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Wind tugged at my jacket and tossed his hair behind him in ribbons of black. With the sun lurking behind clouds, his skin looked white, his eyes almost as gray as the sky. He lingered outside the café.
“Have you seen the cathedral?” he asked.
“I have.”
He hooked his fingers between mine, a little tighter than he needed, and tugged me on. “Let’s go there together.”
We walked down the Ringstrasse, an old road built over the memory of an even older wall that once circled the heart of Vienna. At the center of the city, the great Gothic tower of St. Stephen’s soared heavenward. The cathedral’s roof gleamed richly with a mosaic of twin black eagles—one for Vienna, one for Austria.
The bells of St. Stephen’s began to ring. The heavenly clamor chimed over Vienna.
“The Angelus.” Wendel quickened his pace. “It must be noon already.”
“The Angelus?”
He shrugged. “It’s a Catholic devotion. They ring the Angelus bell three times a day.”
“I didn’t think you were Catholic.”
“I’m not, though I do love cathedrals.”
We arrived on the steps of St. Stephen’s, dwarfed by its Gothic immensity, and he held one of the iron-barred doors open for me. We stepped into the hush within. Incense and beeswax candles scented the air.
“Necromancers and cathedrals?” I asked. “You hardly seem holy.”
He leaned close enough to me that his breath stirred my hair. “I love cathedrals,” he murmured, “because they often have catacombs beneath them. Don’t act startled, but someone has been following us.”
23
My hand darted to my sword. “Who?”
“Keep walking toward the high altar.” As we strolled through the rows of pews, Wendel whispered in my ear. “It’s an assassin from the Order of the Asphodel.” A muscle in his jaw twitched, though he smiled sardonically. “The bastard hasn’t found the balls to come after me yet, though I suppose hedidsee what happened to the others.”
“Others?” I whispered back.
“Six of them.” He shrugged. “So far.”
“You killed them all?”
“Not all at once,” he said, modestly.
He turned toward the cathedral’s north tower. I followed him. The muscles in my back tensed as if I expected a knife between my shoulder blades. Would the assassin dare attack us in the sanctuary of a cathedral?
“Are we safe here?” I asked.
“Safe?” He glanced sideways at me. “Don’t worry, the assassins want me alive. I’m infinitely more valuable to them that way.”
I grimaced. “I’m not infinitely valuable.”
“You are to me.” He touched his lips to my neck, earning us a glare from a passing priest. “Stay close. We can lure the assassin down to the catacombs and end this. I must say, it’s so much easier when they come to me.”
A shiver wracked my body. We had reached the entrance to the crypt.
We descended the stairs, each granite step worn smooth by centuries of footsteps. The glow from the candlelight and cathedral’s windows dimmed as we walked into the lantern-lit darkness. The crypt twisted underground like a macabre rabbit’s warren. I had never been down here before. Rumors spoke of royal innards kept in sarcophagi, and more common bones tossed in the catacombs.
“The catacombs are down this passageway.” Wendel’s voice sounded rougher than usual. He inhaled before letting out a shuddering breath. “I can feel them,” he muttered. “Thousands. Tens of thousands.”
“Who?”
