There had been, above all, a woman-a sorceress who haunted his dreams.
Be rid of her' Crit said.
But one's dreams did not forget ...
A quiet tread scuffed the dirt of the yard, stopped, at Strat's back. He looked behind him, saw his partner standing there fists on hips, saw Crit frowning at him.
"You're on duty," Crit said. "Dammit, Ace-"
Strat thought back to the morning, recollected a promise-to spell Gayle at a problem uptown, night duty, when they were so damned short-handed. He dropped the sponge into the bucket and faced Crit with a shake of his head. "Sorry," he said. "I'll get up there right now."
Crit walked closer and blocked his path to anywhere. "Strat-"
"I forgot, all right?"
Crit hit him on the shoulder, held that same shoulder, compelled an attention he did not want to give. "Forgot?"
"I said I forgot. I'm sorry." He moved to break away, but Crit tightened his grip, jerked him around again for a look straight in the face.
He dropped his eyes. He had no idea why, only that Crit's stare was unbearable-no matter that Crit had pulled him out of situations a sane man would not contemplate, no matter that he owed this man who was closer than a brother- That look on Crit's face wanted more from him than he had left in him to give, more of his soul than he was going to have again in his life, and though he knew it-Crit had yet to accept that fact.
"That's the bad shoulder," Strat said, deliberately pitiful; and tried with a shake of his head simply to go his way, and not to fight with Crit.
But Crit slammed him around against the corner of the stable. "Where in hell is your head?"
Another man he would have taken into bare-handed combat. But he owed Crit too much, and there was too much he'd fouled up on, like this, too much Crit cared about he didn't care about at all.
"Are you seeing her?" Crit shouted into his face.
"You know I'm not," Strat said. "I'm in barracks every night!"
Crit grabbed him by the throat. If Crit strangled him that was all right. He hardly cared. That was the trouble- That was what maddened Crit.
Crit shook him, Crit slammed him back against the post. Strat only stared, short of wind, and said, "Better if you hadn't pulled me out of that cellar ... Better you'd left me there."
In some part he hoped Crit would give up finally, let him alone, simply let him coast into oblivion.
Or hit him and give him cause-some cause, any cause to fight for-
But Crit, who had killed more men than anyone could remember, some of them piece by piece and slowly, looked at him as if he was feeling that kind of pain himself-as if someone hurt him and made him crazy, and he loved that someone too much to do what he would do to anyone else in the wide world who crossed him as far as Strat had.
"What's the matter with you?" Crit asked quietly. "What in hell'sthe matter with you?"
One dreamed, that was all.
"I'll kill her," Crit said.
Strat grabbed Crit by the sleeve, hard. Maybe it was a measure of how far he had come that it was Crit's danger he thought of most acutely. It was all right for him, he didn't matter, he had stopped mattering; but Crit, he thought, Crit had no logical part in this, and Crit, who had come alive through coups and assassinations and battles, had no chance at all against Her. "Crit," Strat said. "Crit, I'm going to the damn palace. I'll be there, I'll be there, all right?"
Crit didn't say anything. That scared him, and got his attention, when damned little else could.
"I'll get up there," Strat said. "I'll do the damn duty.-Crit, I'm through, you hear me? I'm through with her, I'm not going back, I promise you."
Crit still said not a thing.
That scared Strat-more than any threats Crit could have made.
Night, more than night, in days of slow business and unseasonable weather, an exhausted, weary town-those hours when even the inns, even in Sanctuary, began to give up their last customers and throw out the drunks-and the bar help went home, some two by two, some not ...
A woman screamed in an alleyway near the Vulgar Unicorn, a small yelp of a scream, cut off of a sudden, followed by a grunt of pain-the Unicorn's barmaid knew where to put an elbow and a heel. But the man was big and he was gone on krrf. A thump! followed, then a slither-of a light body hitting a brick wall and slumping to the trash at the bottom of it.
The rapist liked that fine. He liked it so well he grabbed the woman up by the hair and kicked her, which it took, besides the krrf these days, to get him excited-
But in the interval of a kick and the body hitting the pavement, the rapist heard another step on the dusty cobbles, a soft, stealthy step behind him.
He let his victim lie, facing-it was incredible to him-a cloaked, aristocratic woman, here, in these streets, in this alleyway.
He heard his earlier victim crawl aside, scrabble in the trash trying to escape, but this hooded, this incredibly elegant slut-amazed him-
Amazed him so much he was not expecting the sudden crack of a brick across the back of his skull ...
Ischade faced the bloody, panting barmaid across the body-in a desire both dark and frustrated by the assistance. "Thank you," Ischade said with irony, wrapping her cloak about her for the sensuality of it; and shuddered at what it stirred. "Do you live in this alley? No? I'd seek lodgings on the Unicorn's street-if I were in your place. Too far to walk -at this hour."
"Who are you?" the barmaid asked; it not being incredible to her, perhaps, that a woman in silk and velvet knew her nightly route. Perhaps it frightened her. Perhaps it told her she might have escaped the rat to run straight-on into the cobra's sliding coils-
But: "Go home," Ischade said. "Don't linger here. What's one more body-in Sanctuary?"
The barmaid caught a breath, looked at Ischade a moment longer, as if the spell touched even her-
It might. The curse was never specific. Only Ischade's personal taste was-and Ischade felt nothing but frustration and a rising anger at the girl's very existence, and at her courage-in a world where help was scarce, and no one cared. Perhaps she saw Ischade for what she was. But few did. Few-hearing of her-understood. People looked for vampires.
"Go," Ischade whispered, and the barmaid turned and ran, limping, for the end of the alley.
Ischade followed her-hoping-in case of some other trouble that might be drawn like predators to a crippled fish. She saw the young woman haul herself up a rickety steps in the alley next, saw the door shut; and eventually saw dim light from the shutter seams, the woman having, after some effort, Ischade supposed, gotten a lamp lit.
One remembered such necessities. Dimly. Long ago.
She had her own necessities-deadly, urgent necessities, since Strat had left-since she had broken the ties that held him. She had lives to hunt, to sustain her own; and she had her preferences in victims.
She walked on her way, walked the roughest areas of Sanctuary, that region south and harborward of the Unicorn. It was a thief who accosted her finally-
"I've nothing for you," she told him, having some conscience, at least, or having acquired one from her associations. He was very young, he had offered her no violence-and perhaps there was something in her manner that warned him, made him the least bit anxious: he looked behind him and to either side, as if suspecting some sort of ambush in which a woman obviously out of place in these alleys-might be the bait.
He seemed to decide otherwise then. He whipped out a knife, advanced a step or two as if she might leap at him-or someone might pounce from the shadows. He demanded money.
It was the knife that decided the question. She put back her hood, she caught his eyes and said, in a low voice, "Are you sure you want what I do have?"
The robber hesitated-the knife gleaming uncertainly in the dark. "A whore," he said, "a damned whore-"