Covenant's End - Ari Marmell Page 0,28
to him earlier, too.
“How…? Olgun, how…?”
The words chewed through her mind, even if they refused to reach her throat. How had Lisette known of her connection to Alexandre?!
The Taskmaster had been present during the Apostle's rampage, if not particularly involved. Could she have heard something? Something linking Widdershins to Adrienne Satti, the girl she once was?
But then, if Lisette knew that, why not spread the word? She'd have a lot more people looking for Shins, that way.
“Okay,” she breathed. “We'll come back to that.” Mostly because if she remained focused on it now, she might just panic. “Let's look at more practical stuff.”
Practical stuff such as…Leaving alone the question of how she'd found the various boltholes, how in the name of Banin's backside had Lisette known which of them we'd use when she returned? Even I didn't know! How had she known where to leave the bod—Alexandre?
That Lisette was, indeed, the one responsible, Widdershins never questioned. The timing and the sheer inhuman cruelty of the act both fit too well. Their first question, in turn, had led god and worshipper both to another, even more awful.
What if she hadn't known which apartment to pick?
Shins had immediately changed course, crossing half the length of Davillon. First to a smaller cemetery, where the Guard buried their own when no family plot or crypt awaited. Then here, to a much larger graveyard, on whose winding paths Shins had walked so many times.
The plot was unrecognizable when she finally reached it. The many flowers and flourishing vines, growing things that never faded in even the harshest winters thanks to Olgun's divine touch, had been ripped from their roots and left to rot. The stone itself was defaced, cracked across the front by some sort of hammer or heavy blow. And, just like the grave of Julien Bouniard—the reason she'd gone to the smaller cemetery that morning—this one wore a thick layer of soil clearly fresher and far more recent than it should be.
As though the burial had occurred weeks ago, not well over a year.
The desecration, too, appeared roughly that old. The interior of the broken stone remained bright and relatively clean; those portions of dead foliage that hadn't rotted or blown completely away were slowly decomposing into soggy sludge.
Shins knelt beside the grave, her knee sinking into the mud with a sort of squelch. She carefully lifted the rotting remains of what had been a lush rose, held it briefly in her palm before squeezing shut her fist and letting it dribble between her fingers. Even the rage she'd been stoking had faded, leaving nothing but an empty, numbing chill.
“Olgun? Groundskeeper?”
She felt a faint tug, nodded, and rose to follow.
He wasn't that hard to find, though; Shins probably could have managed it without Olgun's hints. Opposite the main gate, the cemetery's far end had been recently expanded. The earth still showed a few open wounds where the walls had been partly dismantled and moved, and whole rows of graves were obviously fresh. The caretaker—for that is what Shins assumed the ashen-haired older man in the beat-up woolens to be—leaned wearily on a spade and watched a band of workers digging up yet another new plot some yards distant. Shins didn't envy them their task, not with the earth both drenched by the weather and packed down hard by so many feet over the past weeks. The scent of loam in the air was so thick, Shins was surprised it didn't disturb the occupants.
She made no effort to conceal her approach, and the groundskeeper turned to greet her at the sound of her footsteps. “What can I do for you, madamois—?”
“The Marguilles grave. What happened to it?”
“Happened? I'm afraid I don't know what—”
Widdershins heaved a sigh so deep, it could itself have come from one of the coffins. “Are we really going to do this? Genevieve Marguilles was my friend. I've been to her graveside more times than you could count without undressing. So spare me the fake ignorance, yes?”
Straightening to his full height, he scowled down at her. “As we're digging so many new plots,” he said primly, “we decided to take the opportunity to touch up a few of the older ones, where time and weather had begun to—”
“The face-saving cover story now? What, do you have a checklist to run through? Just tell me the truth, for figs’ sake!”
“Stop interrupting! Mademoiselle, I don't know where you learned your manners—”
“Her body's missing, isn't it? Someone dug her up. And this cemetery's not