He'd told Ratboy "no noise." Was that such a difficult concept to understand? In a matter of moments, he'd lost control of his fight with the hunter, and Ratboy had managed to alert the entire household. Now the hunter had confirmation that at least two undeads inhabited the town. The situation could hardly be worse.
And what in all the demons of the underworld had happened to him during the fight itself? The hunter's sword was magically endowed, if not magically created; that much was obvious. Where did she get it? Even a blade that had been warded or arcanely made to battle the undead should not have prevailed against his open attack-he was too strong and skilled. This was not arrogance or pride, but realism. He should have been able to beat her down, if not kill her outright, and been back out the window with the body in a matter of seconds. Instead of tiring, her strength and speed had grown to match his every attack.
And she had bitten him as if she were one of his own kind.
He'd felt the heat of her body, heard the pounding of her heart, and smelled living blood in her veins. She was not a vampire or some other Noble Dead. What had happened? And she had seen his face. It was only a matter of time and questions asked before the hunter connected him to the warehouse.
"We must leave here," he murmured.
"Rashed!" Teesha's voice called to him from the far side of the cave.
Relief flooded Rashed at the sound of her voice. But when he turned to see her in the dark, stumbling toward him, her face was filled with as much fear as he'd felt when he dove through the inn's window to save his own existence. He ran toward her, and anger returned quickly at what he saw.
Teesha held on to Ratboy's half-conscious form by the back of his shirt collar, dragging him into the cave. She looked exhausted. She'd never had the physical strength with which most Noble Dead were gifted. Perhaps it was a trade-off for her higher ability in thought and dreams that she used to hunt. Even he had sometimes felt the soothing calm wash through him at the sound of her lilting words.
"Someone threw garlic water all over Ratboy," she said. "I found him crawling by the sea, using wet sand to scour it off. I had to kill a peddler down by the shore to feed him quickly. Haste would not allow a more discreet hunt, and Ratboy needed a great deal of blood. I buried the body in the sand for now. We just got inside before sunrise, but he's badly hurt."
By way of answer, Rashed grabbed Ratboy by the front of his shirt and held him off the ground against the dirt wall of the cave. The little urchin's skin was still partially blackened and charred in places, cracking and split. It served him right for his recklessness.
"We're stuck in here now because of you," Rashed hissed. "That hunter may come during the day and burn this place around us."
Ratboy's eyes were mere slits, but hatred glowed out clearly.
"What a pity," he managed hoarsely.
"I told you 'no noise'! You forced me out before my work was finished." That was only partly true-but Ratboy and Teesha didn't need to know that.
"And who cut through your shoulder?" Ratboy opened his eyes wide in mock surprise. "Did she hurt you, my dear captain?"
Rashed dropped him and drew his fist back to strike.
Teesha grabbed it. The mere touch of her hands was enough to make him pause.
"This will not help us," she said. With light pressure he could have easily resisted, Teesha pulled Rashed's arm down. "We have to get every trap set and hide as deeply as possible."
Of course, she was correct. There was nowhere to run until nightfall. Now he was the one playing the fool and right in front of her. Ratboy's blundering had undone him in more ways than one. He quickly collected himself.
"Yes, you help Ratboy. I'll set the devices and join you below."
Her tiny fingers brushed his face as if glad to see him in charge again. "Let me tend your shoulder."
"No, it's all right. Just get deeper below."
Perhaps they would all survive until nightfall.
Leesil and Magiere waited in the common room for Constable Ellinwood to arrive. At sunrise, Leesil had accosted a passing boy on the street and paid the youth to run to the guardhouse with the news of Beth-rae's murder. His initial instinct had been to clean the mess up in the common room, but Magiere stopped him.
"All of this proves we were attacked," she said.
Everything was left where it had fallen the night before with two exceptions. Caleb had taken Beth-rae's body to the kitchen and had not come out again. And then there was Ratboy's thin-bladed dagger.
Leesil hadn't even remembered it until he'd stepped around to the back of the bar to put away the crossbow, and found it lying on the floor. He quietly picked up the blade out of Magiere's sight.
Ratboy must have used it to trip the latch on the common-room window. The blade was wide and unusually flat, making it thin enough to slip between shutters or into a doorjamb, and the width would provide strength when pushed against any metal hook or latching mechanism. Inspecting the blade, he found it well tended and sharpened, but with an odd shape to its tip. It wasn't overt, and perhaps anyone else wouldn't have noticed, but Leesil had slipped through enough windows in his life to know what he saw.
Near the tip, the edges were no longer straight, but indented slightly. Long use as a tool had worn down the metal and frequent resharpening had produced a slight inward curve in the edge on each side. Ratboy was not a common thief, whatever else he might be, but Leesil could see the beggar boy was practiced at unseen entry. A blade like this was a personal choice, sometimes specially made, and certainly a well-cared-for possession. And yet, Ratboy had obviously not entered the inn to steal anything, and his manner was not that of an assassin-the little creature might be cunning and stealthy to a point, but he had no finesse.
Leesil had serious doubts Ellinwood could even understand such things without them being pointed out blatantly and then explained. And he wasn't even sure how it connected to the more unusual details of last night. If necessary, he'd show the dagger, but for now he rucked it under the back of his shirt. Magiere might not agree with this action, but he would handle that if and when it came up. He stepped around the bar into the open room, surveying the ruins of broken tables and chairs, fresh scars in the bar top, and dried pools of blood.
Magiere's words made sense-everything needed to be left as it was to make Ellinwood believe what had happened, but he hated the thought of doing nothing. The bloodstained floor kept drawing his attention. Why hadn't he initially held his ground and reloaded the crossbow? Why hadn't he rushed the creature as soon as Beth-rae threw the garlic water? The scene played over and over in his mind as he examined every move he could have made differently. Scenarios taught long ago by his mother and father crept back into his conscious thoughts from places where he'd hidden them. He'd made so many mistakes, and now Caleb was a widower and little Rose had no grandmother.
Chap's chest was almost healed, which in itself seemed too much for Leesil to think about, in addition to everything else that made no sense in their lives of late. Magiere's facial wound looked days instead of hours old. Whenever Chap or Magiere fought these strange attackers, they healed with an unnatural quickness. Or had they always been quick to mend? It occurred to him that in their years together he'd never before been in such situations with either of them, so there was no way to be sure. He didn't want to talk about any of it, but how much were they going to tell the constable?
"Magiere?"
"What?"
"Last night… your teeth," he began. "Do you know what happened?"