The Treasure Keeper

Chapter Nine

She was a passable dancer. It wasn't due to the fact that she'd had a great many public opportunities in the past; she could count on one hand the number of drakon balls thrown by the Marquess and Marchioness of Langford at Chasen Manor, and certainly she'd never been invited outside the shire for any others.

No, she could dance strictly because Cerise loved to dance, and together they had practiced many a long, silly night as girls, drawing straws to see who would be the gentleman to lead. Mother had done her duty at the pianoforte, laughing almost as hard as they.

Granted, Zoe was rather better at the slower steps, but there was nothing like that being played in this packed smoky hall. Most of the sets were simple jigs, with everyone bobbing up and down and bowing and turning; even in the confusion of bodies and slapping skirts, she had the way of it nearly at once.

The coachman gave her a grin, revealing a missing front tooth. She grinned back, letting their hands remain clasped a little longer than was proper before twirling to her right to hook arms with another man.

Painted faces; bellowing voices. The frantic melodies from the fiddles and horns.

She allowed the cloak slowly to descend, slowly, slowly, enveloping her in those wings. It took concentration to hold it so firmly at bay, to keep it chained to her will. She missed two steps in a row and managed to laugh about it. The coachman laughed too.

The cloak settled over them soft as silence, wrapped them together. The man faltered a little, his smile fading, but Zoe had mastered the dance by now and moved smoothly to his side.

They clasped hands again.

She thought, Show me.

She saw the countryside in winter. She saw fields of snow glimmering under white-bone moonlight. Horses in front of her pulling a rig. Bitter wind in her face carrying the scent of plowed earth and seed. Manure.

No, not any of this. Hayden.

The coach yard and the stables. The other drivers smoking and drinking, a circle of cards and a lamp burning whale oil on an overturned crate.

A dun-haired man, a lean face darkened by the sun. Neither plain nor handsome. A scar across one eyebrow. Probing gray eyes, his mouth lifted into an expression of sardonic query over the splay of his cards. By the capes of his coat, likely another driver.

Hayden,she thought, ferocious.

But the same man came again, regarding her now by the deep ginger glow of firelight, speaking words she could not hear but could almost feel, syllables shaping themselves into meaning inside her ears.

. you'll like the recompense . you won't make more anywhere else, i promise you that, and for such a small thing, after all. they're criminals of a sort, you understand, a gang of them, our comrades assured me you can be discreet, and no one's complained yet about getting a few extralivresa month for doing almost nothing...

It came upon her in a sudden wave: nausea, rolling up from her stomach into her throat, stilling her feet. In a rush of noise the dance hall came back to her, the couples and the fiddles and the echo of drunken laughter, the residue of burning tobacco curling across her face. She stumbled to a halt and pressed a hand to her lips.

They stood there, she and the coachman in the middle of the dance floor, staring at each other through the haze. The people around them shouted in a good-natured way, jostling, trying to get them to move.

Zoe lowered her hand. "It's too warm, isn't it?" She didn't wait for his reply, instead weaving her fingers through his and pulling him along. The coachman followed, docile as a child.

The air outside the hall was hardly fresher than indoors; it left a sour wooden flavor in her mouth and still couldn't banish the aroma of pipe and beer that billowed up and around her in clouds. Groups of Others lingered outside in the pools of amber light shed from the torches, men speaking sotto voce to wet-lipped girls, couples in the shadows groping, no longer speaking at all. She looked around quickly, searching for an isolated spot.

There was a path of flagstones winding around to the unlit side of the chapel. She followed it, still pulling the man along.

It ended in a small courtyard, dusty and rolling with debris; no one else had ventured here yet. An ancient well loomed by the stump of some long-rotted tree. Its bucket hung askew by a rope, giving an occasional mellow thump against the metal framework.

Something rustled above them. A flock of pigeons atop the roof took flight in a flurry of wings, sailing off with burbling cries.

Zoe turned and pulled the coachman closer with a coquettish tug. From beyond the turn in the path, a woman giggled and then murmured something husky and welcoming.

"I don't ." the coachman began, sounding perplexed.

She stroked the backs of her fingers to his cheek, felt the heated scruff of his beard, the pox scars beneath. "Alain, yes? Alain Fortin?"

"Yes," he whispered, staring down at her fixed as a statue, as if he'd never move again. "But how ."

The cloak dropped about them in ripples of endless blue.

...and it'll be easy. you just keep your eyes open. you contact me if you ever see anything like what i've described. the horses spooking. a fine-looking englishman or one from central europe. moneyed. inclined to remain apart from you and the beasts. it's very simple, isn't it?

...and then what? Zoe felt her lips ask.

nothing, my friend. and then nothing. a nice fat reward for you, that's all. better not to ask anything beyond that, eh?

The breeze stirred, redolent now of coal and oil and unwashed animals, pushing at the weight of her hair against her shoulders. She let it flow over her, through her, let it tear little holes through the veil of the cloak, larger and larger.

The coachman blinked as if coming out of a reverie. He still grasped her hand.

"Tell me his name," Zoe said to him.

Alain's eyes cut to hers. He gave a short shake of his head.

"His name," she urged softly, curling her fingers around his just a little tighter. "The name of the other driver who bribed you."

" Wha—what are you?" the coachman gasped.

"Drakon,"came the answer, just behind her.

The cloak broke instantly into mist, voices and memories and souls twisting upward to heaven in a rising thin shriek. Gone.

She didn't flinch or jerk; she merely turned her face to address the flagstones.

"What a peculiar word. Whatever could you mean?"

"Exactly what you think," replied the man standing behind her. "I've a pistol primed and a very sharp blade, mademoiselle. Don't you smell the gunpowder? And since you're female, I doubt there's much you can do about any of it."

Zoe looked back at Alain, who was squinting at the man surely visible over her shoulder. She freed his hand. "Run."

"No, don't," said the newcomer easily, and before she could react there was a blur and a thunk and a knife in Alain Fortin's chest, a hilt of blond wood with blood bubbling all around it.

Without any noise, without even a whimper, the coachman dropped to his knees.

From the high, bronzed lip of the chapel bell in its belfry, he watched the scene unfold.

Zoe, fair and alone with flowers in her hair, her skirts a sweep of blue shimmer, standing with her back to the man with the gun.

The bloke she'd been dancing with, bleeding a great shiny pool that was spreading in tentacles between the grooves of the flagstones.

"No," Rhys groaned, but of course it made no difference. No one even heard him.

"No,"he said again as Zoe took a step toward the dying man, who had lifted one shaking hand to the blade protruding from his waistcoat, his fingers and cuffs and coat smeared with red.

Zoe, Zoe—in danger, drawn up short by the curt command of the bastard behind her.

She was small as a doll from Rhys's vantage point. He was trapped, he couldn't leave, and the man with the gun was sure as hell going to shoot her, because there was no way she wouldn't fight him. She'd never go quietly. She'd come all the way to bloodyfaris to fight him—the son of a bitch had to be sanf inimicus —and the panic and horror that pounded through Rhys felt as real as anything he'd ever known in his mortal body—how the hell was he going to save her now—

And then he was on the ground with them. With the bleeding man. He was on his knees beside him—on his goddamned knees, with hard stone beneath—and Zoe was staring down at him with a white and startled face.

"That's better," the sanf was saying. "Less distraction. No, no. Kindly don't move, mademoiselle. Or is it madame?" He gave a little laugh. "Do monsters even bother with our human distinctions?"

"If you know what I am," murmured Zoe, still watching Rhys, "then surely you know I'm powerless against you. I have no Gifts."

Rhys leapt to his feet. He rushed past Zoe and took a swing at the man, but his fist only passed through him. For all his freedom he was still a ghost, still smoke. The sanf gave no indication he knew Rhys was there; a small, pinched smile began to twist his lips as he regarded the back of her head. Rhys tried to hit him again, and again, again. He wanted to roar in frustration, and the smug bastard only stood there posed as for a portrait with his chin up and shoulders relaxed, the pistol held lazily in his hand.

"I wasn't expecting a woman, I must admit," said the man. "But then again, it does hold a certain pretty logic. Where are the rest of you? How many are there?"

"There are no others. Not here."

The man clicked his tongue. "It's not a good idea to lie to me. I'll put a bullet through you one way or another, but I can make it less painful or more."

Zoe cocked her head. "Tell me, sir. Are your eyes perchance gray?

"I can't stop him," Rhys bit out. "I can't. I've tried. Don't antagonize him, Zee. The longer you can keep him talking, the better the odds someone else will come."

He tugged his hands through his hair, spun back to the man on the ground. If only he could rouse him—

"I'll ask you just once more, drakon."He spat the word. "Where are your others?"

"No others," she insisted; Rhys glanced up and she held him in a look of serene liquid black. Slowly she lifted an arm and removed the crown of flowers nestled in her coiffure. "Only me. So if you're going to shoot me, I suggest you do it now ."

"Shit,"said Rhys, watching her eyes grow blacker and blacker.

". you murderous, cowardly, contemptible little prick of a human," she added pleasantly, as if she'd just made a comment upon the fine weather.

He was so cold. He was cold and yet he was not, because the only parts of his body he could feel were his chest and head. Those were cold. The rest of him ... the rest of him didn't seem to exist any longer.

Alain rolled his eyes toward the woman in blue, the man—driver, fresh to the job, came late tonight, what was his name?—beyond her standing in the dark. They were carrying on a conversation as if he wasn't there at all, sprawled upon the ground. He remembered them both, walking here with her, lost in the winter stars of her eyes, adrift in her wake. And then the man had come.

It seemed unimportant now. His head dropped back and he was granted a view of the sky, a few pearly clouds spun out against the vault of night, straight and wispy thin like the furrows of a field. He was feeling warmer already.

"Get up," someone was saying in his ear. "Get up, damn you, get up!

Alain dragged his gaze toward the voice. There was a man there beside him, a new man, brighter than all their surroundings, with wild twisting hair and eyes of wolf-shining green.

"Up!" shouted the man. "You've got to help her! Get up,get up, get up!"

But Alain did not think he'd be getting to his feet anytime soon. He thought, with a distant sort of amazement, that in all likelihood he'd never find his feet again.

The green-eyed man pounded his fists against Alain's chest. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt. It felt, actually—

Rhys made contact with Zoe's beau, real contact, and then there was that tug of resistance, and his hands and forearms sank into the stabbed man's chest.

He felt him breathe. He felt the blood in his lungs, the bubbly rasping ache.

He felt it.

Later on Rhys would never be able to fully explain what manic thing seized him then; divine inspiration or the devil's own hand, it hardly mattered. All that mattered was that he realized what it meant. What he could do.

And so he did it.

A few things happened at once.

Her fingers released the paper flowers to the ground.

The sanf with the gun stepped forward, the soles of his shoes grinding against the minute grains of dust and grit that sprinkled the courtyard with a sound in her ears that was as loud as the ocean thundering to shore. His breath hissed out; the air in front of him pushed forward, parted with measurable friction against the surface of her back.

All her muscles grew taut, every inch of her flow and movement. As she was pivoting around she was Turning invisible, a gown that stood alone, hairpins suspended midair.

He wasn't expecting it, clearly. He pulled back, his eyes widening. The barrel of the pistol wavered, stealing the pallid light in a long, silvery dart.

One shot. That's all he'd have. One shot before she reached him.

The gown floated over the stones. She herself floated, dreamlike in her state of fury and fright, dodging the hollow black dot of the barrel trying to follow her, moving closer, and closer, until the man who was the filthy hand of the sanf inimicus peeled his lips back into a sneer and took a quick and steady aim at her dress.

Something flashed. She heard no noise from the gun, no retort. Felt no pain.

But she froze anyway, an instinctive reaction, waiting for it, for the blood at least.

The sanf still stared at her, the same sneer distorting his face. And there was the blood, gurgling down his jabot, staining the dull white ruffles with dark, dark liquid, because there was a knife in his throat. He pulled it out, lurching backward, his mouth opening and closing like a fish flopped to air.

Something heavy collapsed behind her. She whirled about and saw it was the other man, Hayden's driver. He'd gotten up somehow. He'd taken the knife and thrown it and saved her—

Zoe flung herself to her knees, pressing both palms to his chest. Alain Fortin stared up at her with wondering eyes.

"No, no." She pushed more firmly against his wound, blood leaking through her fingers; it smelled of hot metal and salt. His heartbeat thudded in slow, hard clouts, uneven against his breastbone. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry."

One breath. Another.

He seemed about to speak, but instead took one last, rattling breath that squeezed away into silence.

"Thank you," she whispered, and realized she'd said it in English. "Merci. Merci beaucoup." She sat back with her wet dripping hands, dazed. As soon as she did, a curious mirage seemed to take the coachman's body, a blurred swirling darkness that rose from inside him to envelop his features, his face and clothing like he was sinking into a pool—but he wasn't. The thing was rising out of him.

"You're welcome," said Rhys, pulling all the way free. "Damned good thing I pitched cricket at school."

She only just managed not to scream. She scrambled backward in surprise instead, her skirts caught beneath her, palms scraping against the flagstones.

"Is the other one dead?" the ghost of Rhys continued, stepping free from the body as easily as if he stepped over the raised entrance to a room. When she didn't respond he glanced down at her, brows lifted.

She could nearly see him—no reflection; there were no windows or glass nearby, only Rhys Langford standing there with all the depth and height and presence he'd always had in life, like a real person—perhaps one standing deep in the shade. The contours of his face, almost visible. The cut of his jaw. The gleam of his eyes.

He made a brisk motion with his hand.

"Zoe, quickly. You've got to check."

She rolled to her feet. The sanf lay splayed across the courtyard still clutching the knife. The pistol had dropped a few feet away. Blood had sprayed everywhere, matting his hair, a sharp arc across his cheek. The scar across his eyebrow had blanched white. He looked very dead.

A loop of something red and orange and purple lay crushed beside his elbow. She realized it was the gay circlet she'd been given for the dance, the paper flowers soaking up blood.

She couldn't take another step. She tried to and could not. It was so odd, like her feet had sunk roots all the way to the center of the earth. A strange cold shiver began crawling from her fingers to her arms to the column of her spine. To fight it she shook out her hands, hard, and heard the tiny spatter of Alain Fortin's blood hit the stones.

Rhys took the step that she did not.

"I know him," he said, his voice tight with excitement. "I know this man. I've seen him before."

She forced herself to speak. "Where?"

He shook his head, his long hair curling with smoke, then crouched down to his heels, examining the body. "I don't think he's dead yet. You'll have to finish it."

Her voice came as a strangled whisper. "No."

"You don't have a choice. Hurry. Don't worry, I'll—I'll tell you how."

"No!"

He stood, green eyes flashing. "Goddamn it. This is exactly what I was talking about before. You cannot let him live. He knows what you look like, that you're here in the city. He will hunt you. He will killyou, just as easily as he did that chap over there. These humans have no remorse. We're nothing but animals to them. Do you understand?"

She was panting, knowing he was right, that she had to do it. Their eyes clashed; she gave a short, affirmative jerk of her head. From the ground came a harsh, wet sound; they both glanced back at the man. The sanf twitched once and was still.

"All right," said the shadow, pushing back his hair. "Fine. Good. It's done. Do you think you can search his pockets?"

Move. Do it.

She bent and ran her hands over the sanf's coat, his breeches. She found the bulge of a wallet and a fob watch on a silver chain. A holster for the gun. That was all.

"Now go." Rhys was speaking more quickly now, his words soft and rushed, though of course no one else would overhear. "The other way, not the way you came in. Get out of here before another couple wanders through. I doubt anyone's drunk enough to misinterpret this."

Zoe blinked and gestured to the coachman. "I have to—"

"No," the shadow interrupted. "Half the dance hall saw you lead him back here. Believe me, your face is unforgettable. You need to get away now.

"Please," he said, when she still only stood there, clutching the wallet in her hands. He sounded tired suddenly, nearly exhausted. "For God's sake, Zoe. Just listen to me. Please."

She did not look at the two dead men again. She picked up the crushed circlet, pitched it down the well, turned on her heel, and went.

She was sick only once on the way back to the palace, finding an alley and then a wall as she lost the contents of her stomach, a beggar lolling unconscious at the other end, the shadow standing silently beside her.