“How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine?” Caradon stood behind her on the stoop just outside the amulet shop. She stood on the bottom step, staring at his waiting carriage but also furiously plotting about how to extract the information that she was sure the shop owner had.
“What do you mean?” she said.
From a block away in the direction of the Temple, the strains of chanting drifted their way. Three white and red robed worshippers of the old pagan cults shuffled down the street carrying nothing more than a smoking censer bowl in one hand and a brass staff in the other. The sky, surprisingly dark for the afternoon, briefly lit up with a streak of lightning, bouncing from one cloud to the next. There was a rumble and then it began to rain.
“Now you know how it feels like not being able to get anything useful from someone who stubbornly refuses to say anything,” he clarified.
“If you think that this is going to make me more willing to let me share my thoughts with you, you’re sadly mistaken. If that amulet shop owner refuses to tell me anything, that is fine as well. It will take me longer to ferret out what I need to know, but I will find out, regardless.”
“Persistent and feisty. Quite an ensemble of traits for a female. Have you ever considered going into the law profession?”
“Becoming a lawyer. Are you daft? That job is only fit for worms,” she sniffed as drops of rainwater dripped from the tip of her hat into her face. She passed her gloved hands over her face to wipe the wetness away. “Horrible weather. You don’t suppose you would be able take me back home.”
“You doubt my manners?”
“You aren’t exactly a gentleman.”
His eyes narrowed. “And you still trust me to take you directly home if I choose to offer you a ride?”
“I never said anything about trusting you.”
She turned to step down from the stoop of the amulet shop. At that moment, the three robed figures were passing a few feet away, chanting—prayers, spells, incantations, she wasn’t sure what—in the language of the Ancients. Smoke rose from their censers and melded with the rain creating a strange gray fog in the air. The robed figures swirled into misty phantoms in her vision and Caradon’s carriage was relegated into a small black blob that seems so far away. Caradon stepped beside her, putting an arm on her elbow and she felt oddly anchored onto the street.
As the figures passed, they gave a great shout. Zan sensed, rather than saw, the first figure flinging his bowl outwards towards her. In that moment, she wondered fuzzily if something was muzzling her head, if something about the entire scene was dreadfully wrong.
“Out, you slit-eyed devils, out!” the head of the trio screamed. “Go back to where you came from and let the gods’ Chosen Ones rule the Promised Land!”
And then the dust hit and she gagged and coughed, her skin stinging and burning. She felt, rather than heard, the rip in her gloves and blindly, she stumbled forward, swiping her claws and baring her teeth. But the hand at her elbow turned as sharp as knives and it flung her backward. In her dimmed vision, she saw a dark blur explode onto the three figures who screamed and fled.
Was it only her addled brain, or did she see a gleam of teeth, the point of a muzzle?
The smoke cleared and then it was just the drizzle of rain. Strong hands grabbed her forearms and pulled her up from the ground. The scent from the drugging censers slowly cleared and soon she was able to breathe in a more familiar scent. The familiar scent became stronger when Caradon pulled out a handkerchief and began wiping her face. She started coughing and shaking.
He pressed the handkerchief to her hand. “Did you get a good look at them?”
Zan coughed into the bit of linen he handed to her and shook her head before she shut her eyes against a wave of nausea.
Caradon cursed and with a hand at her back steered her toward his carriage. He shouted something curt to his driver before he almost tossed her inside and vaulted into the carriage himself. When the vehicle jerked to a start, she began coughing again. He shifted in his seat to sit beside her and began pounding her back. The blows caused her to suck in a breath and slump over.
“I suppose I won’t act like a gentleman this time since I won’t be taking you straight home,” he said. “You need some medical attention.”
Breathing felt like having a million needles getting stuck through her lungs. Gingerly, she raised her head and examined her hands. The fingers of the gloves were in tatters and at her elbow, there were three strange tears on the sleeve of her dress. She slowly pulled her gloves off and stuffed them into her reticule. Then she looked up to watch Caradon. He looked the same as always.
