys like eggs from a demonic bird. A pert white sheet of parchment stood amid the gore, held upright between the two kidneys.

Snarling, Dubric snatched the letter away and broke the seal.

Marinade not to your liking? Perhaps fresh would suit your whims better, and I promise she is delectably tasty, indeed. Forgive me for my indulgence, my Lord Castellan, but I've grown hungry these past days awaiting my release from the pits to the joy of light.