If Truth Dies
DEAD WHORES
At the time of year when the heat of summer wars against the chill invasion of autumn for custody of the land; a strong wind rose without warning, sending dark clouds skidding across the skies above the Waejontori town of Hell's Widow. Thunder growled and roared, followed by the dance of multi-colored lightning. The heavens opened and rain cascaded down in a blinding rush that drove all, save the most stalwart, from the streets to seek shelter wherever it could be found.
Alexander Jondries grimaced at the rain, bowed his head to keep the water from his eyes, and continued along Skull Road. He knew better than to keep Lord Heironim Traxton waiting without an excellent excuse, and bad weather did not classify as such. A spindleshanks of a mon, the whores at the Crimson Lady Brothel often complained that they got poked harder by Jondries hipbones than his cock.
Most people in Hell's Widow referred to this section of the town as the Blood District. In the beginning, the name had risen from the fact that the blood-drinking sa'necari aristocracy had built their elaborate homes and temples here. Over the past thirty years, the Sharani occupiers – sword-wielding viragoes – had either massacred or driven off all of the sa'necari from this region. The temples had been torn down, and the mansions and estates fallen to ruin, yet the name stuck as the surviving buildings were given over to far different purposes. Prostitution ruled. The surviving mansions had been turned into businesses such as the Scarlet Petticoats Brothel and the Red Buttocks, a bondage parlor.
The Crimson Lady reigned as Queen of the District; the largest, finest brothel in the whole of southeastern Waejontor.
The brothels were a gaudy island surrounded by the dregs of Hell's Widow's population. Every third house was derelict and the rest were rotting on their foundations. Stray dogs and cats took refuge from the rain beneath the cracked boards of neglected porches. Jondries noted with dour satisfaction that the rain had driven the rats from alleys and the drunks from the gutters and walkways.
Jondries had developed a distaste for drunks, addicts of every stripe, and all varieties of the homeless. A sa'necari-born, Jondries had gained his fangs and appetites at puberty, and required a generous daily helping of blood straight from the veins in addition to regular food and drink to stay healthy. When he, Dorjan, and Nelek made the trip to Hell's Widow from the Tyrins' estates in the north, the need for secrecy had been so great that the blood supplement to his diet had come almost entirely from drunks, addicts, and homeless; which had left the fastidious Jondries with a strong aversion to them.
The Blood District had begun dying long before Heironim moved in. Drugs, drink, and crime had been taking their tolls for decades; but now death haunted the streets with greater frequency and savagery than it had ever known. Even the Sharani occupiers rarely walked these streets. The sa'necari had returned to Hell's Widow, using it as a secret base to attack Clan Red Wolf across the Eirlys River and spy upon the Sharani garrison for signs of troop movements.
Heironim had sent Jondries a message to meet him for dinner at the Crimson Lady. The brothel had a bar and a fine restaurant as well as three dozen exquisite whores in residence. Well, mused Jondries, there are worse places for a meeting, and I can get my cock sucked when we finish.
Jondries had a fair idea of why Heironim had called this meeting and why he had decided to hold it at the Crimson Lady. Two weeks ago, Heironim's favorite whore had vanished with only her jewelry and none of her clothing. Jondries had suggested to him that, being lycan, Ellie might simply have dumped her jewelry in a bag and wolfed it. However, Heironim refused to accept that Ellie would abandon him that way; and so here Jondries was on his way to yet another meeting over her disappearance. He wished Heironim would simply find himself a new favorite and get on with the important stuff.
Caught up in his thoughts, he failed to see the drunk come barreling out of an abandoned house until they collided and went tumbling into the muddy street together. Jondries knocked the mon aside and sat up, outrage heightening the color in his copper-skinned face.
"What the hell?" Jondries grimaced at the ragged mon, and then at the mud coating the front his good clothes. "Look where you're going, you stupid piece of shit."
The drunk scrambled away from Jondries with the kind of clarity in his blood-shot eyes that suggested something had scared him sober. "I–I'm sorry. Really, I am."
"You ought to be."
The drunk waved his bottle, mud oozing from the bottom of it, in wild gesticulation. "M–murder … tied to the bedposts…."
That got Jondries' attention. His people enhanced their powers through rites of rape and murder called mortgiefan. 'Tied to the bedposts' sounded like it might be a sa'necari kill. The Butchering Serpent had passed down instructions through Heironim that all evidence of their presence in Hell's Widow had to be destroyed or covered up. They could not risk the Sharani guardsmyn stumbling upon it. He seized him by the shoulders and shook him. "Shut up."
The drunk blinked and cringed. "There's been a murder."
"Yes, yes. You've said that." Jondries pulled a tenpence from his pocket, which was enough to buy three bottles of cheap liquor, and waved it at the drunk. "Show me, and I'll give you this."
A crafty gleam replaced the fear in the drunk's eyes as he grabbed at the coin.
Jondries closed his fist around it and drew his hand back. "After you show me."
The drunk pointed at a house.
"Don't point. Show me." Jondries got to his feet and jerked the drunk up by his collar. "What's your name?"
"Timothy."
"Okay, Timothy. Show me the body and I'll give you the coin."
Timothy led Jondries to an abandoned house. The steps of the long covered porch creaked beneath Jondries' feet. Timothy slipped inside after motioning Jondries to follow him. Jondries paused and peered through a grimy window, wondering what had happened to the people there. His sharp eyes made out the edges of the furniture. Whoever had once lived here must have departed suddenly, leaving with only the clothes on their backs because nothing looked out of order. Jondries stepped over the threshold and found Timothy standing in the middle of the living room, trying to wipe the mud off the rim of his bottle.
"Where?" Jondries demanded, his nose wrinkling at the thick layer of dust laying over everything and the odor of mold giving signs of the long absence of the inhabitants. He wandered into the kitchen and spied a pot on the wood stove. The contents of the pot had turned into a dry green dust. The possibility that this might be a trap occurred to Jondries. He extended his necromantic senses in a low-level scan and found nothing larger than rats in the house.
Timothy trailed in after him.
"Where is it?"
"In the bedroom."
Jondries shook his head in weary contempt. "Show me."
Timothy led him into a room and pointed at a bed that had huge sturdy posts and a canopy. In the middle of a disheveled pile of blood stained comforters lay a badly decomposed body fastened spread-eagle to the posts.
"Pay me."
"Ah yes. Payment." Jondries threw a lean arm around Timothy, pinioning him. Timothy's eyes saucered as he struggled to get loose. Jondries' incredible strength held the drunk easily. He drew his long belt knife and shoved it into Timothy's side, hitting the kidneys with the perfection of long experience.
Timothy gave a grunt of anguish, shuddered, and went limp in Jondries' grasp. He pulled his blade out and wiped it clean on Timothy's clothes before letting the dying drunk fall.
"Well, well." Jondries stepped over Timothy, moving to the bedside. He stared down at the maggot pond that had once been a living being and shook his head in distaste. Jondries had never liked dealing with the disgusting remnants, which was why he had never learned to create zombies and other forms of undead chattel favored by his peers.
He extended his necromantic gifts in a focused scan of the remains. A dry chuckle followed his determination of the dead mon's identity. "Well, well. Heironim will be so happy to hear I found you, Ellie. Now I'll not have to put up with anymore of these tiresome meetings."
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