All the Hours in Between, part 3

[tamcranver]

Part 1
Part 2



The three of them spent another two days and nights together in Jon’s crumbling ruin. In the morning, Jon made him some porridge while the hawk perched on Jon’s bed and screeched plaintively.

Brendon didn’t even bother worrying about Spencer. He’d heard the wolf howling the previous night, and from what little time he’d known Spencer, the man seemed well able to take care of himself. So Brendon threw himself into helping Jon gather herbs for his medicines, caring for the goats and chickens and mule that Jon kept, and enjoying the feeling of safety. Nobody, he reasoned, would think to look for him here.

He decided, after Jon’s honesty with him the previous night, that he owed him some honesty of his own. So while Jon showed him how to make a poultice of wolfsbane, Brendon blurted out, “I’m a pickpocket.”

Jon stared at him for a long moment, and then said, “Um. All right.”

“No, just,” Brendon said, “I felt bad with you being a priest and fixing me up, and me coming and eating all your food and making you tell me all that stuff about the curse, so I thought I ought to let you know. Just in case,” and here he felt a lurch in his stomach, a sort of internal flinching away from pain, “you know, you don’t want a thief hanging around.”

Jon shrugged, still looking a little taken aback. “Well, I’m certainly not going to throw you outside and lock the gates on you,” he said. “I figured it was probably something like that when you told me about Spencer rescuing you from the guards. I’m just glad you’re not a murderer or something.”

“I’m not really even a pickpocket anymore,” said Brendon, inordinately relieved. “I mean, I gave it up when I escaped from Aquila. I’m turning over a new leaf.”

“Good for you,” said Jon seriously. Then he changed the subject to the poultice they were preparing, and they worked for a while. When it was done and they were ready to bring it up to Ryan’s room, Jon startled Brendon by turning to him and saying, “You know, if you wanted to, you could probably become a healer. You’re picking it up pretty fast.” Brendon was so pleased by this that he threw his arms around Jon in a spontaneous embrace. He let go quickly, remembering that Jon had been alone for a long time and might be kind of alarmed by people throwing themselves on him, but Jon just smiled and reddened slightly and patted Brendon awkwardly on the shoulder.

That night, Brendon was determined to make his aquaintance with Ryan. “Come on,” he said, trying to pursuade Jon to join him. “I bet he doesn’t get to talk to other people very often, only being around at night. And it’s been, what, two years? No way he’ll hold a grudge that long, especially since you just saved his life.”

Jon froze, and the expression on his face was a strange mix of hope and dejection. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I don’t want to…force anything. He’s still recovering, and….”

He ended up following Brendon to Ryan’s room with some vaguely fresh bread and cheese. (“He’s got to be starving!” said Brendon, but Jon pointed out that he was recovering from an arrow to the shoulder and hadn’t eaten in two days, and they didn’t want to make him sick.)

Ryan was human again, his naked body covered by the rough wool blankets on Jon’s bed. “You again,” he said when they entered.

Brendon wasn’t sure whether he was talking to him or to Jon, but it didn’t really matter. “How are you feeling?” he asked, as cheerfully as he could manage.

“Fine,” said Ryan coolly. “You’re very good at what you do, Father Walker.” Though this last was obstensibly a compliment for Jon, Ryan said it without even looking at him, and his cold tone of voice made it seem more like an insult.

Jon took it pretty well, Brendon thought, shrugging and asking, “How’s the pain? We prepared a wolfsbane poultice, so if your shoulder’s hurting….”

“It’s not,” Ryan interrupted. “Thank you. I’d like to rest now.”

Jon nodded and turned to leave. He raised his eyebrows at Brendon and gestured towards the door, but Brendon shook his head. It was going to take a lot more than Ryan’s haughty attitude to scare him off.

“You don’t mind if I stay for a while, do you, sir?” he asked, taking a seat by the bed. “It’s cold outside.”

“I suppose not.” Ryan turned onto his good side, looking at Brendon curiously. “Who are you? You were with Spencer in the forest, and now you’re here.”

“My name’s Brendon Urie. Spencer—Captain Smith, I mean--saved me from the Bishop’s Guard, so I’ve been hanging around, trying to help him.”

“Well, you can’t be doing a very good job, can you?” asked Ryan. “If, as you said, Spencer’s out there wounded somewhere.”

Brendon flushed and felt a wave of guilt, but it quickly passed. “It was more important to him that you get help. When you were hurt…he just looked crushed. Like he didn’t want to go on living if he couldn’t do it with you.”

Ryan’s face softened at this, and his voice had lost some of its hostility when he said, “May I have some of that bread? I’m starving.”

They talked for a while about vague nothings—the putrid smell of some of Jon’s herbal compounds, the unseasonably cold weather, their various medical complaints. (Brendon mathematically proved that, added all together, his scrapes and bruises were a lot worse than Ryan’s arrow to the shoulder. Ryan seemed skeptical.) When Brendon walked out after an hour or two, he could completely understand why Spencer and Jon and the Bishop and the whole city of Aquila had fallen in love with him. He wasn’t exactly kind, but he seemed to understand a great deal. He made you want him to think well of you, Brendon thought.

The next day, Jon excused himself part of the way through breakfast, and Brendon said, “Oh, do you do lauds? I mean, I wouldn’t do it if I was a priest in the middle of nowhere all by myself, but then again I don’t have anywhere near the amount of willpower to be a priest, so I guess my opinion isn’t worth much here.”

Jon gave him a startled look. “I was just going to go check on Ryan,” he said. “I haven’t been keeping canonical hours for a while. Do you?”

Brendon shook his head. “No. I used to, back when I lived in the monastery.”

Another startled look from Jon. “When was this?”

And, granted, Brendon didn’t usually like to talk about his childhood. It made him think of stern reprimands and cold stone floors and harsh beatings, all the times he was too loud and curious and spontaneous for the restrictive routine of the monastery. But this seemed like the perfect time to bring up the past, isolated from the real world as they were, and so he said, “When I was little. My parents left me there—I think they already had too many children, or I was too much trouble or something. But anyway, I lived there—ten or twelve years, maybe? I left when I was fifteen. I decided the monastic life just wasn’t for me. Too quiet, and too many monks.” He remembered who he was talking to and added, “No offense.”

Jon laughed. “None taken.” He sat back down, picking at the crust of his bread. “That’s actually sort of how I became a priest. I mean, not leaving when I was fifteen, but—my mother died when I was ten, and the innkeeper at the inn where she worked didn’t have time to care for a child. She was a barmaid,” he said as if in explanation, though Brendon hadn’t said anything. “So anyway, I went to live at the monastery, cleaning out the stables and caring for the animals. And Bill--” He broke off abruptly, and his expression darkened. “I mean, I became friends with the hospitaler’s assistant, and he convinced me that the church would be a good place for me.”

Imagine that, Brendon thought. The Bishop hadn’t always been a terror, then. And Jon wasn’t that old, so it couldn’t have been so long ago that Beckett was nothing more than a hospitaler’s assistant in some out-of-the-way monastery. Brendon wondered what had happened.

There was a certain anxiety in Jon’s manner that day; he checked on Ryan more frequently, and every so often he would climb up the front parapet to gaze out over the plains. Probably looking for Spencer, Brendon thought. He felt a little nervous himself, though he wasn’t sure if it was because he feared that Spencer wouldn’t come or if he feared that he would.

When night fell, they both went to check on Ryan again. His shoulder was much improved, and he seemed impatient to be up and about.

“Well,” said Jon after changing the bandages, “if you want to come and sit in the herb garden with Brendon while I gather some aloe, I think you’re well enough to be out of bed.”

Brendon, eager to have someone to complain about the run-down castle with and excited about showing Ryan his new herb identification skills, said, “Oh, that sounds good, let’s do that.”

Ryan, however, shook his head. He’d stiffened the moment Jon had touched him to unwrap his soiled bandages, and his face was still frozen into a cold mask as he said, “That’s quite all right, thank you. I think I’d prefer to rest,” in a tone utterly devoid of emotion.

Jon nodded slowly and said, “All right. I’ll be outside if I’m needed.” Brendon tried to meet his eyes to see how he was taking this latest iciness from Ryan, but the priest seemed unwilling to look at him and took his leave without more than a half-hearted gesture of farewell.

Brendon frowned and settled down on his usual stool by Ryan. “You’re being a fool,” he informed Ryan. “I know you wanted to go outside, so why didn’t you?”

“What makes you think you know anything about what I want to do?” asked Ryan. His voice was still cool, but at least he was looking at Brendon with an irritated expression instead of his earlier contemptuous regality.

“Because!” Brendon exclaimed. He supposed he should have been more respectful, talking to the Count of Ross, but he didn’t feel like Ryan was really in a position to command deference from anyone, much less Brendon, who had saved his life. “You’re so twitchy and you don’t look like your shoulder hurts at all and you’ve been stuck inside in bed for two days. I know you’re angry at Jon, but staying inside just to spite him when you really want to get out of bed is just stupid.”

“You have no idea,” Ryan began haughtily, but Brendon cut him off.

“Of course I do! Jon told me the whole story the first night I came here. And of course he was wrong to tell the Bishop about you and Spencer, but it’s not as if he was trying to hurt you. He feels so bad about it that he’s living out here in the middle of nowhere reading all these long boring books on magic and stuff so he can break the curse, and he did just save your life, so I think the least you can do is not make him feel like a horrible person every time he talks to you.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows. “You might be less forgiving if it were you who turned into a hawk every night,” he said. But when Jon came in a short while later to retrieve the ingredient list for one of his potions, Ryan said, in a tone that sounded genuinely polite, “I feel very well-rested now, so if it isn’t too much trouble, perhaps I could join you in the herb garden after all.”

Jon didn’t even try to disguise his happiness, and it made Brendon smile involuntarily to see it. The three of them spent the rest of the night lounging about the herb garden—or at least, Ryan did, while Brendon sat next to him one moment and picked herbs with Jon the next. Ryan was still a little cold, uncomfortable, but at least he was talking to Jon, and Brendon felt as proud about that as he had about anything he’d ever done.

He didn’t even remember falling asleep, but when he woke up he was curled by the fire in Ryan’s room, and Jon was seated at his desk writing something. “What time is it?” he asked blearily.

“A little after sunrise,” said Jon, gesturing towards where Ryan was perched in his hawk form at the foot of the bed. “Do you want something to eat?”

Ordinarily, the answer to this question would always have been ‘yes,’ but having eaten regular meals for the past few days had finally given Brendon’s curiosity the edge over his hunger. “Maybe later,” he said, standing up and leaning over Jon so his chin rested on Jon’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Jon was quiet for a long moment and then said, “I think…I don’t know, but I think I’ve found a way to break the curse.”

“That’s splendid!” said Brendon. He wasn’t even surprised. Anyone as dedicated and clever as Jon had to find an answer sooner or later, and why not now, when he had Brendon to help him? “How?” he asked.

“Well,” said Jon slowly, “do you remember what I said about the curse? That it’ll last as long as there’s a day and a night?”

“Of course,” said Brendon.

“How would you define those? Day and night, I mean?”

Brendon frowned. It seemed like an odd question, but undoubtedly it was relevant…somehow. After a moment of thought, he said, “Well, day’s when the sun’s up, and night’s when it’s not.”

“If the sun were up, but you just couldn’t see it, so it was dark out, would that count as day, or night?” asked Jon, his voice strangely insistent.

Brendon shrugged. These were the kind of philosophical matters that had bored him to tears during his lessons at the monastery. “I don’t know,” he said. “Both, I guess. Or maybe neither. Why?”

Jon moved some things around on his desk and said, “All right. Let’s say this inkwell is the moon, and this candlestick is the sun. Oh, and this lump of bread is us.” He positioned the items so that the candlestick was directly in front of the lump of bread. “Usually, we’re like this, with nothing between us and the sun, and so that’s daylight when the sun comes around our side. But!” He moved the inkwell between the bread and the candlestick. “There are times when the moon comes between us and the sun, so that, even when it’s daytime, it’s dark out.”

This all sounded very strange to Brendon, like something that would happen in a Bible story because some hero couldn’t stand sunlight or something. “I’ve never heard of the moon ever doing that,” he said, cautiously, because he didn’t want to make it sound like he was calling Jon a liar.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” said Jon with a small smile. “The last time it happened here was more than three hundred years ago. And it only lasts for a few minutes when it does. But that means that when it does happen again, in three days, there’ll be a few minutes when both Ryan and Spencer are human and they can confront the Bishop. I think, anyway.”

Brendon paused for a minute to digest all this. He didn’t know anything about magic, but the whole day-and-night-at-the-same-time thing (if it was actually true) sounded like a good start. But… “Spencer wants to kill the Bishop. Is that gonna be a problem?”

Jon blanched. “Is that going to be a problem?” he asked in a pinched, breathless voice. “Well, yeah, on a number of different levels. But primarily, for you, I guess, is the fact that if he kills the Bishop before the curse is broken, it’ll never be broken.”

“Oh.” That was a problem. Brendon and Jon stared at each other for a moment before being interrupted by the sound of someone shouting down below, from outside the walls.

“Walker!” the voice yelled. “I know you’re in there! And if Ryan isn’t there and all right, you and Urie are both going to die long, painful deaths.”

“Spencer’s back!” Brendon exclaimed. He wasn’t sure why he was so excited about it, given the undoubtedly sincere death threats. But still, he couldn’t help himself from rushing outside to scramble up the wall and shout down, “Captain Smith! You’re all right! Hold on just a second and we’ll get the gate open!”

Spencer peered up at him and, to Brendon’s surprise and pleasure, smiled. “I see you made it here all right, then.”

“You bet,” said Brendon, winding the crank that opened the gate. “And don’t worry, Goliath and Ryan are both doing fine. Goliath’s been enjoying himself grazing in the courtyard, and Ryan and I have been helping Jon gather herbs.”

Spencer blinked. “You…you know about Ryan, then?”

“And the curse and everything? Yeah, Jon told me.” With a final rusty creak, the gate fell open, and Spencer trudged inside. Brendon could see Jon walking slowly to meet him from the garden, and he climbed down from the wall to join them.

Spencer was staring at Jon, eyes narrowed and lips pressed together. He didn’t look at all pleased. Jon was attempting a smile, but it was coming out more dejected and scared than happy. “Brendon told me you were wounded?” he said hesitantly. “I could—if you want, I could take a look at it.”

“What the hell do you care?” Spencer asked. “I’m amazed you’re still here. I thought perhaps you’d gone back to drink and hang around drunks in that cesspool you came from. Or didn’t they want you there, either?”

Brendon knew that Spencer had legitimate reasons to be angry at Jon, but that knowledge didn’t stop his stomach from clenching unpleasantly at the pain in Jon’s face or Spencer’s obvious satisfaction at seeing it. He broke in, saying, “I’m gonna go let Ryan out of your room, Jon. I bet he’ll be really happy to see Spencer again.”

“No need,” Jon said, pointing. Brendon turned to see Ryan wheeling about the sky, making his way over to Spencer in graceful swoops and swerves before finally landing on Spencer’s extended forearm.

Spencer’s face softened immediately, and he kissed the top of Ryan’s feathered head. “Hey, there you are,” he said softly. “I missed you.” He sighed deeply and said, looking up, “I—thank you, Jon. I don’t have to tell you how much this means to me.”

Enough to forgive him? Brendon wondered. Jon, however, just nodded, saying, “I’m just happy I could help. Is your shoulder all right?”

Spencer nodded. Brendon peered at him curiously; he must have had another tunic somewhere, because the one he was wearing showed no signs of having been shot through or bled on. “It’s fine,” said Spencer. “I’ll just get my horse and go. Urie—Brendon,” he said with a curiously apologetic look, “If you ever owed me anything, it’s more than paid back now. I don’t know what I was thinking, making you come to Aquila with us. It’s not like I’d really be able to crawl through sewers anyway. I guess, if you wanted to go somewhere else…you could go there, now. I wouldn’t stop you.”

Brendon had never heard a more hesitant, humble dismissal in his entire life—and he’d heard a lot of them. So he likes me after all! he thought, a bit triumphant. Well, that settled it. Of course he’d keep on traveling with Spencer and Ryan. The only other place he’d really want to be was at the ruined castle with Jon, but he wasn’t sure whether Jon would welcome the interruption to his isolation and study. Which reminded Brendon….“Are you and Ryan still going to Aquila?”

“That’s the plan,” said Spencer. Goliath, apparently hearing a familiar voice, ambled over and nosed the top of Spencer’s head. Spencer laughed and scratched between his ears.

“Um.” Jon spoke up hesitantly. “By any chance, you wouldn’t be going there to try and kill Beckett, would you?”

Some of the softness leaked out of Spencer’s face, and his voice was cold as he said, “Yes. I am.”

His tone didn’t invite argument, and Brendon winced at it, but Jon continued with a determined expression. “I think…I think that might not be such a good idea.”

“Oh, really?” asked Spencer, one eyebrow raised derisively. “And why not?”

“I’ve been studying. Curses and things. And I think I’ve come up with a way to break the curse, only the Bishop has to be alive for it to work. I mean, you should still go to Aquila….”

Spencer narrowed his eyes. “Well, I’m glad you approve of at least that much.”

Jon took a deep breath and scratched awkwardly at his beard. “In three days, there’ll be a day without a night and a night without a day—I mean, as far as the curse is concerned, I think that’s how it’ll work. You and Ryan should be both human at the same time, and if you confront Beckett then, I think his power will be broken and the curse will end.”

“Right,” said Spencer with a smirk. “I see you haven’t given up your liquor then, have you?”

“I’m serious, Captain Smith.” He seemed to have lost most of his awkwardness, and he met Spencer’s eyes squarely as he said, “This is it. This is the only way to break the curse that I’ve found in two years of looking. Please, just listen to me, and whatever you do, don’t kill the Bishop yet.”

“I don’t have any reason whatsoever to believe anything you say,” Spencer said with a ring of finality to his voice. “Urie, is Goliath’s saddle around here somewhere?”

“Um, yeah.” Brendon had taken it off and thrown it against a wall in the courtyard the first night he and Goliath had arrived at the castle, and he quickly dashed over to retrieve it. Spencer saddled Goliath with quick, angry movements, apparently determined to ignore anything else that might be happening around him, and Jon stood still, looking utterly defeated. Brendon drew close to him, worried.

“We’re not giving up, are we?” he said in as close as a whisper as he could manage. “We have three days, right? There’s no way we’re going to get to Aquila before that, not with covering our tracks and hiding from the Guard and stuff, so that’s enough time to convince him you’re telling the truth, isn’t it?”

“Well, you’ll have to do it,” said Jon in a low voice, twisting his mouth into an unhappy smile. “He’s certainly not going to let me tag along.”

“But….” Brendon didn’t want to leave Jon here. He didn’t want the two years Jon had spent in this dank, crumbling castle to have been for nothing. Ryan had forgiven him, and Ryan had just as much reason to be angry as Spencer did, so why couldn’t Spencer at least give Jon a chance?

“You can’t make someone forgive you, Brendon,” Jon said sadly. Apparently, his study of magic had given him the ability to read people’s minds. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“But he’s not going to listen to me!” said Brendon. “I mean, he might listen to Ryan, but it’s not like Ryan can convince him either, what with being a hawk during the day and all, and--” Something suddenly occurred to Brendon. “That’s it!”

Jon looked at Brendon a little nervously. “What’s it?”

“Here’s what we do.” Brendon couldn’t even believe his own brilliance sometimes. It was really remarkable. “I’ll go with Spencer now. He’ll totally let me go with him; did you see how sad he was when he told me I could go wherever I wanted? I’ll talk to Ryan. You follow behind with the mule, and then the three of us can trap Spencer in a hole or something when he’s a wolf.”

“Wait,” said Jon, looking confused. “How does that help us?”

“Because if he’s trapped in a hole and we’re the only ones who can get him out, he’ll have to listen to us, won’t he?”

“I guess.” He didn’t look too sure. “Maybe I will follow behind, even if we don’t…trap him in a hole. It can’t hurt to try again in a day or so when he’s cooled down a bit, right?”

“That’s the spirit!” Brendon grinned; he’d make a conspirator of Jon yet.

And then, suddenly, Jon was grabbing him, holding him in a quick, hard hug. “Good luck, Brendon Urie,” he murmured. “I’m glad to know you.”

Maybe it was the hug, maybe it was the genuine affection in Jon’s tone, but something about the moment caused certain portions of Brendon’s anatomy to stand at attention in a way they hadn’t since before he’d been thrown into Aquila’s dungeons. Quite a while before, actually. The little voice inside him shrieking He’s a priest, Brendon! helped him to squirm out of the embrace just as Spencer turned around, finished saddling Goliath.

“Well,” said Spencer awkwardly, not meeting either Jon’s or Brendon’s eyes, “I suppose this is farewell, then.”

“Not so fast!” Brendon exclaimed. “It just so happens that I happen to be heading in the general direction of Aquila, myself.”

Spencer looked startled. “Do you?” he asked.

“Unbelievable, right? Well, I was thinking about it, and it seems I have unfinished business there. So, I guess, if we’re heading in the same direction, I could maybe help with Goliath or cooking or whatever, though if it’s all the same to you, sir, you’re on your own when it comes to gathering firewood.”

Spencer laughed at that. “All right then!” he said, much happier-looking than he’d been a moment ago. “Hop on! I suppose I can get my own firewood for a couple of days.”

Brendon obeyed with a strange feeling of contentment; jumping on Goliath’s back was actually starting to feel kind of familiar. Spencer urged his horse onward without a further word or look for Jon, but Brendon turned around to catch his eye and grin. For once, Brendon wasn’t alone, and he was actually doing something worthwhile. He hadn’t been so excited in years.


Wednesday

“I want him dead,” said Maja, practically spitting in rage. “Send me out again, Captain.”

“Because that worked so well last time,” snapped Gabe. Secretly, though, he was pleased. He’d never really gotten the impression that Maja liked or respected him. She tolerated him, for Travis’s sake or for the Bishop’s, but, like so many of the troops, she’d never seen Gabriel Saporta as the true Captain. Now, though, any lingering feelings of loyalty for Smith had been burned out of her by mortal wound in Travis’s gut. She was his, now.

“He was wounded, in the shoulder, and the hawk was shot, too.” Maja’s eyes were burning into Gabe’s while her hands tenderly stroked Travis’s face. “When the hawk was shot, he was so demoralized that he scarcely noticed his own wound. He can’t have gotten too far, and he’ll be trailing blood.”

Gabe scowled. The damn hawk again. Had Smith really gone mad? How else to explain his bizarre fixation on that hawk? “We lost some good men,” he said aloud. “And some not-so-good ones. We’ll have to pull men from the City Guard.”

“Then do it!” Maja exclaimed. “Hasn’t the Bishop given you unlimited resources?”

“Yes.” He had, but Gabe wasn’t sure that Beckett remembered that promise anymore. His behavior had grown increasingly erratic since the arrival of the Butcher, a strange hunter whose reputation Gabe knew but with whom he had never worked. The gardens were thick with the smell of rotting flesh, as the Butcher brought carcass after carcass to the Bishop’s sanctum. Wolves, all of them, big black ones. The pile had been steadily growing, and Beckett hardly showed any interest at all in Gabe’s efforts, simply waving him aside to examine another dead wolf.

Travis groaned in pain. It couldn’t be long, now; no man could survive a stomach wound like he’d gotten, and he’d been bleeding for days. They’d done the best they could to staunch the bleeding and ward off infection, but he was running a fever now, slipping in and out of consciousness, and Gabe found himself wishing the man would die already and spare him and Maja the agony of watching him struggle all the way to the grave. He liked McCoy, always had; he was strong and competent and treated Gabe with respect, though he’d been loyal to Smith. But his slow and torturous decline was wearing on Gabe almost as much as it seemed to be wearing on Maja.

A servant, wrinkling his nose, opened the door. “Captain Saporta,” he said, “may I put this in here? We’re running out of room in the pantries downstairs.” He held something out for Gabe’s inspection, and Gabe leaned in close to see what it was.

A dead wolf. Gabe recoiled. “No, you can’t put it in here!” he hissed. “Can’t you see we have an injured man in here? The smell alone’ll kill him!”

“Of course. I beg your pardon, sir.” The servant bowed as best he could with the corpse of a full-grown wolf draped over his arms and departed. Gabe sat back with an involuntary noise of disgust.

“What in God’s name is the Bishop doing with all these wolves?” asked Maja, voicing the very question Gabe had been pondering.

They were probably better off not knowing, Gabe thought. The Bishop had been strange for years, now, but his current behavior was off in a way that made Gabe distinctly nervous.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Maja scrambled to her feet and bowed deeply, but Gabe didn’t need to see that to know that the Bishop had arrived; the chill running through his blood was sign enough. He turned himself from Travis’s bedside to kneel before Beckett and kiss his hand. The Bishop registered his presence with a sharp, sudden expression of intense examination.

“Well?” said Beckett. “Have you caught him? Smith?”

Gabe winced. It was bad enough to admit failure on the best of days, downright humiliating when he had had every advantage on his side and lost to a lone fighting man, a pickpocket, and a hawk. “No, Your Grace,” he answered. “I was coming from the city with reinforcements, and he came upon my men unexpectedly.” It was almost true, he thought.

It wasn’t enough for Beckett. “Your men?” he said, his voice deceptively sweet. “How many of them does it take to beat one out-of-practice man?”

“He—he fights like an animal, Your Grace,” stammered Gabe, hating to compliment his enemy even now. “Some of the new men were intimidated and deserted. We punished them and brought the wounded back to be tended. Lieutenant Ivarsson tells me that Smith was wounded, though.” He indicated Maja, who ducked her head politely. “He managed to escape….” And wasn’t that enough to make Gabe want to wipe out his entire Guard and start again, because who the hell ran away from a wounded man? “But he shouldn’t be too hard to catch. The hawk was wounded, too, which seemed to--”

“What?” the Bishop asked, his voice as menacing as Gabe had ever heard it. And then Gabe remembered—the Bishop, too, shared Smith’s fascination with the hawk. Fuck.

“Just a flesh wound, Your Grace,” Gabe hurried to say. “It wasn’t dead, but it distracted Smith long enough for one of our archers to catch him in the shoulder. I’m sure the hawk survived.”

The Bishop stood for a long moment, staring at Gabe, looking as if he were willing Gabe to drop dead on the spot, or struggling to stop fire from coming out of his eyes. Finally, he turned to someone standing behind him in the doorway and said, “Come in, you idiot.” The figure stepped out into the light, revealing himself to be the Butcher, dressed in a blood-stained wolf pelt. Gabe suppressed a shudder of disgust.

“Obviously,” said the Bishop in a deceptively light voice, “I cannot trust any of you to carry out my wishes. I ought to kill all of you now.” The Bishop was a thin man, not at all formidable, and Gabe was fairly certain that he could kill him even without Maja’s help. They were the highest-ranked members of the Bishop’s Guard, after all, and it would be easy enough to blame it on the Butcher. But something underneath the Bishop’s delicate features glowed with otherworldly power, and Gabe found himself staying his hand.

“But I’m a merciful man,” said Beckett, his tone dripping with irony. “I’m not too harsh to give second chances. You shall join forces, combining your two missions into one.”

The Butcher nodded, gazing at the Bishop impassively. Gabe, however, was confused. “You mean you want the Guard to go after a wolf?”

“Not just any wolf,” said Beckett with narrowed eyes. “Find the wolf, you’ll find Smith.” He drew himself up to his full height and looked down his nose at them, an unfathomably cold expression in his eyes. “I don’t give third chances. Do not fail me.”

Travis moaned, and Beckett’s sharp glare was broken as he glanced over to the bed. “Who is that?” he asked, sounding more like his usual distracted self.

Not for the first time, Gabe thought the Bishop was losing his mind. “Travis McCoy, one of my lieutenants,” he said. “He was badly wounded in the fight against Smith.”

“Oh,” said Beckett. He held out his hand and made a strange, twisting motion, his lips mouthing unintelligible words. The blood drained from his face, and for a moment he looked faint. But then he swept his robes around himself, returned his attention to Gabe and the Butcher, and said, “So. The wolf,” before sweeping out of the room.

“What,” Gabe said. “What the hell was that?”

“Mother of God!” exclaimed Maja quietly.

“I swear, the man’s getting stranger by the--”

“No!” Maja grabbed his sleeve. Gabe stared. No one ever grabbed him like that, not unless they were looking for a fight. But Maja’s voice was soft with wonderment as she said, “Captain, look!”

She was pointing at Travis. Travis, who, for the first time in days, was looking at them with clear eyes, his breath easy and even. “Captain? Maja?” he said. “How long have I been out?”

Maja threw her arms around his neck. “By God!” she said, “McCoy, if ever you scare me like that again, I will kill you—and you know I don’t lie. I will kill you.” Her words were pretty much belied, though, by the tears burning in her eyes, making them shine wetly in the dim torchlight.

“Understood,” said Travis, bringing a large hand up to pat her back. “No more scaring you.”

Gabe couldn’t believe it. The Bishop had just waved his hand—and then—he’d heard the rumors, of course, and half-believed them—that Beckett was a witch, or a devil, or possibly even the Devil. That would explain this magic he’d just done, but—would the Devil really use any of his power to heal? Christ, the whole thing was bizarre beyond words. “How are you feeling?” he asked, hiding his uneasiness behind a gruff mask.

“All right,” said Travis with a shrug. “A little tired. A little dizzy. But--” He pulled up his shirt with his free hand and all three of them (and the Butcher) gazed at the place where his deep, infected, wound had been. It was only a scar, now, pale and smooth, as if it had healed years ago.

Travis met Gabe’s eyes, alarmed. “What the hell just happened?”

Before Gabe could answer, the Butcher smiled a strange, unreadable smile and said, “The Bishop’s a powerful man with many secrets.” His gaze traveled from Travis to Maja to Gabe, and he smiled again, a vaguely smug quirk of the lips that made Gabe want to punch him. “Clearly, he wants your best men ready for this mission, Captain Saporta.”

“My men are ready for anything,” said Gabe aggressively. Whatever it was they were doing chasing a wolf around the countryside, the Guard were certainly more equipped to deal with it than this strange, half-feral hunter. He only hoped that it would be enough. A man who could bring others back from the brink of death could probably do things to the living that Gabe didn’t want to contemplate now, especially if they were done to him.


Thursday night

One might venture to think, Ryan thought wryly, that being the seventh count of Ross would guarantee a certain minimum standard of living. One would, of course, be wrong. He gazed up from his position on—Lord, was he really lying on a straw-covered dirt floor?—to survey his surroundings. A barn, most likely, its wood warped and faded with age, its few emaciated cows staring at him with dull, uninterested eyes. And hovering above him, Brendon Urie, by far the most interesting pickpocket of Ryan’s acquaintance. Urie handed him a bundle of clothes from the saddlebags and turned away while Ryan got dressed.

When he was done, Ryan seated himself on a milking stool and fixed Urie with what he hoped was an intimidating gaze. “How’s Spencer?” heasked shortly. Since they weren’t in Jon Walker’s hovel of a hermitage anymore, obviously Spencer had arrived. “Is he all right?”

Brendon nodded, a wide smile stretching his face into a silly, childlike expression. “He’s fine. I guess the wound in his shoulder wasn’t that bad, because he rode a horse all day without complaining or anything. Not that he’d complain, anyway, because he doesn’t seem the type. But. Anyway, I think the wound’s getting better, because it’s not as if he’s bleeding all over the place or feverish. I think he—you know, wolf-Spencer—is off hunting.”

“Good.” Privately, Ryan worried. He had no doubt that Urie was telling the truth about Spencer’s physical wellbeing, but mentally…he had no idea whether Spencer still maintained hope, or had any sort of plan, or whether he had given into the brooding melancholy that occupied Ryan from time to time.

His expression must have given away more of his worry than he had intended, because Brendon’s smile dimmed somewhat, and he said, “Honest, sir. He’s all right. He’s sort of…angry, right now, I think about you getting shot or the Bishop still being alive or something, but he’s still hopeful, I’d say. He hasn’t given up, I mean. And look!” Urie pulled out Spencer’s huge heirloom sword from behind his back. “He gave us this for the night! I mean, he’ll kill me if I lose it, but now if someone attacks us, we can defend ourselves. You know how to use a sword, right?”

“Of course I do.” God in Heaven, what had Spencer been thinking, to take this chatterbox of a boy along with them and then to leave him with Ryan at night? It seemed particularly cruel of fate, to deprive him of human company for so long only to finally grant it to him in the form of a traitorous priest and an irreverent, talkative thief.

Brendon had stopped speaking, though, and was looking at Ryan with an unsure, vaguely hopeful expression. “Do you want something to eat?” he asked.

It wasn’t entirely a lie when he said, “Yes, please.” He wasn’t especially hungry. He’d probably eaten a squirrel or a rabbit during the day; he could still feel the raw meat lying heavy in his stomach. But there really was something to be said for even the simplest meal of bread and cheese to remind a man of his humanity, his civilization.

Brendon nodded again, and said, more nervously, “Um. We actually have a third member of our party. I sent him out to get food, and he actually just got back before you woke up.” Smiling inanely, he added, “I hope he got fresh butter. And maybe some carrots or something.”

His manner set Ryan on edge. Brendon wouldn’t betray them—he couldn’t, he was facing the noose himself, but then, there were deals to be made, and after all, he’d known Brendon for only three days. He’d been deceived by better friends than that.

It was no guard who hesitantly poked his head into the barn, though, but the familiar shabby figure of Father Jon Walker. “I brought supper,” he said, his anxious tone making it sound more like a question.

“What are you doing here?” asked Ryan, forcing his tone to be even. It was one thing to see Jon in the wrecked castle where they’d parted ways two years ago, but it was quite another to see him here, on the road, knowing Spencer was close by. Lying in this straw, in the middle of the perpetual discomfort and danger that his and Spencer’s lives had become, it was easier to remember his anger.

Jon chewed on his lower lip, looking all the more awkward for the ridiculous beard he seemed to have cultivated since the days when he was Ryan’s priest. When he spoke, it was soft but sure. “We have a plan for breaking the curse.”

Breaking the curse. A plan. For a long moment, the words refused to sink into Ryan’s brain, but hovered above it, an interesting collection of syllables with no distinct meaning. Then, in an instant, the full import of what Jon had said impressed itself on Ryan’s consciousness. “What?” he asked, unable to really believe it.

“A plan!” Brendon broke in eagerly. “In three days, there’s going to be this, this cosmic thing where the moon goes in front of the sun, so it’s like it’s both day and night at the same time.”

“It’ll last for about three minutes,” said Jon, “and while the sun is behind the moon, both you and Spencer should be in your human forms. And because these eclipses are powerful events for working magic, if you just confront Beckett and show him that his curse has been undone, the curse should just break without any spell or sacrifice.”

Well. Someone certainly had been studying; the Jon that Ryan knew had known quite a bit about herbs and poultices, but nothing whatsoever about what the Church would consider “dark magic.” Although Ryan himself knew only what he had picked up in conversation with certain enthusiasts and students elsewhere, he could see the logic in what Brendon and Jon were saying. And yet… “What did Spencer say when you told him this?” he asked.

Brendon and Jon exchanged glances. “Well,” Brendon said slowly, “he didn’t really want to listen to the whole story. You see, he just wants to kill the Bishop, and he’s not—well, you know, the man can hold a grudge.”

“You mean he didn’t believe you. Or rather,” he said, more pointedly looking at Jon, “he didn’t believe you.”

Jon sighed. “No. No, he didn’t.”

Ryan nodded, feeling a hollow kind of satisfaction at being proven right. Spencer did hold grudges, and he had been known on occasion to let his resentment get the better of him. Ryan suddenly, with a fervor that frightened him, wished that Spencer were here, that the two of them could talk about this without the interference of Brendon and Jon. Was it simply a matter of Spencer’s anger over Jon’s betrayal, or were there other, more serious reasons for doubting that this plan would work?

Ryan had no way of knowing. But it was the only real course of action he had. He carefully looked from Brendon’s face—hopeful, encouraging, slightly impatient—to Jon’s—intent, solemn, painfully sincere—and let out a long, shuddering breath. “Three days, you said?” he asked. “What time?”

For the first time, Jon looked somewhat pleased and taken aback. “It’s—according to my calculations, it should take place sometime in the late morning. Maybe an hour and a half before midday.”

Damn. Spencer would have to get them to the church, then. “How were you planning to get Spencer to agree to this, then?”

Brendon was about to answer when he paused. A strange, frightened expression that Ryan didn’t recognize passed over his face, and he said, “Someone’s coming.”

Jon looked confused, but Ryan could hear it, too, the soft rolling thump of a half-dozen or so horses running over soft ground. He grabbed Spencer’s sword and said, “Get behind me.” Ryan wasn’t much of a swordsman, as he’d always had something more important to do than practice, but he was almost certainly better than an escaped petty thief and a perpetually drunk priest, and that would have to do.

“Smith!” bellowed a vaguely familiar voice. “If you and Urie are holed up in there, you may as well come out now, and we’ll give you both a quick death. Trust me, it beats the hell out of what you’ll get if we have to come in.”

Saporta, Ryan thought. He’d always been good at putting a little extra menace into a threat. “Calm down,” he told Brendon, whose face was practically paralyzed with fear. “There can’t be more than six of them out there, and between me and Spencer, I think we can handle them.”

Brendon’s face cleared, perhaps remembering how, even out of his human mind, Spencer had protected him from that skinny woodsman with the knife. Ryan only hoped his words of encouragement would prove true.

There was a long silence. Ryan strained his ears; he could still hear the horses snorting and pawing the ground, but barely, as if they’d moved far away. There were no men talking, no orders being shouted. It should have relieved him; instead it filled him with a heavy feeling of dread.

“Are they gone?” whispered Brendon loudly, and Jon hushed him, his eyes darting nervously around.

“Do you smell something?” the priest asked Ryan under his breath. “Like…smoke?”

The Devil take Gabe Saporta! “They’ve set something in the barn on fire!” he snapped, silence forgotten. “Find it, for God’s sake, and put it out!”

His two companions dashed off, poking their heads into the stalls and ignoring the frightened noises of the cows. “In here!” shouted Brendon from the left side of the barn, where the smoke seemed to be gathering the quickest. “There’s a knot hole in the wood-- they must have stuck a torch through it and set the straw on fire!”

He was right. The straw in one corner of the stall was already ablaze, and it was spreading to the cracked wood of the wall dividing one stall from the next. “Get something to beat it out!” Ryan shouted, looking around for a horse blanket or a cleaning rag or a bucket or anything, anything they could use to extinguish the fire before the smoke or flames forced them out among their enemies.

Jon ran across to the stall, pushing Brendon out of the way and falling upon the flames with the folds of his habit, beating at it with his wide sleeves and train. Damn it, Ryan thought, it’s not enough, it’ll burn him before he can put it out, but then Brendon, who had momentarily disappeared, shouted from the back, “There’s a water trough back here!” Then he was dragging it—slowly, too slowly—and Ryan ran to help him. It was heavy, even with water sloshing out of it with every step, but they managed to get it into the stall and tip it onto the fire, splashing Jon in the process.

It made a loud hissing noise, and what was left of the fire seemed to vanish under the damp straw. But the smoke was still thick and choking. There was a crash from the front, and fuck, how had the Guard found them, and why were they coming down so hard on them now?

Three figures, two tall and one short, made their way through the haze. Ryan picked up the sword, which he had dropped in the stall during the fire, and Jon and Brendon positioned themselves behind the trough, which could probably function as a weapon in a pinch, as well. Now if only they could see….

Gabe Saporta materialized suddenly, his sword cutting through the aging wood of the stall door with a dry crack. Ryan aimed a blow at him, but Saporta deflected it with his own sword and hit back, and Saporta could put a lot more force behind his blows. Ryan was knocked flat on his back, wheezing.

Another large figure whom Ryan vaguely recognized from Spencer’s old troop—McCoy, his name supplied, appeared, stepping over Ryan and Saporta to the corner where Jon and Brendon were.

“So, we meet again,” he said to one of them. McCoy must have been in the earlier fight where Ryan was wounded; perhaps he himself shot the arrow that hit Spencer, Ryan thought.

Ryan had to protect them, had to find a way to execute their plan to break the curse. He stumbled to his feet, his muscles aching, and gripped his sword with both hands.

Brendon and Jon pushed the trough into McCoy, but he side-stepped it easily and picked Brendon up by the neck of his tunic as easily as if he were picking up a kitten. Ryan thrust his sword in McCoy’s direction, but Saporta, who had been watching the proceedings with a grim kind of amusement, brought his weapon down on top of Ryan’s with such force that the sword was knocked from his hands, and a tap from the flat of Saporta’s blade left Ryan’s head spinning. Or maybe it was the lack of air in his lungs that was making him dizzy. It was getting harder to breathe by the minute.

Jon, who seemed to be trying to free Brendon from McCoy’s grasp without being grabbed himself, ducked down to pick up the sword.

“Holy shit,” said Saporta, “it’s like playing blind man’s bluff with infants. Take him out and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Right,” said McCoy. “Sorry, Father,” he said to Jon, bringing down the hilt of his sword on the priest’s head. Ryan winced, his own head throbbing as if in sympathy. He felt Saporta grab him, but before he could muster the energy to fight back, the iron band around his brain seemed to tighten, and the burning in his lungs subsided into merciful nothingness.

Part 4