“We went to find news about Leshni,” Ani said. “They found him in an alley in Berryvine. You heard about that too?”
“I have. What of it?”
“That makes four,” Kern said again.
“We suspect vigilantes.”
“
You
suspect vigilantes,” Kern hissed.
“You are too easily distracted,” the newcomer said coolly. “Remember your purpose. If you succeed, your clan will be powerful, more so than many of the others. Keep that always in your mind, and you need not worry. The good of your clan is all that matters.”
“Meaning that each of us is expendable,” Kern said.
“Of course we are,” the man with the heavy accent said. “The clan always comes first. Where are your values? Or have you been living amongst the city folk for so long that you forget who you are?”
“I was born here,” Kern said. “What’s the clan ever done for me? They don’t even know I exist. What do I care if they’re powerful?”
“It is not about power,” the other man said. “Our people are suffering. This is a small price to pay to heal them.”
“For you, maybe.”
“You are free to leave at any time, Kern.”
“And go where? I need the money.” The floorboards above Zach’s head sounded with footsteps, as though someone had started pacing. When Kern spoke again, he sounded calmer. “It’s just . . . this is getting out of hand. You never said anything about hurting anyone. They were supposed to be dead already. And now these killings . . .”
“Enough,” said the newcomer. “How much longer do you need? This is already taking far more time than you said it would.”
“It has been more difficult than we anticipated,” the one with the heavy accent said. “We have failed twice, but we learned valuable lessons.”
“You can manage without the other witchdoctor?”
“Raiyen’s loss was a setback, but I do not think he truly had the stomach for this in any case. He served his purpose; I learned what I needed from him. We are close now. I just need to make a few adjustments.”
“Then do it! The hounds are snooping around, and it’s only a matter of time before they find us. Hurry your preparations, and inform me when you are ready to try again. I want to be there this time.”
“As you wish.”
The newcomer left, and the trio went back to arguing. Zach had stopped listening. He didn’t want to hear any more about murder and vigilantes. He didn’t want to think about what his captors were planning for him. Instead he clung to those few precious words the newcomer had spoken.
The hounds were coming. Lenoir was coming. Zach closed his eyes and waited.
• • •
Lenoir had never waited so impatiently for night to come. His leg bounced restlessly under the table, and his eyes strayed to the window every few minutes. He had not moved from the spot all day. The barmaid had gone from curious to nervous to disturbed. She had long since stopped coming over to refill his wine. It was for the best; he needed his wits about him. Finally, when he could stand it no more, he grabbed his coat and headed for the door, ignoring the look of relief on the barmaid’s face. It was not yet sunset, but it was close enough. He had just enough time to make it to the main square in the market district. He was not sure why he had chosen the spot, but it seemed as good as any.
He sat on a bench on the west side of the square. His leg resumed its bouncing as he waited. The shadows were gathering, crawling out from beneath the buildings and across the square. It would not be long now. He watched the streetlamps being lit, each one casting a small circle of light onto the cobblestones below. He watched the merchants closing up their shops for the day. He looked out for Merden, but the soothsayer did not appear. Perhaps he was taking some time to recover from the previous night’s excitement.
Darkness came, but the square did not empty right away. There were still street musicians, flower carts, and other traders whose wares were in demand in the evening. Romance was in fashion these days, and Kennian’s young noblemen could often be found in the market district in the evening, looking for any advantage in their endless quest to impress young ladies. Lenoir wished them all away with no small measure of bitterness. Where such frivolities might once have provoked idle cynicism, they seemed positively perverse to him now.
An hour passed, perhaps more. Finally, the last of the evening merchants moved along. Lenoir was alone in the square. Shivering, he drew his scarf more tightly around his neck. He was grateful for the thick wool. Winter was nearly here. He experienced a brief pang as he realized he had seen his last spring.
He was daydreaming about Serles, her boulevards garlanded with new green leaves, when the attack came.
The scourge snapped around his neck, constricting immediately. Lenoir was jerked back against the bench. He clawed at the whip, but the barbs tore his flesh, preventing him from getting his fingers underneath. There was a powerful pull from behind, and he was dragged over the top of the bench. He hit the ground with his right shoulder, driving the air from his lungs. He could not draw breath to replace it; already, his vision was beginning to sparkle.
No! Not yet! This is not how it was supposed to be!
Lenoir scrambled frantically, trying to loosen the scourge enough to allow him to speak. He had not counted upon the spirit ambushing him, not like this. It had never occurred to him that he would not have a chance to utter a single word before he died. As it was, he only remained conscious because of the scarf around his neck, for it provided a barrier between his flesh and the life-sapping touch of the scourge.
The scarf!
Lenoir yanked the knot free and pulled the scarf away from his neck, using the wool as leverage against the coils of the scourge. The barbs bit through, and for a moment he thought the scarf would tear. He pulled with a strength born of desperation, and finally the leather lost its grip on itself and the coils fell free. The air hummed as the green-eyed man drew the whip back to his side, preparing for another strike.
Lenoir gasped, filling his lungs with just enough air for a single word:
“Vincent!”
As before, the spirit hesitated, if only for a split second.
Lenoir swallowed another lungful of air. “Wait!” He held up his hand in a staying gesture, but the scourge lashed out and wrapped around his forearm. Lenoir expended his precious air in a scream. He scrabbled for his sword, but his left hand was clumsy, and the pain was so intense . . .
Forget the pain. You have only one chance.
“I can help you find them!” The words dissolved into more screaming.
And then a miracle happened. The pain stopped. The whip released him.
It was working.
“I can help you find them,” Lenoir repeated, gasping. “All of them.” The scourge remained still. The hope that flooded Lenoir’s body gave him strength, and he lurched to his knees. The green-eyed man stood before him, head cocked, scourge dangling limply at his side. His fey gaze glinted inscrutably. He was waiting.
This was it, Lenoir’s one chance. It was pure desperation. It was worse than that—it was suicide. But it was also Zach’s only hope.
“We seek the same people, you and I,” he rasped. “The corpse thieves. You have seen some of them through the eyes of the dead, and you have killed them. But there are more—those you have not seen. I am certain of it. And I can help you find them.”
The spirit did not move. He regarded Lenoir with narrowed eyes, his face otherwise expressionless. Lenoir had no idea if his words were having the desired effect. He could not even be certain that the spirit understood.
“Vincent.” He spoke the name deliberately, hoping to appeal to some vestige of this creature’s former self. “Let me help you find them.”
There was a long silence, punctuated only by the mad rhythm of Lenoir’s heartbeat.
“Why?” The word issued forth like an icy wind from the depths of a crypt. Lenoir shuddered. It had not occurred to him that the spirit could speak, and he would have preferred to go to his grave without ever hearing that voice.
Collecting himself, he said, “Because I need to find them too. They have taken a boy I know, and they mean him harm.”
“I have no care for the living,” Vincent said, the inhumanity of his words matched by the dread chill of his voice. His face remained devoid of expression.
“That may be, but if I am right, the kidnappers, the ones who took the boy, are the same people as those behind the theft of the corpses. You have taken your revenge upon the men who actually did the deed, but what about those in whose name the deed was done? Should they who are truly responsible go unpunished?” He had practiced this speech a hundred times or more during his restless hours at the Courtier. It had sounded more convincing in his head.
“They will not go unpunished. I will find them.”
“Only if you have seen them.” Lenoir prayed that Merden’s information was correct. Generation upon generation of oral tradition was not the most reliable of sources. “Those giving the orders are rarely the same as those who carry them out.” This too was a gamble. Lenoir had no way of knowing how many culprits there were, let alone how many Vincent had seen.
The spirit was silent, his marble features betraying nothing of his thoughts—if he even had thoughts at all.
Lenoir licked his lips, trying to think clearly through the blood roaring in his ears. His fear was making him light-headed, but he had had many hours to prepare for this encounter. He thanked God for that. “When you . . .
saw
. . . the corpse thieves, did you also see a boy? Alive?”
The spirit did not reply immediately, and for a moment Lenoir feared that the conversation—and his life—had come to an end. Then Vincent said, “I saw no child.”
Lenoir’s heart sank, but in a way it was good news. “You see? That proves that you have not seen all of the corpse thieves, for some of them still hold the boy.”
“According to you.”
“True.” Another wave of dizziness washed over him. This was the moment he dreaded most. It was time to make his offer. “But it will cost you nothing to accept my help. My life is forfeit—I know this. But if I die tonight, the boy dies too. All I ask is that you stay your hand for a brief time, long enough for me to find him. In return, I will find your corpse thieves, all of them. When I do, you can claim the vengeance that is your due—from the corpse thieves, and from me.”
The spirit’s absinthe eyes bored into Lenoir. His youthful features, so chillingly beautiful, remained fixed as though in stone. “What is your care for the boy?”
The question caught Lenoir off guard. The spirit knew him for what he was. He had seen the corruption in Lenoir’s soul; it was that corruption that had marked him for death. Why should such a man care what happened to a street urchin like Zach?
Lenoir dropped his gaze. “I don’t know.”
It was a lie.
“There is no redemption.” The statement might as well have come from God Himself.
Lenoir shivered. “I know.”
When he looked up again, something strange was happening. The uncanny light had dimmed in Vincent’s eyes, as though the immortal soul trapped within had withdrawn someplace else entirely. Lenoir did not have long to wonder, however; almost immediately, the light returned in a blaze of green, and he felt the heat of the spirit’s stare once more.
“It accepts your offer,” Vincent said matter-of-factly.
Lenoir blinked.
“It?”
Vincent ignored the question. “Take me to the corpse thieves.”
Lenoir hesitated, stunned.
It actually worked.
Only now could he admit to himself that he had not really expected to succeed. Yet here he was, on his knees in the market square, the green-eyed man standing expectantly before him. Vincent was letting him live. For now.
Clear your head, fool.
There is work to be done.
“I cannot simply take you to them. I do not yet know where they are, and I need your help.”
“What would you have of me?”
Lenoir stood, dusting himself off. He avoided looking at his arm; he did not wish to see what the scourge had done. Not that it made any difference—it was the same arm that was already scarred, and anyway, what did it matter how his flesh looked, when his life span was measured in hours?
“You need to tell me what you have seen,” Lenoir said, surprised at how level he sounded. Perhaps he really had made peace with death. “You need to tell me everything.”
“T
here are two more,” Vincent said, “and then I have done.”
Lenoir nodded. They were seated on the bench where he had been waiting when Vincent attacked. There was something darkly amusing about it, sitting here conversing with an immortal spirit that had been sent from another plane to kill him. Passersby would notice little amiss unless Vincent looked directly at them, and even then, they would probably only wonder at the strange light of his gaze. His nature was not immediately obvious to the casual onlooker.
He was not exactly chatty. He expressed himself briefly, using few words and still less emotion. He answered Lenoir’s questions, but not in much detail. Lenoir could not tell if he was being secretive, or if he had merely lost the gift of conversation. Or perhaps he had been like that even in life. Lenoir found himself wondering how long it had been since the spirit had spoken to anyone.
“How many corpses did they dig up?” Lenoir asked him.
“Two.”
“Was it the same person who dug up both corpses?”
“No.”
Lenoir’s fear was beginning to settle, allowing more mundane emotions to break through. Like frustration. The spirit seemed intent on making it as difficult as possible for Lenoir to extract the information he needed. Was Vincent toying with him? If so, there was no hint of irony about him. The spirit sat perfectly straight, and for the most part spoke without inflection. He did not fidget or shift his weight. He seemed almost incapable of emotion. Almost. Lenoir recalled the reaction when he had called the spirit by name for the first time, the unmistakable shock. Vincent might show little emotion, but he was definitely capable of feeling it.
“Who dug up the first corpse?”
“I do not know his name.”
Lenoir checked a sigh. “I was not asking for his name. What do you know of him?”
“He is dead. I killed him.”
“So I had assumed, Vincent. But before that?”
“He was a gravedigger. From Brackensvale.”
At last, he was getting something useful. “Did you see anyone else with the gravedigger?”
“Two others. Adali men. I killed them also.”
Lenoir grunted thoughtfully. “I presume the gravedigger handed the corpse over to the Adali men.” Vincent inclined his head almost imperceptibly. Taking the gesture for assent, Lenoir continued. “Did you see where they took the corpse?”
The spirit reflected on this. “What I saw will not be helpful to you. It was the inside of a shack, but I do not know where. The body was covered while the Adali transported it.” It was the most complex thought he had expressed so far.
“I believe I know the place you are referring to. We found it some days later, by which time it had already been deserted. All that was left was a boy, and he had gone mad.”
Vincent cocked his head. “Mad?”
“Yes.” Lenoir shivered at the memory. “We found the boy tied to a chair, and when we released him, he attacked my sergeant. He was screaming and biting like a fiend. He was quite mad.”
“I know this boy,” said Vincent, surprising Lenoir. “He is not mad.”
“Pardon?”
“The soul is gone now. He is alone.”
Lenoir stared. “I . . . do not understand.”
The absinthe eyes locked on him, sending a shudder down Lenoir’s spine. “The soul they summoned, the one they tried to channel into the boy. It is gone. They did not succeed.”
By the sword,
Lenoir swore inwardly. Merden was right. The corpse thieves had been trying to replace the boy’s soul with that of a dead child. “They succeeded at least partially,” he said, more to himself than to Vincent. “The boy had two souls, it seems, and it drove him mad.”
“For a time, but the spell did not last. The soul of the dead child returned to the spirit realm.”
“How do you know?” Lenoir was so morbidly fascinated that he forgot even his dread.
“It is in my memories. The souls of the dead remember, and their memories are mine.” The chill in Vincent’s voice became icy, and the absinthe eyes narrowed to slits. “The dead should not have new memories. They should not be torn from their rest. It is a mortal sin.”
Lenoir huddled deeper into his coat, but it gave him little comfort. The cold he felt did not come from without. “When I asked you earlier, you said you had not seen a child.”
“That is so. But for a brief time, I saw through the eyes of a child. I saw you, though I did not recognize you at the time.”
Of course. The boy Mika had been blindfolded when they found him in the abandoned farmhouse. He had probably not seen his captors, or anything else until Kody removed the blindfold. At that time, the soul of the dead child had been present in Mika’s body, along with his own.
“Long has it been since I have seen through the eyes of the living,” Vincent said distractedly. Untold years of emptiness echoed in his voice.
Lenoir returned to his original line of questioning. “The second corpse, did they take it to the same place?”
“Yes.”
“What did they do with it?”
“Necromancy.”
“They were trying to resurrect the dead children,” Lenoir prompted, recalling Merden’s theory.
“No.”
Lenoir stared in surprise. “No? Then what were they doing?”
“The souls of the children whose bodies were taken have not been disturbed. Their flesh alone has been defiled.”
What in the flaming below?
Lenoir was thoroughly confused. “Then whose soul was channeled into Mika’s body?”
Vincent seemed to consider his response before speaking. “The necromancers did not seek to reanimate the children whose bodies they took,” he said, and Lenoir had the impression he was choosing his words carefully. “They only wished to find a suitable host body. It is another soul they seek to resurrect, a soul long dead. They failed to channel this soul into a dead body, so now they seek to use the living.”
Lenoir felt sick. At the same time, he could not deny that he was captivated. One short week ago, he had been investigating (or, more accurately, Kody had been investigating) a set of bizarre, but ultimately harmless, crimes. Then, when Zach had been taken, Lenoir had assumed they were dealing with a run-of-the-mill predator—disturbing, certainly, but sadly commonplace. The reality of what was actually going on was unfathomable. Even Kody, who had seen a conspiracy that Lenoir himself had refused to acknowledge, would never have imagined something this dark and complex.
“Whose soul are they trying to resurrect?”
“I no longer recall his name.”
“Was he from Kennian?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago did he die?”
Vincent considered. “I have lost the ability to measure time as mortals do. But I think he would be a man now, perhaps twenty or twenty-five.”
Assuming the boy had died at Zach’s age, that would mean he passed away more than a decade ago. “What else can you tell me about him?”
“He was murdered.”
Somehow Lenoir was not surprised. “Who murdered him?”
Vincent closed his eyes, as though remembering. “His father.”
Something bumped Lenoir’s memory, a thought brushing past too swiftly for him to recognize. He let it go; it would be back when it was ready. For now, he had to focus on the most direct route to Zach. “Let us leave that for the moment. You said you had seen two more corpse thieves. Do you know where they are?”
“Of course. I can feel when they are near.”
Lenoir could not help himself; he had to ask. “Then why couldn’t you find me, all those years ago?”
Vincent turned to look at him, and Lenoir knew immediately he had made a mistake. The terror returned in a surge so powerful that his stomach heaved.
He raised a shaky hand. “I am sorry I asked. It was foolish curiosity. I have no intention of trying to escape.”
Vincent said nothing.
Lenoir stood unsteadily, his fear-soaked muscles barely able to carry him. “Let us go. We can interrogate your next . . . your mark.” Somehow he did not think Vincent would think of the corpse thieves as “victims.”
Vincent swept forward with liquid grace, Lenoir hurrying after. He did not know what Vincent considered “near,” but he hoped they had some distance to travel, for he needed time to recover himself. He would not be an effective interrogator if he was still quivering when they arrived.
• • •
A light drizzle had begun to fall as Lenoir and Vincent quit the market district, and by the time they reached the Camp, it had become a full-blown downpour. It tortured the meager shanties that passed for dwellings, the construction of which could scarcely withstand the daily travails of gravity, let alone a storm. Rain clattered noisily against scraps of tin siding, soaked thatch and animal skins, gouged away muddy foundations. It pooled in every sag and hollow, running in rivulets from sunken rooftops. The haze of smoke that typically choked the narrow gaps between the tents and hovels began to dissolve as water leaked through, snuffing the cooking fires. Muddy pathways were swiftly becoming rivers of sludge, carrying refuse and excrement and anything else not tied down. In a few short minutes, the Camp had gone from depressing slum to perfect hell.
The stench of the place was almost more than Lenoir could take, and his stomach caught in his throat as he trailed Vincent between the hovels, doing his best to keep to high ground lest his shoes become steeped in something vile. He bowed his head against the rain, barely glancing at the scenes he passed—bedraggled men scrambling to cover holes in their shelters, bony dogs shivering in corners, thick brown water accumulating in puddles that threatened to flood nearby dwellings. Even so, he could not help registering the fact that nearly every face he saw was Adali. The Camp was one of the largest quarters of Kennian; Lenoir would not have guessed there were so many Adali squatters in the Five Villages. It made him realize how long it had been since he visited the slums. Like most hounds, he avoided the place at all costs. Though the Camp teemed with crime, nobody much cared if the slum dwellers were at one another’s throats.
Even over the rain, Lenoir could hear coughing from inside many of the huts—from the smoke, or disease, or both. But he could also hear laughter. Children chattered and squealed, their small voices incongruously bright, like flowers pushing up through the muck.
Even here,
he thought,
life goes on
.
What have these people to look forward to? And yet they laugh. They have children. They strive. They do not wallow in despair and wait for death to claim them.
Caught in a sudden fit of self-loathing, he quickened his step, willing this errand to be over.
As for Vincent, the spirit was wholly undaunted by the rain, and seemed to take no notice of the mud that soaked his boots and trousers. His raven black hair was plastered against his skull, shining silver in the moonlight, but he made no effort to push it back off his face. He moved with purpose, his steps guided by some unknown sense. He seemed barely even to register his surroundings, relying on neither sight nor sound to orient him. Lenoir supposed that the only reason Vincent was on foot, instead of simply appearing in a shadow somewhere, was so his mortal companion could follow.
The spirit stopped in front of a nondescript hovel, turning to look wordlessly at Lenoir. Nodding, Lenoir ran a hand over this thinning hair and knocked on the door, a slab of rotting wood mounted on crude hinges of nails and wire loop. Vincent stepped back, melting into the shadows so completely that for a moment Lenoir wondered if he had vanished altogether.
A disheveled Adal answered the door. He eyed Lenoir suspiciously, glancing around to see if there were others nearby. “What?” he growled.
“Pardon me for disturbing you, sir, but I wonder if you might be willing to answer a few questions.”
“What kind of questions? Who are you?” He had the high cheekbones and wide-spaced eyes of his people, and his brow was beaded with moisture. Rain or sweat? There was no way to tell.
“I am Inspector
Lenoir of the Metropolitan Police.” Lenoir spoke in a low voice, barely audible above the rain. It was doubtful that the neighbors were fond of hounds. “And I am soaked to the bone, so kindly let me in.”
The look of terror that crossed the man’s face was so obvious that Lenoir wondered how he survived in the slums. He was evidently not a hardened criminal. Lenoir doubted he could even hold his own in a card game. “What do you want?” the man repeated, his own voice lowered to a near whisper.
“You know perfectly well what I want.” Lenoir was not typically so direct, but with a man this cowardly, intimidation was the best tactic. “Let us go inside, and we can talk without involving my men.”
“I don’t see anybody else.” The man looked over Lenoir’s shoulder again.
“Of course not,” Lenoir said impatiently. “It would make little sense for them to show themselves unless they are needed.”
The man hesitated, but he stood aside for Lenoir to enter, closing the door behind him.
Definitely not a cardplayer,
Lenoir thought.
There was no fire in the hut, only a small oil lamp that scarcely cast enough light to see by. For the first time in a great many years, Lenoir was thankful for the dark.
“Vincent,” he said calmly, “please show yourself. You will save us some time.”
The man barely had time to look confused before Vincent appeared in a corner of the hut, his absinthe eyes flashing in the lamplight. The man started to scream, but Lenoir was ready, leaping forward and clamping his hand over the man’s mouth.
“Silence!” he hissed. The man was much taller than he, and it took all his strength to keep the squirming wretch in check. “Do as you are told, and I will spare your life!”
Vincent, for his part, stood unmoving in the corner. That was well. The spirit’s presence was terrifying enough; if he made any threatening moves, the man might break altogether. Lenoir needed him to be pliable, but coherent. It would do no good if he was literally scared witless.
When the man’s screams had subsided to whimpers, Lenoir released him. “Sit,” he commanded, and the man complied, plopping down onto a straw mat. He stared up at Lenoir with abject terror in his eyes. Lenoir knew that look. It was the look of a man marked for death. He himself had worn it only hours ago. Perhaps he wore it still.