Thief of Light (46 page)

A grunt.

“He’ll be in the kitchen with Katrin, eating us into bankruptcy.”

“Florien?” He levered open a bleary blue eye.

“Yes. And then you have an opera to sing and after that—”

“Yeah, I know.” Erik sat up, rubbing his chest and yawning. “Another tavern.” With a sigh that seemed to come from the soles of his feet, he rose, pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. Then he stood, stretching the kinks out of his back.

Prue sat on The Garden’s water stairs, watching the sun sink toward the horizon, a long, golden shimmer already flung across the pewter waters of the canal. She raised her head, enjoying the quiet and the solitude of late afternoon, a breathing space in the chaos her life had become. Ah, there was the Sister, a waning crescent peeping over the shoulder of an orange pink cloud.

She ran an admiring finger over the lover vine on one of the silver cuffs she wore. Erik had noticed of course, the way he seemed to notice everything about her. Over the boy’s head, he’d stared from the bracelets to her face, his intensity so tangible she could taste it on her tongue. When his eyes flared a dark, dangerous blue, she realized she’d licked her lips. After what seemed an eon, he’d relaxed, muscle by muscle, but she’d been achingly conscious of his attention ever since.

At this late stage of the afternoon, everything was hushed, no one about. All self-respecting courtesans were primping for the evening ahead. Katrin would be toiling in the kitchen, helping prepare an exquisite supper.

As for Erik . . . She frowned, watching the ripples lap at the base of the stairs. He’d taken the boy down once already. When their heads had broken the surface, Florien’s face had told her all she needed to know. “They came, then,” she said, laughing.

“Yah.” The boy was transfigured, his eyes wide and soft and shining, his lips trembling on a smile.

“Did they dance for you?”

“Yah.”

Erik stroked toward the steps, the lad’s skinny arms wrapped around his shoulders. “Four of them,” he said, grinning. “Go on, tell her.”

Florien wriggled with joy, the first uninhibited expression Prue thought she’d seen from him. “I touched one.”

“It brushed past his fingers,” said Erik.

“So fookin’ soft,” breathed Florien, his hair plastered flat to his small skull. “So blue, ya know?”

“Yes,” said Prue gently, rising to offer a towel. “I know.”

“Kin we go back down?” The boy patted Erik’s face, his eyes beseeching. “Just fer a minute?” He swallowed. “Please,
please
? I ain’t skeered no more.”

Erik wavered. Then he said, “If we do, there’ll be more hand-shakes in your future.”

A pause. “Yah. All right.”

Erik sent Prue a wicked wink over Florien’s head. His gaze dropped to the silver cuffs and darkened, as explicit as if he’d reached out to cup the throbbing flesh between her thighs. “Won’t be long, love.” They’d disappeared back under the stairs, the boy’s excited chatter floating across the water.

Smiling, Prue unfolded the towel and draped it across her lap. Then she closed her eyes and turned her face up to the fading warmth of the sun. Basking wasn’t something she did often.

“You Mistress McGuire?” The dark silhouette of a man appeared at the top of the stairs.

Reluctantly, Prue turned. “Yes. What is it?”

The man waved a sheet of paper. “You hafta sign.”

What now? Prue rose and climbed toward him. “Sign?”

“Laundry bill.”

The man was middle-aged, with a weary, pleasant face, clad in a workingman’s trews and shirt. Sitting behind him on the path was a large, rectangular basket with two sturdy leather handles. Prue saw ones like it every day. A younger man, similarly dressed, perched on top of it, nibbling a thumbnail.

“Invoices go to my office,” she said absently, reaching for the bill. “Why did you bring it out here?”

A scruffy little dog trotted out of the bushes and stopped to cock its leg on a purplemist tree. The first man ducked his head, smiling. “Wanted to meet that seelie fella. You know, the singer? They said he was with you?”

“Well, he’s not,” said Prue shortly. “Wait a minute, this isn’t a—”

They were on her before she could complete the thought. The younger man dug his fingers into her hair from behind and twisted, the other held a knife to her throat. His pleasant expression didn’t change. “Where is he, Mistress?”

Every muscle in Prue’s body locked with terror, her eyes teared with pain. “Who?” she managed.

He increased the pressure of the blade. The first sensation was an icy burn, the second a slicing pain. Blood dripped down her neck, warm and tickling. “The singer.”

“No idea.”
Sister have mercy, keep them down there with the seelies, don’t
—

From behind, she heard bushes rustle, then a heavy footfall, the whisper of fabric. The dog wagged its tail, its whole rump in motion.

The man’s eyes shifted to look at someone over her shoulder. “Want me to get it out of her?”

“No time.” The voice was deep and husky, but strangely androgynous. “I don’t know . . . maybe we should . . .”

“Make up your bloody mind, woman.”

The assassin!

Prue flung herself backward, dropping to her knees as she did so. The point of the knife dug into her cheek, but she was so busy it didn’t register. She sliced upward between the older man’s legs, hearing his howl as the side of her hand connected with the softness of his testicles. The younger man had lost his grip in her hair. She could hear him cursing, the dog barking. Using the power of her thighs and pelvis, she surged upward, catching him as he bent over her. Her skull collided with the point of his chin and she saw stars. But he fell away, hitting the path with a satisfactory thud.

Thank the Sister for Walker’s lessons! Now for that bitch of an assassin. Where was—?

Something soft and heavy fell over her face. It smelled sweet and rank, the stench of it clogging her nostrils. Prue raised her hands to rake it away, but her muscles refused to obey.

Her fingers caught in the folds of a voluminous garment like a cloak. A strong arm wrapped around her. She was lifted off her feet and dragged toward the laundry basket.

“What the . . . fuck are you doing?” gasped a male voice, one she hadn’t heard before.

That had to be . . . who? Her brain spun. Oh . . . the younger man.

The assassin’s arm around Prue tightened until her ribs creaked. “We’ll take this one instead.” A pause for breath. “Not going back empty-handed.”

Prue struggled. Was this what lungspasm was like? A sticky, mind-sucking fog that stole the will and the wits and the strength? In a sudden upwelling of terror, she flailed and twisted like a fish on the hook.

The dark rose over her in a crushing tide and took her under.

A towel lay on the water stairs, but there was no sign of Prue.

“Here.” Erik set the boy down, scooped up the towel and wrapped him up from head to heels. “Get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death.”

“Wot? ’Ere?” Florien looked so scandalized, Erik chuckled.

“Your lips are blue,” he said. “Don’t want anything to freeze and drop off.”

The boy cast him a suspicious glance, but he peeked under the towel when he thought Erik wasn’t looking.

Odd, she must have gone in. Or she’d been called away. A thread of uneasiness wormed through his gut.

“Erik.” The note in the boy’s voice was so strange, Erik was at his side in a single stride. “Look.” A skinny little finger pointed. It trembled.

A black, low-heeled slipper lay on its side near the side of the path.

Just the one.

The world turned inside out, Erik’s only anchor the icy little paw that crept into his and clutched.

Shaking, he bent down and picked up the slipper. Dirt from Walker’s garden beds had been kicked over the path; deep footprints indented the soil behind a purplemist tree and a touchme bush whimpered, high and soft, its broken branches drooping.

Marring a silvery flower was a streak of red, already drying to a rusty brown.

Erik’s lungs squeezed to the point of pain. Not now, not now. With a whoop, he gulped in air. A vicious breeze sprang up out of nowhere, swirling around them, raising goose bumps on Florien’s skin and chilling Erik to the bone. The touchme bush thrashed and moaned with the force of its passage.

Grabbing the boy, Erik lifted the slight body high in his arms and took off for the Main Pavilion at a dead run, the wind at his back.

Her dreams were strange, peopled with looming, distorted figures, all of them fish-belly pale. Moaning, Prue rolled over in bed, but the covers were so tight they held her down. Frustrated, she lashed out an arm and straps bit painfully into her wrists.

Her eyes flew open. Seated opposite in a high-backed chair was a neat middle-aged woman all in white. Her blue gray eyes were bright with interest. “Welcome back,” she said. “How do you feel?”

Prue ran her tongue over her teeth. Her mouth was so dry she could barely speak. “R-revolting.”

When she looked down, nausea rose in a horrible greasy wave, roiling in her stomach. Sister save her, she sat in a large chair made of some kind of smooth gray substance she hadn’t seen before. Both her ankles and her wrists were restrained with wide leather straps, wound about with black and silver wires. Her head pounded and a place on her neck throbbed. Already the muscles in her back were protesting. How long had she been there?

Where was Erik?

Most horrifying of all, she was naked beneath some kind of soft linen garment done up with ties down each side. Her body was completely accessible—and she was helpless. “Get me out of here,” she choked. “Please.”

The woman smiled. “All in good time.” Rising, she moved out of Prue’s line of sight and returned with a cup and a straw. “Here, it’s water.” She held the straw to Prue’s lips, waiting patiently while Prue decided whether to drink. In the end, she drained the cup and the woman set it aside.