She turned to the girl. 'She's stirring.'
This time Caim couldn't hold back his laugh, but it came out in a hissing cough as coppery bile bubbled in the back of his throat. 'You think she's going to help me, Kit? She couldn't weigh more than seven stone soaking wet. Even if she could, why would she? I'm the bad guy. Just let me be.'
With a sigh, Kit rested her head against his chest. Soft sounds echoed in his ears-either sobs or chuckles, he couldn't tell which. It was getting hard to keep his eyes open. He closed them knowing they would never open again. The sweet escape of oblivion beckoned.
'So long, darling,' he murmured as he drifted away.
Josey dreamed she was lounging up to her chin in a giant, warm raspberry pie floating in the midst of a gorgeous, starry sky. Surrounded by gelatinous filling, she watched the twinkling stars streak by. A feeling of utter tranquility filled her. All was well.
Opening her eyes was like a slap in the face. She lay on a slanted plane of cold, coarse stone. Her legs floated not in warm sugary goodness, but in foul, frigid water that lapped at her thighs like a gaggle of icy tongues. Wherever she was, it stank worse than anything she'd ever smelled before, a combination of garbage and night soil and blood. Every breath made her want to throw up.
With shaking hands, Josey pulled herself out of the water. Her whole body felt like one massive bruise. The last thing she remembered was being knocked off the pier and the black water swirling over her head. She must have washed up here, wherever this was. No sky stretched over her head. There was a breeze of sorts, but it was fetid and moist. Perhaps she had floated into an old cistern. No, not a cistern. By the smell, she was in some section of the sewers. The urge to retch came over her again.
Josey clamped her lips tight against the nausea and tried to crawl farther, but froze as a groan echoed beside her. Wild fancies of trolds and hobgobs flashed through her mind. Was she still dreaming? Water dripped in the distance, making her want to use the privy. She almost laughed. She was in a gigantic water closet. A little more urine wouldn't hurt the smell, but a lady didn't answer the call of nature out in the open.
She crawled until she was out of the water entirely. The groan rose again before drifting away. It was nearby. Josey sat up on her knees, trying not to think of the damage to her nightgown. She had a dozen of them at home. She would burn this one as soon as she escaped from this horrid place. Whatever was making the noise, it didn't sound dangerous. It reminded her of a wounded animal, like a squirrel, but bigger. A big rat. She started to shy away until a raspy cough echoed around her.
It's him.
Josey had almost forgotten the reason she was still alive and breathing. Her father's killer was here with her, and by the sounds he'd suffered for his efforts to save her. He sounded sick.
'Hello?' she whispered.
Her only answer was another wet cough. Inhaling through her mouth, Josey crawled in the direction of the sound. She found him slumped against a damp wall. He, too, was drenched in foul water and chilled to the touch. She thought he was dead until he coughed again and his chest moved beneath her hands. She searched him with timid hands and found a patch of warm wetness on his right side, a gaping hole plugged with a wooden shaft as thick as her thumb, right beneath his ribs. He mumbled something, but she couldn't make it out. She leaned closer.
'Go.'
Josey sat back on her heels. Her first impulse was to follow his advice and leave, but to where? She couldn't go to the authorities. That much was clear. And now that her father was gone, she had no family. Friends? She had only one true friend in Othir, Anastasia, but as much as she loved the girl, Josey didn't believe 'Stasia could help her. For one thing, her father was elderly and infirm, and he hadn't been active in politics for a long time. Also, Josey didn't want to drag her friend into this nightmare.
She considered the man lying before her. She could leave him here to die. It was no better than he deserved. He had probably murdered a lot of people-people with families and friends who cared about them. He was the most despicable sort of man, one who killed for money. He had no honor, no couth, a sore on the flesh of humanity. Yet he had saved her life. Twice. And he claimed he hadn't killed her father, though he would have if someone else hadn't done it first. If that was true, then whoever really killed her father had escaped free and clear, and this assassin dying at her feet might be the only one who could find out who did it and why.
Josey made up her mind. She had to save him, tend to him until he was strong enough to protect her again. But how? She was a good swimmer, but she didn't think she could pull him through the water back to the pier. What if those men were waiting? No, she couldn't go back. That left only one direction. She stared into the darkness of the tunnel. Far in the distance a tiny light flashed, like the brief burst of a firefly, but it was enough to show her the way. What was it? Some fearsome creature of the deeps or an angel sent from Heaven? Either way, she was out of choices.
Josey stood up and hooked her arms under the assassin's armpits. She tugged as gently as she could until he rested flat on the ground. Then, she pulled. Her feet slipped on the slimy floor of the pipe and her muscles complained of the unaccustomed exertion, but she kept pulling toward the distant light.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Raging flames painted the night sky in hues of orange and gold, and threw shadows across the yard of the villa where the tall bodies sprawled.
'We have to go,' Kit whispered at his back.
Caim wanted to turn away, but his feet were stuck fast to the ground. Men in black armor gathered in the yard. Their angry words echoed through the compound. His father knelt at their feet, a proud man, with a sword's pommel jutting from his chest like the mast of a sinking ship.
A wail pierced the silent night. Calm's stomach ached like someone had punched him as his mother burst from the burning house, into the arms of the waiting soldiers. He wanted to run to her, to save her, but he could do nothing as the dark men dragged her away, into the fields and the great forest beyond, vanishing like a pack of ghosts.
Then, the paralysis dropped away from him and he slipped through the fence, ignoring the call behind him. He darted across the yard, avoiding the bodies of the dead armsmen strewn across the ground like fallen toy soldiers. He stopped at the center.
His father had been such a big figure in his life, like a hero from out of the tales. In death, he looked smaller, as if that which had made him so large had leaked away with the river of red-black blood running from the gash in his chest.
'I'll kill them,' Caim said between sobs. 'Every one of them.'
A tremor ran through him as the corpse opened its eyes, and a whisper issued from its blue-tinged lips.
'My son… my son.' ulsing light dredged Caim from the dark tides of oblivion. His first thoughts were muddled, but one realization struck him immediately.
He was alive.
He didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed. He had been prepared for death, ready to face whatever afterlife awaited him, or for nothing at all. In his travels he had encountered many beliefs, from the ancestor worshippers of Illmyn to the rigid monotheism espoused by the True Church. All prescribed damnation in one form or another for those who killed their fellow men. Whether to spend eternity in Death's gloomladen underworld or wander the fathomless ethers between the stars forever, he had accepted his fate long ago.
He squinted against the bright light and made out a lantern hanging on a rusty hook. An odor of mildew pervaded the room, which was cramped and unfamiliar. Water marks stained the plaster walls, decorated by mosaics, their tiny tiles encrusted with mud and filth. A vault of ochre bricks arched overhead. The stone floor was cold beneath his back.
He turned his head as the girl sat up. She had stayed with him, which surprised him more than a little. She should have been long gone by now. She still wore her ruined nightgown. For a moment he felt bad about her clothing, until he took a breath and a lance of pain through his side reminded him he had bigger concerns. Like
