Worldsoul

Twenty-Two

Deed waited for Darya in the winter garden at the top of the Court, behind the gallery. Here, those of his colleagues who possessed green fingers chose to grow various plants: poisonous verdure, delicate orchids, various aphrodisiacs. Deed was not among them. Plants withered when he came too near. If he planted a seed, it went black in the ground and rotted as if the frost had touched it, which essentially it had. But he admired plants, with a kind of wary reluctance. They grew and lived with no help from him, and he could kill them, yet they always rose up again somewhere else. He sometimes felt the same about people.

Now, he sat, not too close, to a wall of orchids. They were the colour of roses, of bruises, of flesh. Some were like stormclouds, a livid white with indigo hearts, and some were a sooty midnight black. Deed liked those the best, and despised himself for predictability, but only a little. They had very little scent; it had been bred out of them.

He heard Darya’s bone heels clicking against the treads of the staircase like some monstrous insect and grew very still, waiting. He had intended to remain human, but that-well, that wasn’t happening. Instead, his own bones began to sharpen and change, his jaw elongating and the teeth within growing sharp. His vision changed, the flowers growing darker, a spectrum that humans do not see becoming resonant, a glimmering aura emerging around each bloom. By the time Darya’s footsteps reached the door, paused, hesitated, faltered-Deed was a long way from mankind, a skeletal nightmare in a ruff.

He grabbed her from behind, long clawed fingers snaking around her throat and squeezing tight. He lifted her off the floor so that she kicked out, squealing, but Deed evaded the sharp, flailing heels. Then he dropped her so she fell in a heap on the parquet floor, gasping for breath. The marks of his talons showed on her neck, small bloodied new moons.

“Abbot General. What have I done?” Darya whispered. She kept her head lowered, but Deed could see a rebellious silver spark in her eyes and even at the back of the disir emotions, which were not human ones, he took careful note.

“Not a good enough job,” Deed said, a man once more. He brushed off his hands against his coat, as if they had become contaminated. “The Watch has found a body. A young man, down by the canal, in a considerable state of disarray. They asked me if I knew anything about it; I have just spent an hour fobbing them off. They believed me, but I’m not pleased.”

“I am sorry, Abbot General” Darya said, meekly.

“You should always share, Darya. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”

He waited for her to ask forgiveness, apologise further for her offence, but she remained silent and that made Deed coldly angry, until he realised, with a glow of pleasure, that she was simply too afraid.

Afraid, in spite of that rebellious silver spark. He could taste it against his teeth. It tasted good.