Lead Demon

Vous Avez Bien ...

“It would seem my instincts have failed me,” Champier murmured. “Now that I am with her, she seems to have little power after all. Perhaps she is not the English witch that people were speaking about in Limoges.”

“Limoges, eh? How extraordinary for news of her to travel so far so fast. But Madame Roydon is, thankfully, the only wandering Englishwoman we have had to take in, Monsieur Champier.” Michael’s dimples flashed as he poured himself some wine. “It is bad enough to be plagued with French vagrants at this time of year, without being overrun with foreigners as well.”

“The wars have loosened many from their homes.” One of Champier’s eyes was blue, the other brown. It was the mark of a powerful seer. The wizard had a wiry energy that fed on the power that pulsed in the atmosphere around him. Instinctively I took a step away. “Is that what happened to you, madame?”

“Who can tell what horrors she has seen or been subjected to?” Michael said with a shrug. “Her husband had been dead ten days when we found her in an isolated farmhouse. Madame Roydon might have fallen victim to all kinds of predators.” The elder de Clermont was as talented at fabricating life stories as was his son or Christopher Marlowe.

“I will find out what has happened to her. Give me your hand.” When I didn’t immediately acquiesce, Champier grew impatient. With a flick of his fingers, my left arm shot toward him. Panic, sharp and bitter, flooded my system as he grasped my hand. He stroked the flesh on my palm, progressing deliberately over each f

inger in an intimate search for information. My stomach flipped.

“Does her flesh give you knowledge of her secrets?” Michael sounded only mildly curious, but there was a muscle ticking in his neck.

“A witch’s skin can be read, like a book.” Champier frowned and brought his fingers to his nose. He sniffed. His face soured. “She has been too long with vampires. Who has been feeding from her?”

“That is f*******n,” Michael said silkily. “No one in my household has shed the girl’s blood, for sport or for sustenance.”

“The manjasang can read a creature’s blood as easily as I can read her flesh.” Champier yanked at my arm, pushing my sleeve up and ripping the fine cord that held the cuffs snug against my wrist. “You see? Someone has been enjoying her. I am not the only one who wishes to know more about this English witch.”

Michael bent closer to inspect my exposed elbow, his breath a cool puff over my skin. My pulse was beating a tattoo of alarm. What was Michael after? Why wasn’t Seven’s father stopping this?

“That wound is too old for her to have received it here. As I said, she has been in Saint-Lucien for only a week.”

Think. Stay alive. I repeated Michael’s instructions from yesterday.

“Who took your blood, sister?” Champier demanded.

“It is a knife wound,” I said hesitantly. “I made it myself.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. I prayed that the goddess would let it pass. My prayers went unanswered.

“Madame Roydon is keeping something from me—and from you, too, I believe. I must report it to the Congregation. It is my duty, sieur.” Champier looked expectantly at Michael.

“Of course,” Michael murmured. “I would not dream of standing between you and your duty. How might I help?”

“If you would restrain her, I would be grateful. We must delve deeper for the truth,” Champier said. “Most creatures find the search painful, and even those with nothing to hide instinctively resist a witch’s touch.”

Michael pulled me from Champier’s grasp and roughly sat me in his chair. He clamped one hand around my neck, the other at the crown of my head. “Like this?”

“That is ideal, sieur.” Champier stood before me, frowning at my forehead. “But what is this?” Fingers stained with ink smoothed over my forehead. His hands felt like scalpels, and I whimpered and twisted.

“Why does your touch cause her such pain?” Michael wondered.

“It is the act of reading that does it. Think of it as extracting a tooth,” Champier explained, his fingers lifting for a brief, blessed moment. “I will take her thoughts and secrets from the root, rather than leaving them to fester. It is more painful but leaves nothing behind and provides a clearer picture of what she is trying to hide. This is the great benefit of magic, you see, and university education. Witchcraft and the traditional arts known to women are crude, even superstitious. My magic is precise.”

“A moment, monsieur. You must forgive my ignorance. Are you saying this witch will have no memory of what you’ve done or the pain you’ve caused?”

“None save a lingering sense that something once had is now lost.” Champier’s fingers resumed stroking my forehead. He frowned. “But this is very strange. Why did a manjasang put his blood here?”

Being adopted into Michael’s clan was a memory of mine that I didn’t intend Champier to have. Nor did I want him sifting through my recollections of teaching at Yale, Sarah and Em, or Seven. My parents. My fingers clawed into the arms of the chair while a vampire held my head and a witch prepared to inventory and steal my thoughts. And yet no whisper of witchwind or flicker of witchfire came to my aid. My power had gone entirely quiet.

“It was you who marked this witch,” Champier said sharply, his eyes accusing.

“Yes.” Michael offered no explanation.

“That is most irregular, sieur.” His fingers kept probing my mind. Champier’s eyes opened in wonder. “But this is impossible. How can she be a—” He gasped and looked down at his chest.

A dagger stuck out between two of Champier’s ribs, the weapon’s blade buried deep within his chest. My fingers were wrapped tightly around the hilt. When he scrabbled to dislodge it, I pushed it in further. The wizard’s knees began to crumple.

“Leave it, Stephanie.” Michael commanded, reaching over to loosen my hand. “He’s going to die, and when he does, he will fall. You cannot hold up a dead weight.”

But I couldn’t let go of the dagger. The man was still alive, and as long as he was breathing, Champier could take what was mine.

A white face with inkblot eyes appeared briefly over Champier’s shoulder before a powerful hand wrested his lolling head to the side with a c***k of bones and sinew. Seven battened onto the man’s throat, drinking deeply.

“Where have you been, Seven?” Michael snapped. “You must move quickly. Stephanie struck before he could finish his thought.”

While Seven drank, Thomas and Étienne pelted into the room, a dazed Catrine in tow. They stopped, stunned. Alain and Daniel hovered in the hallway with the blacksmith, Chef, and the two soldiers who usually stood by the front gate.

“Vous avez bien fait,” Michael assured them. “It is over now.”

“I was supposed to think.” My fingers were numb, but I still couldn’t seem to unwrap them from the dagger.