Jean Luc and Henri Roubet met in a small outdoor cafe, illuminated only by candles on the tables, where a group of friends would draw no attention, and nobody on the street could see them well enough to make out a face. The Apostle's two thugs sat nearby, the bandage-wrapped figure looming behind them.
“…sound very happy,” Roubet was reporting. “Seems she never showed the first night, and when they set up to watch the place tonight, they found the tavern empty. They don't have enough people to keep an eye on it every minute of the day, but they'll be back there eventually. They seem pretty sure she'll appear there sooner or later, and right now, Brock's willing to watch and wait.”
“And does this tavern have a name?” Jean Luc asked, sipping at a small cup of tea, pinky finger pointing skyward.
“The Flippant Witch.”
“Show me.”
Both men looked up as the otherworldly thing spoke behind its mask of bandages, its voice causing the table to tremble, the candle flame to dance.
“Of course. Do you mind if we just finish-?”
“Show me now.”
Technically, Jean Luc was in charge. That didn't stop him and Roubet both from rising instantly to their feet, unwilling to argue.
For just a moment, as they took to the streets once more, Roubet wondered what had happened to the thieves assigned to follow Jean Luc and his demoniac ally. And just as swiftly he decided that he really, really didn't want to know.
“This is stupid, Shins!” Genevieve hissed for roughly the sixth time as the fugitive trio slunk through yet another filthy, trash-strewn alleyway. The aromas of rotting garbage, alcohol, vomit, and human offal intertwined to form a vulgar scent that caressed the dank streets with all the false affection of a diseased trollop. It even kept the rats at bay. Things squelched underfoot as they walked, each spurt of unidentifiable ooze adding a new and poignant layer to the near-poisonous miasma.
“I'm inclined to agree with Mademoiselle Marguilles,” Renard added, pausing long enough to lift up one boot and sadly examine the encrusted sole. “Even leaving aside the danger to our well-being-which is, I feel constrained to point out, quite substantial-there are other, no less immediate concerns. This outfit, I fear, is quite unsalvageable. I shall perforce be required to burn it.”
Widdershins, gliding silently through the alley ahead of them, drew to a halt, her shoulders rising in a sigh. “All right, that's enough, both of you! This is important, so hush up and let's keep moving. The faster we get there…”
“…the sooner we can leave,” the barkeep and the thief parroted in unison. “So you keep telling us,” Genevieve added. “But that's only if you survive, Shins.”
“Look!” Widdershins turned, wincing as the motion tugged disagreeably at her bandages. “We've got to hide, yes? Maybe for quite a while. Therefore, ergo, and to wit, we need money. Where am I losing you two?”
Renard cleared his throat, a fist hovering just before his face. “I believe, Widdershins, that it would be at the part where you decide to go back home and gather up your stash of coin, even though the people hunting you may well know where you live.”
The young woman idly kicked a clump of something from the road before her. It hit the left wall of the alley with a moist plop, and stuck. “I've told you, I don't live here. It's one of several rooms I keep around the city. Under fake names,” she added as Genevieve drew breath to speak, only to come over vaguely green as the atmosphere of the alley flooded her lungs. “I've got funds stashed in each. Enough to keep us going for a while, if need be. And it's perfectly safe!” she insisted in the face of their continuing glare. “It's not humanly possible for anyone to know about this place. There's no way to trace it to me. None!
“If it'll make you feel better,” she continued, “the two of you can wait here while I run up and gather the marks.” She pointed at a dilapidated building, four ugly stories in height. There were more holes in the wall than there were bricks. The wooden staircase-running up the side of the building and sagging like a dying vine-leaned several feet from the wall at multiple points, and pretty much looked to be about as sturdy and well designed as a glass battering ram.
“You know,” Genevieve replied dubiously, “that might be for the best.”
Widdershins smiled despite herself. “I'll just be a minute or three, I promise. There's nothing to worry about.”
“Worry?” Genevieve asked Renard as their mutual friend faded into the shadows. “Why would we possibly be worried?”
“I'm sure I can't imagine.”
For long moments they stood, trying their damnedest not to breathe for fear their lungs would rebel and physically fight their way free of the alley. Until, eventually, Genevieve turned, her gaze meeting Renard's squarely for perhaps the first time.
“She doesn't know, does she?”
“I beg your pardon, my dear? Who doesn't know what?”
“Widdershins. She doesn't know about you.”
Renard's eyes widened briefly, then narrowed. “I'm sure I have no idea what you're-”
“Oh, please. You're a professional thief, you're a member in good standing of the guild, and you're risking your life and your position just being here. I love Widdershins to death, Renard, but she can be a real idiot on occasion. I assure you, though, that I am not.”
The fop just about deflated; even the garish colors of his outfit seemed to go suddenly dull (though to be fair, that might simply have been the miasma of the alley eating away at the dyes). “You won't say anything, will you?” he all but begged.
“Why won't you?” Gen asked, not unkindly.
“Look at me, mademoiselle. I am many things, and I make no apologies for most of them-but do you believe me to be a man Widdershins could ever take seriously?”
“You might be surprised,” she told him. “But no, I won't tell her. It's not my place.”
“Thank you.”
And there seemed, at that, to be nothing more for them to say.
Widdershins's unshakable confidence lasted almost precisely to the midpoint of the first flight of stairs, which was, not coincidentally, the exact same point at which the entire structure emitted a mighty groan and shifted several inches to the left. She froze, hand clasped so tightly to the guardrail that the rotting wood began to disintegrate in her fist.
“Olgun?” she croaked. “Olgun, can…umm, that is, you can make sure this thing doesn't fall out from under me, can't you?”
There was no reply save another faint shift of the rickety stair. Dust cascaded from above, sifting into Widdershins's hair, tickling her nose. Only several heavy gasps prevented a sneeze that might have brought down the entire contraption.
“Olgun?” Little more than a whisper, this time, for fear that even so tiny a sound might have deadly repercussions.
Then, accompanied by a burst of silent laughter, Widdershins sensed the familiar pins-and-needles in the air, felt the decaying wood shore up beneath her feet and her ever-tightening grip.
“Oh, very funny, Olgun!” she growled, face inflamed at the laughter that sounded around her soul. “Hysterical, even.”
The mischievous deity continued to chortle.
“When you're through entertaining yourself,” Widdershins told him haughtily, “we can just be on our way.”
It took a moment more for the god to get a hold of himself-a long moment during which Widdershins stared irritably upward at the constellations not washed out by the light of the moon or hidden by long streaks of cloud. We’ll probably have rain by morning, she noted absently.
Finally, Olgun decided the joke was over, and they continued up the now steady stairs.
Widdershins halted at the top floor, not beside the door but at the right-most edge of the tiny landing. Fingers expertly found the cracks and crevices in the wall, feet sliding easily into the gaps that were, to her, as good as carved steps. Scuttling sideways, sure-footed as a spider, she passed over several windows, stopping finally at the fourth. She flipped a well-concealed catch on the pane, lifted the window, and slipped inside, all as silently as the moonlight pooling thickly on the floor.