Thief of Souls ~excerpt (unedited)
All Kendra wants is to save her dying brother Liam. After hearing about a healer in Belthalas who can work miracles, she decides to take Liam on the long journey to that coastal city. To finance the trip, she ventures back into her old vocation—burgling houses—despite being a convicted thief with a year of prison under her belt and another 18 months of parole left. Just one night of work with a big enough take and she and her brother can kiss Sylphae and their old life goodbye.
But Kendra isn’t the only person breaking into the houses of the wealthy tonight. From the shadows of Lord Aemon’s bedchamber, she witnesses something from a child’s nightmares—a ghoul made flesh, stealing the soul of the old, ailing lord, drinking it down for sustenance. When the ghoul discovers her there, she’s terrified enough to run straight into the arms of the constabulary if need be, even at the risk of hanging. But the ghoul isn’t prepared to let her leave, and he has his own mission to complete.
In Kendra’s mind, more frightening than prison or hanging is the Devouring Man of childhood tales. What could be worse than the ghoul? Kendra will discover that before morning…
*
Kendra kept to the shadows. Alleys, breezeways and the doorways of the newer buildings where the light was less, these were home to her. She was a cat in the night, eyes focused, ears open to any sound, be it footfall, or sigh, or laugh, or slow drag of steel.
All around her, the velvet-soft midnight of Sylphae. As she crept around a corner and scrambled silently to the top of a garden wall, she could hear the sleep-noises of rich men’s horses in their stables. The horses would have eaten better than she tonight, and would be bedded more comfortably against the chill of early spring. Tomorrow, she thought, would be a day for food, for beer and sleep on a feather ticking. Tonight was for work.
She lay flat on her back for a moment on the top of the wall, catching her breath, one hand pressed to the long, sleek pouch strapped tight around her waist. Girdled in gold, as fine as any lady. She almost laughed aloud at the thought.
One more stop, and then home.
Drawing in a long, soundless breath, she rolled off the wall and dropped with perfect precision onto one of the stepping stones in the rear corner of the garden. To her left was a mass planting of wallflowers—the scent rose up all around her as her leg disturbed them. On her right, she knew without having to look, was a patch of lavender interspersed with primulas, and beyond that, the rocky banks of the carp-pond. The chirp of crickets and frogs seemed oddly out of place in the middle of the city—eerie rather than reassuring. Her eyes scanning the faint outlines of shrubs and statuary, Kendra took a step, then another, her soft-soled boots raising no sound.
From the direction of the house, a low growl, halfway to a bark. Kendra froze. She knew there would be dogs. More importantly, she knew the dogs.
“Hsst, Basama! Nima!” she called softly. “Come by!”
Recognizing her voice, the two dogs rushed over, a roiling mass of muscle, slobber and toenails, nearly toppling her in their enthusiasm. “Hsst, hsst!” Kendra admonished breathlessly as they yipped and caroled. “Go lie down now! Go on!”
The dogs settled, wandering off to find their beds, tails drooping. Kendra would be sure to bring them a special treat tomorrow when she came to trim the boxwoods. Slipping out of the flower beds and onto one of the main paths, she made her cautious way to the rear of the house. There were lights on in the servants’ quarters, but that was no surprise. Lord Aemon was a demanding man and did not permit his employees to pursue personal affairs or entertainment during daylight hours. On the third floor, a set of mullioned doors showed the dim light of a single lamp. Next to it, connected by a railed terrace, was the room she sought.
Her palms were damp. As she rubbed them on her trouser legs, she discovered her heart was thudding as well, and her breath coming fast and shallow. She turned and made a slow, scrupulous inspection of the garden. Her eyes were good—so good her brother Liam had begun to hint to any who’d listen of her possible Kurgan heritage. Pshaw. It seemed the latest fashion these days to claim a Kurgan bloodline. Fool’s tales, Kendra thought, told by fools to bigger fools.
Nothing moved in the dark, save the gentle flutter of petal and leaf. Holding her breath for a count of ten, Kendra tried to impose upon herself her usual calm. Certainly, it had been a while since she’d done this—four years and more—but at one time, cutting purses and burgling houses had been as natural as breathing. Only an hour ago, crouching in the garden of a different lord she had encountered no doubts at all, slipping back into her old vocation as easily as a well-worn shirt.
Shaking her head now, she approached the house, feeling through the ivy for the sturdy trellis beneath. Placing her hands and feet with care, she scrabbled up the metal latticework. By the time she swung herself up onto the third floor terrace, she was out of breath. Her arms felt tingly and weak from the unaccustomed exercise, but a familiar exhilaration had taken hold of her, the residue of her old life. Three years’ labor indentured to Aemon’s groundskeeper seemed to have vanished into the ether. She was Kendra the thief again, fifteen years old and agile as a monkey.
Two sets of oak framed doors filled with mullioned glass opened onto the terrace. A muted light shone behind those that led to Aemon’s bedroom. The reassuring drone within told her the lord was safely aslumber. Stepping on the balls of her feet, she crossed to the other set and tested the latch. When it didn’t give, she crouched and drew her picks from the special clasp that held them to her belt. In about ten heartbeats, the door was open, and she slipped inside, pulling it shut with a soft click.
Inside, it was honest dark. Barely a hint of moonlight reflected off the white marble of the terrace rail and in through the glass. It took a moment to identify the furniture—an armchair, a settee, a wardrobe, several chests. For an instant, Kendra was distracted by her own image against the paler doors, reflected in a mirror taller than she was and likely worth more than she carried in her thief’s pouch. A sheet of glass that large would cost a hundred times more than the silver that backed it. Too bad she couldn’t carry it with her—it would fetch a pretty price.
A snore from the next room set her back to her task. Ignoring the chests and the wardrobe, she crossed to the settee. She knew these nobles, had served them for the last three years, and had been stealing from them for years before that. They were always certain someone was after their money. They didn’t trust the servants—they didn’t even trust their own families. There would be a few small baubles in the obvious places—decoys for the chambermaids—but baubles would do Kendra no good. Lifting the seat cushion of the settee, she felt around in the dark for the tell-tale ribbon. There. As she tugged it upward, the seat deck of the settee lifted on hidden hinges, exposing a secret compartment. Within lay what Lord Aemon would have considered an emergency pittance, about eighty gold falcons and a small pouch of gemstones. Pin money for a wealthy man’s wife. Enough to buy a man’s life.
Lifting her tunic, she unfastened her thief’s belt and gingerly laid it out on the floor. From the next room, through the slightly open connecting door, the sound of Aemon’s snores resounded. As quickly as stealth would permit, Kendra transferred the gold and jewels from the compartment to individual pockets on her belt, then painstakingly rewrapped it around her waist under her clothes. Then she pushed the lid closed and set the cushion back on top.
As she rose, the noises from Aemon’s bedchamber altered subtly, his snores changing to wheezing. Standing still like a shadow in Aemon’s dressing room, Kendra listened for his breathing to become regular again, signaling safety. But Aemon only grew more distressed, his breath rasping, peppered with wordless murmurs. Something was very wrong.
Approaching the doorway, she peeked in through the crack. In the meager lamplight within Aemon thrashed weakly, his limbs tangled in the bed-linens, his sparse gray hair sweat-plastered to his head. He wasn’t asleep—his eyes were open, bulging with terror.
And sitting on the edge of his mattress was a man, an apparition, a beast of the netherworld.
Shrouded in billows of black cloth the figure leaned forward, reaching toward Aemon with one hand. The fingers appeared skeletal in the uncertain light, the man’s bony form evident even beneath the layers of heavy wool. His hand was on Aemon’s chest now. As Kendra stood transfixed in the doorway, the intruder—the other intruder—reached up with its free hand and drew back its hood.
The face that emerged was as skeletal as the hands, the eyes sunken, the bones cast in sharp relief. Thin, dark hair trailed in sickly wisps from his scalp. A starving, desiccated thing, terrible and pitiful. The man—if man it was—closed his eyes in concentration, his teeth flashing in the wan light as his lips pulled back from them.
Aemon was growing more agitated, sucking breath in shallow gasps as if a weight pressed down on him, each inhalation an agony. His mouth gaped as if he would scream, but the only sound that escaped him was a frail wheeze, and then even that was gone, silenced.
Kendra’s mouth went dry. She should leave, she knew, but her feet would not obey her.
As she watched, a light gathered above Aemon, a kind of luminous mist, swirling in the air between him and the intruder. Aemon gave a dry, pathetic cry and was still. The mist grew still as well; then at a gesture of the intruder’s hand, it began to flow upward, into his rictus of a mouth. Kendra looked on, horrified, as the essence of what was once a greedy, bitter old man flowed into the maw of the skeletal stranger, and she saw how the stranger changed. How his cheeks filled out. How his skin flushed. How his hair became fuller and more lustrous.
How he grew young and hale before her eyes.
There were tales she recalled from childhood, told to her by her mother before she died, old, evil stories meant to put the fear in children. Tales of the Devouring Man who went from house to house and ate little children who were not abed in the night. Such tales were common in Sylphae, if nowhere else. Sylphae was old, its memory long, and there was often more truth to such stories than one might like to admit. Compared to this stranger, the Devouring Man seemed ridiculous, a caricature. What was an eater of children next to an eater of souls?
Eater of Souls. The thought was there before she could unthink it. Was this man a minion of Gorgorn? Or had the Eater of Souls himself escaped from Hell to walk the earth?
Kendra could hardly hear for the rush of blood in her ears. Her heart was slamming so hard against her ribs, she thought the ghoul might hear it even from the other room. She was too frightened to move, but terrified of staying. The desire for an easy mark had undone her. Why could she have not picked a different house?
The intruder leaned back his head, his hair falling in brown curls across shoulders now full and muscular. Limned by the lamp behind him, his throat arched, the tendons standing out, the jaw square and jutting. He was beyond beautiful now, had attained an otherworldly perfection. His robes no longer engulfed him, but draped over a lean, sculpted form. He reached up, touched his face as if to assure himself. Then he opened his eyes and the light poured out of them, swirled before his face, and faded.
This man had killed Lord Aemon. Kendra had done nothing to intervene. The guilty weight of her thief’s belt hung like a band of lead around her waist. What could I have done? she asked herself, reaching for expiation where there was none. I am only a woman, and this man is. . .something not mortal.
But in truth, it was not so much her fear of the stranger—considerable though it was—but her terror of prison that had kept her silent. Her history was well known here. She had no excuse to be in the house, even during the day. If she had cried for help, there would have been no question as to what she was doing here. Once a thief, always a thief. How many times had she heard that, in the last four years?
The man rose and stretched his arms above him, languorous as a cat upon waking. As he did his robes fell away, exposing a sleek, well-formed body clothed in a torn and bloodied tunic. Oddly, he was not much taller than Kendra, though his presence made him seem much larger. With a sudden burst of panic, she realized he was getting ready to leave. There were but three doors leading from the room—the mullioned terrace doors, the main entry from the hallway, and the door where Kendra stood, peeking stupidly, just waiting for him to walk right into her. Her heart dislodged itself from her throat and settled back into her chest when he turned to the outer doors—he had obviously gotten inside the same way she had.
With a silent prayer of thanks to Kara, and another to Salgrim, she waited for him to leave. But he didn’t.
He turned instead, with his hand on the latch of the terrace doors, and his eyes found her with uncanny accuracy.
How can he see me? she wondered in dumb terror, even as she staggered back from the door. It was open a mere crack, the light from the lamp could not have revealed her. Yet he did see her. His gaze had met her own as unerringly as if they stood in the same room. On the balls of her feet, she sidestepped across to the hallway door, to the stout panel of oak that stood between her and the ordinary perils of normal people. She was breathing much too loudly—if he hadn’t already seen her, he could certainly now hear the swift rush of air in and out of her lungs. She didn’t care. She was poised to run, straight into the arms of the city constabulary, if need be. With one hand on the knob, she stared transfixed at the thin bar of light that came from the other room.
And then the light was gone. The lamp put out.
Her fingers grasped the knob, turned it. She stared into the grainy, charcoal dark of the dressing room, the residue of the lamplight still hovering like a slender, blue-green ghost before her eyes. Her face was wet with sweat and tears, her muscles trembled between the need for stillness and the urge to run like a rabbit.
The door from the bedchamber slammed open.