"Rusk sought to turn you into a beast, like him," said Feena.
"I've been wondering about that," interjected Chaney. "There were more than a dozen of us in that hunting party. None of this 'Hunt' came after me or the others who escaped. Why are they so interested in Tal?"
"It is strange that he followed you to the city," allowed Maleva. She looked Tal in the face as if considering him for the first time. "He has a special interest in you, Talbot Uskevren."
"He isn't done, either," said Feena. They had found a trail of blood leading to the theater entrance, but Rusk had escaped. "You would be wise to trust in Selune. She offers the power to oppose his kind."
"I appreciate what you've done," said Tal. "Eckart will see that you're well paid for healing me. But I'll need more time to consider this business of the moonfire and Selune."
"If you let the beast rule your heart," warned Feena, "you must be destroyed." The heat in her voice was startling.
"I'll find a way," promised Tal. "But I'll find my own way."
"Sometimes that is the best course," said Maleva. "We will remain in Selgaunt until you have found that way."
Feena gave Tal a long look to emphasize her mother's point, a threat mingled with some other emotion in her steady gaze. "We'll be watching you," she said.
"I understand," said Tal. He knew Maleva and Feena would deal harshly with him if he surrendered to the monster Rusk had placed inside him. "I have thirty days."
THE BUTLER
Cale sprinted down the alley, flattened himself against the wall, and shot a nervous glance behind. No one-just darkness and empty cobblestones. Winded from the run, his lungs heaved like a bellows. He sucked in the stink of the alley, a sour reek of urine and vomit, and blew it out in a cloud of frozen mist.
Take it easy, he ordered himself. But that was easier thought than done. Someone was following him; someone had been since he had left Stormweather Towers. But who? And why?
He slid along the wall until he reached a shallow, garbage-strewn recess hewn from the bricks. Blanketing himself in shadow, he concentrated on slowing his heart and steadying his breathing. He knew a cloud of exhaled breath would betray his location as surely as a shout. With an effort of will, he calmed himself.
The roughness of the bricks at his back tempted him to try climbing, but he quickly dismissed the idea as too risky. If his pursuer caught up to him while he hung helpless on the wall…
Blowing out a soft, tense sigh, he quietly eased his dagger from its belt sheath and peered through the darkness behind him. Still no one. Perhaps he had lost A silhouette suddenly appeared at the mouth of the alley, a short, wiry body framed by the light of a street torch. Cale froze and held his breath. The figure wavered uncertainly for a moment, as though sniffing for a trap, then stalked down the alley. The soft sshhk of a blade being drawn rang loud in Cale's ears. He gripped his own dagger in a sweating fist and tried to sink deeper into the shadows.
The figure prowled down the narrow alley with short sword drawn. Its wary gaze swept the shadowy recess where Cale hid but passed over without a pause. Still holding his breath, Cale studied the man. Darkness hid his features, but Cale nevertheless recognized the ready blade and deft movements of a professional killer. An old adage he had learned back in the pirate city of Westgate popped into his head-only an assassin knows an assassin.
The man stopped mere feet from Cale's recess and peered ahead into the darkness. Apparently satisfied, he muttered something under his breath and started to stalk farther down the alley Cale leaped out and smashed a fist into his jaw. The impact dislodged teeth and knocked the man across the alley.
Cale easily sidestepped the dazed assassin's retaliatory stab and landed another vicious punch, this one to the nose. Bone shattered like eggshell, and blood exploded from the assassin's face in a spray of crimson. Stunned, he dropped the short sword and crumbled to the street with a moan. As soon as the assassin hit the ground, Cale had a knee on his chest and a dagger at his throat.
"Move and you're a dead man," Cale hissed.
Unable to breathe through his ruined nose, the assassin wheezed through a mouth rapidly filling with snot and blood. "All right. All right. I ain't movin'."
Even up close Cale didn't recognize him, though he knew most of Selgaunt's professionals.
"Speak," Cale ordered. "All of it. And if I think, you're lying…" He pricked the assassin's throat with his dagger and let the threat dangle.
Fear cleared the man's watery eyes. "Sure. Sure. What's it to me, right?" He tried to force a laugh but choked on his own blood.
Cale waited for the coughing fit to pass, then asked, "Who hired you?"
The assassin hesitated only an instant. "House… Malveen. Pietro Malveen."
Cale nodded. That sounded about right. Turning an assassin loose on the Uskevren would be just like Pietro Malveen. Foolish, ham-handed dolt. He pressed his knee further into the assassin's chest.
"Who was your target?"
"No one," the assassin managed between gasps, then hurriedly added, "I mean, anyone… any Uskevren. I thought you were one of the sons." He turned his head to the side and spat blood. "Who in the Nine Hells are you?"
Cale replied with cold silence and a hard stare. Stupid question, he thought. If you knew the answer, you'd already be dead. He kept his dagger to the man's throat while he tried to decide what to do. He could hardly turn the assassin over to the Scepters, Selgaunt's city guard. Too many questions there. But he had to get to the Stag soon. Riven would be waiting. Perhaps…
"You're the butler," the assassin blurted, certainty in his voice. "Dark, but you don't move like any butler I've ever seen."
Cale grimaced. Foolish, foolish man.
"What?" The assassin's voice rose an octave. He sensed he'd made a mistake. "What'd I say? You are the butler, aren't you?"
Cale stared down at the now frightened man with cold eyes. Though he knew now what he had to do, he nevertheless found it distasteful. Apparently realizing his danger, the assassin began to struggle. Cale held him in a grip like a vise.
"Hey, wait, wait, mmph-"
Cale covered the assassin's mouth with a powerful hand and leaned in close. "You're right," he whispered into the man's ear. "I am the butler."
He flashed the dagger and opened the assassin's throat. The dying man screamed into Cale's palm while his blood poured steaming onto the frozen cobblestones. Cale watched him, emotionless. It was over within seconds.
Cale wiped his blade clean on the man's cloak and stood. He took no pleasure in what he had done, but he had to do it. If he had allowed the assassin to carry word of his skills back to the Malveens, someone would have grown suspicious-Radu Malveen if not that idiot Pietro. Cale could not allow that.
Some secrets have to be kept, he thought, irrespective of the cost.
Without a backward glance, Cale left the cooling corpse behind him and headed for the Black Stag.
The hearth stood unused, the coals cold. Only the wan orange glow of a single oil lamp provided light in the Black Stag. Hanging crookedly from a hook behind the bar, the lantern's flickering wick emitted wisps of oily black smoke that twisted upward to mix with the clouds of pipeweed smoke hovering around the ceiling beams. The dim, dancing flame created a confusing patchwork of shadows and smoke shapes that played eerily across the dead eyes and hard faces of the Stag's hushed clientele. They looked like the lost souls some said wandered about the uppermost of the Nine Hells in search of peace.
Cale stood in the Stag's windswept doorway and grimaced. Lost souls indeed.
He had just left a man lying dead only three blocks away.