Page 103 of The Unweaver

“C-curse? Please, I know nothing of this! I have never met a Teddy Walcott before in my life. And the Specter’s Scourge?Mon dieu, that is the profanest of curses—”

Cora was on him before Bane could act. She grabbed Durbec’s testicles through his trousers in a vice-like grip. Terror struck his features. Fabric and flesh decayed beneath her touch. With a fierce rip, she unwove the causeway of threads through his groin. The skin of his scrotum loosened, splitting at the seams as the rot spread deeper.

Awful, wonderful energy tingled up her arm. It felt good to take something vital from the man who had taken everything from her.

His bloodcurdling scream rang in her ears long after his shrill voice faded away. She wiped her filthy hands on his jacket, smearing burgundy fabric with the rusty crimson of his own rotted scrotum. The stench of the putrid crater that remained of his crotch wafted through the office.

Her eyes darted to Bane, fearful she’d gone too far.

“Merciless,” he said. “I approve.”

Blood puddled on the floor and soaked her shoes. Not arterial blood, though Durbec might wish it was given most of his manhood had sloughed off. The groin held a lot of vasculature, and he was bleeding profusely from it. Limp and pale, his voice was scarcely more than a rasp.

Cora worried the Sanguimancer might pass out before he could coagulate his own blood and she could get some answers. “We know you cursed Teddy,” she gritted out. “Now you’re going to uncurse him. Where is his spirit’s vessel?”

“Spirit v-vessel? Please—”

Cora backhanded him, leaving a matching streak of blood across his other cheek. He drooped against the manacles, eyes shuttering and face slackening. Her hands shot up in exasperation. “How could he black out from blood loss? He’s a bloody blood mage!”

“Not a very good one without his dark magic crutches, apparently.”

Jittery with awful energy, she began to pace. “Who doesn’t remember cutting someone’s heart out?”

“The same man who doesn’t remember smuggling dark relics in my cargo.” Bane shook Durbec until he spluttered awake. “Have you been losing time lately, Marcel?”

“Oui,” he whispered, voice ragged. “I have… awoken in strange places. No memory of how I got there but… blood on my hands. In my dreams, I hear a voice tell me to… to…” His mumbling devolved into incoherent French, but Cora thought she heard him say, “Find the needle within… the egg…”

They both stared in shock at the Sanguimancer. Cora gasped.The egg. Coshoy’s Egg? The words she’d been struggling to understand since Moriarty uttered them. Was the Realmwalker’s greatest weakness actually Coshoy’s needle within the egg?

Bane’s gaze narrowed at her stunned reaction. The flash of his black eyes as he scrutinized her told her that he knew that she knew what Durbec had said. And he was not fond of the development.

Bane switched into flawless French. French he mistakenly thought she couldn’t understand. A trick she’d picked up fromMother.Every advantage is an opportunity, pet. His attempt to shut her out so the men could discuss business was in vain.

Their fluency soon outpaced her ear for conversational French, however. She picked up every third word and watched Durbec’s spasms for clues. In a fading stutter, Durbec repeatedneedleandmythwith dark reverence while his blood pooled under her boots. Not even a talented Sanguimancer could staunch that much blood loss. They were running out of time.

“I am… the victim…” Riddled with rotting injuries, Durbec slumped forward, unconscious.

Bane stilled her when she tried to jostle Durbec awake. “You’ve done good, Cora. Very good. I’ll handle the rest.” With a hand low on her back, he steered her towards the door. “Go home and get some rest.”

She dug in her heels, her gaze flickering between the men. She needed to find the girl who held Teddy’s spirit hostage, not go to bloody bed. Interrogating an unconscious man, however, would be unproductive. “Can’t we get Anita to revive him?”

“It’ll be hours before he can answer any questions. If he even knows the answers.”

A devastating disappointment. Perhaps she had been a tad overenthusiastic in her bloodletting. Next time, she’d bleed him out slow. With reluctance, she let Bane guide her away. They lingered by the door, neither moving to open it.

She faced him, feeling the warm press of each of his fingers on her lower back through the damp shirt. “What do we do now? If he doesn’t know who this girl is, how can we find her or the vessel?”

He smoothed her hair back from her face. “I’ll take care of it.”

Cora felt her heart pounding for a reason other than torturing the Frenchman. She refocused her scattering thoughts. Sleeping potions and the Oracle Ruby in unknown hands. A voice inDurbec’s dreams and waking without memories. Like Teddy, thrown out of his favorite brothel after having a strange dream.

Bane tilted her chin to meet his endless eyes. He stood close. Too close. Not close enough. Weightless anticipation tumbled in her stomach. His nearness and evergreen scent filled her senses, beneath the tang of sweat and blood.

Blood.Oh god. Droplets clung to her hands. Grimacing, she wiped them on her trousers. Technically his trousers, now painted with a palette of red and brown stains.

She mumbled an apology, pressing back against the door, unable to meet his eyes. “Still think I’m beautiful?”

“Yes,” he said, low and rough, and closed the narrow space between them.

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