Ward Against Death (5 page)

He should have left her dead.

FIVE

Celia ran a finger along the splintered doorframe where the bolt had locked the door. Her father’s men must have used their shoulders to get past. At least the necromancer—no,
Ward
—at least he’d had enough sense to lock it, warding against trouble. She snorted. Ward warding.

But what was he protecting? Her? Himself? His employer?

She pushed the thought away and peered into the hall. Shadows danced on the walls in the spaces between sputtering candles in crude sconces. She should give him more credit. He’d been right, she was dead—something she’d never admit to him. She even felt dead now, stiff and sore as if she’d exercised too much without stretching, and her muscles were weak, twitching with unexplained tremors.

Still, she couldn’t decide if she should be grateful to Ward for doing the Jam de’U, or furious with him for leading her father’s men right to her. Where better to dump a body than the knacker yards, dead center in the middle of her father’s domain?

Could fate have paired her with a bigger fool? It didn’t matter that Ward had no way of knowing her father was the Dominus, Master of Brawenal’s Gentilica, and ruld ned over all things criminal. Ward was still a fool.

Yet she couldn’t silence the little voice in the back of her mind that said Ward wasn’t all he claimed to be. Logic told her no one could be that good at acting uncoordinated and confused, particularly in the middle of a fight. But could she really afford to ignore even the smallest voice of caution? She’d have to deal with him carefully. If he hadn’t just watched her kill two men, she could still act the damsel in distress. Her next best option was seduction. It was a better hook, but more risky; a cat-and-mouse game of emotions. Just enough to keep him attracted, but not enough for him to think she would sleep with him.

First step, however, was to get out of this death trap. The hall was empty, so she slipped around the door and pressed her back against the unfinished panels, the coarse wood catching on her shirt.

Ward didn’t follow.

She resisted the urge to call him and stepped back into the room.

“Are you coming?”

He nodded and opened his mouth to speak. She clamped a hand over his lips before he could say anything. “Not a word.”

He glared at her.

Did she really still need him? A small part of her knew she should be grateful, but he would slow her down, even if she just wanted to run. Running, however, wasn’t an option. Those men were Gentilica. Her father’s men. Which meant her father wanted her back. She was not going to oblige him, not until she could rule out everyone in his house as her murderer. And that included all family members: siblings, cousins, everyone—even him.

She stepped into the hall to hide her growing discomfort. There was a slight possibility that someone, her father or one of her brothers, had taken offense to her latest assignment with the Assassins’ Guild. It was, after all, for an under-lord. But they all knew family was family, and work was work. Didn’t they?

Ward shuffled into the hall beside her. While she wanted nothing to do with him, she had to admit he might prove useful. If her murderer was a family member, or even in the Guild, she’d have difficulty obtaining information without being detected, but not everyone knew Ward. If he avoided her father and her father’s right-hand manin ght-han, Bakmeire, he might even be able to search her house. Not to mention that she didn’t know how long the Jam de’U would last.

Great. Now she had two reasons to keep him around.

She grabbed his wrist and dragged him down the hall. If she had to, she could always kill him later.

A slow, repetitive squeak, a sure sign people were coming up the stairs, stopped her. She glanced down the staircase. It was Bakmeire, followed by four men.

Not good. She shoved Ward back to the room. Perhaps she was being paranoid. She had no proof the murderer had poisoned her in her father’s house, and she had no reason to suspect her father, or Bakmeire. But, damn... She had no reason to trust them, either.

She eased the door closed and placed Ward against it. “Lean there for a minute. I need to think.”

“Think?”

“Yes. The inn is swarming with my father’s men. What did you do during the day while I was... unconscious?”

“Swarming?” He pressed his shoulder to the door. “I needed components for the Jam de’U. I had to go to the market.”

“You went shopping?”

“People just don’t rise from the dead on their own, you know. Spells like that need a little help.”

Beyond the door, the soft thump of hardened leather soles on the floorboards drew closer. Bakmeire wasn’t even trying to keep his approach a secret. He must have assumed silence meant the success of his companions. Well, she had a surprise for him, particularly if he thought her dead and believed only Ward waited for him.

She strode across the room through the center of a red octagon—was that blood?—and looked out the tiny window, the next most-obvious exit. She’d been right. Below lay a knacker’s yard, the pile of bloody, unusable animal bits sitting under the window. If she jumped right, she might be able to land beside it. It didn’t really matter. She’d nrisr. Sheeed a bath before she carried on anyway. An assassin was no good if her smell alerted everyone in a hundred-foot radius she was there.

The door rattled in its frame.

Ward squeaked. “What now?”

“We jump.”

“We
what?
We’re on the second floor.”

“There’s a”—she glanced at Ward and tried to smile—“manure pile below.”

His eyes widened. She hadn’t thought it possible for someone’s eyes to open that far. Goddess help him if he knew what was actually down there.

“It’s just like the sewers.”

He didn’t move.

“We’ll find a bath.”

Something thumped against the door, and Ward stumbled forward. He threw his weight back against it and swallowed.

Celia stepped out of the way. “You first.”

He locked gazes with her and in that moment, much to her surprise, she realized he’d done something like this before. He blinked, and the moment was gone. With a quick breath, he ran across the room. He climbed out the window, hung from the sill, and fell.

The door burst open and Bakmeire stood on the edge of the threshold, his expression grim, and his long braids wild about his head.

Celia sat on the windowsill and flashed him a toothy grin. His mouth opened, the only indication he was surprised to see her. She let herself drop backward. A flashy exit, one she shouldn’t have considered but couldn’t resist.>

One quick summersault, and she landed in a crouch, clear of the pile of animal parts. Beside her, Ward staggered to his feet, his right leg and hip covered in dark, sticky blood. He looked pale, even in the dim moonlight.

“You’re not going to throw up are you?”

He rolled his eyes. He still looked green, but he didn’t vomit. Perhaps there was a little more to him than she’d first thought.

Still, if they wanted to stay alive—more or less—they had to move. Now. She glanced at the window but didn’t see anyone. Bakmeire and his men were probably rushing down the stairs, looking for a way into the knacker yard.

“You said manure.”

“I lied. If we don’t go now, our parts will join that pile.”

He coughed, the only sign he fought a rebellious stomach, but started to jog, leaving a bloody trail behind him. It should have occurred to her he’d leave a trail. She must be losing her touch.

No, not true. She had never worked with a partner before, and she would never have started with one so inexperienced in everything martial. The only logical answer was the sewer. Bakmeire and her father’s men could follow them to the grate, but if Ward stayed in the sewage they wouldn’t be able to follow his trail. Now all she needed was a place for them to clean up, and then it would be her turn to do some hunting.

§

After a nerve-wracking run from the knacker yard into the sewer through a grate on the far side of the street, Ward stopped to throw up. A foul mix of bile and ale burned his throat and made his stomach ache. He swore to the Goddess and Her two Sons he would never drink beer again, but his eyes still watered and his stomach threatened to expel another batch.

He wanted to weep with frustration, but forced himself not to, though he couldn’t fathom why. He couldn’t possibly look more pathetic in front of Celia. Clumping around when they had to be quiet, hesitating to jump out of a window… It was only the second floor. If anything, he would have just broken a bone or two. What was that compared to his life?

Nothing really. He had just never done anything like this. He read books, studied medicine, solved problems. He suspected Celia’s version of solving a problem involved stabbing it in the heart.

He forced himself to move before she could scold him.

She jogged in silence, leading him to who-knew-where for what seemed like an eternity. He had no way of telling time in the dark tunnels with their eerie white witch-stone glow, so dim he wasn’t sure if it was real or imagined. All he knew was his stomach had stopped trying to expel the only thing he had digested in a day and his side shot jagged spikes through his chest every time he sucked in a breath. He wasn’t aware he’d gotten lost in thought again until he bumped into Celia.

Beyond her lay a perfect circle divided into starlit sky and gray-capped waves.

“One bath, as promised.” She took off her cloak, wrapped it around one arm, and stepped from the pipe into ankle-deep water.

Ward gripped the obsidian edge of the pipe and peered out. There was no sign of the city. No lights, no boats, only the rush and hiss of waves washing over black sand that sparkled in the moonlight.

Celia balanced her cloak and rucksack inside a crevice in the black stone beside the sewer and leaned toward him. “It’s all right, Ward.”

Her soft voice sent waves of heat through him. She brushed his jaw with a finger, and he jerked back. It wasn’t safe when she was nice to him.

“It really is all right.” She stepped away and opened her arms. “Welcome to the Bay of Veknormai.”

“You mean The Cursed Bay of Veknormai?”

“Don’t tell me you’re superstitious.”

“I’m a
necromancer
. Superstitions are merely forgotten truths.”

She shrugged and backed up until the water reached her knees. “This is your only safe chance to bathe. I suggest you take advantage of it.”

She stretched out and disappeared under a wave. Was she leaving him? He should be so lucky. No, that wasn’t really luck, no matter how much he wanted it. It would only make his life more difficult.

She re-emerged farther from shore, scrubbing her hair with her hands—not that she was the one covered in sewage and blood. A lump formed, cold and hard, in his throat. He had blood and waste splattered all over him, on his clothes, under his clothes, in his pores.

His stomach threatened another revolt, and he switched his train of thought. Kittens, puppies, flowers; cute and calm. A cursed bay, or a bath? Right now, his stomach could handle a curse from the Ancients, but it couldn’t handle the gore.

He stepped into the water. It pulled at his breeches and the bottom of his cloak, weighing them down. He sloshed his way out until it swirled around his waist. The salt burned the incision in his arm, but he refused to cry and give Celia more fodder to prove he was as dumb as he felt.

He ran his hand over his coat, brushing the bump of his glasses in his breast pocket and the lump of the wig stuffed inside. He pulled the glasses out. The lenses were cracked and the frame bent. They had been expensive. He’d saved for a whole year to afford them. If he really wanted, he could probably sell the frames, but who knew if he’d be able to hold onto anything until the mess with Celia was over? It was better to let them go, give them back to the Goddess, and pray She accepted his sacrifice.