Vengeance (29 page)

Gone. But she'd had it the night before—hadn't she? Surely she'd brought it home with her, not left it with that thing with the pulped face—

She cracked then, sobs racking her body. Was she losing her mind? She even wondered whether perhaps she had killed him, and blanked it out. No, even in her present state of mind she wasn't capable of that. She ran up the stairs panting wildly like a cornered animal and locked herself in her room.

That evening, she decided she needed divine intervention.

The Street of Shrines ran at right angles to Main Street and was nearly as long, running southwards from the junction with Main to the confluence of the Three Rivers. The gods worshipped here were older and sometimes more cruel than those of Main Street.

The street was one long procession of temples. Simple shrines for the lesser gods, all interspersed with shops. The street was dotted with flickering braziers and images of the gods, except those temples where the faith frowned on idolatry.

Smoke billowed from each brazier in a spiralling diagonal column. Toward the river end of the street, smoke particulates mingled with cooling air, turning fog to smog. Caught in the faintest of breezes, the smog split into tendrils, inquisitive fingers stroking hair here, touching an arm there.

Helen browsed at random, having no particular faith, but with the need for solace.

Eventually, she found a small temple at the far end of the street, a small unprepossessing place with only two pillars and the minimum of designs around the front. The whole area seemed almost deserted, so she slipped inside. The shrine was empty, and the sound of her feet slapping the marble floor echoed eerily. She looked around. There were only a few simple drawings of a serpent-headed woman, while the rest of the walls were bare and unadorned.

The place puzzled her. The decor indicated a moderately prosperous congregation. But it was deserted.
Oh well
, she mentally shrugged,
it doesn't matter. They probably only worship at new moons
. She turned to go.

"Can I help you?” The woman's voice made her jump.

"I'm sorry.” Helen laughed shakily, added, “I didn't see you there."

"You're looking for something? Or just passing?” The woman's voice was low and gentle. She was covered in ferocious-looking tattoos, and was nude apart from a short robe and a headdress in the shape of a serpent. She was older than Helen and was semi-emaciated. Ribs stood out under sagging breasts. Her wrists were covered in little puncture marks as if she injected herself regularly. Sightless eyes stared, but she had no problem following Helen's movements. “You seem troubled,” she said. “You are searching for something. Peace? Perhaps answers to questions?” She leaned forward, as if Helen had whispered an answer.

Despite herself, Helen was impressed. She took a deep breath. “I need help,” she admitted. “I fear I'm losing my mind."

"Whatever troubles you, I'm sure there are answers, if you only know how to ask,” the priestess soothed her. “Come. Pray.” They knelt at the base of a simple altar.

They prayed silently. The priestess stared ahead with her sightless eyes, and under gentle pressure, Helen bowed her head. When she raised it the hairs at the nape of her neck lifted at the shapeless rippling in the darkness. There was the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, and something slithered in the dark.

The priestess drew a plain bowl of beaten gold from the altar and took from her robe a ceremonial thorn. “I must pierce your tongue. It will hurt briefly, then the pain will be gone.” She lit a taper and placed it by the altar. She lined the bowl with dried herbs of some sort, then drew a few spots of Helen's blood.

The rustling drew nearer, and a snake slithered out of the darkness. The priestess crooned to it, and it lifted its swaying head as if in time to her voice. She spat into the bowl and placed it upon the floor. Her voice grew louder, and the snake's head cowl fanned out. She offered her right wrist to the snake, and it struck once. She grunted, rocked slightly, then dropped the taper into the bowl. The contents sizzled, and smoke rose in wisps. She inhaled the smoke and mumbled to herself.

The darkness above the altar writhed as if trying to take shape, then stopped and shrank to almost nothing. The woman whispered something forlornly that Helen strained to hear. The woman turned to her. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I can't help you."

"But why?” Helen pleaded. “You promised."

"No one can,” the priestess said sadly. “You're beyond anyone's help, I'm afraid.” She shooed Helen from the temple, refusing to answer any more questions.

Helen was furious, feeling abandoned even by the gods. But by the time she got home, the adrenaline that had fuelled her furious march had faded. That night, plagued by dreams, she slept badly. And awoke into a nightmare become real.

Her arms were covered in scratches, as though she'd been in a fight. She shivered and studied them intently, as if they might fade away, but they didn't. Some were short, others long. Pale pink or livid, regular or jagged scrawls, they ran the length of her forearms on the underside as if she had struggled with someone and they'd tried to defend themselves.

No. She'd fought no one.

She wore a long-sleeved top to hide her arms and wondered whether Firenze could have done something to her in the night. But she had slept so lightly that an intruder in her room would have awoken her.

Over breakfast, she studied him intently. He looked as haggard as she felt. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. His normally impeccable clothes hung badly, further evidence of his distraction.

At last she said, “Something strange is happening."

"Oh?” He seemed perfectly innocent. She'd known him long enough to know when he was telling the truth, and his puzzlement seemed genuine. Then again, he had known she was having an affair and had given no hint that he knew. She told him then of the visit to the temple and the scratches, and saw her own doubts mirrored in his eyes.

The morning crawled by in an agony of tension.

That afternoon they were visited by a hard-faced woman, the dim one who'd interviewed them before, and a pair of uniformed musclemorphs.

Almost simultaneously they received a sending from her advocate: “They wouldn't see me!” she snarled. “I don't know what they have, but they must be very sure of themselves."

The hard-faced woman nodded. “Senator Helen D'Acosta?"

Helen nodded and drew herself up to her full height.

"I have a warrant for your arrest on the charge of the murder of Maurice Linaweaver Hellesgaard,” the woman said. Each uniformed officer took an arm, leading her out into the bright sunlight, toward captivity. The detective who'd interviewed them before looked disappointed, the way Helen's teachers had looked when she occasionally failed an easy test.

They took her to the station, read her rights, then put her in a cell, leaving her to think, to wonder, and to wait. She shivered, despite the warmth.

She didn't have long to wait, although in her heightened state time seemed to drag. Her advocate arrived, and they were taken to a big bright room. She guessed it was much nicer than the rooms most suspects saw but it was intimidating enough. She and Firenze sat on one side of the table, with her advocate at her other side. Opposite them sat the militia officer who had arrested her and a woman in a prosecutor's gown.

"Just a few questions, Senator D'Acosta,” the prosecutor said. “You'd known the deceased a long time, I believe?"

Helen looked at her advocate, who nodded. “Yes,” she answered, keeping her voice level.
Answer nothing, other than what they ask you
, her advocate had briefed her.
Volunteer nothing
.

"And what was your relationship?” the prosecutor asked.

"I'm instructing my client not to answer that,” her advocate interrupted before Helen could speak.

The prosecutor seemed to expect her response, nodded. “Is this yours?” She held up an exact copy of the stick that had disappeared from Helen's hallway. It was covered with a black goo that she realised with a shock was blood.

"We are going to use a truth-spell, Senator D'Acosta,” the prosecutor said, turning to the advocate. “We can apply for a warrant, if you want us to. That will be noted at the trial. Do you wish us to apply for a warrant?"

Her advocate looked overawed, as if wondering what she'd got herself into. She had accepted her client's innocence when she took the case. But justice for her was all about winning and losing, and Helen could see her wondering how she was going to win this case. Seeing her own advocate look so forlorn plunged Helen deeper into depression.

They took her to a holding cell below the courtroom. Undressing her, they commented on the scratches under her forearms. Trial was set for three weeks’ time.

Jocasta said, “Thank you for coming, my dear, and for keeping me up to date,” and closed the door on Aminé.

It had been simple enough to use a Spell of Suggestion on Firenze. His decision to hire Aminé was so inconsequential, he'd not given it a second thought. Convincing her to work a couple of simple spells for Jocasta had been easy enough. To the girl's question of “Why?” she had answered, “Because you remind me of someone I once knew, my dear, and I couldn't help her, so I'm helping you."

Jocasta was bored with Meroë. Even using Gabriel as a sex toy had palled. She had eaten too much, not exercised enough, and now struggled to fit into clothes that had been loose before. But the problem wasn't just boredom; she missed the spellhound. She had almost given up ever seeing it again, and far as she could love anyone or anything, it was the spellhound.

There was the crackle of a sending. Her heart leapt at the sight of the familiar shape, now battered and bedraggled, the black fur covered in dirt, lustreless and mangy in places.

"Stay there,” she commanded it immediately. She turned to Gabriel. “Trace that message. Then go fetch it."

Three weeks passed by for Helen in a haze of too-little sleep, with nights spent tossing fitfully on her cot. Three weeks of seeing Firenze age years by the day. Three weeks of watching the confidence drain from her advocate.

In the courtroom the charges were read out. That she did with malice aforethought—the language hadn't changed in millennia. The legal system had weathered better than the continents. She realised it was deliberately so. The antiquity of the system was deliberate. A weapon designed to crush those who would fight it.

The courtroom was large, but mostly empty. Five judges sat on a raised dais, while her defence sat at a right angle to them on one side of the room, separated from the prosecution on the other side by an open area. The witnesses were brought in when needed and sat on the fourth side, opposite the judges.

She was ready for the questions. She coped with the cross-examining well, admitted to their affair, even to the quarrel. After all, she had nothing to hide. They'd quarrelled, and she'd gone to his house and found him dead. They rattled her when they asked her about the scratches on her arms, could only stonewall. That gave them the best of those exchanges.

Then they used the Truth Spell. Under questioning they took her from when she'd left her house, what route she took, who she saw and when. The prosecution repeatedly insisted she'd left earlier than she claimed, doubling back to confuse any witnesses. Then they claimed she had bribed the witnesses to lie about the time. They sought to extract from her a confession that she had been in the house twice. She couldn't understand why.

The next day she found out and found out what the open space was for. The militia had used a spellhound at the crime scene. In the open area they showed the re-enactment it had sketched of the evening, based on the traces left by each person who'd been in Maurice's room.

Helen watched the re-enactment show an invisible hand turn him over, and her say, “You win, you shit,” less than an hour after she had been there before, according to the image. She'd straddled him in passion, and in midthroes produced from behind her back a walking stick, with which she had beaten him to death, before dismounting. Her black lacquered walking stick with the gold-knobbed end.

When they reconvened from the recess called to give her advocate time to gather her wits, the defence tried to put the best light on it she could. Her advocate emphasised again and again that her story had never varied under the pressure of the truth-spell.

Her advocate tried in vain to convince the court that the killer wasn't Helen. “It could have been someone using a Spell of Shadow-casting as a disguise.” One expert sniffed reluctantly. “Unlikely. We used Truesight.” It was a halfhearted concession and did little to dispel the vision that would stay in the judges’ minds, of a half-naked woman beating her lover to death while he was inside her. Mere words against an image of frenzied sex and death. There was no comparison, no competition. It took less than an hour for them to find her guilty. Less time again for them to pronounce sentence. Dissolution.

It had taken days to get the spellhound's coat shining again. Jocasta hadn't groomed it since it was little more than a pup, years before. She finished. “Come on,” she said. “We have a ceremony to witness. One of the villains has already received justice on behalf of Ser Duff. The other one is today.” She smiled. “And then we can go somewhere civilised."

She'd told the spellhound everything, except the dreams she'd had since killing Maurice. “I was right to believe the Spell of Shadow-casting could withstand the local spells,” she'd concluded. “They can't work out how she can withstand the Truth Spell. They probably think she did it and blanked it out from her memory."

—It was a terrible gamble to take—if they had penetrated the spell ... you'd be in her place.—

"No more of a gamble than running back through time after O'Malley. Even if he did elude you."

—Wherever he is, O'Malley can't hide forever.—