Scholar of Decay (37 page)

The path quickly left inhabited buildings behind. As alert as very little sleep and his recent lifestyle allowed, Dmitri followed it through a gap in a crumbling wall and into what had once been the extensive grounds of a city estate. Not nearly as large as the Chateau Delanuit, there was still an impressive amount of land involved, considering that Pont-a-Museau had been built over an archipelago where land had been at a premium from the very beginning.

In the years since the estate had been abandoned, the trees had grown up and created a small forest in the center of the island. Although the deadfall had been cleared away, no one apparently wanted to spend time enough in the trees’ midst to actually cut any of them down. There were no stumps and no sign of axe or saw. The bare branches of the deciduous trees clutched at the sky like greedy fingers, and the evergreens held pockets of shadow, deep and black. The air smelled of mold and fungus and decay.

Dmitri’s heart leaped into his throat as three crows exploded into sudden flight, screaming insults. Forcing a shaky laugh, he watched them, silhouetted against the sky, until he lost them in the pattern of branches. Then, shaking his head at his overreaction, he continued toward Chateau Delanuit.

He took two steps, boots making no sound against the thick mat of fallen, rotting leaves; then he stopped, as it occurred to him to wonder what had spooked the crows.

In any and all of their three forms, wererats preferred to attack from the rear—though they seldom wasted their efforts on a quick kill. In full rat form, they used their speed and their razor-sharp
teeth to dart in and, with a sideswipe of their wedge-shaped heads, hamstring their opponents. A man or woman lying screaming on the ground, unable to stand, became little threat and could provide hours of enjoyable terror.

Jean had fully intended to take Dmitri down the way he had so many others. He’d pictured it over and over in his head as he’d followed the human’s trail. He planned to make the dying last as long as possible, and he meant to enjoy every moment of it.

Unfortunately, when it came time to actually attack the brother of the man who’d killed his brother, his fury became more than he could control, and he launched himself, shrieking with fury, at the back of the human’s neck.

The sudden weight flung Dmitri flat on his face, pain searing through one shoulder. He could feel coarse whiskers crushed against his ear, hotly fetid breath against his cheek, and claws ripping apart the protective layers of his clothing. Both arms were beneath him. Somehow he managed to get his palms flat against the ground. Using all his strength, he shoved himself up into the air, and then, muscles popping, he turned over backward. For a moment, he held whatever creature that had attacked him pinned.

An instant later, he leaped to his feet, leaving the greatcoat behind. As the creature fought its way free of the heavy folds of cloth, Dmitir drew his sword and threw the scabbard to one side.

The rat facing him was as large as the four he’d seen that night in the alley, the four who’d eaten that poor man alive. But that man had been unarmed and outnumbered. Dmitri smiled. He was neither.

“
En garde
, rodent!” He couldn’t remember which of his friends had laughingly made the comment, but it seemed apt.

Snarling with rage, the giant rat glared up at him with glittering ebony eyes, naked tail lashing the air.

Trying to ignore the burning ache in his left shoulder, Dmitri flicked his sword tip just before the pointed muzzle. “Or are you afraid?”

The human was actually taunting him. Him. Jean Renier. Humans did not speak so to members of the family.

When the next attack came, Dmitri was almost ready for it. The rat moved fast—faster than should’ve been possible. Dmitri grunted as a claw ripped through his trousers and into his thigh, but twisted his leg away before much damage could be done. His own blow went wide. The rat was not where he expected it to be. It was almost as though the creature were thinking.

They circled, facing each other again. Dmitri set his jaw and prepared to fight for his life.

He added a number of new scars to the patchwork parting the dull brown fur that covered the huge rodent’s body, but twist and feint and thrust as he might for several furiously swift minutes, he couldn’t get in a killing blow.

On the other hand, he was still alive.

The claws ripped at him every time they passed—front claws, back claws, he could seldom tell which. His clothing was in ribbons, but unless he died from the slow loss of blood, the rat had been as unable as he to make a fatal strike.

The fight had moved them out from under the trees and up against the ruined walls of the old building. This gave the more agile rat a decided advantage.

To his horror, Dmitri began to realize that he couldn’t win. That all he did was postpone the inevitable. That this was the time and place of his death. A sword stroke faltered. He stumbled, nearly fell, the knowledge dragging at him.

Jean saw the realization of death in the eyes of his prey but didn’t have the energy left to enjoy it. He was hurt, bleeding from a number of wounds. None alone was worse than any he’d survived in the past, but together they sapped his strength. Had the human continued to believe he had a chance, he might have had.

In a moment, he’d have the human down and then he’d feed. That would make him feel much better.

Breathing heavily, the taste of iron in his mouth, Dmitri stumbled backward, lifted his sword in a last-minute parry, and slammed the side of the blade against the rat’s head. It was a lucky blow, but he doubted it had been hard enough to do any major damage.

Ears ringing, Jean staggered sideways, felt a block of stone tip beneath his paws and, before he could stop himself, he plummeted into one of the ruined cellars. Twisting in the air, trying to get his feet under him, he braced himself for an impact that never came.

When he realized what he’d landed in, he began to shriek.

Supporting himself on his sword, Dmitri made his way to the edge of the pit. About ten feet down, he could see the body of the giant rat, thrashing about in midair.

Then he saw the spiderweb. It shimmered like gossamer in the shadowed light, each strand at least as big around as his thumb. The rat had landed almost right in the middle of the circular pattern.

The panicked shrieking drove spikes of pain into Dmitri’s skull, and he began to turn away. When the rat began to change, he froze in astonishment. Bones lengthened, muscles flattened, the muzzle became less pronounced, front paws became almost hands, back paws almost feet; only the fur and tail and wounds remained the same.

“Wererat,” Dmitri gasped, trying to remember to breathe.

“Help me, human! Help me!”

Dmitri’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Help you? You tried to kill me!”

“You tried to kill me!”

That was true enough, and he was so tired it very nearly made sense. He hesitated, almost considering it.

Then the spider crept down from the shadows to claim its meal. The bloated gray sac of its body was as large as the wererat’s head. Each of the eight legs that stepped from strand to strand with obscenely delicate precision was longer than one of Dmitri’s arms. As it began to methodically wrap the screaming wererat in loops of sticky white webbing, Dmitri backed away, swallowing bile.

He wouldn’t, couldn’t face such a horror. If it were a friend, or family member … then he’d help, he told himself, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the continuing cries for assistance. But not for the sake of a wererat that had tried to kill him.

Bloody sword waving at the air before him, Dmitri stumbled back to the carpetbag, grabbed it, and moved as quickly as he could toward the other side of the island and the bridge to the Renier estate. When the wererat’s screams grew louder, he moved faster.

The only things that would be attracted to such a sound in Pont-a-Museau were scavengers.

He killed four rats of normal size before he reached the far side of the overgrown estate. Whether they were drawn by the fading cries of the dying wererat or by the scent of his blood, Dmitri neither knew nor cared. He would survive to get to Louise; he concentrated on that and let the rest go.

A fifth rat attacked as he staggered out onto the deserted esplanade. He crushed its skull beneath his boot heel. A sixth he skewered on the point of his sword and flung off the bridge. The streets remained empty. Those few who were up and about worked very hard at not seeing his bloody, sword-waving figure pass. The
citizens of Pont-a-Museau were experts in the art of turning a blind eye.

Eventually, staggering and retching, he reached the chateau. It took the last of his strength to lift the corroded brass knocker and let it fall against the door. When—after hours or minutes, he was no longer able to tell the difference—a servant cautiously pulled open the door, Dmitri gasped out, “Louise …” and fell flat on his face, the carpetbag clutched protectively in the crook of one arm.

The elderly woman stared down at him, her face impassive. After a moment, she stepped back and said, “I’ll tell the mamselle you’ve arrived,” as though bleeding young men collapsed on the threshold too frequently for her to summon a less phlegmatic reaction.

Her mood sunny, Louise stood in the doorway of the guest room and watched one of the younger, more expendable servants wiping the blood from Dmitri’s torso. The water in the chipped enamel bowl on the bedside table had turned a pale crimson that grew darker every time the cloth was rinsed.

Louise’s nose twitched. Not all the blood belonged to Dmitri, and she could only assume that, as the little Nuiken had made it to the Chateau, Jean was dead. No great loss, she mused. Although humans killing family was not to be tolerated, since Jean had ignored her direct order to do nothing, it could, under the circumstances, be ignored.

“Was he bitten?”

The servant’s back hunched as though expecting a blow, her cheeks pale beneath two barely healed lacerations. “Yes, mistress. There, on the shoulder.”

Leaning forward, Louise examined the puncture. Surrounded by purpling flesh, it looked as if her cousin’s teeth had gone cleanly
in, then cleanly out again, with no tearing. “It must have been an interesting fight.” She almost wished she’d seen it; males whacking at each other could be so … stimulating.

She pursed her lips and considered the possibilities. There was a chance Dmitri would be infected with a lesser form of lycanthropy, becoming, for all intents and purposes, Jean’s wererat slave. But Jean was dead. My slave then. That could be inconvenient. Although she had the little statue of Aurek Nuikin’s wife safe in her bedchamber, new plans would have to be devised if Dmitri became a wererat. What a selfish little human he’d turned out to be.

“Let me know if there are any … changes.”

“Yes, mistress. And if he dies?”

Her palm smacked against the back of the servant’s head. “Don’t be a bigger fool than you have to be. If he dies, dispose of the body.”