Barb Hendee - Thief of Lives

Magiere side-stepped, as the vase shattered against Sapphire's own portrait, and steadily closed in on Sapphire with purpose. The undead squealed again and ran behind another divan. Magiere smashed this one as well, sending Sapphire scurrying to the far corner of the room.

The familiar ache grew in Magiere's jaw, but she swallowed down the pain. There would be no mindless rage this time, no loss of self to hunger. She wanted full awareness of every moment. She let hunger creep into her head just enough so that her night vision sharpened.

This creature had been sitting in Leesil's lap.

Sapphire looked around wildly.

Magiere swung down, the falchion shattering the light oak table to Sapphire's right as she cringed back, crying out.

Magiere felt no pity. For certain, Sapphire felt no pity for her victims. She'd killed an unarmed house guard at the Rowanwood without a thought. Now she pleaded for help as her victims had surely done. How had this pathetic creature survived in the night?

Sapphire kicked up the table remains at Magiere, but the gown fouled her attempt, and Magiere swatted the fragments aside. As Sapphire made one last dash toward the parlor entrance, Magiere snarled her free hand in the woman's hair. Sapphire's head snapped back as she was jerked to a stop.

"Turn around," Magiere demanded. "Look at me."

Sapphire stared into Magiere's black irises, sobbing with quivering red lips. And yet, strangely, no tears fell from the dead woman's eyes.

Magiere let the falchion pendulum down in front of her and up under her other arm, her grip tight in Sapphire's hair.

No! Sapphire mouthed, as she raised a hand to shield herself.

Magiere slashed crosswise, pulling on the woman's hair at the same time. As her arms scissored outward and apart, the falchion swung level through the dark room.

One final sob from Sapphire ended halfway as the blade passed cleanly through the forearm of her raised hand-and then her neck. The hand spun and dropped to the floor first.

Magiere's gaze never left the pale, painted face as the body collapsed and the head hung suspended in her grip, draining black fluids onto the carpet.

She stood a moment longer before realizing she was panting. Her grip had tightened so severely that the dark-blond hair began to tear out between her fingers.

This thing had tried to take Leesil.

The room dimmed around her, though her settling vision still picked up details in the dark. She looked down to see the topaz dim and lifeless against her hauberk.

Magiere dropped the head onto the rumpled folds of the corpse's gown.

Running footsteps on the stairs broke her fixation as Leesil hurried into the room with Chap close behind. He crouched down immediately by the corpse, stared but a moment, and reached for the head.

Magiere was about to stop him. It wasn't time to collect proof for the council, but he waved her off.

"I may need this," he said simply.

He took a dark blue drawstring bag from the corpse, placed the head inside, and tied it to his belt. Taking out flint, he struck it several times with his blade until he ignited the torches he'd brought with them. He handed one to Magiere.

"Find Chane and get Wynn back," he said. "Chap's already tracked him to the first sewer grate up the street. I know where Ratboy has gone."

Before she could ask, he stepped out of the parlor toward the foyer. Magiere followed him to the opening in the wall. Inside were narrow stone steps leading both up and down.

"Chap's already confirmed it," Leesil said, staring at the steps leading downward. "Ratboy is mine."

"Take Chap," Magiere told him. "And this."

She unhooked the topaz amulet's chain and went to fasten it about his neck. Leesil was about to stop her, but she shook her head.

"I don't think I need it anymore," she explained with a glance back toward the parlor. "I can feel them now when they're close. If we can't find each other later, we'll meet back at the sages' barracks."

Leesil nodded and motioned Chap into the passage. As Magiere was about to head for the front door, he grabbed her by the arm.

When she looked at him, all the warmth and wry humor she'd become accustomed to finding in his face, his eyes, his smile was gone without a trace.

"You stay alive," he said.

Magiere felt cold inside.

Leesil wasn't just hunting anymore. This was vengeance. Or some fool's need to rectify what he thought was a failure from the past. Somewhere in the back of her mind she'd probably always known this, and now there was no time to stop him.

"And you," she said.

Magiere slipped out the front door, down the steps, and into the cobble street, running for the first grate she saw.

From the shadows between two houses across the street, Sgaile watched the unfolding events with an unsettling ambivalence. He had followed the renegade and majay-hi all day as they looked at houses in the city's wealthier districts. He did not know why.

He had already ignored the wish of Aoishenis-Ahare -Most Aged Father-and yet he could not leave well enough alone. He had not been told all and nearly spilled the blood of his people, even though it ran through the flesh of a halfblood mongrel. And the majay-hi would not keep company with a traitor. It was not possible.

As dusk settled, the half-blood renegade and his companions had entered the house across the way. Sgaile settled in to watch. For a while, nothing happened. Then a tall man ran from the house, carrying the gray-robed woman over his shoulder, and disappeared into a sewer grate. A short while later the renegade, the human female, and the small boy appeared. The boy ran off down the street, and now the armored woman went straight to the same sewer grate and disappeared below the city.

Sgaile waited longer, but the renegade half-blood did not emerge. Neither did the majay-hi . He slipped from his hiding place and approached the house, the front door half-open.

Snapping a stiletto into his right hand, he stepped inside and walked silently along the hall past the base of the stairs, watching in all directions. As he passed an archway to his right, he spotted a headless body upon the floor. The room was a shattered mess all around.

Sgaile froze in place, listening in the dark, but he heard no sounds in the house. When he turned back to the front door, he looked at the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

The wall had a crack in it.

More than a crack; it was a portal in the stone that had not been fully closed.

Sgaile pulled the door open and slipped inside and downward.

Chane splashed along the dark sewer tunnel, carrying Wynn and following the ankle-deep flow toward the bay. At the city's low side, he could emerge into the poor district inside the third ring and disappear into the side streets. With luck, Toret would take his second death at the hands of the dhampir and the half-blood, and he would be finally free.

Wynn choked from either the stench or the pounding of his shoulder into her stomach as he slogged through the sea-water used to flush the city's bowels.

"Chane, please," she uttered. "Put me down."

He glanced behind but saw nothing except mortared stone walls, and so he carefully set her on her feet. She still clutched the glowing crystal in her hand.

"We must hurry," he urged her. "If Toret escapes and pursues us, he will kill you. Or order me to do so, and it is beyond my power to disobey his commands."

He gripped her wrist lightly, the long sword still in his other hand, and pulled her along. The quarrel wound in his chest still burned, as did the gashes on his leg from the hound's teeth. Wynn tried to pull away, and he tightened his grip, not allowing her to stop.