Ari Marmell - Thief's covenant

The Apostle went rigid, and then laughed aloud. “Oh, Adrienne, you had me going for a moment there. But-”

“I'm quite serious, Claude. And either way, can you afford to risk it?”

The scowl returned, tenfold. “I could just let my pet kill you. Cevora would know instantly that you lied, as he fed on Olgun's essence.”

“And if I'm not lying, I'd be dead, and you'd have no way of finding the others.” Widdershins smiled.

Claude drummed his fingers on a nearby chair. “Are you offering to lead us to them, Adrienne?”

She shrugged. “This has always been about survival. You go after them, not me, I renounce Olgun, like Alexandre did, and everyone's happy. Maybe I can even help you in running the Delacroix businesses-for a percentage, of course.”

Please, Olgun…please understand…. Trust me….

“Agreed!” Claude said instantly, holding forth his hand.

Widdershins took it, and for a moment they stared into one another's eyes. Both of them were lying, and both of them knew it. Claude only needed to know how much of what she'd told him was a lie.

“I'm looking forward to it, Claude.” She gestured toward the northwest. “If you leave the market heading that way, you go about seven blocks, make a-”

She stopped at his sudden laughter. “Oh, I don't think so, Adrienne. I'm not remotely that stupid. You'll lead us to your former brethren. Personally.”

Ah, well. It'd been worth a shot.

“Of course,” she told him. “Whichever.”

“And you'll be leaving Alexandre's rapier here, as well.”

Widdershins just shrugged, struggling to keep all emotion from her face. “It's a ways across town; I hope you're all in the mood for a walk.”

The Apostle craned his neck, wrapping his heavy cloak around him to fend off the late-night chill. He watched for a long moment, scowling at the peeling walls and missing shingles.

“A pawnbroker's, Adrienne?” he asked skeptically.

“Why not? The company's not doing well, so they've plenty of extra room for rent. It's as good a shrine as any.”

“Oh, please.” Jean Luc stepped forward, giving the demon a wide berth. “This is the Finders' Guild, sir.”

“Is it indeed?” he asked, turning to Widdershins.

She shrugged and offered up a nervous smile. “Well, where else would I be sharing my faith, if not here?”

This was it. If Jean Luc knew too much about the guild's practices, about its faith, she was dead.

A long minute passed before the Apostle nodded, and Jean Luc said nothing more. Widdershins all but quivered in relief.

“Very well,” he said. “Are there any guards?”

“One outside,” she admitted, her voice reluctant. “Dressed as a vagabond. Not sure how many might be inside. It varies based on who's got what assignments.”

Claude made a calm, collected gesture, as though ordering a servant to fetch him a drink. The demon darted from the alleyway, elongating to its full height as it moved. Widdershins could only hunch her shoulders, her stomach twisting in knots, and try to ignore the abbreviated shriek, and the horrible tearing, snapping, splashing sounds to follow.

Holding her breath against the sudden stench of blood and human waste, Widdershins stepped through the front doors as though she had every right to be there, setting foot, for the second time in two nights, in the very heart of the Finders' Guild.

On they came, first in ones and twos, then larger bands. With rapiers and crossbows, then with flintlocks from behind heavy doors and ad hoc barricades, the thieves of Davillon fought to defend their home.

And they failed. The hall grew thick with smoke; the walls gleamed with blood. Weapons careened from the creature's hide, flesh tore beneath its talons, bones broke betwixt its jaws, and those who followed behind slipped and slid in the rising gore.

Even the beast of Cevora wasn't fast enough to slay them all, however. For every corpse it left in its wake, three or four of the Finders' Guild fled through passages twisted enough to confuse even a god's emissary.

Widdershins forced herself to watch, flinching but refusing to look away as rapier, claw, and blood flew. And when she saw that the hideous beast was not invulnerable, that the occasional blade bit through its hide, the occasional ball left its mark, her spirits dared, ever so slightly, to rise.

So they continued through twisting halls and sliding doors, ever deeper into the catacombs, and the inhuman thing cavorted along beside them, now ahead, now behind, an anxious child at carnival eager to rend more unsuspecting souls limb from limb.

Until, mere steps from her goal, Claude reached out a hand to stop her. “I think that's enough, Adrienne,” he said darkly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“We've already slain a great many thieves, sent a great many more fleeing in terror. And not once have I seen, or has my pet sensed, the sorts of abilities we know you possess. I don't think anyone here shares your beliefs after all.”

“Oh? Then how do you explain-?” and she was off, bolting so abruptly that even the demon was caught briefly by surprise. Hair flying out behind her, she ran as though the hounds of hell were at her heels, for indeed one of them was. She knew full well, as her pounding feet echoed off the stone walls, that she couldn't keep ahead for long, but maybe for just long enough …

When the fiend appeared from around the corner, Claude's fastest men just steps behind, they stared in puzzlement at what they found. Their quarry had vanished through another sliding door, hiding somewhere in the peculiar room beyond. They peeked inside, stared at the towering shape across the chamber.

Claude, chest heaving and forehead glistening with sweat, emerged from behind his minions and glared around him. “You wait outside,” he said, gesturing to one of the men. The others, along with Jean Luc and the demon, followed him inside, their boots muffled by the worn carpeting.

The door slid shut behind them, but their sight adjusted rapidly to the sickly light of the uneven lanterns and torches, the artificial gloaming that presaged the fall of a night that never came. Claude quickly recognized the chapel for what it was, and his gaze slowly traveled across the humanoid form of the idol, coming to rest upon its heavy hood of black cloth.

“Here,” Widdershins said, appearing from behind the statue. “Your proof.” With an almost contemptuous flip of her wrist, she sent the mask drifting unevenly down to the floor.

The chapel filled with horrified screams, as men and monster looked upon the unveiled face of the Shrouded God.

Beneath the upraised hand that shielded her eyes, Widdershins saw the assassin Jean Luc collapse to his knees, screaming until his cheeks had reddened and his eyes bulged. All around, she heard other men following suit, though she dared not look.

And as it seemed he could scream no more, that his lungs must collapse for lack of air, his voice took on a horrible, liquid tone. Jean Luc thrashed on the floor, vomiting everything in his gut, heave after heave until there was utterly nothing left.

Still it refused to stop, for the curse of the Shrouded God was nothing less than the most primal font of thievery itself.

Need. Want. Hunger.

When she could actually see the flesh, the meat, the muscle fading-when his skin sank ever nearer his bones with each purge, as the substance of his body was eaten away, almost deflating before her eyes-Widdershins finally had to look away, her own whimpers scarcely audible above the hideous gurgles that had once been screams.

Only when the noises finally stopped and the chamber began to reek of purged and rotted flesh did she open her eyes. Bodies lay strewn across the room, gaunt as famine victims and glued to the matted carpet by a viscous sludge. Even the demon lay sprawled, its leathery hide clinging to its bones. It moved, struggling to rise, apparently too potent for the curse to slay, but for the nonce, at least, it was vulnerable.