Thief of Light (32 page)

“I see. Tell me, Mehcredi of the Assassin’s Guild, how many kills have you to your credit?”

Mehcredi stared fixedly at the curl of steam wafting from the tisane pot. “Eight.” She turned, her deep bosom straining her knitted tunic, and the Necromancer knew she’d lied.

He hesitated, unusually torn. Inexperience meant she wouldn’t be able to command much of a fee and he was always thrifty, despite his high office. A slum childhood tended to produce that effect. Besides, he thought resentfully, housing and equipping the Technomage Primus of Sybaris had cost him a mint of money.

But, by Shaitan, time was of the essence. And a healthy dose of fear tended to encourage attention to detail.

“Two days,” he said. “Ten credits.”

The assassin snorted. “Don’t care what the Guild Master told you. I’m not as cheap as all that. Fifty.” Seating herself once more, she reached for the tisane pot. “And I’ll need to know more about the man.”

“Fifteen. He’s an offworlder. Performing at the Royal Opera. And he hasn’t wasted time finding himself a woman. Prue McGuire. She works here, at The Garden.”

Mehcredi struggled to her feet. “A Garden courtesan? Are you mad? Those women have connections! The singer did a Royal Command performance. I just remembered.” Her eyes narrowed with calculation. “Which means he has the favor of the queen and the Cabal. How do you expect me—?”

“Sit down!” The Necromancer’s voice was sibilant, silky and utterly compelling.

The assassin fell back and the dog shot between her legs and under the bed. Claws scrabbled for purchase as it shifted until only a quivering black nose was visible behind her calves.

“You may leave the queen and Cabal to me. Twenty credits and that’s my final offer.” The Necromancer tossed a coin. To his irritation, it glanced off the side of the table and tinkled to the floor. But the assassin hunkered down, reaching. So he tossed her the rest, one at a time, and watched her scoop them up like a beggar child.

“All right.” The task completed, Mehcredi grabbed a savory pie. Absentmindedly, she broke off a piece and dropped it near the bed. The mongrel darted forward with remarkable rapidity and snapped it up, leaving only a wet tongue print on the floor.

The Necromancer frowned, plagued by a niggling doubt. Mehcredi was a minor part of his grand plans and she was also that most useful of objects, an expendable tool. So what was it that bothered him? Watching her jaw move as she chewed, he realized.

Why wasn’t she crazy with terror? When he manifested like this—a dark cloud roiling beneath a cloak, the hint of burning eyes—people frequently lost bladder control. Even a woman as intelligent and powerful as the Technomage Primus of Sybaris had been reduced to incoherence. Mehcredi was wary, true enough, but that was all. Was she completely ignorant of dark Magick? How could that be?

A lesson was in order.

The Necromancer rose—and rose—and rose. He expanded until the pretty chamber was clouded with his dark, billowing presence. Unchaining his irritation, he let it loose to run in harness with his unholy glee.

Ah,
now
she showed fear! Too late, my dear. Chuckling, he swooped, pushing insubstantial fingers through the flesh on her throat. He thrust muscle and bone aside until he could pinch her spinal cord between finger and thumb.

“Aaargh!” Mehcredi convulsed.

Delicately, the Necromancer relaxed the pressure and she surged beneath him, surprisingly well muscled, beneath the concealing garments. He increased it again and she subsided, panting, her eyes wide.

Holding her poised, he savored her soul’s bouquet. Unusual, plenty of space and light. She was spotless, near as pale inside as out. Almost beautiful. Puzzled, he probed a little further.

So that was it! The assassin was extraordinary. She’d never known love—not a mother’s, not a friend’s. She’d never been roused by passion, never known the touch of a man. An emotional vacuum, no less. In all his long experience, he hadn’t seen the like.

Moaning, Mehcredi shifted in his grip. The dear girl, she was fighting back. How fascinating.

The Necromancer was so engrossed that when the dog set up a storm of barking, he let her slip. Just a fraction, but it was enough. Mehcredi heaved like a restless leviathan on its seabed. The connection broke and she rolled away.

Chuckling, he chose to be amused. The assassin promised delicious entertainment. The dog, however, was another matter, standing over the woman’s legs, its filthy fur on end, teeth bared. Fortunately, it wasn’t a large animal. But as he stooped to it, Mehcredi grabbed it by the scruff and tossed it neatly out the window into the canal.

The howl was cut off abruptly by a splash.

The assassin lay propped on her elbows, shuddering. “Please . . . what did . . .” She licked her lips. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”

Much better. The Necromancer returned to the easy chair and the woman sat up, massaging the nape of her neck. “Take your money,” he said in the cold, sexless voice he used for dark Magick. “And remember the cost of failure.”

Mehcredi reached for the stack of coins on the table.

“No, no,” he said, and she froze.

“The fee is now fifteen credits. Two days.”

Amused, he watched her swallow her fury as she thrust the money into her belt pouch. “My man is outside,” he said. “Send him in to me as you leave.”

Her pale cheeks flushed a delicate pink, the assassin edged around him until she reached the door. A final, wild-eyed glance, and she wrenched it open and disappeared.

Because he was busy inside the pavilion of Clouds and Rain, disciplining Nasake, the Necromancer failed to see a shivering, bedraggled bundle of fur drag itself up the water stair and collapse at the top.

Nor did he see Mehcredi the assassin glance back over her shoulder at it and pause, waiting. “Hmpf!” she snorted, fists on her hips. “So you didn’t drown, after all, you miserable object?”

With a shudder, she cast a wary eye toward the pavilion, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “Gods!” Hastily, she strode away down the pretty, twisting path toward the bridge, foliage swishing with the speed of her passage.

It took the dog three attempts to stand. When it shook itself, water sprayed in all directions and it nearly fell down again. After a moment’s grim concentration, it drew a breath so deep it qualified as a canine sigh and limped off in pursuit of the assassin, head down.

Even after all these years, Prue still hated entering the Melting Pot. Her heart beat faster, all her muscles tight, ready to run. Just there, in the dank, smelly shadows under the Bridge of Empty Pockets, that’s where she’d huddled, Katrin tucked beneath her, for the first interminable night.

The market seethed with life and noise. Light wavered from behind windows of rough glass, illuminating the produce spilling off the stalls and onto the street, the raucous crowds—farmers from the Cressy Plains jostling with lordlings out for a night on the town, the occasional Trinitarian in bright silks, a curved sword at his hip, even a huge, ice-pale barbarian woman from the far north.

Sooner or later, everyone on Palimpsest drifted down the blue canals to the Melting Pot to haggle and argue and drink and whore at the tops of their voices—a cacophony intent on doing business.

Unobtrusively, Prue stepped a little closer to Erik’s bulk.

A big warm hand swallowed hers. “All right?”

Prue tugged her fingers free. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

In the uncertain light, Erik’s teeth gleamed as he wrapped a long arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. “No idea,” he said, “unless you’re embarrassed to be seen with me.”

Prue snorted. “Too late for that. After the Open Cabal, everyone thinks we’re both mad. Or on crazyspice.”

She turned her head. In that dark, twisting alley, the one off to the left, leading to the vegetable market, there’d been a paunchy man with hard hands and raw liquor on his breath. Thank the Sister, he’d been drunk and not drugged. Crazyspice gave the addicted insane strength. As it was, she’d left him with a slash across the cheek that did nothing to enhance his looks.

“You’re awfully serious, Mistress Prue,” said Erik. He stopped and pulled her into a doorway. “Listen, we could find a skiff to take you back, but I promised Dai I’d speak to these people, and this is my only free evening.”

Prue raised her brows. “I wouldn’t miss it, not after the performance you gave last night.”

Ah, shit! A wave of heat spread from the base of her spine to suffuse her whole body, all the deep, tender places throbbing with delighted memory. Her scarlet cheeks must be shining like beacons in the dimly lit street.

“I meant—” Giving up, she clamped her lips shut. Even now, she could hardly believe it, what she’d done, how wanton and wicked and wonderful his performance had been. Godsdammit, there was so much more to explore, to experience. She longed to crawl all over him, savor every hollow and dip with her hands, her lips—her tongue. If only she hadn’t passed out like that, but she’d been so sated, so warm and safe, with his big body stretched out hard and hot beneath her.

Erik chuckled. “I know what you meant, but it was good, wasn’t it?” His arm tightened around her waist, warm lips feathered over her cheek.

Prue pushed against his chest, relishing his strength, pitting herself against it. “And you’re a conceited—mmpf.”

The kiss took her under in a dizzying rush, the heat and the taste of him already familiar, but even more intoxicating than before, because now she knew what was possible, how far he could take her. In fact, she was beginning to suspect she might let him take her almost anywhere.

Ah, she was hopeless.
Hopeless!

Erik had backed her into a shadowed doorway. He cupped one breast in his hand, rotating his palm against the nipple. “C’mon, Prue. Admit it.” He licked a hot trail over the pulse pounding in her neck. “You enjoyed every minute, didn’t you?” He blew gently on the spot, so that she gasped.

The night air pressed against her skin, a soft, caressing warmth. Prue sank her fingers into the thickness of his hair and tugged until he lifted his head. With all his experience, why did he even bother asking? Her reaction had been embarrassingly obvious.

“Yes,” she said. “Stop fishing.”

Some of the tension left his shoulders. “Good,” he said, and swooped to press his open mouth to the cheek with the dimple. Broad palms traveled from her shoulder blades down to the upper swell of her buttocks in a long, luxurious stroke, pulling her hard into his body. His voice dropped half an octave, to that deep, rich timbre that made her tingle. “You have more dimples here, did you know?” His cock kicked against her, igniting sparks low in her belly.

Someone whistled and a rough voice called, “Me next, mate.”

Erik’s head jerked up. In a single smooth motion, he shoved Prue behind him and dropped a hand to the hilt of the long dagger at his waist. “Fuck off,” he growled, radiating menace. “She’s mine.”

A stiff breeze sprang up, swirling down the alley. Debris rattled in the gutters.

When Prue attempted to step around him, he simply barred her way with a heavy arm. She might as well have tried to shift the building at her back.

The man raised a jug to his lips with one hand. With the other, he gave Erik the finger. “Pox on ye, bastard.” He reeled away.

When Erik rumbled deep in his chest, all the hair rose on Prue’s arms. Tygres sounded like that. Centuries ago, a Trinitarian pasha had foolishly imported a few pairs from Concordia, for sport. The animals had gone wild, thriving in the remote forests of Palimpsest. As a child, she’d seen one in a traveling circus, prowling the perimeters of its cage, yellow eyes shining with rage.

He glared down at her, his face implacable. “You stay where I put you—out of the way—understood?”

Prue blinked, refusing to show the secret thrill his possessiveness gave her. “I’m not completely helpless. I could have dealt with him. But I’m not a fool either. Thank you.”

“Ah yes.” He took her hand again and tucked it into the crook of his elbow, drawing her back into the narrow street. “The training with Walker. Is that it?”

“I know enough to kill a man with my bare hands,” said Prue, conscious of the petty desire to shock. “But only if I have to.”

“Really?” He stopped to slant a look at her, a brow raised. A heartbeat of silence. “Gods, it’d be a brave man—” He broke off, his eyes dark with mischief. “Is my life in danger, Mistress Prue?”

“Depends.” She patted his arm, fighting a smile. “Annoy me and find out.”

Erik’s crack of laughter rang off the walls of the shabby buildings. An old woman looked up from behind an immense pile of rainbow-colored fruits and grinned, her seamed face crinkling with amusement. When Prue caught her eye, she winked, ogling Erik’s perfect ass. Then she grabbed an immense, shiny green nanafruit, about a foot long, and waggled it in the air, her face full of avid inquiry.