Chapter 48
XLVIII
The cellar was akin to a wide vaulted corridor, built of brick and polished stone. There were doors on both sides, leading to the lodge’s wine stores and food pantries. All of them were closed, save for the last.
And it was within that last door that my business waited. From the open portal came the warm glow of lantern light, along with a terrible smell.
Rotting dog, Sarmodel confirmed.
The fetor from Soeur’s corrupted body had only grown worse. My heightened senses made it almost unbearable.
Is this . . . is this a good idea? It’s all become a little more complicated than I had planned, I said, covering my nose and mouth with a sleeve. The grand feather bed in my chamber—and the warm, handsome young man sleeping in it—were suddenly overwhelmingly appealing.
Don’t lose your nerve now, Sarmodel replied. Just get in there and—
There was suddenly a flurry of muted sound from the open chamber—a sharp intake of breath, the susurrus of clothing and the scrape of boots across the floor. A terrible groaning.
I grimaced; some quiet violence was happening within.
I moved as fast as I dared along the corridor, skirting the pool of light that spilled from the doorway.
Enneval had indeed come after Bauterne. He had caught his prey unprepared, and the Lieutenant of the Hunt was at his mercy.
The Norman had him pinned to the ground, his thick forearms pressing on his throat.
Enneval was dressed only in his unwashed nightclothes, his bandages still holding the wad of wool against his ghastly wound.
Though the big man was bereft of his strength and shaking uncontrollably, the sheer weight of him was enough to do his deadly work.
The groaning I heard was Bauterne, trying to call out as the life was crushed from him.
Something stirred in the shadows at the back of the room.
Chains clinked in the darkness, anchored to heavy iron rivets embedded in the wall.
They secured something very large that spasmed restlessly beneath a thick blanket.
Its form was indistinct, but the hulking mound was the source of the ghastly stench.
Soeur. The blanket rose and fell with her breathing, but she did not move to save her master. Somehow, she was sleeping through the mortal struggle happening not ten paces from her.
She’s—Sarmodel, she’s enormous, I said fearfully.
Not to worry, my love. There’s enough poison on that knife to kill the Leviathan of Pontus.
“Who is too . . . too weak to rise now, Lord Bootblack?” growled Enneval the Elder, a long line of drool running into his bristling military mustache and falling onto Bauterne’s reddening face.
“Do you blacken your spindle as well, you little fop?” The words were thick, his tongue moving too slowly to form them properly.
A crimson flower bloomed across his bandages.
I considered my options for a moment.
Bauterne could certainly use my assistance; he pummeled weakly at his assailant with his fists, which looked especially small in comparison to the Norman’s massive shoulders.
Enneval was also in dire extremity. He panted like a draft horse, dripping vital fluids from every orifice in his head.
Neither of them would be alive much longer unless I acted.
I crouched, holding the point of my envenomed blade low to the ground.
And I waited.
“I’m going to kill you, piss on your corpse and feed .
. . feed you to that fucking monster,” Enneval slurred.
His shaking was only getting worse as he held Bauterne down, but he did not waver.
I could only imagine what it was costing him to maintain his hold on the lieutenant—and the strength of the hatred that had fueled this murderous little excursion.
It only took a few seconds longer. Bauterne’s eyes rolled back in his head and his struggles ceased. In almost precisely the same moment, Enneval reached the end of his endurance and collapsed, cheek to cheek with the lieutenant.
Sarmodel was ready, jaws wide open overhead.
Anima gushed up and I felt him thrashing like a pennant in the wind as it surged into us.
I shivered in delight; Enneval’s anima was like heady nut liquor, with an enduring gamey quality like smoked meat.
I felt immediately refreshed and wonderfully energized.
Well. Perhaps that wasn’t quite so bad, I ventured. I stepped into the room, allowing the Litany of the Dusk to fall away.
Sarmodel fidgeted excitedly in my mind, with the Spiritual equivalent of an erection.
That one’s still alive! He drew my attention to Bauterne, unconscious and trapped beneath Enneval’s corpse.
Patience, my love. I glanced nervously overhead, expecting the gemstone gleam of Michael’s presence at any moment. For the second time in ten minutes, I found myself forgoing a most satisfying murder for fear of the Archangel.
I turned my attention instead to Soeur’s monstrous bulk at the back of the chamber, shifting my grip on my envenomed blade. Covered in the blanket as she was, I couldn’t tell the best way to approach her for the killing stroke.
I also couldn’t understand how she was still sleeping; a hound with her training should have been on her feet the moment anyone entered the room.
But then I realized what Bauterne had been doing down in the cellar. A metal bucket half filled with water sat near the sleeping hound, and next to it was the opium bottle I had given him only that afternoon. It was empty.
The lieutenant finally decided it was time to let go of his favorite, I remarked.
Why isn’t she dead, then?
Look at the size of her—she’d need three times as much. What a waste.
Bauterne had intended to spend Soeur’s last moments together with her. Her gilded collar lay on the floor beside him, and he had covered her in his own trail blanket.
I bent and lifted the edge of the woolen cloth with my free hand, carefully pulling the blanket off the gargantuan hound. It slid free and I stood for a moment in grim silence.
We had removed the Beast’s eldritch infection from Antoine’s flesh before it could take hold. In Soeur, restrained by her master and unable to satisfy her hunger, it had run its course.
She was easily as big as a horse now. Most of her brindled fur was gone, save for coarse black hair that grew thickly around her neck and formed a crest along her back.
The poor hound’s rib cage was a mighty drum wrapped in bands of sinew, and her forequarters were thickly cabled with muscle.
Her skull had become both thicker and longer, and the part of her face that Avstamet had torn away still hung in a necrotic flap under her eye.
Her muzzle was full of teeth grown unnaturally long; she would never properly close her jaws again.
Nor would she again join her packmates in the hunt.
The Beast had crushed her spine and her back legs completely at Saint-Julien.
While the affliction had transformed her flesh, it had not saved her hindquarters.
They sat limp and gangrenous on the stone floor, the source of the stench that hung around her.
Sarmodel scrutinized her with particular interest. Fascinating! She’s—
An absolute disgrace is what she is. How can Bauterne treat her like this? He should have killed her weeks ago, I said, shaking my head.
Well, hurry up. I want her.
Bauterne had secured Soeur with chains connected to a thick leather collar around her neck. Both the chains and the collar showed signs of repeated strain.
I took a careful step toward her.
And then I stopped.
What was that?
A choking sound was quickly stifled just outside the chamber, in the dark vault behind me. I caught a faint whiff of whiskey breath and postcoital sweat.
I straightened but did not turn around. “Antoine. What did I tell you?”
“Did you think I would let you go alone?” he whispered. “My God, the smell.”
“Don’t come in here!”
But he stepped into the room nonetheless, trying not to gag as he came to stand beside me. He was still in his nightclothes, though he was carrying his hunting musket. He looked at the sleeping bulk of Soeur and then the motionless hunters in their fatal embrace.
“Are they dead?” he asked, horrified.
“Not both of them.”
He swore. “You can’t just kill people, Sebastian! And why did you do it down here?”
“I didn’t kill anyone! They were already here,” I replied, “and Enneval was as good as dead anyway. Please, go back upstairs—there’s no need for you to be here.”
“But what are you going to do with them now?”
“I don’t know yet—”
Sebastian! Quickly!
A low growl and an ominous clinking of chains silenced us both.
Soeur’s opium-induced slumber had come to an end.
“Oh . . . oh Lord,” Antoine stammered as the hound lifted her head, opening eyes as black as roe in the lamplight.
The attack took less than a second. Soeur awoke to the smell of blood and two intruders standing in her cell. The next moment she was in motion, launching at us with a roar.
The chains were—thankfully—not long enough and she was pulled short an arm’s length from slaughtering us both. She strained against her bonds, raking at the floor with her grotesque forelegs, while her hindquarters flopped uselessly behind her.
I watched her movements carefully and lunged at her with my knife, but she was too fast and the blade too short. I managed only to enrage her further, and nearly lost an arm to her snapping fangs.
I sheathed the knife and drew one of my pistols instead, scrambling to load it with my silver shot.
You should have brought the quicksilver! barked Sarmodel.
It was supposed to be easy! They were both supposed to be easy!
Antoine in this instance was far better prepared than I was; his weapon was loaded and ready. He knelt on the floor, took careful aim with his musket and filled the cellar with thunder.
Soeur screamed horrifically. The shot punched a bloody hole into her rib cage and covered the back wall with crimson spatter.
But she was not subdued; far from it.
“Sebastian, quickly,” said Antoine, his eyes wide. Crumbs of masonry fell from the walls as Soeur renewed her struggles, heaving against her chains. “Sebastian!” The rivets were pulling free.
“Done!”
I raised my pistol at the raging hound. The rivets jerked one last time and then wrenched out of the brick.
Finally free, Soeur sprang for the kill.
My enchanted silver shot caught her in the shoulder.
The ball shattered into a dozen fragments and the muscles of her torso were briefly (and beautifully) lit from within by a piercing blue radiance.
Soeur screamed again, the force of the shot twisting her around.
Though she stumbled, her momentum was powerful and she barreled right over the top of us.
Watch her!
In a second, the blighted hound crashed through the open doorway and out into the vaulted cellar. There she thrashed in agony as the Violations unspooled forcefully from the fragments of silver shot, making a wasp’s nest of her flesh.
Well done, said Sarmodel.
I stepped forward, certain she would not recover.
But I had underestimated her strength.
With a pitiful sound, Soeur raised her head. She stood slowly and painfully on her two front legs, lifting the gangrenous flesh of her hindquarters clear off the ground. Her black, black eyes fixed on us again.
There wasn’t time to reload. I crouched low with my knife, ready for her.
But we had proved a meal too dangerous. With a hunger-crazed snarl, Soeur bolted away from us, up the stairs.