The question caught Lenoir off guard. The spirit knew him for what he was. He had seen the corruption in Lenoir’s soul; it was that corruption that had marked him for death. Why should such a man care what happened to a street urchin like Zach?
Lenoir dropped his gaze. “I don’t know.”
It was a lie.
“There is no redemption.” The statement might as well have come from God Himself.
Lenoir shivered. “I know.”
When he looked up again, something strange was happening. The uncanny light had dimmed in Vincent’s eyes, as though the immortal soul trapped within had withdrawn someplace else entirely. Lenoir did not have long to wonder, however; almost immediately, the light returned in a blaze of green, and he felt the heat of the spirit’s stare once more.
“It accepts your offer,” Vincent said matter-of-factly.
Lenoir blinked. “It?”
Vincent ignored the question. “Take me to the corpse thieves.”
Lenoir hesitated, stunned. It actually worked.
Only now could he admit to himself that he had not really expected to succeed. Yet here he was, on his knees in the market square, the green-eyed man standing expectantly before him. Vincent was letting him live. For now.
Clear your head, fool. There is work to be done. “I cannot simply take you to them. I do not yet know where they are, and I need your help.”
“What would you have of me?”
Lenoir stood, dusting himself off. He avoided looking at his arm; he did not wish to see what the scourge had done. Not that it made any difference—it was the same arm that was already scarred, and anyway, what did it matter how his flesh looked, when his life span was measured in hours?
“You need to tell me what you have seen,” Lenoir said, surprised at how level he sounded. Perhaps he really had made peace with death. “You need to tell me everything.”
CHAPTER 19
“There are two more,” Vincent said, “and then I have done.”
Lenoir nodded. They were seated on the bench where he had been waiting when Vincent attacked. There was something darkly amusing about it, sitting here conversing with an immortal spirit that had been sent from another plane to kill him. Passersby would notice little amiss unless Vincent looked directly at them, and even then, they would probably only wonder at the strange light of his gaze. His nature was not immediately obvious to the casual onlooker.
He was not exactly chatty. He expressed himself briefly, using few words and still less emotion. He answered Lenoir’s questions, but not in much detail. Lenoir could not tell if he was being secretive, or if he had merely lost the gift of conversation. Or perhaps he had been like that even in life. Lenoir found himself wondering how long it had been since the spirit had spoken to anyone.
“How many corpses did they dig up?” Lenoir asked him.
“Two.”
“Was it the same person who dug up both corpses?”
“No.”
Lenoir’s fear was beginning to settle, allowing more mundane emotions to break through. Like frustration. The spirit seemed intent on making it as difficult as possible for Lenoir to extract the information he needed. Was Vincent toying with him? If so, there was no hint of irony about him. The spirit sat perfectly straight, and for the most part spoke without inflection. He did not fidget or shift his weight. He seemed almost incapable of emotion. Almost. Lenoir recalled the reaction when he had called the spirit by name for the first time, the unmistakable shock. Vincent might show little emotion, but he was definitely capable of feeling it.
“Who dug up the first corpse?”
“I do not know his name.”
Lenoir checked a sigh. “I was not asking for his name. What do you know of him?”
“He is dead. I killed him.”
“So I had assumed, Vincent. But before that?”
“He was a gravedigger. From Brackensvale.”
At last, he was getting something useful. “Did you see anyone else with the gravedigger?”
“Two others. Adali men. I killed them also.”
Lenoir grunted thoughtfully. “I presume the gravedigger handed the corpse over to the Adali men.” Vincent inclined his head almost imperceptibly. Taking the gesture for assent, Lenoir continued. “Did you see where they took the corpse?”
The spirit reflected on this. “What I saw will not be helpful to you. It was the inside of a shack, but I do not know where. The body was covered while the Adali transported it.” It was the most complex thought he had expressed so far.
“I believe I know the place you are referring to. We found it some days later, by which time it had already been deserted. All that was left was a boy, and he had gone mad.”
Vincent cocked his head. “Mad?”
“Yes.” Lenoir shivered at the memory. “We found the boy tied to a chair, and when we released him, he attacked my sergeant. He was screaming and biting like a fiend. He was quite mad.”
“I know this boy,” said Vincent, surprising Lenoir. “He is not mad.”
“Pardon?”
“The soul is gone now. He is alone.”
Lenoir stared. “I . . . do not understand.”
The absinthe eyes locked on him, sending a shudder down Lenoir’s spine. “The soul they summoned, the one they tried to channel into the boy. It is gone. They did not succeed.”
By the sword, Lenoir swore inwardly. Merden was right. The corpse thieves had been trying to replace the boy’s soul with that of a dead child. “They succeeded at least partially,” he said, more to himself than to Vincent. “The boy had two souls, it seems, and it drove him mad.”
“For a time, but the spell did not last. The soul of the dead child returned to the spirit realm.”
“How do you know?” Lenoir was so morbidly fascinated that he forgot even his dread.
“It is in my memories. The souls of the dead remember, and their memories are mine.” The chill in Vincent’s voice became icy, and the absinthe eyes narrowed to slits. “The dead should not have new memories. They should not be torn from their rest. It is a mortal sin.”
Lenoir huddled deeper into his coat, but it gave him little comfort. The cold he felt did not come from without. “When I asked you earlier, you said you had not seen a child.”
“That is so. But for a brief time, I saw through the eyes of a child. I saw you, though I did not recognize you at the time.”
Of course. The boy Mika had been blindfolded when they found him in the abandoned farmhouse. He had probably not seen his captors, or anything else until Kody removed the blindfold. At that time, the soul of the dead child had been present in Mika’s body, along with his own.
“Long has it been since I have seen through the eyes of the living,” Vincent said distractedly. Untold years of emptiness echoed in his voice.
Lenoir returned to his original line of questioning. “The second corpse, did they take it to the same place?”
“Yes.”
“What did they do with it?”
“Necromancy.”
“They were trying to resurrect the dead children,” Lenoir prompted, recalling Merden’s theory.
“No.”
Lenoir stared in surprise. “No? Then what were they doing?”
“The souls of the children whose bodies were taken have not been disturbed. Their flesh alone has been defiled.”
What in the flaming below? Lenoir was thoroughly confused. “Then whose soul was channeled into Mika’s body?”
Vincent seemed to consider his response before speaking. “The necromancers did not seek to reanimate the children whose bodies they took,” he said, and Lenoir had the impression he was choosing his words carefully. “They only wished to find a suitable host body. It is another soul they seek to resurrect, a soul long dead. They failed to channel this soul into a dead body, so now they seek to use the living.”