Snofrid got to her feet. Without a word, she grabbed her satchel and headed for the Mock Wall.
“Stop right there,” he called. “Turn and walk back to the table.”
She halted. Thorns of resentment made her teeter on the edge of an outburst. “Why?”
“You asked two questions,” he reminded, nodding to her wineglass. “Take another drink.”
The Unloved God
You walk like a duck,” Coyote observed, when they reached the forest elevator.
“It’s called out-toe walking,” Snofrid informed, swiping her Tag over the tree keypad to summon the elevator. He’d been making offhand comments since they’d left the Spyderweb and it was beginning to grate at her. “It’s no more awkward than your eye twitch.”
“My muscles contract when electrical currents travel through my body,” he explained. “I don’t have an eye twitch.”
“That’s beside the point. The spasms still look weird.”
He crackled his thumb; a foreboding black current flashed over his knuckles. “Have you ever touched a hot stove? It heats up to 500, maybe 550 degrees Celsius.”
“Yes. Most children do at some point.”
“At 28,000 degrees Celsius, my lightning whips are hotter than the surface of Earth’s sun.” Coyote waved his pinky finger. “One stroke would send 15 coulombs of electrical charge and 500 mega joules of power through your body. A scanner wouldn’t even be able to identify your remains.”
Snofrid remained impervious. “Touch me and, yes, I’d burn, but you know I’d also heal. If I fired a bullet in your head, you couldn’t say the same.”
“If you fired a bullet at my head, it would melt before it left the chamber.” The haughtiness in his face faded and was replaced with a stark, unforgiving glower. “I’ll be here tomorrow at 0800 hours. If you’re late, I won’t wait for you. May we meet again.”
“May we meet again,” Snofrid replied. She watched as he blended back into the trees, until only the crunch of his boots betrayed his path back to the Spyderweb. It was as if every Dracuslayer under Hadrian’s command was soulless—or they all secretly knew she was a halfbreed, courtesy of Hessia. This could explain why they treated her like a stain on the carpet.
After hiding herself with a bottled Concealing Spell, she headed into the house. No one was waiting. She passed Lycidius in the kitchen. He was on the phone and seemed too absorbed to hear the creak of the ladder as she climbed to her bedroom.
The room was empty. All was orderly, apart from a heap of laundry on the floor. Jazara had settled down to sleep in the washitsu, giving Snofrid the perfect opportunity to do some research. She intended to dig up information on Invidia, blackchant and the crossing. Hadrian had shared the barest details of the Stygian War, and she knew there was a flipside to every story.
The night before, Desya had reminded her that she kept her Inborn history books hidden under her bathtub. The bathtub was encased, leaving a spacious storage area around the bowl.
She sat on the bathroom tiles, huddled beside the towel cupboard, and growing evermore unsatisfied as the clock drew near midnight. Her books related how her kind had abandoned Armador twenty-two years ago, but there were few to none first-hand accounts from survivors. It was as if Inborns had wanted to forget what they’d left behind. Or maybe they didn’t want humanity to learn about what existed on the other side of the portal.
Snofrid lowered her book, suddenly conflicted, for she’d recalled Hadrian telling her that millions of Inborns were trapped in Armador with Invidia. It was clear these Inborns would be left to Invidia if the welx was killed; on the other hand, the alternative was just as terrible: if the welx was allowed to live, the All-Steam Hunters would open the portal, bringing Invidia to conquer Earth as she had conquered Armador. The decision seemed impossible, and Snofrid found herself pitying the Lords, for they’d been the ones tasked with making the decision in the first place. Snofrid would never want such a responsibility.
When it was clear that she’d get no answers from her books, she crawled into bed. Her eyelids flagged, yet her mind worked, stressing on information Hadrian had entrusted to her and playing out possible scenarios of the hunt. Considering everything she’d learned about the welx, she now knew that the hunt was infinitely more momentous than she’d been led to believe. The Lords were undoubtedly monitoring it, which meant her uncle, Lord Drakkar, was in contact. Securing an audience with him as a halfbreed was obviously a fantasy, but she still imagined it.
A creak sounded behind the door and she turned toward the noise. For a moment, she stared through the curtain of darkness while old habits revisited her. She thought of Ghost, the first friend she’d had in the world, and wondered if it ever thought of her. As it had long ago, the idea of Ghost’s presence soothed her. But then, naturally, she thought of Ryuki and all her good feelings grew heavier. She missed him now as much as she’d missed him the day he died.
The door swung open. Jazara clambered up the ladder, suspending Snofrid’s imaginings. She was dressed in a frilled yellow nightgown and hugging her stuffed giraffe.
“Is something wrong?” Snofrid asked. Guilt soaked her tone at the sight of the girl’s bandaged hand. She involuntarily curled up a little, nerves twisting, suspecting that Jazara hated her.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jazara said, her voice tiny. She stared at her bare feet a moment before whispering, “I’m…not mad at you.”
Snofrid sat upright, unblinking, praying she hadn’t misheard the girl. She scrambled out of bed and swept Jazara into a vigorous hug. “What happened was my fault, Jazara. I’m so sorry.” She drew Jazara closer, warming with consolation when Jazara hugged her back. Her eyes fell to Jazara’s bandage. “Does it still hurt?”
“Not anymore. Dez gave me more medicine.” Jazara’s shoulders bounced into a shrug. “He also said bionic-replacement appendages are in style now, so I don’t got to feel bad.” Her eyes wandered to the mattress. “Can I sleep in here? It’s really dark in the washitsu.”
“Sure, but it’s late, so you should probably just sleep with me. I’ll make up a spare bed tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Jazara pattered to the bed. “Dez, snores loud, too. I put a pillow on his face, but it didn’t help.”
“I snore sometimes, too,” Snofrid warned, taking down a stack of spare blankets from the bathroom cupboard.
“Yeah, but not like Dez. And he whistles, too.” Jazara waited until Snofrid was in bed, before whispering, “Goodnight, Sno.”
Jazara drifted off to sleep, leaving Snofrid alone in the dark. She fussed to find a comfortable position; she wiggled her toes restlessly and her focus bobbed back and forth, like a ship on a stormy sea. Unbidden, she kept reimagining Hadrian’s face as he’d briefed her on the Stygian War. He wasn’t shy about showing the satisfaction he found in upsetting her, and it was all too familiar: Lycidius used to draw a similar type of pleasure from torturing her as a child.
By 2:37 a.m., she’d given up on sleeping. The thought that she needed to rise in a few hours made her groan. She rolled towards the window to look at the moon; a knock at the door sent her rolling the other way.
“Yes?”
“Hey, Sno,” Desya murmured. “You busy?”
“It’s almost 3:00 a.m., Dez, what would I be doing?”
“I don’t know. You’re awake, so I thought you might be doing schoolwork.”
“I’ve never been that dedicated.” She squinted at Jazara, and added, “Jazara’s asleep though.”
“I’ll keep it down,” he promised. “I just need you to make Lycidius’s Demented Book shut up.”
Snofrid propped herself up on her elbows. “Lycidius isn’t here?”
“No.”
Hopping out of bed, she twisted open the door and cringed in the piercing kitchen light. Desya stood on the ladder, his eyelids drooping and claws protracted. “Where is he?” she asked.
“He went to grab supplies, but he got held up in traffic, so he’s staying in a hotel
until curfew ends.” Desya eyed Jazara, asleep with her mouth open, and retracted his claws. “Sorry if I woke you. The book’s been having a conniption for ten minutes straight.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Is it in the washitsu?”
He dropped down the ladder. “It’s in the toilet.”
“Why did you put it in there?”
“Because it hates water. And it’s a menace. Cid tried to chain it up, but it busted the last three sets.”
“It sounds like every other Demented Book I’ve seen.”
“No, this one is different, trust me.”
Climbing down the ladder, she waited, shivering, while Desya slid open the washitsu door with his foot.
He added, “It bit Cid’s hand once. Almost took off his pinky.”
Her lashes flew up. “And you want me to touch it?”
“Yeah, Sno. It likes you. Come on, I’ll show you.”
She trailed him towards the washitsu bathroom where a powerfully deep voice was chanting like a funeral choir. “I am war. I am death. I am the Unloved God. I am war. I am death. I am the Unloved God.”
“Hey,” Desya barked, elbowing open the bathroom door. “Shut up or I’ll toss you in the paper shredder.”
Snofrid recognized the book’s chant as the phrase Lycidius used to utter in his sleep when they were children and dashed to the toilet. A ratty book was sloshing about inside the bowl. On the cover was a familiar insignia—a black upside-down tree, plated on leather chrysanthemum petals; behind the tree was the faintest outline of a solar eclipse.
“I am war. I am death. I am the Unloved God!” the book roared. A black barbed wing shot from the pages, startling her and making Desya groan irritably.
“If you don’t be quiet, we’re going to sell you,” she threatened, crouching low over the bowl. “You have four seconds.”
The wing sagged and slithered back into the book. The pages wrinkled. “Snofrid?”
“Yes.”
The pages crinkled again. “You’ve ignored me. Why?”
She glanced up at Desya, hoping for a hint.
“It’s been obsessed with you since Cid first showed it to you last year.” Swiping up the book, he used an embroidered hand towel to dry the binding. “It’s a bloody seedy needy and I’m gonna bury it if it makes me lose one more hour of sleep.”
“Read me,” the book hissed. “You’ve ignored me and I’m furious!”
“I’ll take it,” she said. As her fingers touched the book, warmth flooded the binding. The cover blushed red and the pages exhaled a long, low sigh.
“Don’t put me in the drawer again,” it warned.
“That’ll depend on you. Are you going to let us sleep?”
“I’ll be good. I’ll be good.”
“Do you know what’s in this book?” Snofrid asked when they’d returned to the washitsu.
“Yeah, Cid let me read it a while back.” He skirted past a valet-stand draped with jeans and snatched his phone off the breakfront. “It has some history about famous battles and Commanders, but most of it’s about the Unloved God.”
Slumping onto an open futon, she pulled a crocheted blanket over her knees and inspected the book. “I’ve studied most of our Commanders, but I’ve never heard of him.”
“Yeah, that’s because dad wouldn’t let you. You know how he rated books on how scary they were?”
“Yes. He wouldn’t let me read Talks with Twoface.”
“That book was nothing compared to this one.”
Snofrid traced her fingertips across the black tree, her interest enkindled. “Well, you read it, so tell me the best parts.”
“There are no best parts; it’s just a bunch of sadistic ways to kill people.” Sitting beside her, he shoved his phone in-between the cushions. “You know those stories Cid used to tell us, about how people went into Babadon? And how it sucked out all their goodness?”
“Yes.”
“The Unloved God was like that—except he never went into Babadon. His birth name was Grieva Gravebane. He used to be a Skinwalker Commander around the time we made the crossing. Cid served under him until his death.”
Snofrid cleared the prickly lump in her throat. “Lycidius mentioned he served under a Skinwalker, never who though.”
“I don’t think he wanted us to know…at least, not for a while.”
“Why? I don’t believe it was because he was ashamed.”
“Cid wouldn’t be embarrassed if he woke up with webbed feet.” Desya folded his arms over his chest, now wide awake. “Some Native Americans used to believe that each time a photo was taken of them, a part of their soul went with it. That’s kind of how Cid thinks about his personal info. Like each time he tells someone something, he’s handed over a part of himself.”
“That’s nonsense,” she assured. “He never told me that.”
Desya shrugged. “He only told me to warn me. He thought I was telling Parisa too much.”
Indifferent, Snofrid lifted her feet on the footrest. “He’s always been proud, Dez. It has nothing to do with souls disappearing.”
“Yeah. But, I said his belief was kind of like the Native Americans. He didn’t say anything about souls. He said it weakened his influence when people knew too much.”
“That sounds like something he’d say.”
Desya rose, and said, “I’m gonna grab a beer.” He strode into the kitchen and a wedge of light signaled he’d opened the fridge. He returned swiftly, carrying two Greenmarket Wheat beers by the necks. “If we don’t drink these tonight, Cid will sponge them both.” He popped the caps with one of his fangs and offered her one.
“Thanks,” she said, her palm numb against the cold glass. As he flipped through TV channels, she urged him to finish the story of Grieva Gravebane. “Lycidius talked about the Unloved God before,” she said. “But I’m guessing it’s more of a derogatory title.”
“Yeah, it is. For starters, he really thought he was a god. He was totally convinced that by transcending weakness, he could rise to a godlike status. Since no one liked him much, the name kind of stuck. Even the Skinwalker Lord kept him at an arm’s length.” As Desya wiped his mouth, his face puckered into a disgusted expression. “It’s no wonder though. He was the second biggest mass murderer in our history.”
Snofrid felt the air in the room thicken into a stifling haze. “Dez, it never bothered you that Lycidius served under a mass murderer?”
“No, it did. I was like twelve when I found out and it scared the crap out of me.” He narrowed his eyes, then took on a thoughtful look. “When I first met Cid, he said a lot of weird things, so eventually I gave the book a read. Things made sense after I read the chapter on Grieva Gravebane’s code.”
“It’s all about weakness and power, isn’t it?”
“Sort of. It basically boils down to dominance and submission. At its highest practice, you torture what you like and kill what you love. We used to think certain human religions were kooky—wait till you read about this one.”
“I already know about this one,” she assured. Love is a flaw. With Lycidius’s words, Snofrid’s need for an explanation went out the window. Hurtful memories put on new faces as she thought back over all of the times he’d been cruel to her—calling her names, playing mind games on her, telling her she was a castoff. It seemed to her that all of this really hadn’t stemmed from hatred, but rather, a twisted version of affection.
Using her Halo, she opened the book and skimmed the index, eager to study the code. “How did the Unloved God die?”
“Chapter twenty-three,” Desya said. “But I wouldn’t recommend reading it.”
“Why?”
“Because Grieva eventually went insane and murdered his wife.”
“What?” She scoured the book’s cover, as if it would suddenly spit out answers. “Why?”
“He snapped, I guess. When his son found out about his mom, he flipped and tore off Grieva’s head, arms and legs and then stuck them on poles around th
eir warship.”
“It sounds like his son lost it.”
“No, his son is just brutal.”
Snofrid thought this an understatement. The vague reasons for Lycidius’s childhood cruelty began to take shape: to be raised in such an environment would’ve been similar to being raised in the Midwinter Insurgency. No good could grow from that.
Still leafing through the book, she paused on a picture of two boys. Both could be no older than four. They looked as groomed by war as the Swangunners—the kind that had garnered a thrill for fighting. Both were adorned in reptilian armor and full-face helmets with bloodied ram horns. They stood poised to fight on the blood-soaked foredeck of a hideous warship. Great, barbed, leathery sails shrouded their bodies like a living cloak of ferocity; the setting sun glinted off the gutted bodies about their feet.
She recognized the toddler on the left, armed with an iron Longxu hook, as Lycidius; he stared at her with mismatched eyes even more menacing than the first day she’d looked into them. His tongue hung between his teeth, displaying his silver barbell, and his eyes blazed with exhilaration. The toddler on the right, with his alligator eyes and venomous sneer, she also found familiar, though it took a moment longer to identify him. She checked the caption beneath the photo:
On Left: Dracuslayer Lycidius Heidrun. Also known as “Cid the Insidious”
On Right: Dracuslayer, Hadrian Gravebane. Also known as “The Red Prince”
“This isn’t Lycidius’s adopted brother, is it?” Her voice cracked.
Desya consulted the photo. “Yeah.”
She sat up slowly and the crocheted blanket fell off her shoulders. Distress raked her body; she found it difficult to form a coherent thought. You called me heartless once. If you met my adopted brother, you’d find new meaning in the word. Had she known Lycidius had been referring to Commander Hadrian when he’d spoken these words, she would’ve told Hadrian to go stone himself. Or at least, she thought she would’ve. As her frustration raged, reality snuffed it. No. She couldn’t have changed anything. She’d never had the option to choose.
Hatred Day Page 23