False Covenant

and received Julien's blade high in the chest for his trouble. Widdershins winced as the body dropped; she'd really hoped that Julien would strike to wound, as she had, even though she knew that wasn't how they were trained. She was only vaguely aware of Simon shoving past her and disappearing out the door.

Olgun shouted another warning, but there was little Widdershins could do. She gawped up, face pale, into Julien's twisted features; felt his fists close with bruising pressure on her upper arms.

“What the hell are you doing here, Widdershins?!” He was screaming at her, furious. She couldn't remember ever having seen him quite this way before, and she'd seen him in some truly ugly situations.

“I…Julien, I…”

“What are you doing here?”

“Julien, you're hurting me….”

His face rocked back as if she'd slapped him; his hands dropped away as though she were suddenly burning to the touch. “I…I'm sorry, Shins.” His eyes dropped for just a flicker of a second, then locked on hers once more. “Give me a reason.”

“A reason…?” Her thoughts were spinning wildly, enough to make her dizzy. She couldn't follow the conversation, didn't know what he was asking.

“Give me a reason not to arrest you,” he whispered. “Please, Shins, something. Anything.”

Widdershins had believed, well and truly believed, that nothing else that happened this evening could possibly surprise her. She was wrong. Even Olgun was stunned into silence.

“Please…”

Gods, he was practically begging. He really didn't want to have to take her in. Widdershins's peculiar sense of vertigo was, if anything, growing worse. She felt sick, her face feverish.

“I…I was an invited guest here, Julien. Not ‘Widdershins,’ I mean, but-uh, someone else. A noblewoman that I, uh, sometimes call myself…”

What am I doing?! I can't tell him this! He can't know this! Olgun, make me shut up!

But clearly, Widdershins's mouth was a far stronger force than even a god might contend with. Olgun did no such thing, and she kept right on babbling.

“I, uh-not dressed like this, of course. I mean, this isn't exactly, um, the height of fashionable party wear, you know? Maybe…maybe next year?”

Oh, gods, kill me now.

“And do you expect me to believe,” Julien asked softly, “that you weren't here to scout the place?”

“Uh…I wasn't…” She offered a limp-wristed wave toward the fallen thugs. “I wasn't part of that. I swear it, Julien, I wasn't…”

“Why didn't you run? You could have kept running.”

Widdershins's thoughts finally stopped spinning-froze, in fact, crystallized into a single, solid certainty. She looked up, finally meeting his gaze, and felt her heartbeat quicken even as her breathing slowed.

“I couldn't let them kill you,” she told him.

For somewhere between a second and a century they stood, staring at one another-and then Julien took a single step back. “Go.”

Widdershins, despite the ghostly chains of questions and uncertainties that dragged at her ankles, obeyed as swiftly as her feet could manage.

Constable Paschal Sorelle, of the Davillon City Guard, pressed a wad of moderately clean cloth to the gash in his arm and, with a pained gasp or two, staggered over to stand at his commanding officer's side.

“Sir? I don't suppose you'd care to explain that?”

Major Bouniard tore his attentions away from the darkness into which Widdershins had vanished and bestowed a disapproving frown on his lieutenant. “Did I miss a promotion ceremony, Constable? Am I supposed to explain myself to you now?”

“Not at all, sir.” Paschal's tone, though thinned by the pain of his wound, was deliberate enough to suggest that he was choosing his words very carefully. “You needn't explain a thing to me. But, ah…you will have to explain yourself to command, sir.

“That's not,” he added swiftly, “a threat, of course, sir. Merely a statement of fact.”

“I know that, Constable.”

“Just wanted to be sure, sir. You'll write your report as you see fit, of course, sir, but I've also got to write mine, and…Well, the operation was overall a success, sir, but I'm not sure this last incident casts you in all that flattering a light.” Paschal's face softened imperceptibly in the flickering lantern light. “I don't want to cause you any problems with command, sir. I really don't. But-”

“Say nothing more about it,” Bouniard ordered, clapping a hand on Paschal's shoulder (on the uninjured side, of course). “You report the events exactly as you saw them. If there's any trouble coming my way, I brought it on myself. First lesson I learned from Major Chapelle, back when I joined up: You don't sacrifice your integrity for anyone, not even a colleague. You hear me, Constable?”

“Loud and clear, sir.” Then, after a moment, “She's certainly a unique one, sir.”

“She is that, Constable. You did note that she acted to assist us, didn't you?”

“Of course, sir. And it'll be in my report, make no mistake.”

“I was certain it would be, Paschal.”

Julien Bouniard once more turned his face to the darkness; Paschal Sorelle turned his own toward his commander.

“Come on, Constable,” Julien said finally, turning away from the door. “Let's get that arm looked at.”

Aubert and Osanne Noury weren't stupid. No, really, they weren't, not normally. What they were, however, were newlyweds; Osanne had only been a Noury for about seventy-two hours, give or take. So when the couple found themselves up and alert less than an hour before the dawn, they perhaps cannot be blamed, in their distraction, for deciding to take a romantic stroll in the moonlight.

It shouldn't have been all that great a risk, really. The new Noury couple dwelt in Rising Bend, one of Davillon's richer (and therefore, safer) neighborhoods. Nor were they planning to go too terribly far from home; the worst they could have expected to encounter, unless they were struck by a truly devious misfortune, would have been a desperate beggar or maybe a particularly brave robber. So…stupid, yes, but not very.

Except that the misfortunes of that night were, indeed, truly devious.

It began with a whisper, one that scythed clean through Aubert's and Osanne's soft giggles. They could make out no words at all, just a series of sounds beneath someone's breath, rasped at the very limits of human hearing. Once, the spooked couple might have dismissed it as a trick of the wind; twice, as the foraging of some feral animal digging in the refuse of an unseen alleyway.

But when it continued-indeed, when the sound clearly began to creep closer, despite the lack of any visible movement in the feeble glow of the streetlights and the cloud-covered moon-they could no longer even pretend that its source could be anything so mundane.

“Who…?” Aubert cleared his throat, tried again. “Who's out there?” To his credit, it must be noted that, though armed with nothing more than a small dagger-a utility tool more than a weapon-he did step in front of his unarmed wife, placing himself between her and whatever danger he couldn't quite perceive.

And then the whispers crumbled, breaking apart into a throaty, guttural, liquid laughter. Osanne whimpered; Aubert's dagger twisted and fell from an abruptly sweat-soaked hand.

The laughter grew-nearer, rather than louder-and finally, something moved in the darkness.

It might have been human-could have been human, by general shape if nothing else. A dark silhouette, shadow in shadow, seemingly without face or feature. It clambered across the nearest wall, moving sideways yet hanging head-down, some horrible mockery of crab and insect both. And even as it moved, the horrid chafing laugh continued, echoed…

Stopped. Even as the shape moved back into the darkness, becoming once again invisible, the sounds utterly