The Pact, page 23
part #1 of The Dark Roads Series
Like a blood sense, D'aej licked out into the air, feeling around them for the sense of the one they sought.
He's here, he assured Serenity, directing her eyes to the bustling saloon on the western corner of the next cross street. The sign above the doors read The Stinger's Pit. It brought a grim and humorless smile to her face. She crossed the dusty road and walked through the doors, into the scorpions' den.
A shiver of cold dropped down her spine as she crossed the threshold. The sensation came from D'aej, setting himself in place for a fight. The acrid smell of stale beer permeated the dark, smoky room, perfumed with the cloying, sour stench of sweat. Men, dozens of them, hulking and beefy, scrawny and short, huddled at tables over their drinks, mumbling and muttering to each other in a sort of low, suspicious hum. An unhappy-looking saloon girl or two sauntered the floor, swinging their hips, flashing lipstick smiles and smoldering winks smudged with heavy eye shadow, carrying trays of dirty mugs. Very few lanterns hung about the space, smudgy and sooty things all, and some sections of the saloon looked like they might be lit only by the sparks at the end of men's cigarettes, glowing eerily in the thick, ash-reeking smoke.
She scanned the crowd, feeling D'aej do the same. Her hand hidden subtly at her side, she cast a rune for second sight, and their paired senses opened even further. So many of the men before them, murderers, and not a small few of them, rapists. The man she sought became just a pitiful, smothered ember next to the sins of his brothers, and part of her—part of D'aej—would have liked to blow the whole tavern to hell, if only to tear up the roots of so many terrible men all at once, and rid Geiral of them forever. She kept her silence and stepped to the side, though, watching the room with careful, cat-like eyes. D'aej's eyes.
He—the man who shot Jack—sat at a table under the stairs, in a huddle of men playing cards. A tan, unshaven outrider in dirty jeans and an old, tattered army jacket from one of the garrison towns in the west. An army deserter, no surprise there, or else he'd stolen the uniform off the corpse of a soldier. He wasn't the largest man at the table, though certainly not scrawny, and his ugly sneer said he wasn't a sniveling toady, either. The longer she studied him the more she thought him the kind of man who signed on with gangs when the pay suited him, keeping to himself when the dynamics and the pecking order of a group didn't. He tied his dirty black hair back into a greasy, short ponytail under a raggedy sombrero, and he reached up to scratch his head about as often as a dog with fleas.
And Reap shot him six times, like a dog in the street...
There he is, fleshling, D'aej purred. Are you ready?
She didn't answer, but kept staring, as if her eyes could burn a hole through his flesh and into his bones. Here sat the man who'd taken Jack. This man pulled the gun and murdered a son of tiewaz, the light-bearer, without even knowing or caring what he did. To him, the man he'd killed so many years ago was nothing but a distant memory, if that. He'd fired, and then he ran. Hell, he probably never even found out for sure if the man who caught those bullets lived or died. He'd killed to avoid a simple bar fight, and fled to escape the prison bars.
What Serenity meant to give him instead, though, would be worse than he would ever believe.
Serenity, look at him! D'aej muttered in disgust. He's worthless, just a filthy, stupid rat of a creature. And this is what you sought out my power to destroy?
She nodded, more to herself since the gesture wasn't necessary for D'aej to catch her meaning. She stared so hard it amazed her the bandit hadn't noticed her yet. But she couldn't take her eyes off him.
You couldn't kill this pathetic sack on your own with those pistols you carry?
"Wouldn't be good enough," she replied, leaning back against the bar. The barkeep made his way over to her to take her order, but when he addressed her, she still didn't turn.
"Hey, lady!" he growled. "You want something, or are ya just hustlin' my customers? I got whores get paid to do that, so you can go strut your stuff out on the street."
"I want a whiskey," she said, without moving. "Amber whiskey. And then I want a room."
He fell quiet for a moment. She thought maybe the cold, even tone in her command struck him momentarily dumb. But, shaking off the hesitation, he took a glass from the shelf with a grumble and poured her drink.
"Here's your booze, but like I said, if you're trying to use my rooms for business—"
"I don't do that kind of business," she replied, silencing him again. She took the drink from his hand, and, after giving her another mean glower of scrutiny, he wandered back down the bar.
She sipped her drink slowly. She studied her man like a spread of the cards, as Rook had shown her. The outlaw's movements, the twitch of his eyes and fingers, the way he carried himself over the table... Everything was important, everything a brief but relevant clue in finding out how to hurt this man the most.
He was perpetually suspicious. She saw it straight off the bat. Poker players were by nature sneaky and protective of their hands, but he bordered on paranoid. His glare roamed back and forth across the other players at each little gesture, trying to snatch a glance of their cards or catch one of them spying on his. He chewed his cigarette, restless and ornery, and each time he lost—it happened often enough—he scowled around the table and grumbled vicious oaths and obscenities, personally affronted by his own poor luck.
Serenity quirked an eyebrow when he slapped aside the hand of one of the waitresses setting down a drink for the player beside him. He spat at her, pushing her away, grumbling and swearing about her sneaky eyes and thieving little fingers.
I sssseen ‘em...them whory witches! They stealin' my money with ‘eir devil's tricks!
And she sipped her drink, musing.
Finally, after an hour, the outlaw threw down his hand of cards with a sour surrender, and his eyes caught hers. Across the bar their gazes locked, and like an electric shock, recognition sparked between them.
Serenity offered him a knowing smile. Her hand drifted down to the edge of her long duster and nudged it aside, letting him see Jack's gun, heavy on her hip. She tapped the butt of it twice, and let the coat fall back into place.
The look on his face turned to fear. It muddled up with curiosity, anger, and interest, to be sure, but the fear was there, and it was a beautiful sight. Of course he wouldn't recognize the pistol. Things happened too long ago and were too meaningless in his mind for that. But she intended him to know she was gunning for him, and now he surely must. A man like him probably lived through many such moments when the law or some hired gun caught up to him. But this time would be different. Because something was different about her.
Could he feel it? She hoped so. And she grinned, satisfied she'd set him on his guard.
She handed the barkeep her empty glass.
"I think I'll have that room now, friend."
***
Once behind the closed door of the small bedroom, Serenity crossed to the window and looked out. The long, golden rays of sunlight stretched across the street below. Afternoon was getting tired, and in another long, lazy hour or two, the sun would set.
Why did you let the quarry see you? D'aej muttered. You might as well have walked right up to him and told him who you are. Do you think he's going to stick around now?
"No," she said. "He's going to run."
So what was the point? You could have had him there in the bar. We could have staged it with any number of runes and made it look like an accident, and you could have walked away with your justice and no further trouble!
She shook her head. "Using a curse to make his death look natural forgoes everything I've studied so hard for. I'm not passing up the chance to use my curse, and make sure he suffers."
Then why did you let him know we were here?
"I want him to know."
The darkling's frustration came as a burst of bright, aggravated colors, like a shattering church glass. So he can get away, after how far we've come to find him?
"He's not going to get away, D'aej. You know it just as well as I. He may think he can. He thinks he has the advantage over me, that I'm just some green bounty hunter fresh from the farm. But you know he can't run away from me. I know where he'll go. And that's the way I want it."
He sighed. So where will he go, then?
"He'll leave Tichurgas tonight. Maybe as soon as his card game ends, and he can duck out without raising any red flags. He's been pushing further and further east along the desert border up until now. Heading somewhere specific. Maybe there's a job somewhere in southern towns by the river or near tribal lands, or a gang he's joining up with for raiding. Whatever it is, it's doubtful one glimpse of a mercenary girl shorter and smaller than him will convince him to change course, at least not yet. He'll keep an eye over his shoulder, but he won't start to worry unless I catch up to him again. Then he'll be irritated enough with me to do something about it."
Her voice held steady, but her hand, grasping the windowsill, turned white at the knuckles. It hardly hurt—the pain, distant—but the darkling still took quick notice, and read the dangerous timbre running underneath her cool control. She felt him recede into the under-mind, monitoring her body more closely.
"If he catches me following him again, he'll pair up with some buddies to try and outnumber me," she continued, reciting her careful study. "But he won't get far enough in time. He'll get a horse tonight and ride out for the next town on the border...and we'll catch him before he gets there."
She left the window, sinking down into the room's single wooden chair and lighting the lamp on the table beside it. She began to deal out the cards.
"It's almost over, Jack," she muttered, hardly hearing herself over the distant rumble beyond the sandy hills. She dealt out a quick hand—tiewaz, othala, and wunjo, all in reverse—and began her long, silent wait.
The storm rolled in right after sunset, a hot, desert squall line. It woke Serenity from her studying, the sound of thunder telling her the time had come. The night grew hot, hotter than normal, and the air grew thick with its humid breath. Sometime during her dealing, she'd lost track of the temperature; as she looked up and out the window, she realized with vague interest she burned like a fever under her duster, the heat radiating through her bones.
She blew out the lamp, shutting the room away in shadows, and stood to take up her place by the sill, looking out over the town and into the land beyond it.
The vast expanse of sand and scree below marked the beginning of the Geiralian desert. It stretched out naked and bare to the storm's coming attack. Still dry and lonely for now, but as soon as the rain started, the dusty badlands would be pounded by a heartless fury.
It's like the Rachalör she thought to herself. Open, desolate...a slave to the will of the otherworld and the elements. And no one cares.
D'aej stirred, setting himself in tandem with her mind and signaling quiet agreement. Indeed, the land looked starkly alien under the black paw of the storm. She could almost imagine the sun never touched this place after all.
"Can you take me there?" she asked her darkling, pointing out at a huddle of boulders a few miles from the edge of town.
D'aej signaled an affirmative. The distance will be difficult. But we will manage it. As long as you can tame the runes.
Naturally. That part was never a problem.
She shut her eyes and her fingers ran through the signs, quietly twisting the rune of sowilo, the rune of light and the day, into merkstave, and let its power dance between her hands. She took a step backward, into the darkened corners, and there came an instant of piercing cold. The breath rushed out of her lungs, and she coughed. When she looked up again, the dingy hotel room had disappeared.
She stood in the shadows of the boulders, just beyond the town's water tower and alone on the naked, baking sands. The heat rose up from the hardpacked earth, even worse out here than it had been inside. Her skin tingled with it, and the hairs on the back of her neck grew damp with sweat. She raised her head, listening to the night, and the slow, ponderous rumble of the thunder rolling overhead. The air smelled crisp and bitter, the scent of dry desert scrub and the predatory musk of coyotes stark in the gathering wind.
"We're ahead of him," she marveled. D'aej didn't bother to ask her how she knew. She couldn't have given him an answer. Like the spread of her cards, it simply came to her.
Only a few moments passed, however, before the beat of hooves on the stubborn earth reached their ears. Serenity's fingers twitched as she waited, breath held, for the rider to come into view. It must be her outlaw. No one else in Tichurgas had enough reason to tempt this weather.
I will be the one to do this, she thought, for the first time addressing D'aej through the silent threads of their bond instead of speaking to him aloud. I'll want your power to aid me in the spell, but I'm going to be the one who kills him. Don't you dare try and take the body away from me, no matter what happens.
For the first time ever, the darkling didn't argue. He signaled patient, quiet assent, and paired himself to her mind, his thrumming power resonating in her bones.
Just as she registered her darkling's cooperation, the rider galloped past them without noticing, his horse's hooves a brutal clatter on the naked earth as he rode, hard, away from Tichurgas.
"Ehwaz," she whispered, twisting her fingers into the sign and then switching them to pull it backward toward her chest. The rune for "horse" also carried with it an aspect of "motion" and "movement." In one snap of her hands, the rider's mount stumbled and stopped in its tracks. Sensing the crackling presence of a darkling near, the beast reared with a frightened whinny. The rider, her prey, cried out, trying to keep his seat, and she forked a second sign, sending the horse into a thrashing, bucking fit. Despite the outlaw's best efforts it threw him, taking off into the night just as a bright fan of dry lightning illuminated Serenity in the shadow of the rocks.
The man's eyes widened, and he crawled backward on the sand, trying to get to his feet. She stalked from her hiding place and approached him, marking his clumsy scrabbling, the fistfuls of dirt he pulled up in sudden panic.
"Witch!" he screamed. The darkling must have been in her eyes, the wild yellow gaze sparking hungrily at the sight of prey. "Devil!"
Shut him up, will you?
"Zus-na," she muttered.
He fell silent. His jaw worked, his lips moved, but no sound came out. As she neared him, he drew his gun—she raised her eyebrows, seeing the same, cold weapon after all this time—and fired.
D'aej took care of it. Without her having to think, her body shifted, passing through the familiar instant of cold while her right hand quickly flipped the sign, and she ducked the bullet, still walking, as if nothing at all had changed, except the direction from which she approached.
Her quarry glanced feverishly around, trying to mark her, trying to see where she'd gone, and shuddering in sudden fear when he found her even closer, perfectly unharmed. She'd walked through the darkness in the blink of an eye.
Blind him, Serenity, D'aej purred.
"A-reJ."
The outlaw dropped the gun with a silent shout and pawed at his eyes. Now he was hers, weak and useless, laid out on the sand like a morsel before the hungry demon.
She glowered at him. D'aej judged the man correctly: a pathetic, dirty, useless pile of festering flesh. He reeked of booze and dirt, skin he hadn't washed in a week at best, the sour smell of chewing tobacco clinging to the ratty stubble on his cheek. How such a wretched, pathetic figure could have simply shot and killed a man like Jack—could have simply pointed a gun and ended the life of someone so full, so vibrant and virile and alive, when he himself was so hollow and rotting—it left her dumbfounded. The balance of power, of life, wasn't supposed to work in such random, stupid wheels. Jack put men like this away...not the other way around.
"You just got lucky," she muttered.
The man scrambled frantically to recover his weapon, ducking away from her voice. She kicked him, hard and sharp in the ribs, watching him cringe with a sneer on her face.
"That's all, isn't it?" she continued, circling him. "That a man like you—a shithouse rat like you—could kill him...it's ridiculous. You should have been laid out in the dust before you even got your gun out of its holster and pulled off a shot. You just got lucky."
His frantic hands finally found his pistol. He spun and fired it in the direction of her voice, and this time D'aej didn't react in time. To her delight, though, the man's luck appeared to be out. A lancing sting left a hot furrow across her cheek. She hardly noticed. All she could see was the murderer laid out before her. The gun, the hand, and finally the face, the face of the man who killed her teacher and friend. The man she'd chased across the western half of Geiral, from north to south, from the Rachalör to the desert.
Her fingers itched, her mind spinning through the litany of runes she'd written for just this moment. But she couldn't destroy him just yet. His survival instinct certainly must be desperate and dangerous, and even blind he would get a good shot off eventually if she just kept standing there studying him—but still, she couldn't bring herself to dance through the chain.
She'd studied cards for seven years to bring this rat to her feet. And after all this time, she needed to see him, all of him, gun and hands and face and all, and study him. She wanted to understand him, everything he represented, and how it could tip the balance of justice so obscenely.
"I didn't expect more from you anyway, of course," she murmured, sidestepping to avoid the aim of his gun.
The outlaw tried to climb to his feet, his blank, rheumy eyes searching fruitlessly for her.
"The kind of man who runs off after shooting someone just for trying to break up a fight—who lays out a handsome young hero in the streets of his own hometown and then just turns tail and runs—well, you couldn't amount to much of a man after all, now, could you?"
He dropped his jaw in helpless anger, trying to scream at her as he followed her words in a circle, waving his gun. Tears of frightened rage sprung up at the corners of his eyes.
