False Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) (21 page)

“We knew you'd be here. We—
he
sensed it!”

“
Squirrel?!
You little bedbug, I should—Gods! What happened to you?!”

Indeed, it was Squirrel, and indeed, he appeared to be someone a plague victim might well cross the street to avoid. His complexion was a sickly gray, nearly transparent, and his cheeks were so sunken that his face seemed little more than skin stretched over skull. His eyes were so bloodshot they had more red in them than white, his lips were chapped and bleeding, and if he'd changed clothes or bathed since she'd last seen him, it clearly hadn't taken. Swathes of his sleeves were actually matted to his skin by dried mud and other filth. It was probably only the overwhelming aroma of the party that kept his own stench from being lethal, or at least leeching the colors from nearby fabrics.

(He was also, she noted, wearing a blade at his belt, but it most assuredly was not the one she'd lost.)

All of which inevitably led to her second question, which was, “And how the frying frogs did you even get
in
here looking like that?”

And indeed, the closest of the guests and servants were beginning to glance their way, raising hands to mouths or stepping back in scandalized chagrin at the sight of what appeared to be a diseased pauper in their midst. Silence rippled outward, crossing the entire chamber, followed rapidly by a second ring of horrified and angry murmurs.

“I sneaked. I do a lot of sneaking now. More than I used to.” He giggled, then made an ugly snorting through his nose as he tried to stop. “Maybe even more than you do.”

“Uh, yeah.” Madeleine glanced around, saw her “fellow” aristocrats backing farther away, and several of the Marquise de Lamarr's guards pushing their way through the thick curtains of heavy fabrics and powdered flesh. “You should get out of here before they get hold of you, Squirrel.”
And before you say something to expose
me,
you nitwit!
“We can deal with our own little disagreements”—
and figure out how you recognized me so easily!
—“later on, yes?”

“Yes. Or no. I don't think I should leave. He wouldn't care for that at all.”

“He, who?” Before she could ask anything further, however, a warning surge of emotion from Olgun inspired her to glance over her shoulder. The guards were
awfully
close, now….

“Olgun? Would you mind?”

A faint tingle in the air, a rush of power that only she could feel, and several of the guests tripped as they attempted to clear a path for the nice men with swords. The result was a sudden collision of nobility, jamming men and women against their neighbors, and briefly but thoroughly blocking the path.

“Come on, you lunatic.” Recoiling even as she did so, Madeleine put a hand on Squirrel's shoulder—shuddering at the faint sense of grit and grease beneath her palm—and started steering him toward the doorway. “Let's get you out of—”

Apparently, even a god (or a god of Olgun's stature, anyway) could be thrown by a crowd as tightly packed and squirming as this one. A handful of men-at-arms he could sense easily enough. But a lone individual? By the time Madeleine felt Olgun's second warning, it was far too late to avoid the encounter.

“Well. I see that even in a host as distinguished as this one, you'll find a way to attract associates of your own quality.”

She didn't even have to recognize the voice; she actually recognized the
smug
. “Monsieur d'Arras,” she greeted him through clenched teeth, dropping her hands to her sides and turning his way.
Am I even
wearing
makeup here? Seriously…!

Evrard stood some few feet away, the fingers of his left hand idly stroking his chin. The grin that spread above those fingers was openly predatory. “Ah. I see you've puzzled it out. And by what name shall I call you, hmm?”

Madeleine—Widdershins—bit her lip and answered with a glare that would have sent a gorgon crying home to mommy.

The d'Arras scion only chuckled. “It's only, there's so much potential here! I'm not actually sure what to do with this first. Though I will say that it answers certain questions about how you manage to operate as you do.”

By this time, not only had they attracted a wide ring of fascinated observers, but the household guards had finally pressed their way to the front as well. There was no way for Widdershins to prevent several dozen people from hearing whatever it was Evrard chose to say next. She swore she could feel the floor falling away beneath her feet. It wasn't so bad as when her life as Adrienne Satti had ended that horrible night all those years ago, but it was uncomfortably similar.

And with that realization, her head abruptly rose. Unblinking, back straight, and voice steady, she said simply, “I won't dance for you, Evrard. Do what you have to do.”

Evrard's smile faltered. Clearly, he'd been hoping for something a bit more satisfying. “All right, then. If that's the way it's to be, I—”

Whatever he might have done was halted, however, by a sudden cacophony of shouts. Some surprise, some grief, but largely a chorus of anger, they filtered in through the open door and the nearby windows from some commotion or other on the roads outside.

It was enough to draw everyone's attention from the much smaller and more personal drama that had been playing out before them. The Lamarr men-at-arms dashed for the exit to see what was happening, a great many of the guests trailing in their wake.

“Great timing, Olgun! How did you—?”

Much of Widdershins's growing elation wafted away as swiftly as it had risen at the god's confused reply. “But if
you
didn't, then what's happening out there?”

Before the god could answer, assuming he even
had
an answer, Evrard was suddenly directly before her, utterly filling her vision. “If you think this is going to distract us from finishing this, Widdershins, you—”

“Really?” she breathed, her jaw dropping as she stared over his shoulder. “Not even
that
?”

It's possible that Evrard, who certainly didn't trust the young thief, might have recognized the diversion for what it was—
if
her abrupt look of astonishment had been all there was to it. At that same moment, however, Olgun reached out to tweak the cork on a bottle of effervescent wine sitting, unopened, atop a nearby table. Thus, at the precise instant that Widdershins gawped at nothing over her enemy's shoulder, a harsh
pop
sounded from the same direction.

It was all enough to inspire Evrard to twist his neck in an attempt to see what had snagged her attention—at which point Widdershins kicked him in the groin (again), then kneed him in the face as he doubled over. He made a muffled grunting sort of sound as he hit the floor, something that might, or might not, have been an unintelligible garble of “
Quit that!
”

“I could get used to this,” Widdershins observed, though whether to Evrard, Olgun, Squirrel, or nobody at all was unclear.

Actually, no; not Squirrel. Glancing around, she realized abruptly that the wriggly little thief had disappeared at some point during her confrontation with Evrard.

Well, nothing to be done about it now, and she was pretty sure she'd run into him again. Deciding that she probably ought to see precisely what had caused the commotion that had so conveniently saved her from embarrassment at the least, and possibly arrest or even worse, she strode forward to get a better view. Again, Olgun's power reached out, twisting this footstep or tugging at that lace, so that Widdershins had a relatively easy time pressing through the throng.

And after a single, quick glimpse of what was happening, she just as rapidly retreated back into the dining room. A number of the City Guard were assembled outside, led by one Major Julien Bouniard. Widdershins actually would have loved to talk to him just then, to see a friendly face—and that was
all it was
, by the gods, no matter what her heart rate was doing!—but on the off chance that she escaped this mess with her Madeleine Valois guise intact, the last thing she needed was to give any Guardsman, even one she more or less trusted, the opportunity to see through it.

But while she didn't know why the Guard was here, she'd seen enough to know what it was that the constables had found, and what had caused their obvious consternation.

The street beyond the gateway to the estate was strewn with a handful of bodies, bodies that would never have been visible from the house if several of the constables hadn't been gathering them for study and transport. Tabards and weapons suggested that the dead included both Lamarr men-at-arms and actual Guardsmen—probably the men and women assigned to protect the Marquise's soiree. At this distance, Widdershins couldn't possibly begin to determine how they'd died, other than that it was bloody. Olgun might have enhanced her vision enough for her to do so, but that would require her to remain in sight of Julien and the others for longer than she was comfortable with.

Not that Julien and the others were staying outside. Although a few Guardsmen remained behind to watch over the bodies until a wagon arrived, the major himself led the bulk of his squad straight for the front door. The guests fell back as the constables burst in with hands on hilts. Julien Bouniard first began snapping orders to the household men-at-arms, essentially drafting them into his command until further notice, and then demanded to see Berdine Jolivet at once. The marquise herself—certainly not far from the commotion that had disrupted her well-planned evening—began worming her way through the throng. As said throng was too tightly packed to easily give way before her, it took her a few moments to reach the major; moments that Widdershins, in turn, used to back even farther away.

“Olgun?”

But she didn't have to ask. Already, people were “conveniently” shifting and shuffling, moving just enough that Julien wouldn't have a clear line of sight to Widdershins even if he happened to glance in her direction.

At which point, now that she had a few seconds to think and to breathe, it occurred to Widdershins to check behind her.

Yep. Evrard was gone. Apparently, whatever he had in mind, this was no longer the audience for it.

“Well,” she sniffed at Olgun, “I hope he's sore enough that it hurt to walk out of here.”

She'd expected a chuckle (or rather, the pocket god's emotional equivalent). What she got, instead, was a moment of pensive silence, followed by an abrupt surge of horror and an irresistible urge to make for the stairs.

“Whoa! Olgun, what—?”

Olgun kept tugging at her mind.

“Oh, sure. Suddenly dash out for no reason? That's not exactly the best way to avoid attention, you—”

If Olgun had a voice, per se, it would have risen to a shriek. She swore she could feel phantom hands shoving her toward the steps.

“All
right
! I hope you know what you're doing….”

The staircase itself was a sweeping wing of broad, shallow steps, lush carpeting, and polished hardwood banisters. Widdershins had actually ascended about a third of those steps, one hand lifting the hem of her skirts so that she could walk unimpeded, when the first voice called out for her to stop.

Julien. Of course.

Widdershins proceeded as though she hadn't heard a word of it. A few more steps passed beneath her feet.

“Mademoiselle!” Much harsher this time. “I'm not going to ask you again! Until we've determined what happened outside, we cannot allow anyone to—”

But by that point, Widdershins had gotten far enough up the stairs so that, after a tingling in the air to indicate Olgun's assistance, she could more than smell the faint ambiance wafting down from above.

Blood. And peppermint.

“Oh, no…” Widdershins broke into as much of a run as the combination of stairs and skirts would permit. “Hurry!” She barely had the presence of mind to stick with her slightly higher-pitched “Madeleine” voice, scarcely caring anymore if Julien identified her or not. “
Hurry!
”

Nobody below knew what she knew, of course, or even understood what was at stake. But there could be no mistaking the genuine tremor in her voice. Instantly not only the constables, but the Marquise de Lamarr and a huge swathe of her guests, were following her up the stairs. Slowly at first, but spreading rapidly, nervous gasps and horrified mutters spread through that portion of the assembly who already knew precisely what was so important about the upper floor.

Widdershins dashed across the balcony above, whipping past a gold-framed portrait of Berdine Jolivet's grandfather and setting a light banner of Vercoule swaying and flapping in her wake. By the time she reached the door from which the awful scent emanated, the fastest of Julien's constables was pounding along directly beside her, his expression one of puzzlement and a growing fear to which he couldn't put a name.

She felt sorry for him.

The door flew open; Widdershins could never afterward remember whether it was she or the constable who'd shoved it. After a single shocked instant, she could only look away, her back pressed to the wall in the hall outside, and sob into her open hands. The constable, all professional detachment washed away, was huddled over across the open doorway, struggling not to retch.

She'd expected the bodies, ever since she'd first detected the horrid combination of odors. She'd even expected their dried, cracked, and shriveled condition, though that expectation had done little to prepare her for the experience of actually seeing them. But she did not,
could
not, have anticipated that there would be so many.

Or that they would be so
small
.

The corpses had been laid out and positioned as neatly as you please. Some reclined on the sofas, blankets tucked up under their chins. Others sat at the tables, hands resting on cups or saucers. Still others sat cross-legged on the floor, board games open between them. One, larger and presumably older than the rest, clad in a formal gown, was carefully leaned against the inside of the doorframe, as though observing the rest.