Thief of Light (11 page)

By Shaitan, he’d waited long enough! Determined to pace himself, the Necromancer had made the wait an exercise in self-control, torturing himself all through the night with anticipation. As a result, he was light-headed with need, the blood fizzing and tumbling through his veins. These days, that sort of sensation was as near as he came to actually living.

Rolling up the sleeve of his embroidered gown, he paused, remembering a small boy in a slum, desperate to
know
, so focused on his ambition that he didn’t care what price he paid or how much it hurt. His lips curved in a slow smile. The beauty of necromancy, the perfect glory of it, was that these days others paid the price on his behalf.

If there were minor inconveniences—he smiled at the bucket standing in the corner of his study—such as carrying a thrashing seelie in a bucket of cold water up a long flight of stairs, well, he could rise above them.

Because every seelie brought him one step closer to full knowledge. It was as if the little creatures possessed some sort of key, an instinctive connection to something far greater than their own small, blue-furred selves—something universal, so grand it defeated even the compass of a divine intellect. There was a system to everything, an internal logic, a great Pattern. He believed that, absolutely.

Whatever it was, that piece of the puzzle, the Necromancer wanted it.

What’s more, he was going to have it, even if it required the death of every seelie on Palimpsest. A small cost, infinitesimal really, when the rewards were so great. The power to set a lever to the fulcrum of the cosmos and shove it the slightest bit off-kilter, just to see what happened.

Almost ready. His breath coming faster as greed clawed hard at his guts, he fixed the other sleeve and scooped up the length of oiled cloth Nasake had left on the desk. Then he reached into a bucket and drew out the squirming seelie, grimacing with distaste as its webbed fingers wrapped his bare forearm in a desperate, clammy embrace.

“Come, little one. Meet your destiny.” Settling into the carved chair near the window, he spread the cloth over his lap. Keeping a firm one-handed grip on the seelie, he placed a gentle finger on the ridge between its protuberant eyes. The animal quivered, making a thin noise, a cross between a hoot and a bleat.

Smiling, the Necromancer murmured, “Let’s see what you have for me.” The sound of his voice triggered a pleasant upwelling of terror.

Outside, the scent of flowers mingled piquantly with the clean, briny smell of the creature in his hands. Beyond the low wall at the end of the formal garden, canal water lapped and gurgled in a cheerful song. Snatches of distant conversation drifted by, a skiffman and his client, negotiating a fare, someone selling vegetables.

Such an ordinary day to unseat the gods.

He began gently, stroking his fingers through plush, cobalt fur, admiring the patterns he drew in the deep pelt. The seelie froze, panic coming off it in waves. The Necromancer shut his eyes, sending out a tendril of dark power, probing for the right spot.

Ah yes! There!

With a spectral thumb and forefinger, he tweaked.

The seelie gave a bubbling shriek, writhing on his lap. The hot fire streaking along her neural pathways melted whatever meager shields she had.

So it was a female. And she had young. He could see an image of three kits in what passed for her mind, all big eyes and soft baby whiskers, huddled in a woven nest deep in a forest of floating weed. It was dim and cool down there, hundreds of feet below a floating Leaf as big as a city block. For all he knew, those babies were directly under the room where he sat, here on the Leaf of Nobility. Or it could be the Pleasure Leaf or the Monarch’s Own Leaf that blotted out the sunlight. Huge as they were, each Leaf was only one part of the gargantuan titanplant on which the city was built. The gods knew how old it was. Centuries? Millennia?

Well, it didn’t matter, did it? Because he was right and the Technomage Primus of Sybaris was wrong.

There were plenty more seelies where this one came from.

The seelie’s terror increased exponentially, almost as if she could read his mind. Abruptly, she was fighting, jerking and thrashing on the oiled cloth. One of the stubby claws on her hind leg caught in the fabric of his flapping sleeve, the raspy sound of the rip very loud in the quiet room.

The Necromancer spat an obscenity, something he did but rarely. He was particularly fond of this gown. Abandoning Magick for brute strength, he dug in with both thumbs.

Mortal terror exploded in the Necromancer’s head as the seelie convulsed. Drinking it in, he let the power of it snatch him up and away like a fever rampaging in the blood. Every cell in the creature’s body shrieked a desperate, screaming protest. His nostrils flared. He panted, hanging on, riding the crest of it, filled, exalted, whirling high among the stars.

Caracole of the Leaves lay beneath him as if sealed in a bubble, a toy created solely for his entertainment. There were the canals of clear blue water, the pierced white towers and graceful, curved rooflines. A hundred thousand souls going about their petty business—sniping, scrambling, cheating, dying. Such puny little lives, rocking on the bosom of the ocean, so futile, every one of them dying from the moment they were born.

In this moment, he was a god. No, greater than a god, because he was without worshippers, beyond the constraint of expectations. The dark Magick of Death set him free to do his will. It would take so little to awaken Caracole to terror, to uproot the Leaves like a kind, but ruthless, gardener, sweep all the little people away, relieving them of the burden of existence. A kind of weeding. He smiled at the conceit. Ah, the screams would deafen the heavens.

As he eased his grip, the seelie took a shuddering breath. She was strong, this one. Absently, he stroked her flank, his good humor fading, overtaken by a greater purpose.

Because with a shift in perception, there before him was the weft and warp of existence, known only to the gods, and now to him. He had but to stretch out his hand. If he tugged that strand, knotted it
here
. . .

This required finesse. Carefully, precisely, the Necromancer applied a Magickal tourniquet to the seelie’s spinal cord, paralyzing her limbs. That was better, now he needn’t rush. Somehow, he was convinced if he fumbled this, performed with anything less than perfect grace, there’d never be another opportunity so fine. Stupid, but there it was.

Disciplining his breathing, he closed his eyes and compressed the seelie’s lungs. As the little creature screamed in bubbling silence, he slipped into the dark, bloody stream of her instinctive fight for life and let it carry him back to the foundation of all that was.

The Pattern glittered in the void, flirting with him like a capricious jade, advancing and retreating. Sternly, the Necromancer insisted, bearing down hard on the flailing soul in his grip. The shape of it swam slowly toward him, clearer than ever before.

Exalted, he drank it in. A Pentacle, a five-pointed thing of beauty, imprinted on the watching stars. So that was it.

A frown gathered, a tendril of disappointment unfurling within him, followed swiftly by contempt. Very pretty. Was this the best the gods could do, this . . .
prettiness
? Where was the glory? The power? Where was Death?

A long-tailed comet flashed by and the Pentacle burst into flame with a melodious roar, seeming to leap toward him out of the soft dark.

Despite himself, the Necromancer flinched. The seelie moaned.

By Shaitan, a taunt! He growled under his breath.

He’d heard the whisper of a name. Deiter of Concordia.

Deiter had the fire witch, Shaitan take him, the only true fire witch born for centuries. The Necromancer had become aware of her existence a fraction too late. Hell, the entities that called themselves the gods were rubbing his nose in his failure like a naughty puppy in a puddle of its own pee.

The fire subsided with a good-humored crackle, to be followed by a breath of fresh air. Literally. He could smell its light, sweet perfume, track its laughing presence as it swooshed around the Pentacle, tumbling and swirling with delight.

Faugh. Air Magick. He recognized the cloying feel of it. His gorge rose.

Irresistibly drawn, the Necromancer reached out to rend and crush, his spirit a great dark cloak smeared across the infinite, star-filled sky. A fireflake danced out of the Pattern, flashing under his guard to sting his soul like a cheerful wasp, right on the most tender spot.

Seemingly in his ear, a woman’s voice said, “Oh, got it! What was—?” And she was gone.

He reared back, fighting for composure, gulping at the seelie’s life energies. Nothing, it was less than nothing. The fire witch hadn’t seen him, not truly. How dare she challenge him? Shaitan take the bitch.

He’d find her and he’d pull her to pieces, one screaming gobbet at a time, and then he’d rip the Magick out of her bones and sinews, make it his own, take the Pentacle, the Pattern, and smash and tear and stamp . . .

The seelie’s heart and lungs collapsed. With a long, rattling shudder, her life force faded to an ember, wavered for a split second and winked out.

The Necromancer howled. Surging out of the chair, he hurled the limp body against the wall with all his strength. As it hit with a flat squelch, a wave of dreadful weakness roared over him. He fell to his knees on the rug, clinging to consciousness, the acid of his own fear filling his mouth. Dissolution hovered, the Magick of Death, uncompromising in its finality, its indifference. He knew he should welcome it, but he couldn’t. He had so much still to do. The gods damn this worn-out body to hell!

She wasn’t waiting, she was
working
. Prue rubbed her brow with fretful fingers. Sister save her, why couldn’t she concentrate? A rueful grin tugged at her lips as she gazed at the laundry bill on the desk. Sheets, pillow slips, napkins—they couldn’t compete with the memory of those eyes, blue as chips of a noonday sky. Nor with that magnificent chest. She’d been damn near mesmerized by the almost imperceptible rise and fall of hard slabs of muscle beneath fine linen, the collar open to reveal a wedge of skin tanned to a light gold.

Godsdammit, she wasn’t dead. There was no reason she couldn’t admire him like the piece of work he was. Even though, now that she came to think of it, Chavis had had finer, more regular features.

Erik’s pulse had beat in the tender hollow at the pit of his throat. So soft, so vulnerable compared with the hardness of the rest of him.

Her lip curled. Vulnerable? There was nothing vulnerable about Erik Thorensen. His eyes might be the most beautiful clear blue imaginable, but they were hard and wary. There were times, when he forgot to smile, that the singer gave her the chills.

He should have arrived by now to drop off the Opera’s account books before singing class. She drummed her fingers on the desk and glared at the door. Tansy and the others would be waiting. Perhaps he’d changed his mind? She wouldn’t put it past him.

No, that was unjust. Small-minded, even. Music was his gift, he’d be steadfast in this, if nothing else. Ah, hell, she hated being in such a muddle, not knowing what to think, how to feel . . .

Well, no one would know the extent of her foolishness, not even Rose. With a long sigh, Prue let herself slip into pure indulgence. Closing her eyes, she lifted her wrist and nuzzled it, smelling her own skin. He’d branded himself on her consciousness—the firm brush of his cheek, his mouth warm and pliant. What had he felt, for the few seconds his lips had caressed the flutter of her pulse? Experimentally, she kissed the exact spot and an arrow of sensation speared through her belly, made her nipples crimp. So delightfully wicked, so stupid.

So damn good.

Someone coughed.

Prue’s eyes flew open. She froze, caught in a ridiculous posture. Sniffing her own arm, for the Sister’s sake!

A skinny urchin of indeterminate age leaned against the door frame, observing her with a dark, interested eye. “Yer Prue McGuire?”

Prue clasped her hands together on the desk and straightened her spine, ignoring the heat in her cheeks. “I am.” Under one arm, the boy carried a box about a foot square, made of red leather. She nodded at it. “You have something for me?” It would be a relief not to see the singer. She wasn’t disappointed, not in the least.

“Yah.” Taking his time, the boy placed the box on the precise center of the desk. He scanned the room, his eyes missing nothing. “An’ there’s a message.”

“Yes?”

“Erik sed he’s sorry fer t’ mess.”

“Pardon?”

“He sed he’s sorry fer t’ mess an’ yer trouble.” The lad spoke a little louder, enunciating each word in the strange slum accent as if to the simpleminded.

Prue blinked. “I heard you the first time.” She’d braided her hair so tightly this morning, her head ached. “But I’m not sure I understand. What mess? You mean the papers in the box? Is that what Master Thorensen actually said?”