The Office of Shadow (3 page)

"Watching," she whispered. "Bel Zheret are here."

Paet's heart leapt forcefully at the name. He stood and whirled, brandishing the knife. Nothing moved.

He turned back to Jenien and knelt before her. "If they were here I either
slipped past them, or they're long gone.

"Said they'd be back for me," Jenien wheezed. She was having trouble
breathing. Paet gently pulled her hands away from her belly, pulled aside her
shredded blouse. Jenien was going to die; there was nothing he could do for
her. These were wounds that not even a Shadow could recover from.

Paet found a pillow on the overturned cot and put it under Jenien's head.
Her hair was wet with perspiration. She reached for his wrist and grabbed it
with weak fingers.

"Mab's coming," Jenien observed. "Thought we'd have a few more days."

"Things at the embassy have become frantic to say the least."

Jenien chuckled softly. "Traet running around like a headless chicken?"
"Yes."

"Is that knife sharp, Paet?" she said after a brief pause.

"I'm getting you out of here," he said. "Just rest a moment longer."

"Remember that night in Sylvan?" she asked. She was starting to slur her
speech. Her body trembled. "The little theater with the terrible play?"

"I remember," Paet said, smiling.

"I bet if we were normal we could have fallen in love that night," she
said, sighing.

Paet felt his emotions receding as she spoke. The world became flat. Jenien
was an object; a bleeding thing with no impact. A problem to be solved. Was
this lack of feeling something he'd always had, or something he'd developed? He
couldn't remember. Had he become empty like this when he became a Shadow,
or was it the emptiness that qualified him for the job? It didn't seem to matter.

"It was the mulled wine," he said, sitting her up. "It was strong. Hard to
tell through the cinnamon and cloves."

She winced as he maneuvered himself behind her. "You looked very
dashing. You had one of those red cloaks that were so popular back then."

"Just blending in," he said. Then, after a moment, "What was so important about Prae Benesile, Jenien?"

She shook her head sadly, worked to speak clearly. "Someone from the
City of Mab had been to see him. Five times in the past year. I was just
curious. Bel Zheret showed up when-" She winced.

Paet brought up the knife. "They take him?"

Jenien nodded. "He struggled; they killed him."

"Ah."

"I don't want to die," she said. It was a statement, merely an observation.

"We've been dead for a long time," he whispered in her ear. He drew the
knife across her throat in a quick, sure motion, and pulled her neck back to
hasten the bleeding. She shook; her chest lurched once, then twice. He waited
until he was certain she was dead, checking her eyes. He looked into them
until all the life had gone out of them. It took time. Dying always took time.

Paet took a deep breath and braced his knee against her back. He put the
serrated blade of the knife to Jenien's throat again, using the original cut as a
guide. He buried his other hand in her hair and pulled, hard, as he began to saw.

Ligament popped. Metal ground against bone. With a sickening crunch,
vertebrae parted. A few more strokes and the remaining skin tore loose
soundlessly. Jenien's head swung obscenely in his grasp.

He laid it gently on the floor and reached into his cloak. Among the few
items he'd brought with him from the embassy was a wax-lined canvas bag,
for just this purpose. He unfolded the bag and placed Jenien's head, dripping
with blood and sweat, gently inside.

That's what you got for being a Shadow.

He didn't hear them so much as feel the disturbance of the air as they flowed
into the room.

Paet turned and saw two tall, dark figures flanking the door. For an
instant they looked as surprised as he, but to their credit, they recovered more
quickly than Paet did. The first one had his sword out before Paet could
begin to react.

Paet stepped back, feeling the position of the corpse behind him and
moving easily around it. He stepped into a ready stance, his knife already
warm in his hand.

The first swordsman closed on Paet, and Paet got a good look into the
man's eyes. Black, empty black, stretching inward to infinity.

Bel Zheret.

Paet was a dangerous man. But going up against two Bel Zheret in a
closed space was suicide. He backed up, toward the dingy window of waxed
paper.

"You're a Shadow, aren't you?" said the first swordsman. He smiled pleasantly. "My name is Cat. It would be my sincere pleasure to kill you."

"It would be my sincere pleasure for you not to."

"Just so. But I must insist. I have never killed one of you."

"Oh. In that case I'm not going to fight you," said Paet, sheathing the
knife.

The Bel Zheret stopped short, flicking his blade in the air. The grin
faded, replaced with sincere disappointment. "Why not?"

"If I'm going to die anyway, I'd prefer to give you neither the pleasure
nor the experience of engaging me in combat. The next time you come
against a Shadow, I'd prefer that you have no personal knowledge of our tactics, our speed, or our reflexes. That way, you can be more easily defeated then
by one of my colleagues."

Cat pondered this, never taking his eyes off of Paet. "Well," he said,
shrugging, "we can still torture you."

He waved the other Bel Zheret forward. "Restrain him, Asp," he said.

Asp moved with astonishing fluidity and quickness. He didn't seem to
tread through the room so much as unfold across it, his limbs elastic, perhaps
even multi jointed. No matter how many times Paet saw this skill employed,
it unnerved him.

Paet took a deep breath and unsheathed his knife again, rearing back for
a sudden forward attack against Cat, carefully weighing the cloth bag in his
other hand. Cat prepared to block Paet's attack, but no attack came. Paet
instead added to his rearward momentum by shoving off with his back foot,
launching himself toward and through the window. The third-story window.

Falling backward, unable to see the ground, Paet considered his chances
for survival. The descent seemed to go on for eternity. He concentrated and
slowed his heart again, deliberately let his muscles go slack. He even willed
his bones to soften and become more flexible, though he had no sense of
whether it was a good idea, or whether it would even work.

Finally, he hit the cobblestones on his back, at the angle he'd desired.
Jenien's head made a sick, muffled thump as it struck. In his hurry, Paet had
forgotten the knife in his left hand, and felt the snap of his wrist as it was
wrenched by the hilt's impact. How many of Paet's wrist bones broke simultaneously he couldn't guess. More than one. There was no pain yet, but that
would come in a few seconds.

More prominent at the moment were the pain along his spine and his
inability to breathe, the sharp crack of his skull against stone. So perhaps not
exactly the angle he'd intended. He was still alive, however, and his legs felt
fine; that was all that mattered.

Paet climbed slowly to his feet, looking up at the window. Cat was
already drawing his head back inside the room. The waxed-paper windowpane fluttered down crazily in the shifting breeze of the cul-de-sac. He could
already hear the steps on the stair, Asp already dispatched. He picked up the
sack containing Jenien's head and ran.

Blindly at first, Paet raced out of the cul-de-sac and turned right, for no
particular reason. He would need to make his way back west, but not by the
most direct route, nor by the most secretive. He would have to split the difference, taking random turnings and inconvenient doublings in order to
throw off a pair of Bel Zheret, who would already be considering all of the
things that Paet was currently thinking. They outnumbered him, they
weren't fleeing, and neither of them had just fallen out of a third-floor
window. These were tangible assets that Paet couldn't at the moment figure
out how to turn into disadvantages. On the positive side, the night that he
fled into was growing more chaotic by the minute.

He kept running, the ringing in his ears from the fall replaced by the
sounds of battle, ever closer, the clatter of feet and hooves on stone,
shouting. He smelled smoke; somewhere nearby a building was burning.
On some of the faces he passed, worry was being replaced with panic. The
Unseelie were no longer coming; they were here. Life in Annwn was about to
change significantly.

As Paet turned another corner into the wide avenue leading back toward
Kollws Kapytlyn, his left hand, still somehow grasping the knife, slammed
hard into the post of a pottery merchant's cart being pushed in the other direction. His vision dimmed and his gorge rose as the pain from the broken
wrist leapt up his arm, into his brain and then his stomach. Continuing to
run, though slower, he considered dropping the bag. He couldn't defend
himself while he carried it.

Looking back, he saw Asp now entering the market from the same alley
that Paet had. The Bel Zheret caught his eye and moved toward him, shoving
a fruit vendor's cart aside with a strength that made Paet wince. Empress
Mab's operatives were getting stronger, faster, more intelligent. Whatever
the black art was that grew them in the bowels of her flying cities, it was
improving with every year.

So there was one. Where was the other one? Had he run ahead, plotting
a tangential course, or was he behind the one he'd just seen? Which had been
at the window? Which at the stairs? In the pain and hurry, Paet couldn't
remember.

Scattered thinking kills quicker than poison. That was one of Master
Jedron's favorite adages.

Paet ducked into a doorway and risked closing his eyes just long enough
concentrate and cut off the pain from his wrist, slow his heart, and clear out
the essence of fear in his blood. Better to lose a moment of his head start than
to give up his mind to panic and pain.

Again he ran, now turning into a blind alley that was dark and cool, the
walls close together. It was quieter here; the commotion beyond became a
homogenous roar. The smell of smoke, though, was stronger. Nearer the fire.

Condensation dripped down the moss-covered stones. Though Paet knew
Blood of Arawn well, and had spent hours poring over maps a few days earlier, he wasn't exactly sure where he was at the moment, or whether this alley
would take him to another street or to a dead end. Still, it was the unexpected
thing to do, and that was his primary defense at the moment.

The alley opened on a wide street, and Paet hurried into the center of the
city, where the giant obelisk atop the Kapytlyn rose up and vanished into the
blankness of night. Asp was nowhere to be seen. The crowds were thicker
here, the city's dependents waiting for news or instructions. Paet knew that
those instructions wouldn't come until Mab's officers took control of the
place. The rightful governor was long gone, having taken refuge in the Seelie Kingdom earlier that day, along with a score of top officials. Most everyone
else in government had already fled to the countryside.

Paet stopped a moment to get his bearings-he'd actually been running
away from the Port-Herion Lock, not toward it. Inwardly cursing himself, he
turned and began again. Thankfully the chaos surrounding him, which
would normally have been a hindrance, worked in his favor. At any other
time, a limping, sweating Fae brandishing a bloody knife would undoubtedly be noticed. The first rule of Shadows was to draw no attention; that was
the ostensible meaning of the nickname. Though not the true one.

Paet breathed deep and concentrated again, hoping to heal the wrist
enough to fight. He was running low on re, having used up much of his
stored magical essence in his various reachings-in today. He did the best he
could, then headed toward a side street that led to the Kollws Ysglyn, and
the Port-Herion Lock beyond.

The Bel Zheret named Cat was there waiting for him, sword drawn.

Paet dropped the bag and rushed him, praying that his momentum
would be enough to take the man down, but the Bel Zheret stayed on his feet
and, though unable to bring his blade to bear, punched Paet hard in the
stomach. There was something on his hand, turning his knuckles into spikes,
and the Bel Zheret twisted those spikes into Pact's midsection, not hard
enough to draw blood through Pact's cloak, but still painful.

Pact pulled back, stepping hard on the side of Cat's knee, a lucky move, and
the Bel Zheret crumpled, falling backward against the wall. Pact knew from
experience that having your knee kicked out of its socket was one of the more
painful things that could happen in a fight, short of being run through, and he
was amazed that Cat was still standing, let alone continuing to swing his blade.

For an instant, fear tumbled into Pact's mind and he was certain that he
was going to die. Right here in this alley, carrying the severed head of a
woman with whom he'd once made love. All his regrets spilled onto the dank
cobblestones. Where was Master Jedron with a homily against the inevitability of death? Certainly one existed, and it was something stoic and
tough. Well. Better to die here in an alley than in a dimly lit room with the
Bel Zheret. They would torture him slowly and effectively, and despite his
training they would cut his knowledge out of him. With their teeth.