Standing at an alley's mouth, he scanned the main street beyond. Welstiel told him to pick a pretty noblewoman. Chane had no argument with this.
At first only soldiers in motley arms and well-dressed men passed by. There was one young man in reasonably fine garb, perhaps the son of a well-to-do merchant or local official. He was too young, and a woman would still be more effective for outrage and panic. Chane sank back in the alley against the building's side, wondering how long this would take. Perhaps his unsuccessful meal behind the Bronze Bell had left the local women reluctant to be out at night.
"No, Jens," a feminine voice said from the street. "I asked you to pack my red purse. How do you forget the smallest instructions, even when I write them down?"
Chane peered around the corner.
A lovely young woman with auburn hair and a dark green cloak headed his way with a pensive-looking manservant following close behind. The only other person nearby in the street was a peddler. The wares of pots, pans, and kitchen instruments dangling from his body clattered as he hobbled away in the opposite direction.
"Forgive me, m'lady," the manservant answered. "I don't recall your red purse in the packing list."
They passed the alley's mouth.
Chane grabbed the woman's face, palm covering her small mouth, and clamped his other hand around the manservant's throat. He hurled the woman backward into the alley as the servant began to struggle. Chane clenched his grip. He felt and heard the man's windpipe crackle and collapse under his thumb. The manservant clutched at his own throat, face reddening in silence, and Chane dragged him into the alley.
The girl had tripped on her gown and fallen to the frozen mud of the alley. She sat up and opened her mouth to scream. Chane slammed Jens into the alley wall. The woman sucked in a shocked breath at the wet crack of her servant's skull against the brick. Jens's gaping mouth and eyes remained open as Chane released the body, letting it slide to the alley floor.
He closed in on the woman.
She crawled backward, and Chane stepped on her voluminous skirt to halt her retreat. He looked down at her, knowing she saw his eyes and teeth in a face not quite human. Chane put all the force he could muster behind his maimed voice, and said one word like the hiss of a snake.
"Scream."
Her mouth opened wide and round like her eyes. All that came out were her own quick rasps.
Chane grasped the front of her cloak, pulled her up, and pinned her to the wall. He hardened his fingernails by will and sank them through her clothes into her chest.
She screamed, and a faltering wave of pleasure passed through Chane as he bit into her throat
Her flesh was soft and hot with fear, but he drank only enough to weaken her. He slowed, licking at the wound to make the moment last a little longer, then pulled back and twisted his fingernails in her skin.
She screamed again, trailing into panting whimpers. This time the sound brought Chane only melancholy. When she tried to pull his hand away, he pushed his fingernails through layers of her clothes and flesh.
Her sounds of pain and horror would attract all the attention he wanted, but she wasn't putting up enough of a fight, barely a pretense of self-defense.
Chane didn't cover her mouth as he burrowed his face into her bloodied throat. He ripped her flesh open with his teeth, but took care not to collapse her windpipe. She cried out and began a series of moans as he dropped her to bleed out on the alley floor. Pounding footsteps in the street told him it was time to slip away. He scurried to a deep black doorway down the alley and paused to watch.
A soldier skidded on the wet cobblestones as he passed the alley mouth and hurried back to see the woman. He had no torch or lantern and nearly tripped over the manservant's body as he rushed to her. Another guard arrived with a torch held high, the light exposing both victims. Both guards stared at the woman.
Blood had stopped spilling from between her fingers clamped about her throat. It pooled about her head, slowly running along crevices between the cobblestones. Her brown eyes were still open.
"Get Lord Geyren-now!" the first soldier yelled.
The second guard dropped the torch beside his companion and ran back the way he'd come. Shouts and confusion followed.
Chane knew he should slip away, but a strange fascination kept him there. He watched longer than he should have.
Armed men and gasping townspeople began to collect at the alley's mouth. Chane heard an anguished shout.
A young man in polished boots pushed through the gawkers to stand over the young woman's corpse. He wore a royal-blue tunic and an open indigo cloak. When he crumpled to his knees, he took no notice of blood soaking into his fine breeches.
"Marianne?" he asked, reaching out for her red-stained fingers. He pulled them away, exposing her throat. "Marianne!"
The second soldier had returned with the young nobleman and began pushing the crowd back. The first soldier turned on his knee toward the manservant, checking for life. In front of the guards and everyone else the young nobleman sobbed like a child. He lifted her body and pulled it to his chest. Her blood smeared across the side of his face. He looked around wildly.
"Help me! Someone get help."
Chane watched in puzzlement as the young man rocked the woman in his arms, back and forth.
It wasn't fair. He should still have the joy of the hunt and the kill, but it had come and gone in an instant. Euphoria eluded him, no matter how much warm flesh he bit into since…
That night in the Apudalsat forest, Wynn, bleeding from a shoulder wound, threw herself in front of Magiere. Chane hesitated. Magiere took his head. And then nothing but waking in terror from that last instant, and thrashing free of the corpses thrown over him.
Watching the young nobleman, Chane felt no pity or regret, but there was an image in his thoughts, as he imagined…
Wynn collapsed across his own headless body. She sobbed upon his chest, her small face streaked with dirt and tears and his own black fluids.
Chane couldn't watch any longer. He slipped along the wall, deeper into the alley. No one noticed his departure. He kept seeing Wynn's face marred by his own second death.
The first long, eerie wail rang out through the night air, close enough that Chane froze. He stood in an open street, completely unprotected from the shield of Welstiel's ring.
Chap was hunting him.
Magiere walked toward an inn, and as they drew near Leesil's torch lit up the yellow-painted letters of its sign-THE BRONZE REEL. Hunger rumbled in her stomach, and the barest burn of it rose in her throat. She hadn't bothered to eat anything before they stepped out on the hunt. Her jaw muscles twinged, probably from all the tension she'd suffered in the last few days. She reached for the door handle to enter the inn.
"Magiere…" Leesil whispered from behind.
She turned and saw his face strangely lit up inside his deep cowl, but the clomping of heavy boots pulled her attention away. Two men in leather armor, shortswords unsheathed, ran by through the intersection they'd just crossed.
Chap snarled and broke into a full-throated wail.
Hunger sharpened in Magiere's stomach in response to Chap's cry.
"Damned dead deities… we're right on top of him!" Leesil said.
He pulled the crossbow off his back, a quarrel already fitted under its holding clamp as he cocked it. Magiere saw why his face was lit up within the cowl.
The topaz amulet glowed upon his chest.
"Chap, go!" she ordered.
The dog bolted down the street, wailing as he turned the corner after the running soldiers. Magiere followed as fast as she could with Leesil close at her side. Chap outdistanced them to the next cross street, but there he pulled up short.
Two soldiers held back a small cluster of people before the mouth of an alley. Chap paced behind the townsfolk, trying to look through their legs into the alley. When Magiere caught up, she and Leesil stopped as well. She pushed halfway through the crowd before she saw the spectacle that had drawn them here.