Chapter 38
Contemplating the ruin of a friend was always difficult.
Under other circumstances, he might have simply unseamed a traitor from nave to chops; he certainly had before in the course of a long, long life.
There could be no such quick mercy for one who had dared interfere with his leman.
The difficulty would lay in holding the corpse to quivering agonized life while Lukas meted out a lesson any approximation of a soul would take screaming with it into the afterlife—and be deformed by ever after.
Tentative, near-staggering footsteps behind him, softly musical. He was still contemplating where to begin when the fragrance of his leman closed about him.
Her hand touched his shoulder. Warmth flooded from that slight contact, both the animal and the thrall snarling within him, restrained by the thinnest spidersilk leash.
“Please,” she repeated. “It’s almost dawn. I don’t feel good, I want to go somewhere else. I don’t want to see another dead body, Lukas, please.”
Wren’s gaze flickered between them. A ratlike, chewing little gleam of hope lingered in his pupils; he no longer struggled against the quietus.
“This dogsbody not only betrayed me but could have injured my leman,” Lukas pointed out. “It may do some good, for you to see the consequences.”
“I’ve seen enough.” So frail, her fingers, not even bearing a fledgling’s full strength. Still they held him chained, far more effectively than any iron mortals or the demimonde could ever manufacture. “Can’t you just let him go?”
Oh, my little leman. “You wish me to simply release him?”
“I want to get out of here. You said we could leave.” A soft sobbing breath, her grasp shifting slightly. “Prove I don’t have to be afraid of you, okay? Just...let him go.”
Lukas weighed the suggestion. Wren’s gasping continued; he was perilously close to mortal shock. Not only was his arm broken but at least four of his ribs, plus a possible femur fracture. He reeked of complete terror, and the dry, slightly oily fur-scent of dogsbody.
“I would like very much to flay you,” Lukas told him, finally.
“Slowly, making certain you are conscious of every moment. Then to reduce every bone save your skull to splinters, and last take your eyes and hearing while I crush your head by slow inches. I can make it last, Thomas; I kept much from you, but you know enough of my abilities to understand this is but the bare minimum consequence for your crime.”
“Lukas—” His leman’s fingers tensed.
“One moment, my Beatrice.” His true teeth extended, and he showed them in the ancient snarl of dominance and battle, knowing the kill-light was again in his eyes.
Wren sought to scream, could only produce a papery whisper. His color was very bad indeed.
Regaining blunt camouflage teeth took an effort. His fingers flicked, releasing the quietus; Lukas straightened and turned.
His prize did not retreat. She simply gazed up at him, the visible pulse in her throat quick but not hammering. Wan and exhausted, no doubt feeling dawn’s soundless thunder grown very close, she still had the strength to plead, not merely with voice but with those beautiful gold-threaded eyes.
Prove I don’t have to be afraid of you.
She meant well, certainly; she could not know a castoff dogsbody faced expiry by inches as its Master’s mark slowly leached from tissues and bone. The doom was almost comparable to slow suffocating calcification.
Beatrice did not flinch when he cupped her face in his hands.
He was sodden, soot-streaked, and blood-spattered; she was disheveled and slightly trembling.
Lukas leaned close, allowed her scent to enfold him as he pressed his lips to her forehead.
A bit too cold; she needed feeding and a safe place for daylight rest.
“Very well,” he murmured against her flawless skin. “But only because you ask it of me, sweet Beatrice.”
“Can we go now?” A pained, little-girl whisper.
Given Wrenfeldt’s age, it would not take more than half a year—if that long—for his physical dissolution to become total.
It was an agonizing death, and another sanguinant could not save him.
Not that another would be inclined to welcome such a discard; why bother, when a much younger and less suspect item could be acquired with so little trouble?
“Of course.” He ignored the whimpers behind him; the release of the quietus allowed pain to begin piercing the veil of shock. The dogsbody might not even be able to leave this small, dusty room. “Clasp my neck, kitten. We must move quickly, and the snow thickens.”
Her arms stole upward, fingers interlacing at his nape. Lukas swept her up, and took her from the small charnel-house.
They were far away when Wrenfeldt began throat-cut howling, but Lukas was certain she did not hear. His leman was so weary, after all, and as he pressed her head to his chest he also covered her other ear with his palm, his fingers tangled in her clinging, windblown hair.
* * *
There were certain places well used to hosting the demimonde, though their employees remained largely unconscious of the fact; what money could not accomplish among mortals, a certain amount of invisible pressure inevitably managed to overcome.
He had planned to use this hotel anyway, and the iron-haired clerk at the front desk—though eyeing Lukas’s ruined garb somewhat askance—was familiar enough with the quality of fabric speaking more loudly than any parlous condition.
Besides, no desk clerk was averse to earning a little extra cash, especially two crisp, folded bills proffered in the politest, most acceptable manner.
Such maneuvers had not changed for centuries, and no doubt many travelers were stranded by the gathering storm.
Most importantly, the credit card Lukas produced for an identity Wren had never touched was of the requisite type to impress, another subtle signal.
And the rumpled, sleepy angel leaning against Lukas’s side was beautiful enough to daze any onlooker lucky enough to catch a glimpse. She bore only a few smudges of soot on clothes of the same understated but extreme quality, and that was enough of a passport to overcome any residual uncertainty.
No luggage, but a yawning bellboy was nevertheless roused to show them to the suite—the clerk was either earning his own bribe or that rarest of creatures, a manager eager to spread good fortune.
Nevertheless, Lukas wildly overtipped the young man in his scarlet uniform as well, and made certain both blinds and curtains were drawn.
Beatrice swayed with fatigue near the foot of a very large bed clad in a patterned pale-green duvet and likewise spring-colored pillows.
There was a little more taste than usual in the suite’s decorating, but it hardly mattered; the walls and door took seals just as any other bolthole would, and he was careful to hang the do not disturb tag beforehand.
Too exhausted to be skittish, she let him slide the red coat from her shoulders.
The greisoul glimmered, full of its own secret fire, and he longed to strip her, run his fingertips over her curves, reassure himself of her wholeness.
Yet she was so pale, nearly transparent, and dark smudges rested under heavy-lidded eyes.
He dragged a claw over his wrist, let the flesh part. “Drink.”
His leman did not demur, but fastened on.
Her true teeth had arrived, and their sliding into his flesh was an exquisite sting.
Lukas eased her down upon the bed, letting her draw again and again.
The thrall poked and prodded; he pressed his face into her hair and did his best to enfold her in his larger bulk.
He closed the wound in stages; her fangs slipped free as dawn took hold. Beatrice sighed, fading into a fledgling’s rest.
Anything Wren or Hardison could possibly have uncovered was suspect. Once more it was necessary to burn a network of influence and assets to the ground, moving elsewhere as the flames faded. Eventually new growth covered ashes.
Along with fire, it was the only certainty. Normally he would feel the urge to mourn, if only to keep ossification at bay with a grief as sharp as the stony, clinging fingers.
Not now. Nor did he move to rise just yet, though there was daylight work to accomplish—travel to arrange, luggage to acquire, hunting just before dusk in order to feed her once more when darkness covered the world. All that could wait a few short, luxurious hours.
Every ending also means a certain freedom. A harsh lesson only time could grant, carrying its own reward. Lukas closed his eyes, and the blackness for once was kind.
He breathed her in, ignored the thrall’s discomfort.
I thought you were dead. As if that were possible when he now had so much to enjoy, the world a dangerous garden to experience through her shining eyes. Eventually she might even understand what it meant that her sanguinant was no longer merely daywalker but Archon.
Time enough for anything, now. He cradled Paradise in his arms, and listened to the imperceptible sound of his fledgling’s deathly sleep.