When True Night Falls (57 page)

No doubt there were finer churches in the better neighborhoods, and perhaps a great cathedral or two in the city’s center. Perhaps, as in Mercia, city life revolved around a central cathedral, and rich lawns and costly ornaments framed a building whose gilded arches gleamed in the Corelight, drawing the faithful like flies. Such a building would be beautiful, breathtaking in both its scope and its upkeep. It would also—Damien was willing to bet—be heavily guarded.

A wagon rattled to the left of him as he approached the rusted iron fence, drawn by the short, stocky animals that this region used as beasts of burden. There was a sharp cry off to his right, followed by the crash of glass; a domestic dispute, he guessed, spawned by the humid closeness of this district. He took advantage of the double light—a rosy mauve from the early sunset, Core-gold from the galaxy overhead—to study the sanctified building. A modest church to start with, it had clearly seen better days. Its few stained-glass windows were protected by thick wire mesh, and bars reinforced those on the lower floors. But despite its humble design and defensive hardware, the small church was clearly used, and used often. The steps were well-worn, the brass-fitted doors polished to a bright finish by the caress of a thousand passing hands. Even as Damien watched, more than a dozen men and women traversed the broad stone stairs, some in pairs or chatting groups, one or two alone. And their faith would have left its mark. The prayers of thousands, day after day, would have seeped into the ancient stonework and the deeply carved wood, leaving their mark upon the building’s substance as clear and as readable as any bars or iron deadbolts. The faith of these people, and all that it implied. Which meant that whatever corruption the Matrias had engendered here, that, too, would would cling to this building. Easy to read, for one who had the Sight. Or at least so he hoped.

He braced himself to Work ... and then hesitated. It wasn’t that he was afraid of being found out. He had come to this dismal corner of the city precisely for that reason, afraid that if the servants of the local Matria were watching for his arrival they might well have staked out the better-known cathedrals. There was anonymity in these garbage-strewn streets, and with his travel-stained and clumsily repaired clothing he was perfectly suited to take advantage of it. No, no one would notice him here. And in this land, so utterly bereft of human sorcery, it was unlikely that the Matrias or their servants would think to focus in on his Working to locate him, or would even know how to do so. He was as safe here as he was going to get in this warped and corrupted land, and it wasn’t the thought of capture which made him tremble in the church’s dusky shadow. Not exactly. It was more like ... like ...

I’m afraid to Know,
he thought. Fear wrapped cold tendrils around his heart.
Afraid to See. Afraid to know the corruption for what it truly is, and to witnesse how far it’s progressed.

He hadn’t been near a church since their flight from Mercia. Which meant that up until now he’d had no chance to See for himself what changes had been worked among these people, to analyze what effects the secret rakhene matriarchy had had upon their faith. Not yet. And as he stood beyond the gates of the modest church, as the inhabitants of the city shuffled and clattered past him, he realized that he didn’t want to see. Didn’t want to know. Not ever.

His hands closed tightly about the cast iron bars, squeezing them until his knuckles went white.
Knowledge is power,
he told himself.
You need it. You can’t fight the enemy without it.
Doubts assailed him, made doubly powerful by the force of his fear. He had thought that if he Worked his sight near a church he might see the corruption here for what it was, might be able to read some pattern into the degradation of his faith, some purpose ... but what if he couldn’t? And what if he succeeded in conjuring such a vision, only to find that he couldn’t bear to absorb its message? The corruption of this region struck at the very heart of who and what he was; did he dare experience it directly?

I have to,
he thought feverishly.
That’s all there is to it.
And he braced himself for Working. Wishing that it were as easy to brace himself for revelation. Wishing that his heart could be made invulnerable, just for an instant.

With care he reached out and touched the foreign currents—they were rich and strong, all that a sorcerer could ask for—and he tapped into the earth-power to remake his sight, so that it would respond to the fae’s special wavelengths. For a moment he didn’t dare look at the church, but fixed his eyes upon the ground. Silver-blue fae rippled across the rutted concrete in patterns of moire complexity, obscuring the muddy cracks beneath. Then, slowly, he raised up his eyes.

And he Saw.

For a moment he was simply stunned, incapable of accepting what his senses proclaimed. Then, slowly, it sank in. The church was clean. Clean! Its aura glowed warmly with faith and hope and the prayers of generations, just as one would expect in another time, another place. Its music was not the dissonance of earthly corruption, but the delicate harmony of true devotion. He stared at it in amazement, not quite believing. He shook his head, as if somehow that would clear his Sight. Nothing changed. The aura of the building was bright and pure, as befit a true house of worship. The currents which coursed about those worn foundations sparkled and glittered with the fragments of human hope which they had absorbed, as pure as the Corelight which fell upon them. The fae that poured forth from the building itself .... that was as sweet and as reverent as any which flowed from the great cathedral in Jaggonath, and as he listened he could hear the whisper of prayers that it carried, and catch the faint, sweet smell of human faith.

Impossible.

Simply impossible.

He stared at it aghast, struggling to understand. Why would the eastern rakh invest so much time and effort in taking control of his Church, and then do nothing to alter it? What was their ultimate purpose, if not an assault on the human spirit? And what about the force that seemed to be guiding them? He could understand a demon who fed on human degradation, an Enemy whose goal it was to twist human faith toward a darker purpose ... but that wasn’t happening here. Not at all. These people were steadfast in their faith, and it showed. The very earth glowed with their dedication.

What is it you want?
he demanded silently. Of all of them: the Regents, the Matrias, the unknown enemy who grew closer each night.
What game are you playing here?
Until this moment he’d thought that he understood the pattern here, at least on a visceral level; now even that basic assumption was in doubt. If mankind had made an enemy here, its nature was so alien that Damien couldn’t begin to guess at its motives; or else its plans were so long-sighted that in the context of a single year—or even a century—the greater pattern was all but invisible. And that made Damien afraid. Very afraid. It made him fear in a way he never had before, and it made him wonder—perhaps for the first time—if he might not have taken on a task that no one human could accomplish. Even with Tarrant’s help. Even with Hesseth’s power, and the girl’s.

What are you?
he demanded.
What is it you want?
But there was only silence to answer him, and the sibilant whisper of faith. Pure. Righteous. Terrifying.

Heart cold, hands shaking, he turned back toward the grimy hotel, to await the dusk and Tarrant’s return.

Night fell slowly in the harbor cities, accompanied by a sunset the color of blood. Long after twilight’s darkness had shadowed the city streets it was still possible to see sunlight in the distance, breaking in between the peaked islands and glimmering across the water. When that had faded, the Core remained: light without warmth, a false golden sheath for the city. How long would it be before that faded as well? The Core had been two hours behind the sun when they’d landed in Mercia; how long had it been since they’d fled that city?

With a sigh Damien let the curtain drop from his hand, falling back into place of its own accord. The strong northerly current here meant he couldn’t use the earth-fae to access information about the Matrias’ plans, or Know the details of their pursuit. He could test the fae that was coming up from the south, use it to Know the enemy ... but Tarrant was better at that kind of thing than he was. Tarrant was better at interpreting the strange and often cryptic visions that a long-distance Knowing was wont to conjure. Let him do it.

Damien looked over at the rooms they had rented, one bedroom and a small parlor connected by a curtained archway. He would sleep in the parlor tonight, on its well-worn couch, and leave the bedroom for Hesseth and the girl. A semblance of privacy. After their weeks together in the woods it seemed almost a frivolous arrangement—God knows, they had seen each other naked more than once—but it pleased his sense of propriety that they now had this option. A token civilized gesture. And of course, there was the girl now to consider.

The girl....

She was nestled against Hesseth’s side like a kitten, the two of them intertwined on the couch. How peaceful she looked, now that there were walls between her and the outside world. But how real was that barrier? Damien didn’t have to Know the room’s interior to tell that it had seen its share of violence and misery. Why didn’t that affect her? Why could she fight off the empathic images here, but not out in the streets?

Because this is her territory now,
he mused. Watching as she snuggled her way even deeper into Hesseth’s embrace.
She’s defined it as such, therefore it doesn’t bother her.
What did that imply about her Vision? Was her reaction in the streets a symptom of true power, or of mental instability? He was all too aware that it could be both. In which case she really might be dangerous. He had tried to Know her once or twice, to no avail. Whatever power she drew on eluded his own Sight, and he had to assume that the same was true for Tarrant. And that, all by itself, was a daunting concept.

Sensing his scrutiny, Hesseth looked up at him “Tarrant?”

He shook his head “Didn’t see him.” He unhooked the swag of the ceiling lamp and lowered it down to where he could reach it more comfortably. “And it’s well into night,” he muttered, lighting the four wicks. They were dusty, and sputtered as they caught fire. “Core’s almost gone. So where the vulk is he?”

Her amber gaze was reproachful. “You know that.” With one hand she stroked Jenseny’s long dark hair, separating the strands with her claws. “Don’t you?”

He exhaled heavily. “Yeah. I guess so.” For a minute he just stared at the tiny flames, four stars behind grimy glass panes. Then, with a sigh, he hitched the lamp back into place overhead. “It usually doesn’t take him this long.”

How many will he kill tonight?
He tried not to think about that. Again. The ache in his conscience translated into a sharp pain between his eyes, which he rubbed with dry fingers. He needed the sanctity of a church tonight, the cultured tranquillity of formal prayer. Needed it badly. But if the Matrias were watching for him in this city ... he dared not risk it. Standing outside a church was risky enough; entering one would be downright suicidal.

He was startled suddenly as the door creaked, and his hand went instinctively for the sword at his shoulder. But the weapon was in its harness, resting on the bed a good ten feet away. He didn’t need it anyway. It was Tarrant, at last. Damien bit back on his anger as the tall man entered, quieting the rusty hinges with a glance. The Neocount looked about the room, peered through the curtain to the bedroom beyond, and his pale eyes narrowed in distaste. Suddenly the place seemed twice as dingy, the air twice as stale. Damn him for noticing! And damn him twice for disapproving. He hadn’t been here when they’d been searching for a safe haven, had he? So he’d damn well better not criticize their choice.

Without a word Tarrant walked to the room’s small table and pulled out a chair for himself. Damien nodded to Hesseth, who followed suit, disentangling herself from Jenseny’s embrace with gentle care. When they all were seated, Damien pulled over the table lamp and lit it; light sputtered resentfully into being behind tinted glass, etching human and rakhene features in hard yellow highlights. The color made Tarrant’s eyes look feral, inhuman. More like his true self, Damien thought. It was a disquieting vision.

Sensing that the Hunter was about to make some deprecating comment about their lodgings, Damien said quickly, “It was safe. The first safe place we found.”

“The girl was having trouble—” Hesseth began.

“Ah, yes. The
girl.
” The pale eyes narrowed, fixed on that sleeping form. A thin frown of distaste curled the Hunter’s lips. “Do we know what she is yet? Has she chosen to share her precious knowledge with us? Or is she still just a parasitic cipher—”

“Don’t,” Damien warned. He felt his hand edging up toward his shoulder, toward where his sword would normally be harnessed; an instinctive gesture. “Don’t make it worse than it has to be.”

The Neocount’s expression was unusually cold, even for him. In recent days he had avoided the young girl’s company entirely, cutting short any discussion which centered on her. Now the hostility in him seemed more intense than Damien remembered from before, and the priest didn’t quite know how to account for it. When they’d first rescued the girl, Tarrant had been angry, yes, and justifiably suspicious, but not this openly hostile. Not this much like a snake with its fangs bared, ready to strike. It had all changed that night in the woods, he thought. The night Tarrant had dared to attack the girl, and Something had intervened. Could one brief incident change a man so drastically?

She saw his God,
he reminded himself. He knew that instinctively for the truth, though he and the girl had never discussed it. And Tarrant knew it, too. He must. What a terrible thing that must be for him, to watch a stranger be granted the ultimate Vision while he was forbidden communion. And jealousy could spawn hatred, Damien thought. A uniquely vicious hatred. No wonder he had been on edge since then.