Between the Blade and the Heart

by Amanda Hocking

  She gestured wildly with her cigarillo, and unfortunately she wasn’t wrong. Even on a sunny day like today, a thick haze hung in the air. No matter how many attempts were made to be more environmentally friendly, there were just too many beings living too close together.

  The light changed, and the woman huffed on ahead. Marlow laughed to herself, but she tossed her half-finished cigarillo into the gutter anyway.

  It was late afternoon, and the sidewalks were full. They usually were, but today had the added benefit of being unseasonably warm for autumn. The air was still brisk, and Marlow pulled her coat more tightly around her as she stalked down the street.

  Plus, it was the Friday before a holiday weekend. Sparkling black and purple garlands were wrapped around light poles, while images of skeletons and coffins were pinned up everywhere. All the storefront windows had flyers proclaiming their sales and specials for the Feast of the Dead celebrations.

  “You know, I got an assignment from Samael last night,” I told Marlow, since she seemed to have no interest in discussing her conversation with Teodora.

  “He’s got you busy, busy, busy,” she said, and I swear she picked up her pace again, so I was nearly jogging to stay at her side.

  “I was thinking tonight we should stake her out,” I said. “She lives in the Gold Coast, which isn’t too far.”

  “Tonight’s no good. I’ve got to work at the call center.”

  “Tomorrow—”

  “Tomorrow’s no good,” Marlow cut me off. We’d reached her brownstone, so she stopped and turned to face me. “Honestly, this whole weekend is no good because of that damned feast.”

  I glanced toward the front door, but apparently she wasn’t going to invite me up, so we were going to have this conversation on her front stoop.

  “But when we get an assignment, we’re supposed to make the return within seventy-two hours if at all possible,” I said, reciting the rules I’d been taught.

  She shrugged. “Well, I’m telling you it’s not possible for me to help you this weekend.”

  “Should I call Samael?” I asked.

  “Why don’t you take care of it yourself?” Marlow asked.

  “I’m not licensed.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Can you handle it yourself or not?”

  “I can,” I replied, trying not to sound as uncertain as I felt.

  “Then what do you need me for?”

  “You’re supposed to go with me,” I persisted.

  “Who cares? You got it covered.”

  “I know. I would just feel better if—”

  “I’ll only drag you down.” She rummaged through her purse and pulled out her keys as she walked up the steps toward her place. “I just screw things up, Malin. I ruined everything with Tamerlane, and I don’t think I’ll be any good to you tonight. Go take care of this yourself.”

  I stood outside her brownstone for several long minutes after she’d gone inside. Some part of me hoped that she would come back out and apologize, explain that she was all worked up about the meeting with the Värjas, and she didn’t mean any of it.

  But she didn’t, and really, I shouldn’t have been surprised. In the nineteen years I’d been alive, I’d never known my mother to apologize. Not even once.

  Marlow had left me with very limited options.

  Samael had been okay with meeting him on my own, but there was no way he’d be cool with me actually going out on the assignment by myself. If I told him that Marlow was too busy to help me, that would most likely result in some kind of reprimand for her, and if there was an inquiry that went along with it, Tamerlane Fayette’s name would almost certainly come up. That would lead to termination for her—and I didn’t just mean of her career.

  The second option was that I could just wait around for the weekend, and hope that Marlow changed her mind come Sunday or Monday. But that was a long shot, and I would most likely end up back where I was. But by then I’d already be extended past my deadline.

  And the final option was just to follow Marlow’s advice and take care of it myself. Assuming there were no hiccups in the assignment, then everyone would be none the wiser. The target would be killed, and neither Marlow nor myself would be in trouble.

  So I headed back to my apartment to do as much prep work as I could. Samael had sent me all the files on Amaryllis Mori in my drop box.

  I told Oona of my plan, so she made supper, which freed me up to spend as much time as I could studying everything I could about Amaryllis and the best ways to fight Jorogumos in general. Oona made tofu meat loaf, which I slathered in hot sauce and ate while hunched over my tablet, with Bowie curled up at my side.

  Finally, it was time. According to the information Samael had sent me, Amaryllis should be getting off work in a few hours, and I wanted to be sure that I got there with enough time, in case she got out early.

  I geared up—my sword Sigrún was sheathed around my waist, my dagger was in my thigh garter, and I had my asp and acidic pepper spray in my messenger bag.

  “I still don’t think you should do this,” Oona told me for the hundredth time as I dropped my messenger bag over my shoulder. She stood in the center of the living room, cradling Bowie in her arms and frowning at me.

  “I know, but it has to be done,” I insisted. “I can’t just let it go, or I’ll end up with another Tamerlane situation on my hands. And we’ve all seen how that turns out.”

  “What if something happens to you?” she asked.

  I walked closer to her and scratched Bowie between his antlers, and he nuzzled up against my hand. “If I die, you get Bowie, and you have to take care of him, because I said, and that will be my deathbed declaration.”

  She gave me her I’m-not-kidding-around look. “Mal. I can handle Bowie. He’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “I gave you all the info.” I motioned to a note I’d tacked up on the fridge.

  Oona looked back over her shoulder at it and read it aloud. “Amaryllis Mori. The Nysa club in Gold Coast. That’s it?”

  “That’s all you need to know if you decide to send out a search party,” I said. “But don’t be premature about it. Wait until at least three A.M. before freaking out. If you’re worried, text me first.”

  “But you have to reply to the text, or I’ll panic. You know me.”

  “I do.”

  “Be careful, Mal. There’s a lot of crazies out tonight because of the holiday tomorrow,” Oona cautioned. “I’d go with you, but I’m no good in a fight.”

  I smiled. “That’s true, but I appreciate the sentiment.” I bent down and kissed Bowie on his forehead. “’Bye, Bowie. Be good for Oona.”

  With that, I left, heading out into the city to commit my first independent kill.

  EIGHTEEN

  Hiding out beside the dumpster in the back alley behind the gentlemen’s club, I had to appreciate that at least the garbage smelled better in the Gold Coast than it did around Shibuya. It was still dank, and the air held the putrid stench of stale beer, moldy food, and exhaust fumes.

  Even a nice establishment like this—and Nysa was arguably the nicest strip club in the whole city—had a familiar stench to it. Whenever the back door to Nysa opened, the scent of cheap buffalo wings and sweat would waft out, along with the thumping bass of whatever music the women danced to.

  The building itself had been styled after the Greek architecture that inspired the name, with Parthenonesque pillars surrounding it. They’d added plenty of gold flourishes and neon lights for good measure.

  It was getting late, and while I had seen plenty of women coming out after their shifts—all high heels and body glitter—I had yet to see Amaryllis Mori. I was beginning to fear that tonight might be a bust, but then I began to feel it.

  My sword felt heavier and grew warmer on my hip. I glanced down and saw that Sigrún had begun glowing a dull purple in its sheath; soon it would be bright enough to light up the entire alley.

  The anxious electricity raced throu
gh me, and it was difficult to force myself to stand still. My body wanted to move, to run, to chase anything it could. My breathing grew more shallow as a metallic taste filled my mouth. The buzzing around my heart intensified, sending a heat pulsing through me, and the pressure began to build in the base of my stomach.

  The hyperfocus kicked in, and I could barely feel my own body. I was aware of every subtle change in the breeze, every tiny sound that happened in the fifty-foot radius around me. The world slowed down, and I saw everything.

  Amaryllis finally stepped out of the club, and she was even more beautiful in real life than she was in pictures. Her skin was like porcelain, with her long slender legs stretching below her short skirt to her stiletto heels. A few gold-leaf extensions had been added to her long silken black hair, glinting as she walked.

  She took a few steps in the opposite direction from me, going toward the street where she could catch a taxi, but she stopped short. Warily, she turned back to look at me—she was the first to look at me the entire time I’d been staking out Nysa—and her big doe eyes widened even farther.

  “No.” She shook her head once, slow and deliberate. “It can’t be you. It can’t be now.”

  “Amaryllis Mori, you have been chosen to die,” I said, as I walked toward her. “It is my duty to return you to the darkness from whence you came.”

  She smiled then, a bright red slit spreading out across her face. “Not if I send you first.”

  In the hours leading up to our confrontation, I had read every single thing I could find about the Jorogumos. But I had never seen one in real life before, and there really isn’t anything that can prepare you for watching a beautiful young woman transform into a spider.

  Her face changed first—her lips peeled back, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth, including two fanged incisors, and her eyes multiplied, with bright red eyeballs popping out all across her forehead and cheeks.

  Her legs went next—the pale satiny skin ripping open with an audible tearing sound. Her two legs quickly became eight spindly spider legs, covered in venom-filled razor-sharp hairs called setae, and her abdomen filled out and expanded to take on the bulbous shape of a black widow.

  Her torso remained mostly unchanged, with her slinky dress clinging to her womanly curves, and human arms. Her willowy neck remained attached to her monstrous half-human, half-spider head, and her long black hair swirled around her.

  “You think you can kill me, little Valkyrie?” she cried out at me, smiling through her fangs at me. “Kurnugia is more powerful than you’ll ever know.”

  As she stepped closer to me, her pointed feet pattered on the asphalt. I stood my ground, and I felt no fear. The Valkyrie in me had taken over completely, and the only thing I could think about was ending Amaryllis.

  “It gives me no pleasure to end you,” I told her as I unsheathed Sigrún, but the pressure was building inside me so much, I could hardly stand it.

  “Too bad,” Amaryllis said, somehow making a tsking sound with her awful mouth. “Because I am going to love killing you.”

  She swung at me with her leg, and I narrowly ducked out of the way. In her spider form, she was much taller than me, which made it much harder to cut off her head. I jumped at her, but my sword merely nicked her shoulder before she struck me with her leg and sent me flying back into the building.

  It didn’t hurt, because I couldn’t feel anything other than the anticipation of the kill, but for a moment I couldn’t breathe. But everything I read had said she shouldn’t have been able to throw me like that. Jorogumos were weak compared to Valkyries.

  Amaryllis ran at me, and I tried to scramble out of the way. The sharp end of her foot stabbed through my calf like a knife, and she lifted me up off the ground. I dangled upside down, as she held me up by my left leg, and I could hear the sound of my pants and flesh ripping.

  “The tables have begun to turn, little Valkyrie,” Amaryllis said, holding me up in front of her. “But don’t worry. Soon enough, the underworld will come for you.”

  She cackled then, and I swung out with Sigrún, slicing off the end of her leg. She howled in pain as I fell to the ground, with the end of her leg still embedded in mine.

  I lay motionless on my back, letting her charge at me. She stabbed her foot into my right shoulder, pinning me to the ground, and I allowed her to. I waited until she was hovering right above me, her saliva dripping down onto my forehead, and I drove my sword right into her abdomen.

  She screamed like a banshee—her voice echoing through everything and sounding like a thousand voices screaming out at once. Her belly opened up, pouring out thick black blood, and she stepped back from me, unpinning me.

  As she lost blood, she stumbled and tried futilely to hold it in. While the injury was severe, it wasn’t fatal, and I still needed to finish the job.

  “No! No!” she screamed as I climbed onto her back. “No, you can’t do this! It isn’t supposed to happen like this!”

  I grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back, and told her, “This isn’t my decision to make.” Then I pulled my sword across her throat, easily slicing through her neck and decapitating her.

  The air around us began glowing bright purple from Sigrún, and a wind came up, out of Amaryllis, and twisted through the alley. Relief began flowing over me in warm waves, and my muscles quivered.

  I climbed off the corpse of the Jorogumo, and I fell to my knees on the ground beside her, breathing in deeply.

  The sound of wings flapping pulled me from my moment of relieved euphoria, and I looked up to see a massive black raven standing at the end of the alley. It was roughly the size of a bobcat, larger than any raven I’d ever seen before, and its beady eyes were locked right on me.

  Even though the purple light from Sigrún had all but gone out, the light somehow seemed to linger on the bird’s black feathers. It tilted its head as it watched me, squawking once.

  “What do you want?” I demanded, but the raven had no reply. It just flapped its wings and disappeared into the night sky.

  NINETEEN

  While I was in full Valkyrie mode I may have felt nothing, but now the pain hit me with the intensity of a thousand suns. I doubled over on the ground, writhing in the thick blood spilling out from Amaryllis’s body.

  “Malin?” a familiar voice called out, sounding panicked, and suddenly Quinn Devane was at my side, kneeling down beside me. “By the gods, Malin, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m great,” I lied through gritted teeth.

  She frowned at me, brushing back her silver hair from her face. “You are not great. You were attacked by a Jorogumo, and you have poison flowing through your veins.”

  I wanted to argue with her, but there was an agonizing fire inside me that felt like it was burning me from the inside out, so all I could manage was a grimace.

  “It shouldn’t be hitting you this hard, though,” Quinn said, her husky voice tightening with worry. “Valkyries aren’t entirely immune, but the pain shouldn’t be so severe.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and barely managed to say, “Sorry my pain isn’t at the correct levels.”

  “Wait. Just wait,” Quinn commanded, and I heard her rummaging through her purse. A few seconds later, she held a cold vial to my lips. “Drink this.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I’m not a stranger trying to roofie you in a bar. I’m your…” Quinn trailed off, then quickly added, “Whatever. Just drink it.”

  I did as I was told, swallowing down the cold bitter liquid. It tasted exactly how gasoline smelled, and I barely gagged it down.

  “Oh, hell, that’s terrible,” I groaned.

  “It’s not supposed to taste good,” Quinn said. “It’s an antivenom, not a soda pop. It’ll stop the pain.”

  Sure enough, within moments I felt it running through me like ice, putting out all the fire that had been threatening to burn me alive. I blinked a few times, and stared up into her worried emerald eyes.

 
“Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re not all healed up yet,” Quinn warned me. “You’ll still need Oona to stitch you up when you get home.”

  I groaned as a realization hit me. “That’s what you’re doing here. Oona sent you to check up on me.”

  “And you’re lucky that she did. It’s strange that the venom affected you so powerfully.…” She trailed off for a moment, thinking, then she shook her head. “But it did, and you could’ve died, rolling around in pain, if I hadn’t gotten to you.”

  “I would’ve been fine,” I insisted, even if I wasn’t sure that was true. “I’m always fine.”

  Quinn let out an exasperated sigh, a sound I’d heard quite often during our brief relationship. She would always talk about how much she enjoyed being around me, but the thing I seemed to do most was exasperate her.

  “Why do you always have to be like this?” Quinn asked. She sat back on her knees, watching me as I struggled to get up. “There’s nothing wrong with accepting help.”

  “There is if I don’t need it,” I said and then stumbled and nearly fell over.

  I would’ve actually fallen, if Quinn hadn’t gotten up and raced to catch me. Her arm around me felt strong, stronger than I remembered her being, and I allowed myself to lean into her.

  “I’m walking you home,” Quinn said firmly. “And I don’t care what you say. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t make sure you get home safe.”

  “Fine, if it’s what you want.…” My voice trailed off.

  “It is,” she said, and we started walking down the alley toward the street. Her arm securely around my waist, me leaning against her as I limped.

  My luft was parked three blocks away, but I was in no condition to drive it. I didn’t know if Quinn planned on walking me the entire way home, or if she had a car somewhere nearby. But at the moment I didn’t care all that much. I was just relishing the way it felt to be touching her again.