Page 19 of The Hopeless Romantic’s Guide to Enchantment

Waldemar Pemberton hesitated. “Truthfully, nothing. But there must be some detail I’ve missed. For someone to put such force into denouncing others, while parading their own morality… I think he’s sicker than the rest of us combined. Yes, Lambert Beadle has a heart like a shriveled rat turd, and I will find out what he’s done!” He punctuated this with a slammed fist, ale sloshing to add to the already-dried stickiness.

Pietro winced and sat back. “But this is all supposition. What do you actually know?”

Waldemar swung his gaze around, peering at the other patrons as though suspicious of eavesdroppers. In truth, he was buying time, dredging words from his ale-soaked brain and stacking them into some semblance of order. Few others remained in the pub this late; only two men, who’d pulled their chairs close together. In the dark of the room, their lamp gave them a halo. One laid his hand on the other’s arm, and rubbed it, back and forth. Waldemar swallowed.

“Waldemar—”

“I’ve been applying pressure.” He adjusted his cravat, feeling suddenly strangled. His high-waisted pants also felt, all at once, too tight, but he kept his hands above the table. “I know that he’s been receiving my letters.”

“Letters?”

“To increase the feeling of a noose about his neck! ‘The Gods see all, and their wrath will find you’, and ‘Your parliamentary days are numbered’, stuff of that ilk. I’ve sent quite a few.”

Pietro shifted on his stool. Bottles lined the bar shelves behind him, glinting in the dark like beetles. After another sip of his liquor, he said, “And you sign these letters?”

“Heavens, no! Even better—” Waldemar ushered his companion closer, the ale in his bloodstream contributing to his showmanship. “I perfectly replicated his handwriting. So that if he ever brought them forward, it would look—”

“As though he’d sent them to himself, yes, I get the idea.” Pietro exhaled, causing his neckcloth to briefly flap. “I must say, that’s a great deal of effort. And one undone by the right spells.”

“Oh, he’s a second-rate witch, you know that. Besides, you didn’t allow me to share the best part. Which is that, on every letter, I’ve dabbed a drop of my cologne.” Waldemar spread his hands, waiting for a reaction. When it didn’t come, he continued, “So that he might—”

“Smell it and know that it came from you. Yes. Very, ah…” Pietro coughed. “Clever.” Withdrawing a handkerchief, he dabbed at his forehead. “And this is just about the inheritance tax for you?”

“Just about?” Waldemar slammed his fist again. Two images of Pietro had separated, wavering and overlapping, but at this burst of adrenaline they condensed back together. “Half of every thing I stand to lose, above that stupid, arbitrary threshold – and he must have formulated that number as a stab at me, he knows of my father’s health, and—”

“I know, I know—”

“Everything that I’m owed, he’d give to the state to piss away—”

“I know the details. Waldemar, please. Understand that I am very distressed, myself, about the tax. There is much we stand to lose.” Pietro’s look of earnestness was undercut by his separating once more into twin wobbling images. Only his net of wards remained stationary, the runes perched across his clothing like fleas.

Waldemar wondered why he bothered; nobody in their right mind would assault a witch. The runes across Pietro’s teeth, when he attempted a smile, were more sensible; they contained the spell words for whitening. Likely Pietro thought them well-hidden, tucked as they were beneath his gumline, but Waldemar had a keen eye for illusion. To break from his staring, he groped for his tankard and found it empty. “Another?”

“No, no, it’d be beneath me to keep you from your fiancée much longer. But do let me know if your, ah, letters result in anything of interest. Go on ahead, I’ll cover this.”

Waldemar found himself shooed from his seat. He swayed in place, the combined stench of spilled drink and body odor igniting a star of nausea in his gut. “Yes,” he muttered, loosening his cravat further. “Some fresh air will… do me good.”

His swaying walk (which nearly smacked his head into a wooden beam) brought him past the other patrons. One man lowered his mouth to the other’s ear, but not to whisper. Waldemar spied, from the corner of his eye, the red flicker of a tongue.

Shockingly brash. He harrumphed, to remind them of their surroundings, and – when they failed to separate – continued his stumbling across the uneven floorboards.

The cold evening air struck him like a bucket of water. Light fell in yellow puddles along the street, from the lamp posts that lined the cobblestones. Waldemar spat, his saliva briefly reflective as it passed through the light, then waited to see if the contents of his stomach would follow. When his nausea had subsided, he lurched forward, surrendering to muscle memory. On either side, shopfronts jutted like teeth in a crowded mouth, all shuttered for the evening. Dried horseshit flavored the air.

“That’s all?” he said, as he staggered. “The inheritance tax, and Lambert? That’s all?” Truthfully, he’d thought Pietro might be an invert, what with his pushing of drinks, and the location he’d chosen. Waldemar had entered the pub with a tingle of excitement that he’d written off as apprehension – his mind milling through the possibilities. What if Pietro slid his chair too close? What if one of his hands slipped beneath the table, to fondle at Waldemar’s thigh? Why, he’d feign ignorance, for as long as he could, before issuing an admonishment. So as to preserve the other man’s dignity. That was what Waldemar had decided, and it deflated him, somewhat, that it had not proved necessary.

His legs carried him like faithful, if somewhat unbalanced, horses, leaving him free to his thoughts. Thus, he’d wandered quite far down an unlit street before realizing how little he could see.

“No lamps? Ah.” One did curl above him like a finger, but something had shattered its glass cage. He stopped to scowl at it. “Is this where my inheritance will go? Maybe it should. Can’t even keep a bloody street lit. Can you believe this?” He directed his words to the man walking up behind him. “Can’t see my damn hand in front of my damn face!”

The man did not answer. It occurred to Waldemar, belatedly, that this might be a pickpocket or a mugger, who in the darkness had failed to recognize him as a witch. Or worse: it could be a pervert, out to take advantage of young men!

“Hello?” he said, turning around hopefully.

When the ghoul took him about the neck, Waldemar had a moment of utter delight, before recognizing the sensation as teeth plunging into flesh. “Oh,” he gurgled, sinking under the other’s weight.

It occurred to him, far too late, that he ought to cast a spell.

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