Thief's Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) (33 page)

NOW
:

Clouds smeared the stars into glowing will-o'-the-wisps, orbiting the aura of the waning moon. The sky remained dry, its tears spent in the drenching rains of the previous night, though the air smelled heavily of more to come in the days ahead. Even the predators—the rats, the cats, and the two-legged variety—huddled shivering in their hidey-holes and contemplated staying in.

Beneath those apathetic clouds, Widdershins drifted, equally silent. Utterly lost in thought, barely cognizant of her surroundings, she darted through the city, alley to alcove, shadow to street corner, in an invisible dance. The streets slipped by, Widdershins drew ever nearer a destination that she hadn't yet realized she'd chosen—and still she remained focused inward, pondering the night's endeavors.

She couldn't decide precisely how much that little visit with the archbishop might have accomplished. She felt better, certainly: for her new confidant, for her greater understanding of her link with Olgun, and, perhaps most vitally, for her chance, however slim, to finally make things right with Alexandre.

So yes, the visit had been worthwhile in its own right. But she was nowhere nearer to solving her more immediate problems, or learning who was trying to kill her and William, who had slaughtered Olgun's cult.

“Help me, Olgun,” she whispered, her voice lost in the chilling breeze. “Tell me what I'm supposed to do!”

But the deity, as she'd expected, could tell her nothing at all.

She was still muttering peevishly when she rounded the next corner and realized she'd been heading, all this time, toward the Flippant Witch.

Widdershins stopped, her heels skidding on the dew-slicked cobblestones, and briefly debated going the other way. Someone could well be watching her—especially considering Bouniard's unexpected appearance at the manor—and she absolutely did not want to put Genevieve at any more risk.

But Olgun seemed certain she was in no immediate danger, and she really,
really
needed a friendly ear. Too much had happened to sort through by herself. With a deep, calming breath, Widdershins set out across the market square.

When she spotted the small but irritable crowd milling about out front, what poise she'd gathered shattered like a fallen vase. The usual drunkards and other flotsam that washed up on the tavern's doorstep every night—there was nothing unusual about them, save that they were
outside
, when the ale and beer and wine were
inside.
Her heart hammering at her ribs, Widdershins pushed past the belligerent lurkers and leapt the steps to the front door.

“Might's well give it up,” one of the ruffians behind her growled as the latch refused to budge beneath her grasp. He was a particularly brutish specimen, with dark blond hair matted into spiky clumps, a thin growth of beard sporting rust stains from an old razor, and clothes that hadn't been cleaned since he was last caught in the rain.

“I tried already,” he continued, the noxious fumes of his breath suggesting that he'd recently inhaled a plague rat. “They ain't open t'night, damn ‘em all!” He leered a gap-toothed grin. “Means I got me a few extra marks tonight, and no good place where to spend ‘em. You got a few free hours, you could earn ‘em.”

Widdershins turned her back on the man and shook the latch until not only the door, but the nearby windows rattled in their housing.

“I just tol' you—,” the oaf began irritably.

“Go away! We're closed!”

Widdershins recognized the voice. “Robin? Robin, it's Widdershins! You open this door right now! Open this bloody door, or I'm coming through it!”

When no response was forthcoming, Widdershins dropped to one knee and examined the various locks. Ignoring the foul-smelling fellow peering in fascination over her shoulder, she pulled a few wires and probes from her pouch and went to work.

The new locks were good; it took Widdershins five minutes to open the lot of them.

Widdershins began to push through the now more pliable portal, only to stop and glower as she felt the man behind her step forward.

“This is private,” she told him, her voice ice. “They're still closed.”

“Like fun!” he barked, his breath nearly knocking her through the doorway. “You're going in, I'm going in! Ain't nothing you can do to—”

Widdershins introduced her knee to the drunkard's gut, and the last of that foul air escaped his lungs in a single overpowering
whoosh
as he toppled from the steps. Widdershins was inside, the door slammed and locked behind her, before he'd finished bouncing across the cobblestones.

“Robin? Robin, where are you?” She was frantic; she knew it, heard it in her voice, and she didn't care. “Where's Gen?”

The tavern was unbelievably dark. The fireplace was cold and empty, the lamps quiescent. Only a handful of torches cast tiny fingers of illumination through the ebon depths of the common room.

It took Widdershins a moment to orient herself. Slowly, hands stretched before her until her vision fully adjusted, she crept toward the bar.

“Robin? Gen?”

A soft sniff called to her across the darkened gulf. Slowly, as her vision adjusted, the furniture began to loom from the shadows.

There! At the very edge of the room, a slender figure hunched over one of the tables. Widdershins recognized Robin's slim build and boyish hairstyle. Heartbeat all but echoing through the empty chamber, the thief skidded to a halt beside the serving girl.

“Robin, what's happened? What's wrong?”

The girl blinked up at her, and Widdershins paled at the unfocused look in her eyes, visible even in the insignificant torchlight. “It's Genevieve,” Robin said, her tone puzzled, hollow.

Widdershins found it impossible to breathe.
No. Gods, please, no…

“What…what about Genevieve? Robin,
what about Genevieve
?!”

“It's the wine, Shins,” Robin said almost dreamily, pointing down at the table, her expression glazing even further. “Genevieve's spilled her wine, and she won't move to let me clean it up.”

Only then, staring hard through the looming shadows, did Widdershins see the figure slumped over the pocked wooden surface, facedown in a glistening pool of slowly spreading red.

There was no anger in her scream when it finally erupted, no fear, for there was nothing left for the world to throw at her that she'd not already suffered. There was only pain in that pitiable sound, the terrible wail of a lost and despairing child.

Widdershins didn't remember falling to her knees. Hands shaking wildly, blinded by tears, she reached out to the cooling corpse of the only person she had left, truly called friend, truly loved.

“Olgun?” The god cringed, horrified at the terrible pleading in her voice. “Olgun, please, please, you have to help her! I
need
you to help her! Please…”

But save for weeping in his own peculiar way, there was nothing even Olgun could do.

The lingering torches continued their dance, oblivious and unabated, as a tiny portion of the world ended within their feeble glow.

It might have been minutes, or hours, before Widdershins finally looked up from where she'd buried her face in Genevieve's hair, cradling the woman's head without thought to the blood that now coated her arm and chest. She'd sobbed until her muscles ached and her lungs burned for air, cried tears enough nearly to wash the bloody table clean. But all her sorrow, all her prayers to every god whose name she could recall, couldn't restore the life-size doll she held, that once moved and talked and laughed and loved with the soul of Genevieve Marguilles.

And finally, though it took a lifetime, her tears slowed, slowed and stopped, and the sobs that racked her body faded away.

There was no sign of Robin. Widdershins had a faint memory of sending her upstairs to get some sleep. The girl was utterly overwhelmed, and Widdershins could only hope that the vague tint of madness in her eyes was a temporary thing.

She couldn't bear the thought of losing anyone else tonight.

Steeling herself against the pain, biting her lip until it bled, Widdershins moved the lantern closer, looking for details she didn't really want to find.

She didn't have to look hard. The wound that had taken Genevieve away from her was a simple stab, directly over the heart—but the poor woman had suffered before that merciful thrust, her legs broken multiple times with a heavy instrument.

An instrument that Widdershins herself had felt on more than one occasion.

She rose, her body shaking like a leaf in a storm, and she
hated.
She hated the Guardsmen who had stopped her from killing Brock in that alley; hated herself for failing to end his life when she had the chance.

For Brock, she could spare no hate—because so far as she was concerned, he was already dead. Widdershins knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she could find it in her to kill.

She turned to leave, to hunt, and the door opened at her approach, long before she reached it. And there he was, as though delivered by the hands of the gods themselves.

She had been right: He
was
already dead, a neat gash stitched across his throat by a thin blade. Like an enormous sack of meal, he hung limp between two hard, scruffy thugs. Behind them stood a third man, slender, his carefully groomed mustache and garish clothes contrasting sharply with the rapier at his side and the knives in his boots. Widdershins could see that the crowd she'd left outside was gone, perhaps having moved on to more worthwhile alcoholic pursuits—or else having been forcefully shooed away.

She should have fled, should have panicked, but she'd simply run out of emotion. Widdershins stared at them blankly—and then turned, slow and unblinking, when the kitchen door squeaked open as well. From within emerged a third ruffian, accompanied by the soldier whose hand she and Olgun had crippled so many years ago.

If she'd had it left in her, she'd have been surprised to see him.

“Perhaps you should take a seat, mademoiselle,” said the dandy in the doorway, pulling the portal shut behind him.

Widdershins didn't move.

“I am Jean Luc. I believe you've already met Henri.”

“Brock?” she asked dully.

“Who? Ah,” he realized, following her gaze, “yes. We found him here, when we returned to wait for you. He was trying to, ah, encourage your friend to tell him where you might be. Apparently he'd been watching and waiting on and off for days, and had simply grown impatient.

“For what it's worth, dear Adrienne—or Widdershins or Madeleine, it's quite confusing, no?—for what it's worth, we made certain she suffered no more at his hands.”

Widdershins showed no reaction to the recitation of her various names. “Then I'll try to make sure you all die as easily,” she told him.

The thugs snickered and dropped Brock's corpse in the corner. The entire tavern shuddered with the impact.

“Perhaps,” Jean Luc said dismissively. “But first, my employer would like a word with you.”

The door opened once more, in what could only have been a deliberately orchestrated dramatic entrance. No matter the coat, no matter the bandages that wrapped his head and hands, Widdershins knew the demon for what it was.

“Yes, Adrienne,” it gloated in that crushed-gravel voice. “I'm delighted to see you again, too.”

But it was the human beside the hellish thing to whom Widdershins turned her attentions.

“Claude?”

“Hello, Adrienne.” He shut the door, wiped a bit of dust from his heavy cloak. “It's long past time we spoke, I should think. Henri,” he added, looking across the room, “leave us.”

“But, sir—”

“I need someone keeping an eye on the investigation. Go.”

With a sullen nod, the former Guardsmen departed.

“Investigation?” Despite herself, Widdershins felt her voice quiver.

“Why, yes, into the deaths of William de Laurent and Alexandre Delacroix. Which will, of course, eventually be pinned on you.”

She couldn't weep again, not so soon—it was just too much. Only Olgun's strength kept her on her feet as the world swayed around her.