Barb Hendee - Thief of Lives

The half-blood's eyes widened as the corpse collided with him. Living and dead limbs sprawled backward toward the hound, and the animal retreated. Toret leaped over the railing into the stairwell and ran down to the foyer.

The front door remained open from Chane's flight, but Toret didn't follow in his servant's footsteps. He pressed upon the wall at the stairs' bottom to release the catch and the hidden entrance popped open. Slipping inside and slamming it shut, he heard the padded footfall and snarl of the hound beyond the wall.

Toret headed downward as he heard the thud of the dog battering against the wall where the entrance had closed. He quickly exited into the cellar.

Several practice swords lined the walls. He grabbed the stoutest blade that looked manageable and headed into the open passage they'd dug down into the sewers.

Sapphire couldn't have gone far. He would catch up to her, and together they would escape from Bela to the Suman Empire. He no longer wanted revenge. Now, all that mattered was survival.

"Get up! Get up!" Vatz shouted, pulling on Magiere's arm.

She sucked in air and struggled up to all fours. She felt as if she'd been struck with an iron cudgel. Her head ached, but the worst was her jaw. Then awareness took her, and she realized Vatz was looking at her.

Magiere closed her lips tight with a quick pass of her tongue, and relief came at the touch of reverted teeth that closed smoothly together.

"Hurry," Vatz said. "He took Wynn, and Leesil's on the next floor fighting the other one."

Magiere pulled herself up, grabbing her falchion from the floor. Before she could stop him, Vatz rounded the railing's end and headed down the stairs, crossbow in hand. She followed quickly, regaining clarity with each step. When she reached the second floor, Leesil was dislodging himself from under the corpse they'd passed earlier, and there was no sign of Chap. She helped pull Leesil up.

"Where's Wynn?" she asked.

"He took her," Leesil called out as he headed around the railing down the next flight of stairs. "That butchering undead we've been after-he has her."

Vatz tried to get ahead of Magiere, but she pushed him behind. "You stay back."

At the bottom of the stairwell, she saw Chap repeatedly throwing himself at the wall next to the landing in the foyer, ignoring the open front door. His snarl was broken only by yelps on impact. Wynn's crossbow lay at the foot of the stairs.

Leesil ran out the door onto the front porch, looking up and down the dark street.

"Stop it," Magiere yelled, grabbing Chap before he lunged again.

Spinning out of her grip, the hound turned and snapped at her. Magiere backed away. Vatz took a step up the stairs, not about to get near either of them.

"What is wrong with you?" she shouted at the dog.

Chap circled back around, glaring at the blank wall next to the base of the stairs.

"Pay attention," Magiere said. "Where did the tall one go? Find me a trail, damn you!"

Chap glowered at her for a moment and then backtracked to the stairs. He sniffed the floor and whirled about to rush outside and down the steps. Magiere trotted out next to Leesil and watched as the hound worked the street's cobblestones, back and forth.

He stopped, head low, facing the way they had first come, and his rumble shifted to a vicious growl that carried in the night air.

"Chane is panicked," Leesil said. "I'm betting he heads into the sewers again."

Chap darted back to them, clearly wanting someone to follow him. But he also kept looking through the front door toward the wall he'd been insanely battering himself against.

Leesil followed the hound's gaze, and for a moment the anger on his face turned to puzzlement. Magiere put it aside and turned to Vatz now standing in the doorway.

"Do you know the new guard barracks, just inside the inner ring wall?"

The boy nodded uncertainly.

"Run to Captain Chetnik," Magiere said. "Tell him what's happened, and that there is at least one vampire in the sewers. Have him double the guard on the bayside openings, but no one goes in. Can you do that?"

Realizing the task was important and real, Vatz nodded. "Yes, I'll be fast."

She tossed him her pouch of remaining coins.

"Find a coach if you can. Do what you have to."

As the boy scurried into the street, Magiere stepped back inside to pick up the abandoned crossbow.

"Leesil, give me your remaining quarrels."

He unstrapped the quiver across his back and handed it to her from the doorway. A number of the quarrels' feathered ends were splintered or snapped off, but three were still whole. Leesil remained fixated upon the foyer wall.

"Let's go," she said.

"No," he replied.

He stepped inside to study the wall Chap had assaulted and ran his fingertips slowly across its surface. Then he stepped out the door again, this time looking at the left side of the building beyond the front door's frame.

"Leesil!" Magiere said angrily.

He lifted the tip of his left blade across his lips as if it were a finger, signaling her to silence.

"It's too wide," he whispered, and pointed to the left side of the building.

He reached his hands into the doorway's left side, extending one blade on the inside and the other outside. When he pulled them back, she could see the doorway wall's width was less than the length of his arm. Then he stepped out, looked to the left side of the building, and spread his arms, widening the measure he'd just shown her.

She stepped out with him to stare at the left side of the building.

Although the door's wall on the inside ran directly to the left side of the foyer, the outside wall was three or four times wider by the measure Leesil had just shown her. She could think of no reason why one stone wall of an old house would be so much thicker than the others.

Magiere looked to Leesil in puzzlement. What was he was trying to tell her in silence? He carefully pointed the tip of his blade at her chest, and she looked down.

Before she even saw the growing glow of the topaz, Magiere felt twinges of burning hunger roll in her stomach.

There came a soft grating of stone from inside the foyer. The wall at the bottom of the stairs slowly inched outward.

Dark-blond curls and the profile of a round face peeked out of the exit. The one called Sapphire scanned the parlor room across the hall. She smiled with relief and stepped out.

As she turned to the front door, Sapphire sucked in air and screamed out in panic: "Toret!"

Magiere flinched, almost turning about at Sapphire's cry, suddenly wary. She assumed Ratboy had run out the door in search of a sewer, but perhaps he was still in the house as well. Why else would this painted doxy wail for help?

Sapphire lunged back for the opening, and Magiere kicked out against it.

The hidden door slammed closed on Sapphire's arm, and Magiere leveled her falchion as she swung for the woman's neck. Squealing, Sapphire ducked and wrenched her hand free. Magiere's blade clanged against stone.

This was the little harlot who'd been sitting in Leesil's lap.

"Search the upper floors," Magiere snapped at Leesil. "She's not alone in here."

"But Chane-" Leesil began.

"I want no one at our backs," she shouted, and rushed after Sapphire fleeing down the hallway.

The undead scurried along the railing of the stairs leading below. Magiere slashed at her from behind, but she ducked aside and as the falchion shattered through the railing. Sapphire darted into the parlor along the far wall around a velvet divan. Magiere followed rapidly and swung down. The blade split through the back of a divan.

As she wrenched her blade free, Sapphire tried to dash out the parlor archway, but Magiere kicked her in the stomach. Sapphire stumbled away in her heavy gown. She grabbed a cream porcelain vase from an end table and threw it.