Thief's covenant

been good to us in our time. But either he chose to withhold his favors recently, or they proved insufficient for the tasks at hand. Either way, I shall never fail to honor Cevora for all he's done, for so many years of watching over us. I worship him still. But I grant my faith to Olgun as well, and he has honored me in return. It's why I've allowed Claude to take over most of the religious duties of the household. I revere Cevora, but it didn't feel right for me to be leading the services, you see?” Alexandre smiled shallowly. “Just as well, really. From the day I hired him, Claude took to the worship of Cevora as though he were born to it. I think he's more devout than I ever was.”

“All very nice,” Adrienne said, face turning briefly jaundiced as they passed beneath a streetlight in dire need of a good cleaning. “But that's not really what I meant, you know.”

“Yes, I know.” Alexandre stopped and turned, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Adrienne, I believe Olgun willed us to meet that night.”

“I'm sorry, what?”

“By the evening we met, I'd been attending Olgun's services for slightly more than a year,” Alexandre explained. “And it was everything I could do to keep it a secret-from my own servants, especially. You can just imagine how well Claude took it when I missed evening mass once every week or two.”

Adrienne snickered.

“I'd just decided, while on my journey, that I'd have to attend less often-or perhaps find someone who could attend in my stead. But of course, there was nobody I could possibly trust enough to do so. Don't you see, Adrienne? I'd just begun contemplating that, and suddenly there you were! It couldn't be a coincidence!”

“Is that the only reason you took me in?” she asked quietly.

“At first,” he admitted. “But only at first, Adrienne. I swear it.”

“All right,” she said, pretending that the streetlight wasn't blurring behind unshed tears, “but you never told me about Olgun! If I was supposed to be your-your…” She waved her hands helplessly.

“Proxy?” Alexandre provided.

“Yeah, that.”

“At first, because I had to be sure I could trust you. And then because I was afraid you'd feel used, that I'd taken you in with ulterior motives-which, of course, I had. But I discovered I was more worried of you leaving than I was about being found out.

“And finally, though I was attending less and less often, my fortunes didn't fall. And I realized that Olgun must still be happy with me. That maybe he'd brought you to me for an entirely different reason-because you needed me.”

Adrienne's cheeks glistened, for she wept openly now. With a soft cry, she threw herself into the old man's arms. And she pretended, as he held her close, not to notice his own tears shining in the lamplight.

“Of course,” he said, clearing his throat and stepping back, “when young Lord Lemarche asked permission to induct you, I could hardly say no, could I? Best of both worlds and all that.” Alexandre looked down at her with a sudden gleam in his eye that had nothing to do with tears. “You could do worse, you know.”

Adrienne flushed and elbowed him in the ribs, but she laughed as she did it, and she felt as light as a feather as they began the long walk back home.

“Excited, love?”

Adrienne smiled, standing on tiptoes to kiss Darien's cheek. “Maybe a little,” she admitted, fluttering a coquettish smile swiftly hidden beneath her acolyte-white hood. “I've waited months for this.” Hands clasped, they wound their way together down the spiraling stair.

This would be her last service as a probationary member of the sect. Tonight, she would replace her white robe with the darker gray worn by the others. She could participate directly in services, rather than parroting back the congregational replies. She could speak without waiting for an older member to acknowledge her.

Fairly prosaic benefits, at best, but a sense of anticipation clung to her throughout the service like a second skin. Her only regret, though she fully understood, was that Alexandre's other, more public duties kept him away from this special gathering.

Just like that, it was done. The hour passed, Timothy uttered his closing benediction, and the service concluded with a cheerful announcement that today they welcomed a new sister in Olgun. Congratulations were offered (most of which were even sincere); the hidden lever was pulled; the horned idol sank slowly and majestically into the floor.

And the door to the cult's underground sanctum flew open with a deafening crash. Through it roared an apparition so terrible that several of Olgun's more weak-willed worshippers went quite literally mad at the sight of it.

It was accompanied by several human compatriots, but Adrienne never got a good look at them. Her gaze locked in fascinated horror on the demonic entity that even now ripped jagged, iron claws through poor Timothy's ample girth. It lifted him by his innards, his feet kicking spastically as blood poured across his killer in some twisted baptism. Before the merchant finished twitching, the creature dropped him, driving the claw on its left thumb through the screaming face of Marie Richelieu. Her terrified cries rose in a brief crescendo of agony, ending in a hideous rattle as her skull broke apart.

With each second, another of Adrienne's friends died horribly, organs and limbs ripped from their housing and strewn about the room like so many children's toys. Blood sprayed across the chamber, a red-tinged geyser that soaked Adrienne and the others down to the skin. Some of Olgun's rapidly shrinking congregation scattered in panic, only to find their exit blocked by the demon's human allies. Several chose that route anyway, preferring a clean death on assassins' blades to dismemberment by the long-limbed monstrosity. Still others, like Adrienne herself, stood rooted in place. She couldn't move enough even to blink away her tears when Darien's left shoulder vanished completely into the creature's gaping maw, disintegrating between those inhuman jaws.

Adrienne might have stood with the rest, paralyzed, until death took her in its own sweet time, but something pulled her from her stricken trance: a single stab of terrible, almost childlike fear. It came not from the screams of her dying companions, nor from the depths of her own mind, but with the unmistakable “voice” of Olgun himself.

The god, Adrienne realized with a lurch that nearly stopped her heart, was frightened. “We’re Olgun’s only worshippers, Adrienne,” Darien had told her. So what happened to a god when his worshippers, all his worshippers, were gone?

That thought spurred her into motion where fear for her own life and limb had not. As the others fell around her, reduced to so much bloody chaff, Adrienne found her hands and feet moving of their own accord. Skills that had lain dormant for years flared to life; fingers and toes grasped at cracks and crevices in the wall. In two blinks of an eye, she was up among the rafters, invisible in the depths of shadow.

And she watched, helpless, as the world turned red beneath her….

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Now:

It wasn't that Olgun had chosen to remain silent.

No, the tiny deity hadn't warned Widdershins of the hideous presence seeping into the room because he had failed utterly to notice it. It was only Widdershins's own reactions, the wave of unadulterated terror and helpless panic flowing suddenly through her that alerted Olgun that something was wrong.

And he froze.

Confronted by something completely beyond his experience, the god found himself paralyzed. It shouldn't have been possible! Nothing, nothing should have been able to slip by him! And yet, his last disciple was threatened by something that he just couldn’t see. The forgotten god knew fear, and still he hesitated, his mind struggling to cope with the shock.

Though the creature remained undetectable to Olgun's divine senses, the signs of its passage were visible,