Another body was draped over the back of a chair near the bay window, a pistol beneath each hand. It was too dark to be sure, but it looked as though the man had been shot, probably by one of his own. There was a third man lying prone near Vincent, partially concealed by a sofa. A rifle lay on the floor nearby. This had been the sharpshooter, the man who had taken the first shot. From the way Vincent’s body had moved, Lenoir guessed that the ball had taken him in the shoulder, but the spirit had seemed to feel no pain. Certainly he was not feeling any now, neither in his limbs nor in his soul, for he surveyed the scene with his usual dispassion, coiling his cursed whip around his arm.
“There are five more of them,” Vincent said. “They fled up the stairs.”
“We need to leave at least one of them alive,” Lenoir said sternly. “Do you think you can control yourself?”
Something like irritation flashed through the spirit’s eyes, and Lenoir wilted a little. “I cannot stay my hand against those who have defiled the dead. But I can delay their execution. You know this to be so; otherwise, you would not be standing here.”
Only a supreme effort prevented Lenoir from showing his dread in the face of this reminder of his impending execution. “Good,” he said as evenly as he was able, “because we need to question them regarding the whereabouts of their leaders.” This time, he did not bother to mention Zach, instead focusing on what Vincent wanted. He hoped it would be enough to persuade the spirit to exercise some restraint.
Lenoir fetched the flintlock he had dropped on the stairs, and they headed up to the third floor, Vincent leading as before. This time Lenoir anticipated the shots, dropping to a crouch as soon as they sounded. Even as they rang out, a heavy set of footsteps took the stairs to the fourth floor.
Coward,
Lenoir thought, even though he knew he would do the same.
Where will he go, anyway?
The only way out was in the opposite direction. Or was it? It occurred to Lenoir that the man might be able to escape onto the roof, and from there to a neighboring building. The town houses were built close enough together that even Lenoir would not have much trouble jumping between them, provided they were roughly the same height. The thought brought a lurch of panic, for Vincent might consider the man who fled to be the token survivor, the only one he intended to leave alive. If the survivor escaped, they would be right back where I started.
Lenoir waited until the last of the shots died away before charging up the remaining few steps. Smoke obscured his view, but he could hear what sounded like swords being drawn. There was movement in the haze, and someone lunged at him. Lenoir squeezed the trigger without thinking. His gun went off with a flash and a puff of smoke, and the man grunted, dropping his sword and clutching his chest. His momentum carried him into Lenoir even as his knees started to give way. Lenoir flung the dying man aside, leaving him to tumble down the stairs.
Cursing, Lenoir pointed the barrel of his weapon at the ceiling. The last thing he needed was to pick off targets of his own; Vincent did not require any assistance in that department. Yet if he stayed where he was, he would be forced to defend himself, and he was not skilled enough with a gun to be sure of merely wounding. Better to go after the coward, he decided. He spun around the rail and headed up, leaving Vincent to deal with the chaos below.
He paused on the landing, gazing up into the gloom. The stairs ended just ahead; this was the top floor. It was only now, as he planted his back against the wall, that it occurred to Lenoir that he might be walking into another ambush, or that some of the men below might follow him up. He could hear nothing over the shouts on the third floor, and could see little for the veil of smoke that continued to drift up the stairs. Vincent was occupied below. Lenoir was on his own.
You are dead anyway,
he told himself firmly.
You do this for Zach.
Thus armored, he crept to the top of the stairs.
It was a bedroom, presumably Zera’s. It looked to be the only room on this floor, and had sloping walls that suggested an angled roof. That was well; it would make it more difficult for the coward to escape that way, especially if the adjoining buildings were of the same design. Lenoir glanced toward the windows, a pair of which divided the wall opposite him into three sections. Dark curtains concealed the view of the street, making it impossible to tell whether the windows were open or closed. There was no chill, but that proved little; the windows might only have been opened moments before. The stillness of the curtains was similarly unreliable, for the plush material obviously weighed a great deal. It was safest to assume that the coward remained in this room and had not yet escaped onto the roof.
The hearth lay dark against the far wall. A dressing table sat between the windows, with a massive bed opposite. The most likely place to conceal oneself, Lenoir concluded, was behind the bed. He leveled his pistols at what he judged to be chest height. Then he called out, “I will not hurt you.”
A flurry of movement and a telltale
click
alerted him to the impending shot, and he dropped to the floor. Splinters and dust showered him from the wall above. Instinctively, he squeezed off a shot of his own, but fortunately he missed by a wide margin. The coward ducked behind the bed again.
“This is unwise, my friend,” Lenoir called. “You have at most one shot left, assuming your weapon is double-barreled like mine. I have two. Even if you somehow manage to kill me, I have an ally, one who cannot be harmed by your pistol. But you know that already.”
He waited. There was no sound.
“Do you hear that? It is quiet below us. That can mean only thing: your friends are dead. You are the last one alive. I would very much like to keep you that way, but I have little control over the creature I came with.” A stifled sob sounded from the other side of the bed. Lenoir knew that terror only too well. He almost felt sorry for the man. But he kept his voice carefully devoid of pity as he said, “He will be here soon. If he sees that you are cooperating with me, he may stay his hand. Otherwise . . .” He let the word hang in the air, malignant and oppressive.
“Keep it away from me.” Spoken in little more than a whisper, the plea barely had enough strength to cross the room.
“I will do what I can.” It was the truth, and the most he could promise, but it still felt like a lie. “Put your weapon on the floor and kick it toward the windows where I can see it.”
For a moment, there was only silence. Then something heavy sounded against the floor, and a flintlock skittered out from behind the foot of the bed. It came to rest near the far window, spinning lazily over itself. It was a single-barreled weapon. Lenoir was sure he had seen only one gun. He prayed he was right.
“Now stand up slowly and keep your hands where I can see them.”
The man stood. His arms stuck out at his sides, as rigid as boards, and Lenoir could see that he was shaking. He wore a sword belt, but the scabbard was empty. Lenoir gestured with his pistol. “Where is your blade?”
“I—I don’t know,” the man stammered. “I don’t remember.” Lenoir might not have believed him, but at that moment a dark stain spread across the front of his trousers. In his fear, the poor wretch had wet himself.
“Who are you?” Lenoir asked, deciding to start off easy. He was young, perhaps twenty-five, with long blond hair and wiry limbs. Lenoir thought he looked familiar. “You work for Zera.”
The man’s gaze flicked briefly to his gun, as though he were reconsidering his surrender. Lenoir doubted he would go for it, but he kept his pistol trained on the man’s chest all the same. “Yes,” the man said finally.
“Where is she now? Is she with Los?”
The man’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly before he averted his gaze, staring down at his boots in a pathetic attempt not to give anything away.
“Where are they?” Lenoir demanded. The man continued to stare at his boots. Lenoir sighed. “We have been through this, my friend. It is in your best interests to answer my questions.” More silence.
“My turn,” said a familiar voice, and Vincent stepped out of the shadows.
The man shrieked and leapt for his gun. Lenoir dove for the cover of the stairwell. The gun went off. For a moment, everything was still. Then came a moan unlike anything Lenoir had ever heard, a sound of pure despair that froze his blood.
Lenoir straightened. The young man was on his knees, his head bowed in resignation. Vincent stood over him.
“Don’t kill him!”
The spirit turned, and Lenoir had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. There was a hole the size of a cherry just above Vincent’s right eye. It had already begun to close; in a few seconds, it would be gone. “I am not a fool, mortal,” the spirit said disdainfully, seemingly oblivious to the ghastly wound. “If I intended to kill him, he would already be dead.” Vincent turned back to the young man, who had begun to sob quietly. “What do you mean to do with him?”
“Ordinarily, I would hang him off the balcony by his ankles.” Actually, Lenoir had only done that once, and it had proven to be more trouble than it was worth. But it sounded good. “But since you are here, I don’t think we need to bother with that.”
He crossed the room and knelt in front of the young man. Grabbing a fistful of straw-colored hair, he jerked the man’s head back so that he was looking into Lenoir’s eyes. “I want to show you something.”
Releasing the man’s hair, he pulled back his sleeve to reveal the hideous scar on his forearm. He slapped the wretch’s forehead to make sure he was looking. “See this? Do you know what this is?” The man shook his head frantically. “No? Have you never seen a cadaver, my friend? This is dead flesh. Necrotic, it is called. The flesh of a corpse. Do you know how I got this?”
The man’s face crumpled, tears and mucus and saliva streaming forth as though someone were wringing out a wet cloth.
“I got it from this creature beside me, this spirit of vengeance. You saw what he has done to your friends.”
“Keep it away from me,” the man pleaded again, his eyes screwed shut.
“Tell me where they are.”
“They
told
us not to get involved with her. They
said
this would happen!”
“Who?”
“The others. My cousin and me, we needed the money. But the others she tried to hire, they said no. They said it was bad business.”
“You should have listened,” Lenoir said gravely. “Now tell me what I want to know.”
“Spare my life! Spare me, and I’ll tell you anything!”
It would have been so easy to lie. Lenoir had done it thousands of times before, with little enough justification. Surely even God Himself could not blame Lenoir for lying now. Yet he could not bring himself to do it. Instead he looked up at Vincent and said, “The arm.”
He moved aside as Vincent unhooked the whip from his belt. The man scrambled to his feet and tried to flee. Lenoir did not even bother trying to stop him. The scourge caught his arm as he ran past, and the scream it tore from his throat forced Lenoir to shut his eyes.
Lenoir counted to five. It might have been longer, for he could barely concentrate over the screaming. Panic thrummed in his nerves, and he struggled against an almost overwhelming urge to flee. His instincts surged against his willpower like a raging river threatening to breach a dam, but he held his ground.
“Stop.”
He forced himself to open his eyes. To his relief, Vincent obeyed immediately, giving his wrist an expert twist to dislodge the scourge. The young man lay on the floor, limp and shuddering. The flesh on his arm was black. Blood oozed from the puncture wounds, dark and strangely thick. The man’s eyes rolled back slightly, and for a moment Lenoir feared he would pass out. Instead he lurched suddenly and vomited.
“I know how you feel,” said Lenoir, but in spite of the words, there was no sympathy in his voice. “It is a curious sensation, is it not? The body scarcely knows how to process it, the mind still less. The barbs are like the fangs of a venomous snake, only instead of pouring poison into your veins, they suck the life force from you. Or so I imagine—who knows what effect that cursed weapon truly has? It is better, I think, to have the whip around one’s neck. That way, you die before you are forced to feel your flesh rotting, before you are forced to smell your own blood congealing. I for one do not wish to savor my death. When it comes, I want it to overwhelm me, not sneak up on me like some miserable thief.” He found himself staring at Vincent as he spoke these words. As usual, the spirit merely returned his gaze impassively.
He returned his attention to the young man at his feet. “What about you, friend? How do you want to die?”
The man looked up at Lenoir with haunted eyes. “I want to die old, in my bed.”
“Alas, that seems unlikely. But at least you can die with a clean soul.” He paused, feeling Vincent’s gaze on him.
“A clean soul,” the spirit echoed, his voice cool and biting like a winter wind. His uncanny eyes seemed to flare momentarily.
“Tell me where Los is,” Lenoir repeated, gently this time.
He could always tell when a man was broken. Sometimes it was the posture—a bowed spine, or slumped shoulders. Sometimes it was the voice, weighed down by resignation and despair. Mostly, though, it was the eyes that gave it away, and this time was no exception. The young man looked up at him dully, all traces of defiance wiped away. All that was left was a flat surface in which Lenoir saw nothing but his own reflection.
“He’s in the cathedral,” the man said. “The abandoned cathedral at the far end of town.”
Relief crashed over Lenoir in a dizzying wave. “And the boy—is he there as well?”
“For now, but he’ll be gone by tomorrow, one way or another.”
Lenoir frowned. “What do you mean, one way or another?”
“Lady Zera said tonight is the night. If they get it right, the boy won’t be himself anymore. If they get it wrong . . .” He did not finish, but he did not have to. Lenoir was already heading for the stairs.
“Do you know where the cathedral is?” Vincent called after him.