Nightborn: Lords of the Darkyn by Lynn Viehl

Author:Lynn Viehl [Viehl, Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Fantasy, General, Paranormal, Fiction
ISBN: 9781101577011
Google: Xzq76QW9lh8C
Amazon: B006LU0JYU
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2012-03-05T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

P

ájaro waited for nightfall before he entered Le Panier, Marseilles’s oldest quartier. Once the refuge of whores, sailors, and other scum from the docks, the shameful ghetto had been gradually revitalized by a curious infusion of new blood. Artisans, always in need of cheap lodgings, had first gravitated to the rough shantytown to rent rooms and studio space in its tall, squash-colored houses with their ladder-long white shutters. Of course, they had to peddle their wares as well, which ranged from decorative pots to hand-painted santons, tiny figurines used in traditional crèches to illustrate the Nativity scene. In time the stink of fish, liquor, and sex for sale had faded from the alleys, replaced by the pungent aromas of damp pots, gas kilns, and sunscreen-slathered tourists.

As he climbed the stone steps to a side street, Pájaro sensed someone coming up behind him. He glanced up at the washing-draped balconies, seeing only an amber cat with copper eyes staring down at him, before he turned to face his shadow.

Middle age and all its disappointments had soured the woman’s triangular features, and just-freshened makeup failed to disguise the cobwebs of capillaries alcohol addiction had started to spread on either side of her hooked nose.

“Do you want something, mademoiselle?”

Her clumpy lashes fluttered with grotesque coyness as she assessed his clothes and the location of his pockets. “I’m just having a walk. Are you going to the Twelve Coins? They have live music.” She shimmied around in an uneven circle to demonstrate her deplorable dancing skills.

“I don’t drink or dance.” He continued up the steps, knowing she would follow, listening for the second pair of footsteps as her partner tailed them. He changed direction, leading them to the back of a busy restaurant’s kitchen, where he retreated to the shadows.

An overweight, burly man caught up with the barfly and yanked at her arm. “Where did he go?”

“I didn’t see.” When her companion went still, she made an impatient sound. “Come on, Porci, I haven’t…” She darted out of the way as the man toppled over, and shrieked at the blade sticking out of his back.

“Shhhh.” Pájaro clapped a hand over her mouth as he dragged her back behind some plastic crates of bottled water.

A short time later he emerged alone, and took two bottles from the crates to rinse the blood from his hands and his dagger. He yanked down a towel from a low-hanging balcony and used it to dry his hands before he dropped it in a rubbish container a block away.

Squeezed between a narrow gallery of arts Africains and a garden container shop, Pájaro found number eight Rue Méry, the current residence of Bonafacio Puget, formerly the department chair of medieval studies at a prestigious Paris university. The professor, who had retired to pursue his lifelong ambition of writing the definitive history of the French Church, was also the country’s leading expert on the Knights Templar.

A man too young to be Puget answered the door, yawning as he asked, “Can’t

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