Six months later
He was just a shadow, seated in a corner of the tavern, as far away from the fire as he could get. Even my eyesight might have mistaken him for the darkness cast by an overhanging beam, except for the occasional glimpse of a liquid eye. And for the skin ruffling sensation creeping its way up my spine.
I almost turned to go, but I needed the money. And this one was paying well—better than well. Besides, I’d worked for vampires before. They were, after all, the ones most concerned with revenants, the monsters created when a vampiric change went wrong.
And as a dhampir, revenants were my bread and butter.
The skin ruffling sensation became worse as I threaded my way through the tables, although it was hard to concentrate on my prospective employer. The crowd this evening was large and boisterous, but not for the usual reasons. Instead of drunken laughter, off-key singing and outrageous flirting with the barmaids, they were angry.
No, make that furious, I thought, as a fight broke out, causing me to have to sidestep.
An English sailor had his head slammed into the bar, and then was kicked at the fire when he fell over, scattering sparks across the scarred, wooden floor. Another barely escaped a knife to the ribs, only to gouge a knuckle into his opponent’s eye, hard enough to burst it. Then they and the group of Spaniards they’d been quarreling with tumbled out of the door, taking their fight into the street beyond.
The bar was frequented by Spanish sailors, possibly because the taverna was owned by one of their countrymen, and news had just come in of the destruction of the great Armada, broken on the rocks of the Scottish coastline, after having been flayed by wind and waves and lightning for days on end.
It almost seemed like some supernatural force had been at work.
Perhaps God is a Protestant, the English sailors had jeered. Perhaps the devil fights on your side, the Spanish had seethed. I guessed it depended on your point of view.
My point of view was that I wished they’d bleed on something besides my boots, and I pushed an unconscious combatant aside before sliding onto a stool across from the shadow.
“Nice place you picked,” I said, noticing the heavy gold ring he wore, with some kind of family crest.
Expensive.
Good; I mentally upped my fee.
And then stared, slack jawed, as he spilled an entire bag of gold onto the table, every piece of it glinting with hope and promise.
“I am Mircea Basarab,” he told me simply. “Your father. And we have much to talk about.”
* * *
“It looks strange,” Elinor said, as they approached the alehouse.
“What does?” Kit asked, and shifted her to his other hip. That was harder these days, as she’d finally had a growth spurt and was getting too big to be carried. But he didn’t want her to soil her pretty new shoes on the mucky cobblestones, so he was managing.
A thieves’ call echoed down the street announcing his arrival, and several heads poked out of nearby houses and then went back in again.
He was becoming a familiar sight in this area, and no longer provoked comment.
But one little boy waved to him, and Kit managed to wave back despite his armload of flounces. A few people were beginning to warm up, mainly because he was running the alehouse now. As well as the portal that allowed them to avoid the worst ravages of the famine that still gripped the country in its skeletal hands.
It would pass eventually, but until it did, and until he could find some witch to take over, Kit was the proprietor based on the fact that he’d rebuilt the place.
“That,” Elinor said, and pointed at the front of the house, which was not noticeably of better quality than it had been before a dragon rampaged through it. Kit had been afraid to change too much, in case it caused the parts still standing to collapse in on themselves, and take the surrounding houses along with them.
“What about it, sweetheart?”
“It’s bright.”
“It’s new wood,” Kit told her, as they headed inside.
“Why isn’t the whole street nice and clean?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at the smells.
“Cause that would attract attention, love,” a woman said, and Kit looked up to see Leta coming downstairs. “And then the nasty Circle might come nosing about—”
“And nobody wants that!” Elinor said, causing the former doxy to laugh.
“No, they don’t,” she said, and took the girl from Kit. “You’re getting heavy. Last time I saw you, I swear you were half this size!”
“She growing out of everything,” Kit said. “We’re off to the shops now as she needs new gloves, when I just had some made for her a few months ago. I am become the tradesmen’s friend. They light up when they see me coming.”
“Cause they know they’ll take you for a fool. I’ve told you to wait ‘til I can come with you.”
“I can bargain for myself—”
“Aye, badly. It takes a bandit to know one!”
Kit sighed, and hoped he was misinterpreting that. “Tell me you aren’t thieving again.”
She looked offended. “Not now!”
He let his skepticism settle onto his face.
“We’re not, none o’ us,” she insisted. “We’re spies these days.”
“And what do my spies have for me that was so important that I must come down here to see it?” he asked.
“This way,” she said, and put Elinor down.
“Kitties!” the girl said delightedly, running up the stairs to where half a dozen were lounging about, ostensibly guarding the way.
“Yes,” Kit said, following her, and eyeing the creatures warily. “The kitties need to play nice.”
One raised a leg and licked its arsehole at him, which . . . was par for the course.
“There’s more upstairs,” Leta told Elinor. “They always want to know what’s going on.”
“What is going on?” Kit demanded again, and was shot an amused look and nothing more.
But he didn’t have long to wait, for at the top of the stairs . . .
“What is this?” he asked, as Elinor squealed and went to play with the dozen or so cats prowling about what had once been Rilda’s bedroom. And now . . . he didn’t know what it was.
“Your new study,” Leta said proudly. “We left the bed, in case you want to sleep over.” She indicated Rilda’s dilapidated four-poster, which a pile of former thieves were currently drinking on top of.
“And I need this why?” he asked, as the ex-friar hoisted a tankard at him.
“It’s getting harder to slip in t’see you at t’other place,” John, the ex-Abraham man, said. “And the ship’s even worse.”
“Aye,” Dick, the former courtesy man, agreed. “A boatman asked me if it was a floating brothel, so many men he’d rowed out there recently.”
“That’s no way t’run a proper clandestine operation,” Liam, the once potty counterfeit crank, added. He had turned out to be considerably less potty than Kit had first imagined, but played the part so well that he often kept playing it even when it was no longer necessary.
He’d been an invaluable aid in Kit’s work for the Senate. They all had, knowing more about the London underworld than he ever would, and hearing all sorts of rumors that might never have come to his ears otherwise. The intelligence network the Consul had wanted him to create for her had been made infinitely easier with their help.
And now, they’d made him a headquarters.
“D’ye like it?” Leta asked idly, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other, although Kit knew her better by now.
“It’s perfect,” he said, because it was. “As usual.”
They grinned at him, his little group of thieves, and then went downstairs to break open a barrel to celebrate, as that was their answer to everything. Elinor went along because she wanted to play with the cats, who were quickly abandoning Kit since food often accompanied the ale. All except for one.
The solid white creature who seemed to be the leader of the group of former familiars stayed, eyeing him from her perch on top of the table. It had been left in place, along with its chairs, and a new narrow one with a sloped-lid desk box had been added against one of the now bare walls. The portraits were gone, he wasn’t sure where, but he was glad for it.
The room felt less oppressive without their gaze on him, he had to admit. This was a new era, and they needed to be looking forward towards building a future, not back to a past that, for good or for bad, was lost to them. And yet . . .
“You remember her,” a woman’s voice said.
Kit didn’t have to turn around to know who stood there, although she had never spoken to him before.
“Yes.”
“I thought the acolytes blurred your mind.”
“Somewhat. There are things that remain. The most important ones.”
“Is that why you are doing this? For her?”
“You seem surprised.”
“Witches and vampires are usually enemies. I have wondered.”
Kit did look back then, over his shoulder. And saw the same woman that he had glimpsed on his first day at the alehouse. Human-like and stunningly beautiful, with hair as white as her fur had been, but it was the compassion on her face that truly struck him.
Perhaps that was why he answered honestly.
“For love. That is what she chose in the end. Love over hate, for her country, for her daughter, for me. Could I do any less?”
She didn’t answer. But she did change back to her alternate form, jumped off the table, and flowed down the stairs to join the others. He supposed he must have passed the test.
He started to follow her, but found himself sitting in front of the desk instead. And pulling over a sheet of paper, a stack of which had been made ready for him, along with a quill and ink. His little band of rogues had thought of everything, but he . . . he only thought of one thing.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.