Blood of the Underworld (31 page)

tongue of gold, eyes of silver

run, run gemcroft whore

from the widow’s quiver

Stephen had sent the guards into a frenzy searching, furious that such a thing had been done without them noticing. Zusa, though, had only stared as the walls closed in around her. She’d calmly walked to her room, stripped naked, sharpened her daggers, and then began to dress.

“I only do what I must,” Zusa said.

“Don’t lie to me,” Alyssa said. “I need you here. My son needs you here. Without your protection, we might...”

“Don’t you understand?” Zusa said, whirling to face her. “
That
is why I go. It doesn’t matter how closely I guard you, you’re still vulnerable. The threat lurks, and I must find it.”

“No,” Alyssa said, crossing arms. “This Widow is just some sick fuck with a crossbow. Whoever it is can’t be better than you.”

“It’s not the Widow,” Zusa said, shaking her head. “That was only a reminder of the threats made against us. It’s the other Faceless. They’re just like me, Alyssa. No matter how many guards you surround yourself with, or how diligent I remain, they can still find you. When I sleep, or am separate from you for only a moment. Walls mean nothing, and shadows are just doors...”

Alyssa stepped closer, put a hand against Zusa’s cheek.

“You stopped them before. You can stop them again.”

“They were foolish, and revealed themselves before they attacked. They won’t be so proud again. For whatever reason, Karak’s servants want you dead. Don’t you understand how dangerous a position that is? They are powerful, and they are relentless. If I don’t do something now, if I don’t find out why, then I can’t keep you safe. And I won’t let that happen. I won’t lose you. I won’t lose Nathan.”

“So you’ll run off and get yourself killed instead?”

Tears were forming in Alyssa’s eyes. Zusa hardened her heart best she could against them.

“Far better me than you,” she whispered.

Alyssa kissed her cheek, then wrapped her arms about her. Zusa tilted her head, just the slightest opening, enough for Alyssa to press her face against her neck and let her tears wet her skin.

“With everyone else I must be strong,” said Alyssa. “With everyone else I must be a lie. Don’t you dare leave me alone. You come back, understand me? You come back.”

Zusa gently pushed her away, then kissed her on the forehead.

“Help me put on my cloak,” she said.

That done, Zusa went to the door, put her hand on the wood.

“Alyssa,” she said, trying to find the words. “I want you to know...”

“Whatever it is you think you should say, don’t,” Alyssa said, and her face hardened along with her resolve. “You’re coming back, remember?”

Zusa smiled at her.

“Of course, my mistress,” she said, then vanished into the corridors of the mansion. She weaved through them like a ghost, slipped through the courtyard without being seen by the guards, and then vaulted over the fence. She could only hope the other Faceless would not attack in her absence. She’d searched the grounds for hours before leaving, just to be sure, but there was no way to know for certain. It was a gamble, but one she had to take.

She’d made Daverik a promise: if he came after Alyssa and her family, then nothing would protect him. It was a promise she had every intention of keeping. She kept to the streets, needing speed more than anything. Her strike had to come before the temple decided to act again. The mob had failed to accomplish their goal, and her daggers had protected Alyssa from their Faceless. Two failures...it would be too much to expect a third.

Zusa slowed as she neared the temple. To most it would have appeared to be a large, well-furnished private mansion, but those who knew how to look, who had bent the knee to Karak, saw differently. They saw a great temple cut from black marble, the path to it lined with stone. Statues of lions roared from atop various pillars, their teeth sharp, their eyes always watching. Zusa remembered her final day within it, the day she’d been stripped and banished. The Faceless, unworthy of Karak’s presence, were boarded elsewhere. Zusa had been tempted to seek out the Faceless where they slept, but they were just puppets, not the real threat. Even with their deaths, more would come. Priests, perhaps, or dark paladins. She had to find the reason for Karak’s ire, and see if she could somehow defuse it.

With a running leap she sailed over the fence. Drawing her daggers in mid-air, she landed with a quiet whisper of bending grass and sliding dirt. In the silence of the night, she let out a single prayer, a soft blasphemy against the temple she was about to enter.

“I have seen no love from you, Ashhur,” she breathed. “But I ask for it now. Help me kill him. Help me save my family.”

The wind blew, and she took that for her answer. Like an uncoiling serpent she moved, a sudden burst without pause or doubt. She knew the layout of the temple, knew where there’d be guards, priests, young disciples, and serving women. They would not have changed a thing over the ten years, she knew. Karak was not fond of change, especially when it came to his most devout followers. Her feet barely touched the grass as she ran, gathering momentum. It was suicide, she knew, to attack the temple head on, even at night, with her prey unprepared. Suicide.

Her grin spread.

At full speed she leapt feet first toward the door of the temple. The entranceway was dark, with nothing but the stars to give it light. Eyes closed, she focused, thought of the inner chambers. They’d be lit with torches, but not the door, deep in the entryway. Her feet did not touch wood, but passed right on through. She emerged on the other side, and her daggers lashed out, cutting the necks of two guards positioned on the interior. As they fell behind her, she landed on the soft carpet and tucked into a roll to preserve her momentum. Pulling out, she raced between the pews, toward the great statue of Karak at the end of the gathering hall. Before, it had been the altar they’d bled Daverik upon. She felt an impulse to kneel before the imposing statue that towered so greatly above her, but fought it down. That wasn’t her god anymore.

To the left was a door into the greater complex, where the priests slept. It was there she’d find Daverik’s room, and with any luck, she’d get the answers she needed through the work of her daggers. Upon reaching the door she slammed into it with her shoulders, blasting it inward. Entering a hallway, she lunged, extending her body to its fullest, as a priest turned from his seat beneath a flickering torch, an old tome in his lap. The words of a spell were on his lips as the tip of her dagger pierced his throat, silencing him. Her shoulder absorbed the impact of her landing, and then she rolled past, pulling her dagger free along the way. Blood gushed across the carpet.

So far, so good, but Zusa knew she’d been lucky. The slightest cry of warning, and everything would become much, much harder.

Still running, she passed silently through the hall, her cloak a ghost of cloth following after. She tried to think of where Daverik might be staying. There had been no man teaching them last time; instead, a fellow member, Eliora, had been the trainer and spiritual leader of the Faceless. That meant Daverik would have no official room prepared for him, such as there was for the high priest.

At a cross section, she peered around the corner, looking left and right. She caught a man changing candles as he moved down the hall. She waited until his back was to her before approaching. Her left arm pressed against his mouth, the other shoving a dagger through his back and into his heart. As he shuddered, she let him drop, then glanced about. Too many rooms. She couldn’t just open them at random. Where would Daverik be?

He was new there, she realized, little more than a guest. And guests had a specific place they were given, the rooms far more ornate, the intricate paintings exaggerating the power and importance of the priesthood. Urging herself on, she glanced back, wondering how long until someone found a body. Not long. She had to move faster.

At the guest’s room she stopped and pressed her ear to the door. She heard no movement, no sign of life within. But it was dark, and Daverik would most likely be asleep. Gently she grabbed the doorknob and started to twist.

The door flung open with explosive force, knocking her backward. As she hit the opposite wall, she rolled, narrowly avoiding a kick from a Faceless Woman. Zusa’s daggers flashed out, parrying stabs, and then she was running down the hall, back toward the entrance. Curses screamed in her mind. When another Faceless stepped in her way, shadows curling off her body like smoke, Zusa knew it for what it was.

A trap laid out just for her.

“You won’t stop me!” she cried, leaping at her foe. They collided in a mess of limbs and daggers, lashing and stabbing, neither able to score a solid blow. Pulling herself free, Zusa dropped to her back, ducking beneath a hurled dagger from the other. Hoping to gain some distance, she ran again, but doors started opening, and she heard the deep thrumming of a bell located in the bowels of the temple, alerting all to her presence. One man tried to jump in her way, but she slammed right into him, her knees blasting him to the ground, her daggers ending the spell he’d tried to cast. Another, this one a priestess, remained in her doorway, and at her passing she hurled a bolt of red lightning. The power arced through Zusa’s body, and she screamed her agony away.

The spell slowed her movement, and a foot swept beneath her. Falling, she raised her daggers, just barely blocking Ezra’s downward strike. Pushing her away, she rolled to her knees. A bolt of shadow flung from another priest rushing to join them from further ahead. She dodged it, along with his follow-up, but then the priestess caught her with a shadow bolt of her own. It slammed into her body, bruising flesh and sapping at her strength. This time Zusa gave no scream, unable to muster the strength.

The two Faceless Women surrounded her, each blocking an entrance, as more and more priests and priestesses gathered. Zusa kept weaving side to side, struggling to breathe through the pain. She saw no way out, but it didn’t matter. She’d die fighting, and would not die alone.

“Attack me, cowards!” she screamed, ignoring the pain it caused. Instead they fell back, and furious, she flung herself toward a group. Her daggers plunged and stabbed, but she could not connect. Lightning and shadow swelled against her, forming a wall she could not penetrate. Its very touch jolted her limbs. The Faceless Women both chose that moment to attack, kicking her with their long legs. One took the air from her lungs, the other connecting with her kidneys. Gasping, Zusa collapsed to the cold floor, unable to stand. A dagger slipped around her neck and pressed against her throat.

“Don’t kill her!”

Through dazed eyes, Zusa looked up to see Daverik pushing through the crowd. He knelt before her, and put a hand against her forehead as whoever held the dagger backed off.

“You poor thing,” he said, letting her go. “You poor, foolish thing. Take her.”

Something hard struck the back of her head, and then came darkness.

T
he first thing Zusa noticed when she came to was the sound of running water. It was constant, and close, as if a river fell in the same room. The second was how her hands and legs were bound with chains, the metal on the inside sharp and jagged so that the slightest movement drew blood.

“Open your eyes, little doll,” whispered a sweet voice. Zusa did, and saw an older man standing over her. His face was wrinkled, and free of any facial hair. His eyes were a pale blue, and when he smiled his serpent’s smile, it was without teeth. He wore the robes of a priest, but instead of black, they were a deep red.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Does the little doll not remember me? I am Vrashka. I was there when you were banished, and your little boy beaten. I held the whip. Do you not remember?”

Despite the years, she did indeed remember. More so, she remembered the name of Vrashka, Pelorak’s most favorite and ruthless torturer.

“I know you,” Zusa said, looking beyond him to take in her surroundings. She was in a small stone cell, poorly lit. The temple’s prison, of course. She sat on the floor, her arms and legs manacled to the wall. The only thing she did not recognize, nor understand, was that constant sound of water. “Just a sick old man.”

“It’s been a long time,” Vrashka said, stepping back and crossing his arms over his chest so he could look down at her. “I have gotten older, yes, I have little doll. But I have also gotten wiser, too. Do you see this?”

He stepped aside, revealing the source of the water. It was a strange sight, as if a stalactite had grown from the stone ceiling. Stretching a foot downward, it stopped, its tip hollow so that water might run out in a constant stream. It fell into a small spiral cut into the floor, causing the water to swirl before dropping into a hole, going how far down below, Zusa did not know. Perhaps to the depths of the world, perhaps all the way into the Abyss where it could trickle on Karak’s head.

“Am I supposed to be afraid of water?” Zusa asked, hoping to keep him talking. She felt her strength returning, and where she was manacled there were many shadows. The chains would not hold her, not for long.