Scholar of Decay (46 page)

Dmitri bowed and murmured something as Jacqueline swept regally away. His thoughts were spinning again. He had to talk with Louise.

Louise saw Dmitri standing by her sister and snarled silently to herself. He had to be far enough away from both of them when Aurek arrived in order to confuse their identities. Which wasn’t going to happen if he was deep in conversation with Jacqueline!

She relaxed a little as her twin moved into the dance on the arm of an elderly cavalier and began to snarl again when the stupid boy scanned the crowd then started heading directly toward her. With one hand on the statue of Aurek’s wife, safely tucked in a pocket hidden within the full folds of her crimson skirt, she hurried around the edge of the room, her expression moving guests and family alike prudently out of her way.

Dmitri turned to follow.

Where were those idiot friends of his? Why couldn’t they distract him? Eyes narrowed, Louise swept her gaze over familiar faces and finally spotted Yves and the others standing together just inside the door. She raised a hand to beckon them closer but let it fall again without completing the gesture as a tall, gray-clad figure appeared in the doorway. Smiling to herself, she headed to where the pattern of the dance would deposit Jacqueline when the music ended.

Standing on the edge of the dance floor, Aurek stared about the ballroom, noticing nothing and no one except Louise Renier. Lips pressed into a thin white line, he set out on a course to intercept her.

Searching for Louise, a quest that had proven to be surprisingly difficult, Dmitri pushed his way around a weighty dowager whose feathered turban had momentarily blocked his view.

“Young man!”

He stopped only because the old woman had a surprisingly strong grip on his coat.

“You bumped me.” The dance had ended, and in the quiet her voice rang out over the murmur of the other guests. “I demand an apology.”

On another evening, the amused stares of a dozen people would have been a painful embarrassment. Tonight, Dmitri barely noticed. “Madame, I most humbly apologize.” He bowed as well as he was able, considering her hold on his coat, then yanked the fabric out of her hand.

Once around her indignant bulk, he spotted Louise easily. Or he spotted Jacqueline easily. They were standing together, heads bent, both smiling. Then one of them moved away.

But which one?

Totally unaware of his brother’s presence in the ballroom, Aurek saw the sisters together, saw them separate, and found it unnecessary to try to tell them apart. The moving twin caught his eye and nodded once.

Louise.

He walked closer to Jacqueline. Shoving his right hand into his pocket, he rolled the tiny iron rod up into his fingers and began the first of the four segments of the spell.

Aurek? Dmitri watched his brother cut through the crowds and recognized the rigid set of head and shoulders. Aurek was furious. And he was heading right toward …

Louise!

It was happening just as she’d said it would! His hand on the dagger hilt, Dmitri began to frantically push his way through the protesting aristocracy of Pont-a-Museau.

Jacqueline, who had been watching her sister through a thick fringe of ebony lashes, saw Louise nod and turned slowly to face in the same direction. Although they couldn’t have known why, the guests were instinctively parting like flesh under a razor as Aurek strode toward her across the ballroom floor. She wrinkled her nose at the scent of his gathering power.

When he was close enough, she lifted her eyes to his. “I don’t think so,” she said softly.

Claws clicking against the polished wood, hundreds—thousands—of rats suddenly poured out of cracks and holes in walls and floors and even the ceiling, every single one of them heading directly for Aurek Nuikin.

Townspeople screamed and began running, some toward the doors, some in circles. The family didn’t waste time screaming—they just ran.

With Georges by his side, the twins and Annette following, Yves led the way out of the chateau. He could hear cries of panic coming from the ballroom behind them as the door proved too narrow for the number of people who wanted through it. Lips curled up off his teeth in amusement as the panic turned to shrieks of pain. Under these circumstances, the family wouldn’t allow a few humans in the way to delay them.

He’d miss Chantel but, in sobering up the little Nuikin, he’d done what he could to avenge her death. He’d be a fool to risk more, and she’d have been the first to tell him that.

As the five raced along the landing toward their boat and safety, Yves shoved a servant, who dared ask him what was going on, off the dock.

“Company for Chantel,” he explained as the dark and frigid water closed over the astonished man’s head and cut off the first terrified scream.

It was the kind of memorial she’d appreciate.

Back inside the ballroom, Dmitri froze as a small brown body landed on his shoulder and launched itself toward his brother. Rats? He didn’t understand.

“Mama!”

The piercing cry from the balcony turned only two heads, Dmitri’s and that of the woman he thought was Louise. Unlocking her gaze from Aurek’s face, she glanced upward, scanning the second level. When she raised her hand, and the small head shoved through the banisters withdrew, Dmitri realized that Aurek had attacked the wrong twin. His brother wasn’t facing Louise; he was facing Jacqueline!

Desperately, Dmitri searched the frenzied crowd for Louise.

She wasn’t far. Her lips were pulled back off her teeth in a fierce anticipatory smile, and her hands were curled into fists. She was staring at Aurek and her sister with glittering eyes.

Eyes …

Dmitri’s thoughts began to whirl again, but this time a pattern emerged through the weakened influence of the drug.

Blood matted the white fur, and one dark red eye stared sightlessly at the ceiling. He had the strangest feeling he’d seen that eye before
.

“Ask Louise.”

“He told me he was taking Chantel to see you when she died.”

 … his gaze slid sideways to the body of the giant rat. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t seem to figure out what
.

He hadn’t killed that rat. Its neck was broken
.

Louise was the only other person in the room
.

“Ask Louise.”

“… taking Chantel to see you when she died.”

“It was young. The young seldom take the time to think things through.”

Chantel was dead
.

He had the strangest feeling he’d seen that eye before
.

“Ask Louise.”

Chantel had white hair and eyes so dark a red they looked
almost brown. Louise had killed a white rat with eyes so dark a red they looked almost brown and referred to it, directly after, as “she.”

“Mama says only a wererat can kill another wererat.”

“NO!”