No Earthly Treason (The Necromancer's Daughter Book 2)

by Genevra Black

  Cal’s eyes widened as he watched her chest rise and fall. Then, he dove forward.

  She didn’t have a hope of escaping—he was too fast. He grabbed her throat, squeezed so hard that she couldn’t make a noise, and kicked her crutches out from under her. They crashed into her wheelchair and jostled it, scattering her nail kit across the floor.

  The zombie didn’t even seem to notice, focusing solely on her. With her still struggling in his hands, he carefully laid her out on the floor under him.

  Before Mercy knew it, his face was inches from hers. She tried to raise her arms to push him off of her, but he was like a solid wall of muscle. She opened her mouth to scream—

  Nothing. She couldn’t. In fact, only a little whistle emitted from her mouth as the air was sucked right out of her.

  The thing above her didn’t quite look like Cal anymore. Its face and form seemed to shift and change—man and woman, human and creature, young and old. Features whirled like a cyclone before her, but she could see that its mouth was open, gaping. Faint streaks of white light were being sucked from her mouth into the monster’s.

  Mercy struggled against it, trying to find her voice. If she could just call out, she could get Fisk’s attention, and even this strong thing was no match for a giant fish man. But she couldn’t. No matter how she worked her jaw, her mouth wouldn’t close completely, like a strange force was forcing it open.

  Beyond not being able to shout, Mercy found that she wasn’t able to breathe, and struggling was only making her lightheaded. She had a limited amount of energy left before this thing completely emptied her of whatever it was it wanted. She had to spend it wisely.

  Mercy turned her head to the left first, trying to break the connection, but she could only move for a second before the strange force suctioned her back into place. She tried jerking her head to the right instead, but the suction pulled her back again. Though she tried to close her mouth, the whistle of air escaping never stopped.

  She couldn’t feel her face anymore, or most of her torso, or her shoulders. Her vision became dark, and cloudy with tears. She felt like she was standing on the edge of a black tunnel, about to fall down. Was she really going to die here, after everything?

  Then, something caught her eye. There, on the floor—the purple handle of her nail file.

  Mercy worked her fingers against the carpet, only barely able to catch the corner of the metal file with one of her nails. She gaped and bucked. Pain radiated through her hips and legs, but she was able to slide the file into her hand.

  The little white lines and the darkness closing around her were the only things she could see, now. White stars exploded behind her eyes.

  She drew in the tiny bit of energy she had left, gripped the nail file, and thrust it into the monster’s side.

  Suddenly, it was like she was smacked in the face. All the breath the thing had stolen rubber-banded back inside of her, pinning her to the floor for a moment with its intensity. Her lungs were paralyzed. They were going to explode—

  Mercy jerked again and exhaled in a hard cough, the tears in her eyes finally pouring down her temples. She gulped in more air as her lungs settled.

  No explosion. She was going to be all right.

  Something squealed and scuttled across the living room, out the door, leaving it hanging open.

  A shuddering breath, another cough. The reality of what had happened finally dawned on her, and she sputtered and burst into tears.

  Mercy kept her fist clenched around the file, barely sobbing anymore, instead wailing like she was making up for that torturous minute of silence. She could feel heat blooming on her lower stomach. Her clothes stuck to her skin like someone had poured hot water on her. She didn’t care. She just wanted to scream and scream until her voice didn’t work anymore.

  The front door flew open. Mercy stopped for a second, hiccupping and clutching the file tighter—but when she saw a familiar face, she let her head fall back onto the carpet, sobs burbling up from her chest and out of her mouth like a geyser of pain.

  “Blessed Mare, Mercy! What happened?”

  Satara’s warm, soft hands caressed her arms and helped her into a sitting position. Though the world swam through her tears, Mercy locked eyes with Satara, then threw her arms around her. The shieldmaiden seemed taken aback for a moment, but she returned the hug.

  “I’m— he— I can’t—” Mercy breathed in short little gasps, nose dripping.

  Satara placed a hand on the back of Mercy’s head, cradling her securely. With her other hand, she searched Mercy’s body, patting her down for injuries. She stopped short when she reached the warmth on Mercy’s stomach, and pulled back a little. “You’re covered in blood.”

  “I hur— hur— I hurt— him.” Mercy pulled back, too, and brandished the nail file. She was sure she looked like a psycho, covered in blood and tears, but she couldn’t quite grasp the will to calm down. She felt like she was in a car spinning out of control, and no matter how hard she slammed the brake or worked the wheel, she was still spiraling into a ditch.

  “Hurt who?”

  Mercy shook her head, suddenly remembering something. “Where’s Fisk? He should have heard me. He must have heard me!”

  Satara cursed under her breath. She stood without saying a word, trotting to the bathroom door and wrenching it open.

  Edie approached Ghost with leaden feet and a leaden heart, dreading having to talk to Cal. What Indriði had seen in her runecasting was jarring, to say the least, but the longer Edie thought about it, the more sense it made. Why on earth was Cal helping her if he hated who she was so desperately? She should have seen that before. And why had he been acting so guilty lately?

  He had to have some ulterior motive, and that fact put her on edge. How was she supposed to face him now that she wasn’t even sure she could trust him?

  As she opened Ghost’s passenger door and slipped in, Cal looked up from his phone. “Hey— Jesus, what’s with the jacket?” He nodded to the big leather mess in Edie’s arms as he started the engine.

  “Nothing. There was a dragon situation. I’m fine.” She’d been so preoccupied by the rune reading that she had forgotten to heal her cuts, and they stung like hell. The water Indriði had given her had helped a little, so she’d been sure to drain the glass before she left. She dropped the ruined jacket by her feet, trying to look casual as she watched out the car window.

  “A dragon?” He whistled, pulling away from the curb. “We really gotta get rid of that wall. I coulda helped.”

  “Yeah, well … luckily, it turned out to be a pet, not a trap.”

  Cal snorted and fished a cigarette out of his pocket. “She better be paying to replace it.”

  “I don’t know,” was Edie’s abrupt reply as she looked pointedly out the window.

  The silence that followed was like the silence that followed a hard smack. Cal shifted in his seat and didn’t say anything for a while, didn’t even light his cig, and Edie’s heart sank. She hadn’t meant it to come out so mean, she’d only wanted him to stop talking.

  Eventually, they left hoity-toity Alderdeen, and Cal spoke again. “Uh … I’m guessing by the attitude that she said no.”

  Indriði hadn’t technically said no out loud, but she’d made her answer pretty clear. Edie glanced at him and simply shrugged in response.

  Cal pressed, his tone becoming impatient. “Did she say anything? Did she talk to you?”

  “She just— She didn’t want to join.”

  “Is she really still that mad at Astrid?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cal threw a hand up, and it came down hard on the steering wheel. “What do you know? You were the one who talked to her!”

  Edie looked out the window again, suddenly more focused on where they were headed. Not toward the apartment. Her heart seized for a moment. “Where are we going?”

  “Uh … I thought we’d stop by the marina and pick up fish. It’s a little early, but while we’re
out—”

  Edie leaned forward to grip the dashboard. “I want to go home.”

  “Are you kiddin’ me?” Cal looked over at her, practically gaping. “Shamu needs to eat, Holloway!”

  They were getting farther and farther away from her neighborhood, and her stomach was starting to hurt. “Then go and get him something to eat later. I want to go home.”

  “What the hell is—”

  Apprehension, annoyance, and exasperation mingled. She didn’t want to go anywhere with him until she figured a few things out. “Cal! Just take me home!” she finally snapped.

  With a growl, Cal threw the wheel around and pulled a U-turn right in the middle of the street, almost hitting a parked car in the process. He sped down the road, toward her apartment.

  There was a heated silence before he spoke. “I’m not your goddamn servant and I’m not your chauffeur. Don’t forget that. If you fuckin’ insist on making me run errands, I’m doing the errands my way, got it?”

  Edie didn’t respond. She crossed her arms and looked out the window until they reached the apartment. Once they were parked, she hopped out without a word. She could hear Cal behind her, slamming the car door and pocketing his keys.

  She entered the apartment building without him and walked to the end of the hall, where she was surprised to find her door standing open—surprised, then panicked. She hurried inside. “Mercy?”

  Mercy and Satara were sitting on opposite ends of the couch, Fisk sandwiched between them. He looked bad. The vibrant teal of his skin was much duller, his gills were gray, and even his eyes weren’t the deep, sparkling obsidian they usually were. Mercy looked almost as sick, hair tangled, eyes and nose red.

  Edie sniffed the air. She’d become more attuned to the scent of blood, and it was heavy here. When she looked down, she saw a trail of crimson spotting leading out of the apartment. She looked back up at her friends. “What’s going on? Are you guys all right?”

  “Fisk is sick from the tub,” Mercy said through clenched teeth, clinging to a slimy arm.

  Edie rounded the couch and knelt in front of her friend, taking one of her hands—shaking, pale. Under it, on her T-shirt, was a huge blood stain. Edie squawked and touched it, but as soon as her fingertips made contact, she could tell it wasn’t Mercy’s. She knew the feeling of Mercy’s blood intimately at this point.

  Her eyes wandered next to the coffee table, where a bloodied nail file sat. “What happened?” Her tone was darker now.

  “I … I let … him in, and he attacked me.” Mercy looked down at her hands. “He pushed me down on the floor—”

  Edie blanched. “Who? Did you see who?”

  She nodded and opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off as Cal shouldered through the apartment door and stepped into the room.

  Unexpectedly and rapidly, Mercy moved closer to Edie in an effort to distance herself from Cal. “Him!”

  Edie exchanged confused glances with Satara. She might be questioning Cal’s motives, but he’d been either waiting for her or with her the entire time, and he couldn’t be in two places at once. She looked up at Cal, who had frozen in the entryway of the living room.

  For once, he didn’t have a smartass comment. “What?”

  The sickly Fisk managed to turn and look at Cal with a half-hearted, disoriented rage. “Villain!” he slurred, trying to claw his way over the back of the couch. Satara stopped him with a firm yank. The vættr groaned, wavered, and didn’t try to move again.

  Edie eyed him, then looked back at Mercy. “Cal couldn’t have attacked you. He was in the car with me the whole time.”

  “But it looked like him,” Mercy insisted. “I saw him. I’m not making things up!”

  Edie looked at Satara. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

  The shieldmaiden shook her head. “I only just got here. I figured I’d be here to meet you after Indriði’s, but the apartment door was open, so I came in. Mercy was on the floor and Fisk was unconscious in the bath.” Then she looked to Mercy. “Can you tell us what happened? Don’t leave anything out.”

  Mercy swallowed, avoiding even turning her head in Cal’s direction. The story she relayed made Edie’s pulse race and she hadn’t even been there. Cal didn’t say a word in his defense the entire time.

  “You said this thing was sucking the breath from your mouth?”

  Mercy nodded.

  “Any ideas on what it could be?” Edie asked Satara.

  “My first thought was that it must be a mimic,” she replied thoughtfully. “The shifting faces and the fact that it was wearing different clothes than the real Cal would confirm that. But the fact that it sucked all the air out of her lungs…. It must be an andi-stelari. A breathstealer. They often take on the form of someone close to their victim.”

  Edie grimaced. No part of that sounded good, least of all the (admittedly badass) name. “What was one of those doing here?” She dreaded the answer she already knew was coming.

  Finally, Cal spoke up, though his arms were crossed tightly across his chest. “And how the hell did it get my face?”

  “It’s been a while since I read about them,” Satara said, smoothing down her shirt as she spoke. “I think I remember that breathstealers lurk a bit before attacking. So, it must have been staking us out for a while, waiting for an opportunity. Perhaps it saw you come and go and thought your glamour was as good a face as any. As for who sent it….” She turned up a palm and sighed.

  “The Gloaming,” Edie murmured, looking down at Mercy’s hand still in hers. “The only question is whether they were targeting me or Mercy.”

  It didn’t matter who they were trying to hurt. Either way, it was Edie’s fault—and it was becoming rapidly clear that this place wasn’t safe anymore.

  Edie released Mercy’s hand and went to stand in front of Fisk instead. She leaned in and touched his gills, shuddering at how scaly and bloated they felt. “Do you know what’s wrong with you?”

  He tilted his head an infinitesimal amount and burbled, then said, “The water is not right, and there is not enough of it. I tried to endure, Edie, but I do not think I can continue much longer.”

  “We’re probably being watched even as we speak,” Satara said. “It’s not safe here anymore.”

  “But where could we even go?” Mercy murmured hopelessly.

  Edie closed her eyes, thinking hard. Half-formed plans swam around in her mind, trying to piece themselves into a rational shape. What were they supposed to do? They couldn’t just crash at Astrid and Satara’s. To do that, they would have to tell the valkyrie that Mercy knew, and they had already very narrowly avoided revealing that Mercy had been at Zaedicus’s party. Astrid would be beyond furious if they dropped that bombshell now.

  Mercy could go stay with her parents, but Edie doubted Fisk would let himself be separated from her. In any case, that might put the Cedenos in danger, and they would definitely have questions about the seven-foot-tall fish man in tow. Maybe if Mercy got a new place by the bay—but how safe would that be, really, and where on earth would they get the money to do such a thing?

  Where was she supposed to find someone who had the means and the inclination to take care of her friends’ needs? Who in this city could she even remotely trust?

  The answer came to her like an electric shock, so sudden and brilliant that she gasped out loud.

  She whipped around to face Cal. He returned her exuberant look with one of confusion, then dawning horror.

  “No,” he said. “No way.”

  Edie pointed at Mercy. “Pack your bags.”

  Chapter Nine

  Marius took a deep breath as the portal sizzled shut behind him like a wound being cauterized. His ears clutched as the pressure change, and he felt dizzy for a moment before acclimating.

  A canopy of pines covered their entrance, but it was windy. Rain sprinkled against his face as he took a deep breath of mountain air. Ahead of him, sitting on a damp log, Ynga had pulled up the hood of her cl
oak. She hugged her satchel close to her chest.

  Marius came closer and dropped into a crouch, setting his own satchel down on the forest floor before him. As he opened it, he asked, “What’s in yours?”

  “Healing potions, some rations, a whetstone, bandages, and a blanket. You?”

  The vivid sifted through his bag before answering. He had all the same gear—but shoved deep into the bottom of the pack, wrapped in cloth, were two holy boons and a peculiar amulet.

  He fished the amulet out and held it up, turning the stone over to read the inscription on the back. The rune was one he remembered studying. “It’s an amulet of invisibility.” Imperfect invisibility. If the wearer moved too much, you could see the light ripple around them. Still, it could be useful.

  “Will you have to use it?” Ynga asked, raising a brow.

  Pride burned inside of him, and he thrust it at her. “You could use it more than me. When you want to activate it, empower the rune with a bit of your energy.”

  She accepted the amulet without comment and slipped it on.

  Marius stood, pulling a small map from one of his satchel’s outer pockets and unfolding it. “According to this, there’s a pass ahead that we should cut through, then once we hit the river, it’s a long hike up the mountain.” Looking forward, he squinted. Through the fog and rain, he could make out the adjacent mountain peak, dark against the steely sky. He pointed it out. “That’s where we’ll find the heimdyrr.”

  Ynga stood, cracking her neck. “Let’s not waste any time, then.”

  Already shivering from the freezing rain and wind, they made their way out from under the canopy. The path down into the pass was steep and muddy in this weather; both of them spent most of the journey sliding and inching down so as not to fall. Shivering breaths were the only thing that filled the silence between them.

  Their way down ended abruptly in a small drop-off. Ynga sat on the edge to scoot off, falling only a few feet before she landed and quickly regained her balance. Marius followed suit. There must have been a storm recently, because the pass itself was littered with fallen trees and debris. Heavy wind raked its fingers through the grasses and scared up pebbles, but the two worked against it and the rain the entire way through.