Page 164

21

Something Becoming

Osric

When Osric had asked Fairhrim to dance, she had, at first, done nothing but stare at him. A very dark time in his life had followed, taking on the proportions of approximately ten years of agony and suspense, until her shrugged “Very well.”

That was where it should have ended. Osric had never intended to steal a kiss, and certainly never intended to linger along her neck. It was meant to be only a dance. But she had looked up at him, and he had discovered how her wet hair caught pentagrams of stars, and watched raindrops trickle down her throat and make a necklace of moon glitter there, and the kleptomaniac urge had risen, and he, weak-willed fool that he was, had yielded to it.

When he had asked her to put the poor bastard out of his misery, he hadn’t been referring to Perfect Aedan. He had been talking about himself.

He had played the smitten fool a little too well. Well enough to believe it.

Afterwards, Fairhrim had fled from him, and left him with an unfinished dance and a fear.

He wished he could unknow what she had tasted like. What it had felt like to hold her quivering stillness in his arms as he made his way down her neck.

Once again they had met upon a threshold, once again they had reached an Almost, and once again she had fled.

She would never cross over. And he was burdened now, with the memory of a swiftly beating heart, exhilaration and pleasure, and the weight of regret.

He wished he could unkiss her.

A few days after Osric’sstay with Fairhrim, Tristane’s ill-tempered polecat deofol summoned him to the Fyren HQ.

Thanks to Fairhrim’s attentions, he was by then able to walk normally, and not as though he had been stabbed in the gut by a fellow Fyren who was, incidentally, missing under mysterious circumstances.

The Fyren headquarters had moved to an abandoned abattoir. Osric had scouted the place out after one of Fairhrim’s more piquant remarks. It was perfect; there were exsanguination and blood-storage facilities on-site, and no one in the neighbourhood investigated if things got smelly. Fairhrim would no doubt be thrilled to know her input had had such an impact on Osric’s Order.

Upon the abattoir’s rusted gates lingered the cheerful sloganWe kill so you don’t have to!

Below it was carved a rough rendition of the Order’s hellhound fangs.

Sacramore was in the abattoir’s dingy reception area, sorting through a diverse pile of contraband.

“Good luck, darling,” he said as Osric walked in. “The butcher is in a mood.”

Osric pondered Why That Could Be.

He followed a cracked-tile corridor to the killing floor, where Tristane stood, accompanied by Lady Windermere. Around them were enormous meat hooks, upon which recent victims of Tristane’s interrogations were hung upside down. A few of them were still alive. One wheezed aerosolised blood.

There was a sign on the wall indicating the days since the last injury: fourteen. Osric felt that it needed updating.

Tristane gestured him closer. She wore an enormous rubbery apron and yellow boots.

“Lovely outfit,” said Osric. “Crime-scene chic.”

“Thank you,” said Tristane. “It has pockets.”

“What are you doing with these fine gentlemen?”

“A bit of forensic accounting,” said Tristane. “Have you had any word from Brythe recently?”

Lady Windermere, who had been standing beside Tristane in silence, let out a staccato breath, and wiped away a tear.

Osric, with perfect innocent concern, said, “Brythe? Saw him last week at the Harmacy.”

“That’s the last time anyone saw him,” said Tristane.