Thief's covenant

a thin blade. Like an enormous sack of meal, he hung limp between two hard, scruffy thugs. Behind them stood a third man, slender, his carefully groomed mustache and garish clothes contrasting sharply with the rapier at his side and the knives in his boots. Widdershins could see that the crowd she'd left outside was gone, perhaps having moved on to more worthwhile alcoholic pursuits-or else having been forcefully shooed away.

She should have fled, should have panicked, but she'd simply run out of emotion. Widdershins stared at them blankly-and then turned, slow and unblinking, when the kitchen door squeaked open as well. From within emerged a third ruffian, accompanied by the soldier whose hand she and Olgun had crippled so many years ago.

If she'd had it left in her, she'd have been surprised to see him.

“Perhaps you should take a seat, mademoiselle,” said the dandy in the doorway, pulling the portal shut behind him.

Widdershins didn't move.

“I am Jean Luc. I believe you've already met Henri.”

“Brock?” she asked dully.

“Who? Ah,” he realized, following her gaze, “yes. We found him here, when we returned to wait for you. He was trying to, ah, encourage your friend to tell him where you might be. Apparently he'd been watching and waiting on and off for days, and had simply grown impatient.

“For what it's worth, dear Adrienne-or Widdershins or Madeleine, it's quite confusing, no? — for what it's worth, we made certain she suffered no more at his hands.”

Widdershins showed no reaction to the recitation of her various names. “Then I'll try to make sure you all die as easily,” she told him.

The thugs snickered and dropped Brock's corpse in the corner. The entire tavern shuddered with the impact.

“Perhaps,” Jean Luc said dismissively. “But first, my employer would like a word with you.”

The door opened once more, in what could only have been a deliberately orchestrated dramatic entrance. No matter the coat, no matter the bandages that wrapped his head and hands, Widdershins knew the demon for what it was.

“Yes, Adrienne,” it gloated in that crushed-gravel voice. “I'm delighted to see you again, too.”

But it was the human beside the hellish thing to whom Widdershins turned her attentions.

“Claude?”

“Hello, Adrienne.” He shut the door, wiped a bit of dust from his heavy cloak. “It's long past time we spoke, I should think. Henri,” he added, looking across the room, “leave us.”

“But, sir-”

“I need someone keeping an eye on the investigation. Go.”

With a sullen nod, the former Guardsmen departed.

“Investigation?” Despite herself, Widdershins felt her voice quiver.

“Why, yes, into the deaths of William de Laurent and Alexandre Delacroix. Which will, of course, eventually be pinned on you.”

She couldn't weep again, not so soon-it was just too much. Only Olgun's strength kept her on her feet as the world swayed around her.

But inside-inside she cried, not merely for the loss of friends, of love, but of a future she had almost thought she might regain.

“I don't understand,” she whispered. “Gods, Claude, do you truly hate me so much?”

“You?” Alexandre's former servant actually laughed. “My dear child, this was never about you at all. This is about your friend.” The hatred suffusing that last word was nearly heavy enough to cast its own shadow.

And Widdershins saw it all as clearly as though someone had painted her a diagram. “You knew!” she accused. “You knew about Olgun all along!”

“Of course I did,” Claude told her, suddenly snarling. “I knew from the moment Alexandre betrayed our god for that barbarian idol! He couldn't hide his heresy, not from Cevora and not from me!”

Widdershins's jaw hung slack at the fanaticism she saw in his eyes, blazing to shame the lanterns. And it wasn't even his own household god!

“After all Cevora had done for him, for his family, to turn away over a few years' misfortune? The bastard! Ah, but I knew better, didn't I? I knew the lion could never be tamed. I knew from the old texts that Cevora was a hunter, a predator, from the days before the Pact! And I knew that he had laid upon me the task of shedding the blood of those who had drawn Delacroix from his embrace!”

“And your pet demon, Claude?” she demanded, ignoring the creature's rough chuckle at her description. “How does Cevora feel about that?”

But the Apostle merely shrugged. “Those gods hostile to the Pact were cast down into darkness, and their servants with them-but not all those servants are so content to remain in hell. How does Cevora feel about me calling one of them up? So long as the demon remains loyal to him, rather than its former master, I doubt he cares one way or the other.

“It shouldn't have been necessary,” he continued, a bit more calmly as he realized that even Jean Luc and his hired thugs were gawping at him somewhat askance. “I'd hoped that when you and your ilk were dead, he would turn himself back entirely to Cevora.”

“But he did!” Widdershins protested. “He abandoned Olgun!”

“His heart was never truly in it. I don't think he'd ever have accepted his part in restoring Cevora to his rightful glory. I suppose I should thank you, in a way. Had I not had to eliminate your tawdry little sect anyway, I would never have had the opportunity to do what Cevora demands be done. And speaking of what must be done…” Claude raised a hand, and the demon tensed, awaiting his command.

But Widdershins's mind was racing faster still, spinning over every unanswered question, every detail left unspoken.

And in her mind, she heard a voice. Not Olgun, no; for all their years, he'd never come to her with actual words. She didn't think he could.

No, this was the voice of William de Laurent. And whether his spirit was truly with her still, or Olgun was using another's words as his own, or she was simply recalling what he'd had to say, they resounded within her soul.

A dark power in Davillon. The gods of the Pact.

Sacrifice.

And Widdershins knew.

“You're not murdering me!” she exclaimed, understanding finally how truly mad Claude must be. “You're murdering Olgun!” She felt her patron's outrage mix with her own, the fury of an immortal contemplating his end.

Despite himself, the Apostle of Cevora grinned, and for an instant stayed his hand. The demon grumbled, but made no move.

“Go on,” Claude said, sounding almost eager to see if she'd figured it out.

“Your god is stagnant,” Widdershins continued, stalling desperately for time. “You can't exactly spread his worship. Alexandre has no heirs and his heart's not in the faith, and you've got no pull with Cevora's worshippers beyond House Delacroix. Maybe you sacrifice a few people here and there, but that's a pretty big risk for very little reward.

“But if you kill me…”

“You are Olgun's last living worshipper, Adrienne,” William had told her. “If you perish, so, I fear, does he.”

“He's the sacrifice,” she concluded firmly. “You're sacrificing a god to a god. No wonder the High Church sensed this coming. That must be an enormous amount of power!”

“Bravo, Adrienne. Alexandre really was right about you.”

“Yeah, maybe. I'm no priest, Claude, but even I know that sacrifice is a violation of the Pact, no matter who or what the victim is. I've got to think killing a god is another one, even if he's not part of the Pact.”