Shadows of Asphodel (19 page)

Ardis had seconds to size up her opponents.

Two pyromechanics in gasmasks and black-and-yellow asbestos armor. Salamanders. They lumbered into the room, their backs burdened with tanks of naphtha—fuel for the flamethrowers that made them infamous.

She breathed in the stink of naphtha, her fingers frozen on Chun Yi’s hilt.

One of the salamanders squeezed the trigger of his flamethrower and jetted a lazy sweep of fire through the air. It blackened bones and illuminated the catacombs with infernal light. The shadows wouldn’t hide her much longer.

Ardis backed into the darkness. She had to warn Wendel.

The crossbowman shouldered his weapon. “Don’t move.” He spoke German with a thick accent that could have been Turkish.

“What do you want?” she bluffed, and she sounded a lot braver than she felt.

“The necromancer.”

Ardis shook her head slowly. “I can’t help you.”

The crossbowman narrowed his eyes.

“Then I,” he said, “can’t help you.”

She ducked as a crossbow bolt whirred over her head. It struck a skull behind her and knocked it clattering onto the floor.

Before he could reload, Ardis fled into the catacombs. She sprinted down a long narrow tunnel, the light dimming, until she slammed against a rattling gate. Blindly, she groped in the darkness. She could go either left or right.

“Wendel!” Her shout sounded hoarse. “Wendel, they have flamethrow—”

A hand clamped on her wrist and dragged her closer to the wall.

“Do you have a vendetta against stealth?” Wendel hissed.

She could hear and feel him, but he still remained cloaked by Amarant’s shadows.

“Stealth won’t work,” she said, talking quickly. “Your dagger is useless.”

“Useless? It’s still sharp.”

She reached out and hit what she thought was his shoulder.

“Would you
stop
being so cocky?” she said. “You can’t hide in the shadows forever. They don’t even have to find us, Wendel. You do realize that? They can burn all the oxygen and smother us into surrendering.”

He growled under his breath. “Let’s not waste oxygen by talking.”

Flames hissed down the tunnel as the salamanders swept the catacombs with fire. Silhouetted against the burning, the crossbowman stalked nearer. He had left behind his lantern, but soon his targets would be bright enough.

“Where is the other exit?” Ardis said. “The one to the outside of the cathedral?”

“We passed it already,” Wendel said.

“Damn.” She licked her dry lips. “Can you revive some skeletons?”

He laughed grimly. “You have no idea how long it would take to sort these bones.”

“Then take out the crossbowman. I can distract him.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Wendel curled his fingers around hers, then vanished into the darkness.

Ardis flattened herself against the wall. Her fingers clamped around Chun Yi’s hilt. Smoke tickled her throat, and she swallowed down a cough. The crossbowman edged nearer and entered the junction of the tunnels.

Ardis tightened the muscles in her legs, then lunged into an attack.

She only had time to draw her sword halfway, but that was enough. She bashed her pommel into his crossbow and knocked it askew, then kicked him in the knee and sent him stumbling back. He found his footing and raised the bow. He still had a bolt loaded. She froze between dodging and attacking.

For an eternity of an instant, they stared into each other’s eyes.

Wendel stepped from the shadows and unceremoniously slit the assassin’s throat.

Blood spurted from the man’s severed artery. He fell to his knees and clutched his neck like he hoped to stop his life from pooling in the dirt beneath him. Wendel crouched beside the dying man, a stance that mimicked concern, though Ardis knew he was waiting. The necromancer’s eyes couldn’t be any colder.

When the crossbowman collapsed, Wendel touched his neck.

“Is he dead?” she said.

Wendel tilted his head. “Not yet.”

Ardis was acutely aware of her heart still pulsing in her throat. She instinctively backed away from the necromancer. At the sound of her footsteps, he looked at her. The coldness in his eyes melted into a strange distant sadness.

“Now,” he said softly.

The undead man staggered to his feet. Wendel retreated, glanced at his blood-slicked hands, and grimaced as if the filth was all that bothered him. But she could still see the look in his eyes, barely there behind his bravado.

“You can feel them die?” she said.

He looked sideways at her, and that was all she needed to know.

Ardis unsheathed Chun Yi. Her sword looked pitiful by the light of naphtha-fire, as if technology trumped magic.

“Wendel,” she said. “We have to run.”

He took the crossbow and checked the quiver—only one bolt left. That gave him two shots. Two slim chances to kill.

“Ardis?” he said. “Run without me. They want me.”

She stared at him. “I won’t abandon you.”

Singeing heat buffeted them as the salamanders advanced.

Wendel stared into her eyes. “You take the left tunnel, I take the right. When they follow me, you can attack them from behind.”

“Right,” she said.

He looked to the undead man. “Time for you to say goodbye to your friends.”

The man swayed on his feet and waited for the necromancer’s command. Blood seeped from his neck and soaked his shirt.

“Run to them.” Wendel shouldered the crossbow. “Bring them down.”

The undead man shambled straight at the salamanders, who seemed confused enough that they stopped torching the air. Wendel narrowed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. A bolt whirred down the tunnel and embedded itself in the eye of a salamander’s gasmask. The pyromechanic toppled backwards.

Ardis heard a muffled shout from the other salamander. She gripped Chun Yi.

“Do we run?” she said.

“Not yet,” Wendel said.

He hauled back the crossbow string and loaded another bolt. The undead man, who clearly had no sense of self-preservation, staggered in front of the remaining flamethrower. The salamander set him ablaze and left him to burn. Black smoke choked the cramped space. Ardis gagged at the smell of roasting meat.

Wendel fired the crossbow. The bolt missed the salamander and clattered off the wall.

“Run!” he said.

Ardis sheathed her sword and lunged down the left tunnel. She ran headlong for a minute, then skidded to a halt. Sweat soaking under her arms, she whirled around. The salamander lumbered into the junction.

Wendel loped down the right-hand tunnel. He hadn’t bothered to hide himself.

The pyromechanic saw the necromancer, and pursued his prey. Flames licked the walls and blackened the stone. Ardis hesitated for only a second before she ran back the way she came. Her breath rasped in her throat.

What if Wendel hit a dead end? What if she was too late?

Legs aching, she summoned a burst of speed. The heat from the salamander’s flamethrower was intense. Her eyes watered from the naphtha and the smoke. The salamander heard her coming and, ponderously, started to turn.

Ardis’s hand flew to Chun Yi. She unsheathed her sword and swung.

The blade sang through the air and arced toward the salamander. She saw the gleam of reflected fire in the eyes of his gasmask—the hesitation that reminded her he was human—the very second before she beheaded him.

The momentum from her swing brought her blade clanging against the wall.

Blood splattered her in the face. The salamander’s corpse toppled at her feet, the flamethrower still sputtering in his hands.

Chun Yi burst into flames. Stone-cold fire crackled over the steel.

Gasping, Ardis dragged her sleeve over her face to wipe away the gore. Blood magic thumped inside her bones. She angled the blade sideways and squinted against its brilliance, then thrust it into the scabbard. When she drew Chun Yi halfway, the sword burst into flames again. She let it fall back and snuffed the fire.

“God damn,” she muttered to herself.

She wasn’t sure if she should be afraid or amazed.

“Ardis!”

Wendel loped from the darkness, breathing hard, and swept her into a crushing embrace. She leaned against him and shut her eyes, relishing the warmth of his body, and the way it made her feel alive, before they broke apart.

“You beheaded him,” he said. He might have been impressed, or disgusted.

She grimaced. “I want to get out of here.”

Wendel nodded and backed away from the widening puddle of blood. In the back of her mind, Ardis wondered if Chun Yi was still thirsty. Her hand twitched to her sword’s hilt, and she swallowed hard. What was she thinking?

Together, they strode down the tunnel toward freedom.

“Flamethrowers,” Wendel said. “I never thought they would be so desperate.”

Ardis shook her head. She didn’t know what to say to that.

The charred corpse of the crossbowman lay in the tunnel where Wendel had left him. She wondered if he had relinquished his control, or if his necromancy had failed when the flames burned the body. She shuddered.

“Wait,” Wendel said.

The first salamander lay nearby, the crossbow bolt protruding from his gasmask.

“What are you doing?” Ardis said.

Wendel knelt beside the salamander and wrenched the bolt out of the gasmask, then peeled away the gasmask itself.

He had a sliver of a smile. “I always kill first, ask questions later.”

Wendel touched the corpse’s skin. He bowed his head, shut his eyes, and blew out his breath. Ardis had watched the necromancer do this before, more times than she had dreamed she would, but it still sickened her.

The undead man struggled to sit upright with the naphtha tank on his back.

“Stay down,” Wendel said, with a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me. How many did the Grandmaster send to kill me?”

The Grandmaster. This was the first Ardis had ever heard of that.

“Nine of us, sir,” said the undead man.

Sir.
Ardis swallowed down a sour taste. Was that some echo of the man’s politeness?

“Nine?” Wendel said. “You were the last?”

“Yes, sir. We were the last.”

The undead man stared sightlessly, waiting for a command. He was still sweaty and red in the face, and didn’t look too far from alive yet.

Wendel narrowed his eyes. “Is the Grandmaster coming?”

“Sir,” said the undead man. “I don’t know, sir.”

Wendel glanced at Ardis. “The Order anticipated that I would question their assassins. Each of them knows only fragments of the truth.”

She nodded. “Smart,” she said.

Wendel lifted his hand from the man and let him collapse, dead once more. He wiped his hands on his trousers, but his eyes looked distant. He climbed to his feet and glanced between the two corpses in the catacombs.

“Convenient,” he said. “Leave the bodies here.”

Ardis said nothing, although she wanted to tell him that she saw straight through his callous words. She knew he was trying to hide his emotions. He didn’t relish killing in the slightest, not like some mercenaries she knew.

To feel your enemies die…

Again she realized he would never be anything other than a necromancer, but at the same time, he was Wendel, and she didn’t want to let him go.

~

Together they abandoned the dead and climbed the stairs to the street.

In the light of day, Ardis realized how terrible they looked. Blood crusted Wendel’s hands and splattered her clothes.

“We should make ourselves look less like murderers,” Wendel said.

She noticed how husky his voice was, from the smoke and the shouting.

“At least it’s raining,” she said.

The gargoyles of St. Stephen’s spat water from the gutters onto the cobblestones. They held their hands under the mouth of a snarling stone lion and washed away the blood. Even after Ardis finished, Wendel still stood with his head bowed, twisting his hands together, scraping his skin with his fingernails until it looked raw.

“Wendel,” she said.

He shook the water from his hands and glanced sideways at her. “Yes?”

“We shouldn’t stay here.”

He nodded and clenched his hands together, then glanced at the gargoyle again.

“There’s a nice hotel nearby.” He attempted a smile. “They even have showers.”

“That does sound nice,” she said.

She let him lead her through the streets of Vienna while rain fell upon them and soaked them to the skin. By the time they arrived at the hotel’s grand façade, she was shivering, and Wendel pressed his hand to her back.

They stepped into the warmth of the hotel. The foyer looked like it belonged in a palace with its glittering chandeliers, burnished wood, and gilding on the walls. It was gorgeous enough that it made Ardis feel ugly.

The concierge thinned his lips and glanced at the wet footprints they had tracked inside.

“We would like a room,” Wendel said, “with a hot shower.”

He laid a handful of koronas on the counter, and the clink of gold was enough to allow the concierge to overlook their rudeness.

With the key to their room in Wendel’s hand, they climbed a spiral staircase with lush brocade carpet and ornate iron railings. Ardis hoped she wasn’t staring, and wondered if Wendel often stayed in hotels this luxurious. He was still Prussian nobility, even if he was disinherited. She wondered how high-ranking he had been.