The Enterprise of Death (45 page)

Turning the light toward the barrow, Manuel’s eyes bulged and he heard a low, whining moan. Realizing he was the one making the noise, he instantly quieted, though his unease was not so easily dispelled. The side of the barrow and the ground before it was coated with blood, wide splashes of it reaching even
the walls of the cemetery. Looking down at himself, Manuel saw he stood in a puddle of the old Papal paint. Monique was no longer smiling.

Taking a few a steps forward and peering closer at the earth, he saw winding smears and furrows where bodies had been dragged around the side of the grassy mound, as well as several shattered lanterns and discarded swords. So there might have been a double cross after all, and enough of one side or the other had survived to drag away the bodies. A chicken mask lay cracked against a tombstone, matted hair stuck to its edge. Looking back to Monique, Manuel saw she was rounding the barrow, and the nerve that had to date saved him on the battlefield loosened his knees. Circling around the far side, he slowed almost to a crawl as he heard the unmistakable sound of muffled digging from within the hillock itself. Monique appeared around the other side of the mound, and together they advanced on a wide tunnel dug straight into the side of the barrow.

Awa felt them set her down, every part of her aching and sore. People were moving around her and whispering, and she wondered if Chloé was still nearby or if the young woman had been taken to some other location. Then the slit in the hood was being uncinched, and even with the dimness of the chamber her eyes burned and wept. She smelled old bones and gravedirt but could not tell if the reek was her own, and then, finally, a familiar voice spoke to her. She froze, shocked beyond her ability to think, and so as her eyes adjusted and the face peering down at her came into focus she could only stare and gasp.

“Paracelsus,” Manuel hissed at the mouth of the barrow tunnel, and from the corner of his eye he saw Monique’s cool features ignite in rage at his breaking the silence. The man heard, however, and looked up from the dark shape on the ground he was kneeling over. The doctor looked far more crazed than he had even at his most incensed and drunk back at his clinic, and
he held a shaking red finger to his pale lips. Blood dripped down his hand onto the body beneath him, and the digging sound coming from deeper within the barrow stopped.

“I mean you no harm,” Awa called from the darkness at the rear of the tunnel, and Manuel felt all his fear melt into delight at hearing her voice. She sounded frightened and anxious, terrified, even, but it was her, and they were all here, and everyone was safe.

“Awa!” Monique cried, shoving the pistols back into their holsters and pushing past Manuel. “It’s us, Awa, Mo and Manuel!”

Manuel felt a residual shiver at her sheathing the weapons, but the tunnel was obviously too narrow for more than one person to be back there. Paracelsus gaped at Monique as she neared him, and then snatched her leg with wet, bloody hands, gibbering up at her. Manuel moved in to drag the deranged doctor off of her, which was when the light from his lantern illuminated the figure in the rear of the tunnel. Not. Fucking. Awa.

“I am Awa.” The horror spoke with her voice, the yellow-eyed canine monstrosity spoke with her fucking voice, and before Monique could turn from Paracelsus and see it, it and the bloody pile of corpses it crouched atop, before Manuel could even blink the tears from his eyes, the lantern sputtered once and went out. In the sudden and unbroken blackness they heard Awa say, “Funny! Funny! Funny!”

Then the hyena let out its riotous, horrible laugh, and there in the dark of the barrow Manuel began to scream.

Omorose. The tears leaving Awa’s eyes were no longer only from the faint light searing them after a week blindfolded inside a sack as the bounty hunters took her west after catching her just outside Troyes. She had been directing their search to take them toward Bern, and if only she could have seen Manuel one last time, laughed and shared a drink and taken in his newest masterpiece …

“Well well well, beast, it’s been a long time.” Omorose beamed at her old slave, as unblemished and beautiful as she had been the day she left her harem, unlike the weather-burned, haggard witch who cried in her bonds, only her chestnut-dark face jutting out of the cocoon of sackcloth and chain like some miserable caterpillar interrupted mid-metamorphosis. “You look good, beast, quite good like that, all tied up and bleating.”

Awa realized she had been trying to speak through the gag, and went silent. She had to think, she had to find out what had happened, where she was, what they had done with—

“We’ve got your friends, beast,” said Omorose, and Awa felt herself lifted up. She was in some sort of dungeon. Not that she had seen one before, but she made out stone walls, long wooden tables with shackles and cranks, an utter lack of windows— a dungeon to be sure.

“Is it safe to, to move her?” An older man she had not seen before had spoken as he hoisted her off the ground with the assistance of two of the bounty hunters.

“They got her here, didn’t they?” snapped Omorose. “If a week on a horse didn’t rattle her loose then putting her on the table shouldn’t be too risky, should it, Ash?”

The man grunted even with the bounty hunters to help him, and then Awa was laid flat on one of the tables. From up here she could see the two other swaddled shapes on the floor, and then they rolled her on her side and the man, Ash, looked across Awa at Omorose. She held up a knife, Awa’s ibex knife, the necromancer realized with a shudder, and then a cold thought came to her—what if Omorose had found the book, found a way to break the curse, to hurt her despite being an undead creature? Then the knife sank into the sweaty cloth bundling Awa and Omorose began cutting around the chains, tearing away the sack in wide swaths.

One of the bounty hunters said something to Kahlert, who glanced sadly at Awa and then disappeared from view. They had used much more chain this time, the man who had initially seized her holding a loop of it around her shoulders as his fellows beat her until she went still, and then they had locked it into place, covered her with the hooded sack, and applied yet more chain. Bands of the iron links tightly encircled her ankles and knees, and a single length of it wrapped around her torso many times over, pinning her arms to her side; even with the sack cut away from her Awa had no hope of squirming loose, and she looked helplessly up at Omorose.

“— an extra ten to ride down to Wolfach and find Olaf,” Kahlert was telling the man. “Obviously the lead there is useless at best and fraudulent at worst, and if they already purchased the alleged witch then the barkeep at the Wolf’s Step will know who has taken my money. I know there’s plenty of room for duplicity
in such a convoluted matter, so I shall make it simple for you—so long as the money I gave to Olaf for the acquisition of the witch is returned to me, you shall have a reasonable cut, and I don’t care if the money is currently held by Olaf, the barkeep, or the amateur witch hunters of Wolfach. Once you’ve acquired my funds please inform Olaf, and the barkeep, for that matter, that until further notice I’m not paying out for sorcerers and—”

“You’re going to suffer in here.” Omorose rolled Awa onto her back again and leaned down, her face hovering just above Awa’s as she whispered to her, “He’s alive, beast, think about that. He can do anything he wants to you. Annnnything I can think of. And I’ve thought of
a lot
since last we saw one another, since last you tried to murder me.”

“Thank you, Inquisitor,” said the bounty hunter. Awa heard a door open and close, and then the sound of metal sliding on wood. Omorose straightened up and Kahlert came back into view at Awa’s feet, his face grim. No, Awa realized, not grim, but trying to look it—the man was trembling all over, nowhere near as calm as he was pretending.

“They’re gone,” Kahlert said, switching from German to Spanish. “I had him dismiss the lot, so I’ll go and make sure all the servants have cleared out, and then we can …” His fingertips were extended, almost brushing Omorose’s cheek, and the woman gave a little sigh. Awa’s surprise was wearing off, and she began to extrapolate what was going on. She did not have to do much guessing, however; as soon as the man disappeared Omorose positively gushed.

“His name is Ashton Kahlert, and he was an Inquisitor when I found him,” said Omorose, smiling down at Awa. “You chased me right into his arms, and before you know it he’s doing everything I say, because of you. Because of
what you did
. I told him a bit of it, of what you did, only a bit, and even still you should have seen the look on his face! So he told everyone he knew about you,
and even when it cost him his position in his church he kept at it, an
obedient
man, a
loyal
servant, the sort of slave that a woman might find herself admiring, appreciating. Loving.”

Awa would not have had a great deal to say, even without the gag.

“So his men found you.” Omorose sighed. “It’s almost
too
perfect. Daddy’s favorite caught in the only place she ever goes to meet girls, and with a pair of friends, too! One of them’s a woman, I gather—is she your
girlfriend
, beast? Is she a stupid little cunt who doesn’t know what you do? What you’ve done?”

Keeping Chloé—and Merritt, for that matter—oblivious to what she was up to as they had scoured the churchyards of France had not been easy, but Awa had managed. Both assumed she was simply a graverobber, albeit a remarkably successful one given the coins and jewelry she returned with, and as she limited her raising and questioning of the dead to the times when she was able to ditch her companions, usually on her turn at watch, neither ever suspected that they were traveling with a necromancer, and Awa had never found a suitable opportunity to tell Chloé. Awa did not see how she could have given away anything with the gag in place but perhaps her eyes or her nostrils twitched, for Omorose smiled even wider.

“She
is
your little girlfriend, isn’t she? And she
doesn’t
know, does she? Oh, this is too perfect, just too, too perfect.” Omorose spun around in place, then caught herself, setting down the knife and planting her hands on either side of Awa’s face. “Oh, how I wish I could spit on you, beast! Don’t have the moisture, I’m afraid—I had to take all my skin off because of you. I started
shedding
and so I had to shave it all off, skin, muscle, everything else, lest I give myself away. Do you know how badly I miss my skin, beast? About as badly as you’ll miss yours, I imagine.”

Omorose glanced up at something, then leaned closer. “I was going to have him rape you, beast, like you did me. Well, not
quite … we can’t make you pretend to like it. But he’ll rape you if I ask, you know, he’s capable of more than anyone I’ve ever met. I thought he was so soft when I met him, I thought it would take so much work to get him to even let me at you … but you wouldn’t imagine the things he does! It’s, it’s ingenious, is what it is. But you’ll see, yes you will, you’ll see what he does. But not to you, not at first.”

Awa moaned then, much as she fought against it. If only Omorose would loosen the gag she could talk to her, reason with her, say something.

Would it matter, though? The realization was sobering, and chill as ice water on her back—nothing Awa could say or do would stop Omorose, nothing. The woman’s mind was irrevocably broken and she had spent almost a decade plotting for this occasion, and there was nothing to be done but suffer whatever she had planned. Awa had raised Omorose, raised her more than once, and she had brought Chloé along, had suffered that asshole Merritt to be with her, all so the plucky young harlot could be tortured to death over who knew how many hours, how many days. Awa shook with sorrow and terror, and Omorose shook with laughter.

“They’re gone.” Kahlert closed the second door, and locked that as well. “Shall we start?”

They did. Awa was rolled onto her stomach and the chain around her ankles was removed, but before the bruised skin could enjoy the sensation of freedom for even a moment manacles were slid into the grooves the chain had left in her skin and locked into place. Then they removed the chains wrapped around her knees, and by working a crank at the side of the table heavy ropes attached to rings in her manacles tightened and then pulled her legs apart until she felt like she would be split down the middle. They repeated the process with the chain binding her arms to her sides, and then the second crank was tightened
and Awa was splayed out facedown on the table, a board shoved underneath her chin to keep her looking straight ahead. All the chains had been removed, but when she gritted her teeth and focused despite the strain in every muscle and tendon she found that the iron shackles around her wrists and ankles were completely smothering her ability to work any sort of necromancy.