Page 9 of Time's Fool

“We don’t know if she intended to make revenants, or if she simply got the curse for vampirism slightly wrong, but either way, she might try again. And while I don’t blame you for hating the Circle and every mage in it, the fact is that these creatures of hers didn’t go after the Circle. They went after regular people. Your people.”

I didn’t know if the vamp was getting anything out of this, but I was becoming worked up. I approached the women, went down to my haunches, and pulled out a series of sketches from inside of my jerkin. The vamp had made them at the scene, I wasn’t sure why. Maybe as some sort of evidence, or as something to show the Senate. But I’d found them strangely compelling.

I chose one showing the tow-headed boy, left crumpled in the dirt with his uneaten pie, and held it up to them. It was dim in the cell, with only one small, high-set window. But it was in the wall right over their heads and the light fell square onto the sketch.

It had caught the child perfectly, with his chubby baby hand outflung and his lashes lying sweetly on his cheeks. He looked like he was dreaming, even with the disarray all around him. But this child would never wake again.

And someone had to pay for that.

“Look at him,” I said sharply, because several of them weren’t. “Look at what she did. What she’ll do again. Somebody that out of control doesn’t stop, they are stopped. Or else they keep it up, keep on killing. How many more children, English children, have to die before we catch up with her? How many more villages have to be laid waste, their market day upended, their lives destroyed?

“You hate the Circle, but do you hate them? If not, put your hate aside for a moment and help us. Otherwise, it might be days, weeks, even months before we catch up to her. And all the people who will die in the meantime . . . well.” I stood up, but left the drawing behind. “If you know something and don’t help us, then their deaths are on your shoulders. Aren’t they?”

* * *

“I didn’t think you were serious,” I said, some hours later, while shivering in my boots.

My physical reaction wasn’t from fear, although I damned well had cause, but rather from the rain that had been pissing down for half the day. And despite this being July, it was cold tonight. I was remembering why I usually avoided taking jobs in England.

Had we been inside a nice warm tavern, with a roaring fire, some of the local ale, and a nice bowl of pottage, it would have been fine.

But we were not in a tavern.

We were in a forest, or the edge of one anyway, alongside a dozen master vampires on loan from the Senate. Some, perhaps all, of them had been with us at Fairhurst, so nobody was looking at me funny. They had obviously heard about the pigs.

But nobody looked happy to be there, either, and not just because of the weather. But because Mircea, who I was beginning to suspect might not be entirely sane, had a plan. Not a good one, mind you, but a plan.

“I guess reading their minds didn’t work?” I asked him, and got a glance in return.

“You did well distracting them. Do not blame yourself.”

“I wasn’t.”

That won me another glance. “It is difficult with magic users,” he informed me. “And in particular magical militants who are trained to resist the Circle’s methods of questioning, many of which also involve some sort of mind control. But I received glimpses, enough to know that they might have the knowledge we need.”

“But they’re not giving it to us.”

“Not knowingly,” he agreed, and glanced at his men. “Do not lose them.”

No threat accompanied the words. No ‘do not lose them or I feed you to the pigs.’ Or ‘do not lose them or I turn you into a gelding.’ Or ‘do not lose them or I let you make the acquaintance of the vampire queen,’ which from what I’d heard, would have been more effective than anything else.

No, he just said it, matter-of-factly and with no particular emphasis. But several of them swallowed and a few more stood up a bit straighter, with their eyes fixed on the Circle’s holding facility in the distance. I wondered, not for the first time, who exactly I was dealing with.

The grand plan, however, was simple: send a group of combined vamps and mages to make a frontal assault on the jail, and while the Circle’s men were battling them, use the rest of our force to free the women. Maybe they’d tell us something out of gratitude, but even if not, each would have a shadow who would stay on her tail, well out of human sight or hearing, to see where she went.

If they had loyalty to the revenant-loving witch, at least one should try to warn her that she had attracted the attention of the fearsome Vampire Senate. And as soon as we knew who she was, the Senate would deal with the rest. The revenant attacks would stop, I would get paid, and all would be well with the world.

Or so the logic went.

I had my doubts.

I glanced at my associates, wondering how they’d like going through life with their heads on backwards or without a tongue. Or only speaking some ancient Celtic language that nobody understood any more. Or screaming uncontrollably and wetting themselves whenever they saw a horse, because witches could be endlessly inventive.

And then I wondered how much longer this was going to take, because I was getting soaked.

I pulled my wide brimmed hat down a bit more and watched two vamps through the rain dripping off the brim. They were sneaking along the back of the Circle’s establishment, while a bunch more were around front with the Senate’s mages. Mircea had dropped a small charm inside the prison while we were there, which was supposed to help disrupt the wards when the attack began, but so far, it was doing sod all.

I listened to the wind shake the tree tops, which dumped another cascade of water on us, and refrained from shifting from foot to foot. But I was beginning to think that the charm hadn’t worked, which if so, would mean a long night for nothing. Because the mages the Senate employed were not going to break through any Circle enchantments.

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