“Silence!” he hissed. The man was much taller than he, and it took all his strength to keep the squirming wretch in check. “Do as you are told, and I will spare your life!”
Vincent, for his part, stood unmoving in the corner. That was well. The spirit’s presence was terrifying enough; if he made any threatening moves, the man might break altogether. Lenoir needed him to be pliable, but coherent. It would do no good if he was literally scared witless.
When the man’s screams had subsided to whimpers, Lenoir released him. “Sit,” he commanded, and the man complied, plopping down onto a straw mat. He stared up at Lenoir with abject terror in his eyes. Lenoir knew that look. It was the look of a man marked for death. He himself had worn it only hours ago. Perhaps he wore it still.
“What is your name?”
“Kern.”
Lenoir gestured behind him. “You know who this is, don’t you, Kern? You have heard stories of him since you were a child, no?”
The man began to weep. Lenoir decided to back off the bellows, lest he stoke the fires too much. “I will spare your life if you cooperate. Do you understand?”
Kern was blubbering into his chest and seemed not to have heard. Lenoir leaned down and slapped him. “Do you understand?” The man nodded, snuffling. “Good. Now tell me, where is the boy?”
Kern sobbed loudly. “None of this was supposed to happen. There wasn’t supposed to be any boy, at least not a living one! Just the bodies, they said. They never said anything about hurting anyone.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know!”
“Ridiculous. You and your friends have held him for days.”
“Yes, it’s true, but they moved him this morning. I don’t know where, I swear!”
Lenoir dropped to his haunches and leaned in threateningly. With Vincent at his back, he felt powerful. He felt like Wrath itself. He was almost giddy with it. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
Kern began to sob again. Lenoir waited patiently until the spasm subsided. “The hounds were getting close,” Kern said. “And the others were turning up dead. . . .” His gaze strayed to Vincent, and his eyelids began to flutter as though he might faint.
Lenoir swore under his breath. “Focus, Kern!”
The man nodded, obviously making an effort. “They said they were going to move him this morning. I would have gone with them, but I’m sick with fever.”
Lenoir glanced at the man’s brow. It was slick with moisture. He had noticed it before, but put it down to fear. He reached out and placed the back of his hand against Kern’s forehead; sure enough, it was hot to the touch. “And you don’t know where they took him?” he asked sternly. Kern shook his head. “Who is your leader, and where can I find him?”
“There were two, but one of them’s dead.”
“Raiyen.”
Kern nodded miserably.
“And the other? Who is he?”
“His name is Los. He lives with the rest of the clan, in a camp near Berryvine. He’s been staying in a shack not far from here, but he hasn’t been back there in weeks. He was making preparations before, and now he stays with the boy.”
Lenoir considered. It did not do him much good to learn the man’s name, nor would it help to send watchmen to find out more about him. Lenoir was not looking to build a case against Los; what he needed was to find the man—and quickly.
“Who else are you working with?” Perhaps he would have more luck with another member of Kern’s crew.
“All dead,” Kern whimpered. “Just me and Ani left.”
“Ani?”
From behind him, a chill voice spoke. “I know this woman. I have seen her.”
Lenoir stood. They had gotten all they could from Kern, at least for now. He was bitterly disappointed at his luck. Kern’s illness was the only reason he could not give them Zach’s exact location. But perhaps this Ani would give them more. They needed to hurry.
“I never wanted to hurt the boy, I swear. Nothing is the way Raiyen said it would be. They tricked me!”
Lenoir ignored his feeble excuses. “That will be all for the moment. If I were you, I would stay in this hut and not leave, not even to move your bowels. Understand?”
Kern nodded mutely, and Lenoir turned to go.
Vincent stepped forward and snapped his wrist, sending his barbed scourge around Kern’s neck.
“Wait!” Lenoir cried. “What are you doing?”
Vincent ignored him. Lenoir could only watch helplessly as the spirit choked the life out of the sickly coward called Kern.
When it was over, Lenoir turned and stalked out of the hut, only to find Vincent waiting for him outside. He whirled on the spirit, his anger flaring beyond the reaches of his fear. “Why did you do that? I gave him my word that we would spare his life!”
“You should not have.”
“We might have needed him later!”
Vincent said nothing. He just stood there implacably as the rain pelted him, bouncing off his leather jerkin and streaming down the sides of his nose.
“You murdered him, when he might have been the only one who could lead us to Zach!”
“I had no choice.”
“What do you mean, you had no choice? The fool was harmless!”
“He was marked. I had no choice.”
Merden’s words returned to Lenoir’s mind: It is said that he has no will of his own, at least none he can exert.
“But you spared me,” Lenoir pointed out, dimly aware that he did not sound appropriately grateful for it.
“You have not been spared.”
Strictly speaking, that was true—Lenoir’s sentence had not been commuted, only deferred. “But you could have waited, at least until we found Zach.”
“Perhaps,” the spirit allowed. “But it is done now.” He turned and headed back the way they had come.
Lenoir could only follow.
CHAPTER 20
Ani was dead.
Her corpse lay in a heap in the middle of her apartment, the dark stain beneath her thick and cold. Vermin skittered along the floorboards, drawn to the smell of blood. The open gash in her throat was already moving with flies.
Some part of Lenoir had expected this, but that did nothing to dampen the despair that threatened to overwhelm him. This woman had been his only remaining lead, his best chance of finding Zach. She had also been Vincent’s final target, the last of the corpse thieves whose faces he had seen through the eyes of the dead. Lenoir’s time was nearly up, and he had nothing to show for it. He should have questioned Kern about motive when he had the chance, but he had been in such a hurry to find Zach . . .
Vincent stood in a corner of the room, carefully avoiding the thin blades of dawn that intruded through the shutters. He watched Lenoir silently, offering no comment on the scene. How long would he wait before he concluded that Lenoir had nothing to offer him after all? Lenoir caught himself wishing for daylight and a chance to escape. It was a fleeting thought, a survival instinct, but he could not suppress it. He only hoped it did not show on his face.
“Very well,” he said aloud, “we must take the difficult route. What we cannot learn from this woman, we must deduce for ourselves.” His words were as much for his own benefit as Vincent’s. He could not allow himself to be overcome with hopelessness. He had once been the cleverest inspector in the finest police department in the world. It was time he reminded himself why.
He talked himself through it. “This woman was obviously killed by her accomplices.” In spite of what Kern had said, he was convinced there were others besides Los, henchmen who were not part of the inner circle like Kern and Ani. “They killed her because they are worried about being discovered, which means someone rattled their cage. Presumably, that someone was Sergeant Kody.” He paused. It was unlikely that Kody had met anyone in the prison who had direct knowledge of these crimes. “Kody must have learned something that went to motive, and motive in turn led him close enough to the perpetrators that they felt it necessary to kill him and Sergeant Hardin. So—what was the motive?”