Paris (cont.)
I followed. I followed, moving with his shadow. He stopped, gazed at the cathedral. I froze. The long whip, braided as horse tails, hung down by his side. He looked at it, flicked. It moved. A night-sundering bang sprang from the air it had cleaved.
We continued in and up. Up the front stairs, through the halls full of saints, up more stairs of stone and wood. Pesha turned a corner. I pressed myself to the wall, waited.
* * *
Goddamn boy. What did he think? That I hadn't noticed him following me? I growled under my breath. When this was over, I'd lash him to the nearest street pole for a day!
"You came." The brat was stunned. I could only hope mine kept his muzzle shut. The man had his eyes on me. Good. keep them there! I let the whip uncurl. Only, "Can I take care of it, Father?"
"It's your problem." I had the whip around his neck, knife to his back. He had Pitti by the throat, dangling over the edge of the precipise.
My heart drove itself up to my mouth. I pressed the threatening blade harder on the spawn's back. I could feel my eyes wanting to give away my mind, if they hadn't already.
"Let him down." I imagined him. He would be hurt, broken. "Let him down!" Not dead. Never dead. I couldn't--wouldn't--allow that.
"As you wish."
The fear in his eyes...
* * *
I grasped and kicked at nothing. My stomach flew into my chest, drove my heart nearly out of my mouth. For a moment, it was almost exhilerating, knowing I'd have time for a nice, calm free fall before I stained the cobbles.
Until my fall was halted by the strangling grasp on my shirt. I raised my eyes. Pesha dug his toes into the wall, his long fingers clutching the lip of the vista.
He let out a strangled grunt; we sank lower. I tilted my head and leaned to see what the cause was. Another sharp weightlessness, another jerked stop.
"I'd prefer a straight drop," I griped.
"I will drop you if you keep on with that wriggling!" he snapped and began to swing. "Agh!" He snarled at the laughter that followed his exclaimation. His nails sank into my wrist. "Listen. For once, listen, Pitti." They dug in harder. I bit my lip. "If you don't at the least keep this oaf from breaking my fingers, you idiot brat of a boy, I'll climb up there and turn your backside to look as an Arab's!" We swung again. He planted his foot and heaved. "Now get up there!"
I was tossed up onto the lip. I rolled from the edge, stood, staggered, found myself before Remi, and promptly jabbed my elbow in his face. The man with the smell turned slightly to look at our brawl. Pesha heaved himself up on the ledge, grabbing the man's head.
The next moment I was on the ground, punching and twisting.
"All right!" I struggled, lashing with all the more violence.
"Bakapor, hold still!" Pesha materialized through the haze in my eyes. "Tibya. Tibya!" I blinked. He chuckled. "Enough, my boy." He kissed my hair. "You've done enough."
I looked down. My hands were twitching, fingers and shoes bloodied. I looked at the man. He lay with his face down, neck bent at an unnatural angle. "Oh, that." Pesha shrugged. "One takes on that appearance after having one's face pounded beyond recognition on the willing fangs of a church dwelling malignance." I noticed the gargoyle's stained face. Covered in liquid and chunks of...
My companion's yet cocked hands halted my faint. He pushed me to my feet, keeping our arms about each other like any pair of staggering drunken despots. His nimble digits found the rag and put it round about my head as a covering signal once more.
My voice found my tongue: "Did I kill him?"
"I am the only one with a blood bathing." I turned my face to him. His hands and part of his face were spattered to the shade of his eyes. My legs threatened to betray me. His arms, his back was there, his legs trudging in place of mine.
"Set me down."
"So you can drop in the river? That wish is for an angel."
"You look an angel." He halted, frozen in a beam of moonshine.
"Silly, sweet child, too innocent to see the monster before your eyes..." I shuddered at the rare display of emotion. I pressed my face in his neck, tightening my arms over his chest. We continued in silence to the vardo. I turned on the threshold.
"Yalu blu...Pesha."
He looked at me with something akin to indignant surprise. But the look was slowly, surely pulled back into his control, reeled in to return to its place on the inside of his spiderweb-cracked mask.
"You can't. You can't love me. Tonight has proven that."
"What are you--"
"If you were able to love me, you would have obeyed and--"
"I'm not some girl you can order around! And damn well I'm not, else I'd be stuck snaggle-toothed, buxom, and you--"
"I? That is your favorite word, isn't it? Me, me, me!"
"Go stick your face to a hot swing-plate!"
"Go sit on a broom pole!"
"Go to heaven! See how fast its harp-pluckers shriek and run!"
"Go and get inside!"
I was shoved bodily onto the bed. When had he backed me up? "Go to bed." I rose enough for a sit.
"You can't make--" I faltered. He ran his tongue up the flat of his blade, slowly, slowly. He leaned over, repeated the process with my cheek. I was downed on the bed and cocooned before I'd realized it.
* * *
"You're covered in blood, tu bete."
"You've seen worse."
"Oui. And all the wrose when you're involved. How fair your adversaries?"
"The Lady of Paris finds their former selves like a fine wine."
"Ah. What of...?"
"I suspect he'll remind me on the morrow of my debt of his shirt!" We laughed soundlessly at the remnants of the clothing.
"Torn anyway?"
"Da."
"As long as time and your attitude permits," he continued, now curiously solemn, "may I give you a proper welcome?" I permitted with my usual air. We embraced, the Fool kissing both sides of my face. With a fiendish cast to his face, he pecked my lips. I bloodied his nose, not unkindly.
"I thought it was your custom to kiss a hero--"
"The hero is that boy. Kiss him and I'll take that nose."
"I should only wish."
"What was that...Maurice?" He cringed.
"Por quoi? You wound me, tu bete."
"Clovo, then?"
"More pleasing to the ear, less common to the tongue. What of you, Pavel?" I felt my lip curl. He sighed. "Messire Boyko, then?" He tucked a knee in an embrace 'neath his scraggly scruff.
We hummed in silence, reaquainting with old times, old selves--however young bodily--and old feelings. "You love him, that boy?"
"Not so much a boy now."
"Have they dropped yet?" I sputtered at the question as he snickered at my expression. Fools. A couple of them. How loyal they are.
TBC at whatever time I get more done. wink Comments luffled.
