“You're getting too old for this,” Shins whispered. Then, at Olgun's protest, “Well, one of us clearly is! And it can't be me, because I'm younger than you are!
“What? Don't be silly; of course gods age! If you didn't, you'd be too young for this, and you're clearly not.”
At which point Olgun firmly decided that more important things than this conversation demanded his full attention.
Another tense moment, as Shins waited for Olgun's “all clear,” then slowly peeked over the parapet. This stretch of walkway, startlingly dark behind the focused lanterns, indeed looked and sounded empty. The young woman scrambled over and across, quite steady despite the rain-slicked stone and occasional puddle collected earlier that day, and rolled over the barrier on the opposite side. Only then, once more affixed to the wall as if glued, did she look around to get her bearings.
“What the hopping…?!”
At the base of the wall, more of those focused lanterns shone into Davillon, illuminating the approaching thoroughfares. Fewer than their counterparts above, a small group of guards stood watch inside the main gate, just as alert as the others, despite facing what should have been a safer direction.
“You're supposed to be able to do the impossible, yes?” Shins whispered finally. “So do it. Tell me one way this could possibly indicate anything good.”
Olgun, as she'd anticipated, had nothing.
“Figured. All right, try this one. What do you think the odds are that this isn't related to the Guild hunting for me? Because I don't think numbers actually go that low.”
Scurrying down the rest of the way and slipping unseen into the shadows across the road proved uncomplicated enough. Just as well, really, since Shins had proved utterly incapable of keeping her mind on the task. Even as she vanished into the winding streets, leaving the wall behind, she grumbled and fretted about the mysteries surrounding her, here in this city that was feeling ever more unfamiliar and ever less like home.
Perched on a window ledge that might well have given a cat pause—or at least required cat paws—Shins watched the small squad move on down the street below, their boot heels shouting a peculiar sort of click-splash with every step. She was only vaguely aware of chewing a lock of her hair, a habit she thought she'd shaken a year ago.
“How many patrols is that?”
Olgun indicated there had been six.
“Really?” Shins began idly peeling splinters off the edge of the rough wood beneath her. “Feels like twice that.” But then, six was still three or four more than she'd have expected to see in the brief span since she'd entered the city.
Peering from inside the mouths of alleys or from atop small, rundown buildings, Shins hadn't really gotten a good look at any of them until the fourth such group. Up to that point, she'd been intensely curious as to how the Guard could possibly field so many soldiers at once, especially given how many were stationed atop or along the wall.
Then that fourth patrol had passed directly beneath a streetlamp, answering the thief's question and presenting her with a whole new host of worries.
The light shone, not on the black and silver of the Guard, but on tabards of sky-blue and white, colors Shins recognized immediately as belonging to House Poumer.
Private armsmen. The city government had either called upon house soldiers to assist in keeping the peace, or the Houses had elected to do so and the city had been powerless to prevent them. Either way, it explained the extra manpower but raised a whole legion of additional questions that Shins would really rather not have considered.
Plus, the last time she'd dealt with private house guards, back in the Outer Hespelene, it had not proved a pleasant experience.
“Olgun, what the happy hens is going on here?” And then, “Yes, I am going to keep asking. And you're the one with knowledge of the ages, so you tell me. How many ways are there to say ‘I don't know’?”
Only when the patrol had been lost to sight for a good few minutes did she descend to the street, making her way deeper into the neighborhood. The place deteriorated with every additional step. Staircases sagged; garbage grew thick along the roadway; cobblestones became ever more sporadic, finally giving way to hard-packed dirt; and the air gradually yielded to what certainly smelled like the various internal gasses of a dog's back end.
It didn't turn her stomach any less than it would someone else's, but it was a familiar, homey sort of nausea.
Not that her destination was really “home,” but it'd do in a pinch.
Widdershins had very seriously considered heading straight for the Flippant Witch. That was home, so far as she was concerned, and she was greatly anxious to see old friends. Ultimately, it was vanity that got in her way. She'd been traveling for a very long time, and her clothes were near to demanding that she pay rent. Better to wash up and change first, lest Robin and the others mistake her for a vagrant or perhaps something from beyond the grave.
She'd let many of them go after taking up ownership of the Flippant Witch, but Shins still maintained a few boltholes throughout Davillon: cheap, rundown flats where she could store funds and equipment or spend a few nights where nobody would know to look for her. It was one of those—not directly on her route to the Witch, but only moderately out of the way—that she approached now.
When she reached the building, her eyes only lightly stinging from the local miasma, it looked much as it always had. The external staircase sagged a bit more than it used to, maybe, and even more of the windows were boarded up, but otherwise little had changed. The façade was just as grimy as ever, but that was fine; Shins was pretty sure it was load-bearing dirt, anyway.
The framework creaked alarmingly with every step she took—and that was with Olgun's assistance!—but Shins reached the third floor without incident. She pushed through the outer door, which was connected to only a single hinge, and that more by sentiment than genuine attachment, and entered a hallway made almost entirely of rickety. The cobwebs, she was sure, were primarily for the ambiance, as most spiders had too much self-respect to live here.
“Be it ever so horrible…” Shins began, before a flicker of someone else's curiosity stopped her. “What?”
Then again, “What? No, nothing. How can you smell anything over all the garbage and apathy? Ugh. I guess you'd better give me a hand, then. Or a nostril. How would you even describe helping someone to smell something? Has anyone before us ever even needed to describe helping someone to smell soghaaaaooourghthkt!”
Said noise was, most probably, caused by the letters attempting to flee Widdershins's head. The stench of the building, the neighborhood, the streets, had been bad enough already. Now, after she'd felt the familiar tingle of her partner's power, it flooded her nose, her mouth, her lungs. She felt as though she'd just tried to inhale an athlete's armpit. Through a used diaper.
Before the horrific fetor could reach her gut, an event that could only have resulted in the addition of yet another foul odor to the hall, Olgun narrowed the scope of his “nasal assistance.” Just as he'd aided her in the past in focusing in one particular sound or sight, so now did he sweep aside any extraneous scent, if only briefly. Widdershins slowly straightened, sniffing like a curious kitten.
“Yeah, something definitely doesn't belong here. It's almost…I'm not sure. Floral?”
Tentative agreement from her partner.
Whatever that scent wafted from, it wasn't in the hallway proper. The bouquet was such that, even over the other lingering odors, Shins wouldn't have needed Olgun's help to detect it if it were.
Inside one of the rooms, then.
She crept by a few of them, past doors that were no more than uneven slabs of half-rotted wood, nailed to makeshift hinges, until she arrived at one in particular. One that hung just a few inches open, when she knew she'd securely latched it last time she was here.
Shins was angered at the invasion of her sanctum, confused as to how anyone might have found it, but she wasn't at all surprised. Soon as she realiz
ed something was out of place in one of the apartments, she knew which it would be.
Rapier unsheathed and at the ready, Olgun's senses reaching out to warn her of any threat she might miss, Shins nudged the door open a hair more and slipped inside.
Basically a room and a half, the flat was largely open, with only a smattering of furniture. It was the perfume that hit her first. And it was perfume, that scent; she could tell, now that it was stronger, more direct. Too much and too spread out to be the lingering traces of someone who'd passed through, or even the result of a spill. No, this strong, this evenly spread—someone had very deliberately sprinkled perfume across the place.
So what did you not want anyone outside to smell, you motherless frogs?
No enemies by the door or lurking in the shadows with a pistol, and a quick Olgun-enhanced glance revealed no tripwires or other booby traps. Safe from any immediate danger—probably—Shins crossed the room, heading for the nook in which her bed, chests, and various accoutrements awaited.
No ambush. No trap. So far as she could tell, no theft, and anyway, the only stuff worth stealing was carefully hidden away. So what the—?
Shins smacked a palm to her mouth to keep from shouting aloud. There was someone—something!—in the bed.
Unwilling to give the intruder more time to react, Shins turned her startled jump into a forward leap, coming down beside the mattress. Her rapier was already winging outward when Olgun's cry of alarm actually registered. She couldn't quite cut her thrust short, but she did manage to twist her wrist aside, so the blade punched into the filthy pillow rather than the…
She gawped downward, leaning on the rapier's pommel, her throat working silently.
A corpse. Someone had intruded into Shins's apartment—well, one of them—for apparently no other purpose than to lay a corpse atop her mattress, head propped on pillow and blankets tucked neatly under its chin.
“Well, we…. It's about time to buy a new set of linens anyway, yes? Or steal. Yeah, maybe steal a set.”
Olgun allowed her to go on, and Widdershins was grateful that he pretended not to notice the tremor in her voice.
She'd been around corpses before, far too often—had even made some herself—but rarely any that were this mature. Clearly the perfume had been intended to ensure nobody discovered the body early; the floral scent might have been odd, but a rotting cadaver would eventually attract attention even in this rundown pustule of a building.
But it was almost unnecessary. The body smelled more of dirt and dust than decay; whoever this poor guy might be, he'd clearly been dead for well over a year. Little remained but shriveled, parchment skin coating brittle bones. He'd been someone of means, or of import; that the skin remained relatively whole suggested the use of preservatives and embalming agents that simply weren't affordable to any but the aristocracy. Even had she lacked that hint, Shins could tell—as badly decomposed as they were—that the burial clothes had been of the highest quality.
“I don't get any of this,” she confessed to her god, turning her back on the bed and its vile occupant. “I mean, it's some kind of threat. That much is obvious, yes? But what? And…”
Olgun tugged at her awareness, trying to get her attention, but in her preoccupation she shrugged it off without noticing.
“…from who? Most of the people I've pissed off would just try to hit me with something heavy. Or set me on fire. Or…”
The god was all but waving his arms and shouting now, which was impressive for an entity without limbs or voice.
“…hit me with something on fire. And for pastry's sake, how? How did they find this place?! How did they know—?”
A crackle of power raced through the air around Widdershins as Olgun literally dragged her attention over to the bed. It was, as best she might have described, like he had threaded a hook through her senses—not her eyes, but her sight and hearing themselves—and yanked her around by them.
“Ow! Dogs grommet, Olgun, what are you—?! What? No, I think I've gotten as close to that corpse as I'm going…. Oh, for…fine!”
Grumbling furiously, as much to distract herself from the fear and revulsion, Shins moved to the bedside and leaned over, studying the body far more intently than she preferred.
“All right, I'm here. It's…” Something tiny and black, with far too many legs, skittered out from a rent in the leathery skin and vanished behind the bed. “Show me what you think is so hopping important,” Widdershins demanded through clenched teeth and a sudden sweat, “or I am walking out of here.”
With a startling gentleness, given his earlier insistence, Olgun guided her focus to the head.
It meant nothing to her, initially. The rictus grin and gaping sockets were utterly unrecognizable as whoever this might once have been. The face, if face it could still be called, meant nothing.
At this distance, though…at this distance, there was something about the overall shape of the head. Something nagging at her, scratching at a door to awareness that she abruptly knew she did not want to open.
“Olgun…” She was pleading, and she didn't even know what for. Waves of caring, of sympathy, washed over her, and broke against the rock-hard tightness in her soul.
It was then, only then, that she noticed—that she allowed herself to notice—the dull and faded colors on what remained of the corpse's finery. What had once been a deep red, a dark blue, a wine purple.
A scream pierced her ears, so loud it was agony; her throat burned, rough and raw, but Widdershins lacked even the facility to put those facts together, to recognize the cry as her own. Like a madwoman—no, not “like,” for in that moment, she was—she yanked the sheet from the bed, sending it fluttering across the room. She clawed desperately at the corpse's hand. Patches of papery skin flaked off in her fingers, drifted to cling to her clothes, and she didn't care. She was beyond disgust, beyond revulsion, beyond everything but the hunt she wanted so terribly to fail.
It didn't.
The ring slipped from the body with a faint pop, taking the finger with it. And there it was, embossed into the signet, just as she'd known it would be, needed it not to be.
A lion's head in a domino mask.
Trembling violently, spots dancing before her eyes, Widdershins staggered back from the bed. From the bed and from the body of the kindest man she'd known, her adopted father in all but name, Alexandre Delacroix.
She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Primal screams and wracking sobs, a wounded animal lashing out at anything within reach. Jagged rents in her glove, and the flesh beneath it, wept crimson runnels down her fingers to splatter across the filthy floorboards. It barely registered at all, and when it did, she only vaguely made the connection between that pain and the jagged hole punched into the flimsy wood of the wall.
Her gut burned, hot, corrosive. The room tilted, until she couldn't understand how she failed to tumble and slide across the floor. She spun, trying to toss her sword across the chamber, but either the twist itself or the fact that she succeeded only in yanking herself sideways by a scabbard still firmly fastened to her belt sent her reeling to the floor. There she lay in a gangly tangle, chest heaving, face drenched with sweat and tears. The shrieking had finally subsided, replaced by soft, mewling, primal sounds.
Only then, finally, was she able to feel Olgun's touch, his frantic efforts to reassure her, to calm her. Even without the need for words, with the emotions washing directly through her, they felt distant and meaningless.
Until she sensed the tiniest flicker of the fury beneath it. A divine rage, feeding off of and feeding into her own, roaring just below the surface. A rage that Olgun fought tooth and nail to control, to hide from the reassurances he offered her.
And that was enough. If he could make that effort for her, she could do it for him. She took no peace from it, no comfort, but what it could provide her was control.
Clutching the furniture, her breath coming more slowly albeit still in ragged gasps, she staggered upright. A ca
reful check of her sword, and her injuries, first. Then, gaze carefully averted, she felt around until she located the ring. Shaking its gruesome burden free, she wiped it clean on one corner of the sheet and slipped it on her own hand. With the glove, her finger was large enough to wear the band with little chance of slippage.
Only then did she allow herself—or was it force herself?—to look once more over the bed. Emotion roiled up inside her again; she clamped down, hard, nearly suffocating before it subsided.
“I'm going to find whoever did this to you, Alexandre. And I'm going to kill him.”
Widdershins had never been casual about death. She'd killed, yes, but only under the most violent or extreme of circumstances. Yet her promise here was cold, as matter of fact, as stone.
She very carefully latched and locked the door on her way out, though she knew it wouldn't stop anyone sufficiently determined. Scuffs and whispers sounded from the other flats as she passed down the hallway. The morbidly curious, no doubt, their attention drawn by her earlier screams, but wise enough not to open their doors until they knew the place was safe.
Safe as it ever got, anyway.
One door did open, just a crack, revealing only blackness and the dull yellow-white reflection of a single curious eye. Shins snarled something, deep and unintelligible, and it quickly slammed shut.
Back down the stairs, not pounding or stomping, no, but certainly without her earlier caution. They quaked, groaning with the effort of clinging to the wall against which they'd sagged for so long. Shins didn't notice, didn't care.
The sky above, the one time she glanced upward—searching, perhaps, for guidance—held no stars. Just gray on black, a night choking on clouds. The moon, presumably bright and crisp beyond the overcast, was to her nothing more than a careless thumb-smear of lighter hue against the darkness.
It felt appropriate. The world tonight should be shrouded, shadowed, black as Widdershins's thoughts and intentions.