Bryce groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Gods, it reeks,” Bryce hissed over the rushing water below, pressing her face into her elbow as she knelt beside Hunt and peered into the open sewer. “What the fuck.”
Soaked from the rain and kneeling in Ogenas knew what on the sidewalk, Hunt hid his smile as the beam of his flashlight skimmed over the slick bricks of the tunnel below in a careful sweep, then over the cloudy, dark river, surging thanks to the waterfalls of rain that poured in through the grates. “It’s a sewer,” he said. “What did you expect?”
She flipped him off. “You’re the warrior-investigator-whatever. Can’t you go down there and find some clues?”
“You really think Sabine left an easy trail like that?”
“Maybe there are claw marks or whatever.” She surveyed the ancient stone. Hunt didn’t know why she bothered. There were claw marks and scratches everywhere. Likely from whatever lowlifes had dwelled and hunted down here for centuries.
“This isn’t some crime-scene investigative drama, Quinlan. It’s not that easy.”
“No one likes a condescending asshole, Athalar.”
His mouth curved upward. Bryce studied the gloom below, mouth tightening as if she’d will the kristallos or Sabine to appear. He’d already sent a message to Isaiah and Vik to get extra cameras on the Gate and the sewer grate, along with any others in the vicinity. If one so much as shifted an inch, they’d know. He didn’t dare ask them to follow Sabine. Not yet.
“We should go down there,” Bryce declared. “Maybe we can pick up her scent.”
He said carefully, “You haven’t made the Drop.”
“Spare me the protective bullshit.”
Dark Hel, this woman. “I’m not going down there unless we have a fuck-ton more weapons.” He only had two guns and a knife. “Demon aside, if Sabine’s down there …” He might outrank Sabine in terms of power, but with the witches’ spells hobbling most of his might through the halo’s ink, he had his proverbial hands tied.
So it’d come down to brute strength, and while he had the advantage there, too, Sabine was lethal. Motivated. And mean as an adder.
Bryce scowled. “I can handle myself.” After the shooting range, he certainly knew that.
“It’s not about you, sweetheart. It’s about me not wanting to wind up dead.”
“Can’t you use your lightning-thing to protect us?”
He suppressed another smile at lightning-thing, but he said, “There’s water down there. Adding lightning to the mix doesn’t seem wise.”
She cut him a glare. Hunt gave one right back.
Hunt had the feeling he’d passed some test when she smiled slightly.
Avoiding that little smile, Hunt scanned the river of filth running below. “All sewers lead to the Istros. Maybe the Many Waters folk have seen something.”
Bryce’s brows rose. “Why would they?”
“A river’s a good place to dump a corpse.”
“The demon left remains, though. It—or Sabine—doesn’t seem to be interested in hiding them. Not if she wants to do this as part of some scheme to jeopardize Micah’s image.”
“That’s only a theory right now,” Hunt countered. “I have a Many Waters contact who might have intel.”
“Let’s head to the docks, then. We’ll be less likely to be noticed at night anyway.”
“But twice as likely to encounter a predator searching for a meal. We’ll wait until daylight.” The gods knew they’d already risked enough in coming down here. Hunt placed the metal lid back on the sewer with a thud. He got one look at her annoyed, dirty face and chuckled. Before he could reconsider, he said, “I have fun with you, Quinlan. Despite how terrible this case is, despite all of it, I haven’t had fun like this in a while.” In ever.
He could have sworn she blushed. “Hang with me, Athalar,” she said, trying to wipe the grime off her legs and hands from kneeling at the grate entrance, “and you might get rid of that stick up your ass after all.”
He didn’t answer. There was just a click.
She whirled toward him to find his phone out. Snapping a photo of her.
Hunt’s grin was a slash of white in the rainy gloom. “I’d rather have a stick up my ass than look like a drowned rat.”
Bryce used the spigot on the roof to wash off her shoes, her hands. She had no desire to track the filth of the street into her house. She went so far as to make Hunt take off his boots in the hallway, and didn’t look to see if he was planning on taking a shower before she ran for her own room and had the water going in seconds.
She left her clothes in a pile in the corner, turned the heat as high as she could tolerate, and began a process of scrubbing and foaming and scrubbing some more. Remembering how she’d knelt on the filthy city street and breathed in a face full of sewer air, she scrubbed herself again.
Hunt knocked twenty minutes later. “Don’t forget to clean between your toes.”
Even with the shut door, she covered herself. “Fuck off.”
His chuckle rumbled to her over the sound of the water. He said, “The soap in the guest room is out. Do you have another bar?”
“There’s some in the hall linen closet. Just take whatever.”
He grunted his thanks, and was gone a heartbeat later. Bryce washed and lathered herself again. Gross. This city was so gross. The rain only made it worse.
Then Hunt knocked again. “Quinlan.”
His grave tone had her shutting off the water. “What’s wrong?”
She whipped a towel around herself, sliding across the marble tiles as she reached the door. Hunt was shirtless, leaning against the doorjamb to her bedroom. She might have ogled the muscles the guy was sporting if his face hadn’t been serious as Hel. “You want to tell me something?”
She gulped, scanning him from head to toe. “About what?”
“About what the fuck this is?” He extended his hand. Opened up his big fist.
A purple glittery unicorn lay in it.
She snatched the toy from his hand. His dark eyes lit with amusement as Bryce demanded, “Why are you snooping through my things?”
“Why do you have a box of unicorns in your linen closet?”
“This one is a unicorn-pegasus.” She stroked the lilac mane. “Jelly Jubilee.”
He just stared at her. Bryce shoved past him into the hall, where the linen closet door was still ajar, her box of toys now on one of the lower shelves. Hunt followed a step behind. Still shirtless.
“The soap is right there,” she said, pointing to the stack directly at his eye level. “And yet you took down a box from the highest shelf?”
She could have sworn color stained his cheeks. “I saw purple glitter.”
She blinked at him. “You thought it was a sex toy, didn’t you?”
He said nothing.
“You think I keep my vibrator in my linen closet?”
He crossed his arms. “What I want to know is why you have a box of these things.”
“Because I love them.” She gently set Jelly Jubilee in the box, but pulled out an orange-and-yellow toy. “This is my pegasus, Peaches and Dreams.”
“You’re twenty-five years old.”
“And? They’re sparkly and squishy.” She gave P&D a little squeeze, then put her back in the box and pulled out the third one, a slender-legged unicorn with a mint-green coat and rose-colored mane. “And this is Princess Creampuff.” She almost laughed at the juxtaposition as she held up the sparkly toy in front of the Umbra Mortis.
“That name doesn’t even match her coloring. What’s up with the food names?”
She ran a finger over the purple glitter sprayed across the doll’s flank. “It’s because they’re so cute you could eat them. Which I did when I was six.”
His mouth twitched. “You didn’t.”
“Her name was Pineapple Shimmer and her legs were all squishy and glittery and I couldn’t resist anymore and just … took a bite. Turns out the inside
of them really is jelly. But not the edible kind. My mom had to call poison control.”
He surveyed the box. “And you still have these because …?”
“Because they make me happy.” At his still-bemused look she added, “All right. If you want to get deep about it, Athalar, playing with them was the first time the other kids didn’t treat me like a total freak. The Starlight Fancy horses were the number one toy on every girl’s Winter Solstice wish list when I was five. And they were not all made equal. Poor Princess Creampuff here was common as a hoptoad. But Jelly Jubilee …” She smiled at the purple unicorn-pegasus, the memory it summoned. “My mom left Nidaros for the first time in years to buy her from one of the big towns two hours away. She was the ultimate Starlight Fancy conquest. Not just a unicorn, not just a pegasus—but both. I flashed this baby at school and was instantly accepted.”
His eyes shone as she gently set the box on the high shelf. “I’ll never laugh at them again.”
“Good.” She turned back to him, remembering that she still wore only her towel, and he was still shirtless. She grabbed a box of soap and shoved it toward him. “Here. Next time you want to check out my vibrators, just ask, Athalar.” She inclined her head toward her bedroom door and winked. “They’re in the left nightstand.”
Again, his cheeks reddened. “I wasn’t—you’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
She shut the linen closet door with her hip and sauntered back to her bedroom. “I’d rather be a pain in the ass,” she said slyly over her bare shoulder, “than a snooping pervert.”
His snarl followed her all the way back into the bathroom.
42
In the midmorning light, the Istros River gleamed a deep blue, its waters clear enough to see the detritus sprinkled among the pale rocks and waving grasses. Centuries of Crescent City artifacts rusted away down there, picked over again and again by the various creatures who eked out a living by scavenging the crap hurled into the river.
Rumor had it that city officials had once tried to institute heavy fines for anyone caught dumping things in the river, but the scavengers had caught wind of it and put up such a fuss that the River Queen had no choice but to shut the bill down when it was officially proposed.
Overhead, angels, witches, and winged shifters soared by, keeping clear of the misty gloom of the Bone Quarter. Last night’s rain had cleared to a pleasant spring day—no hint of the flickering lights that often drifted beneath the river’s surface, visible only once night fell.
Bryce frowned down at a crustacean—some type of mammoth blue crab—picking its way along the floor beside the quay’s stone block, sorting through a pile of beer bottles. The remnants of last night’s drunken revels. “Have you ever been down to the mer-city?”
“No.” Hunt rustled his wings, one brushing against her shoulder. “Happy to stay above the surface.” The river breeze drifted past, chill despite the warm day. “You?”
She rubbed her hands down her arms along the smooth leather of Danika’s old jacket, trying to coax some warmth into them. “Never got an invite.”
Most never would. The river folk were notoriously secretive, their city beneath the surface—the Blue Court—a place few who dwelled on land would ever see. One glass sub went in and out per day, and those on it traveled by invitation only. And even if they possessed the lung capacity or artificial means, no one was stupid enough to swim down. Not with what prowled these waters.
An auburn head of hair broke the surface a couple hundred yards out, and a partially scaled, muscled arm waved before vanishing, fingers tipped in sharp gray nails glinting in the sun.
Hunt glanced to Bryce. “Do you know any mer?”
Bryce lifted a corner of her mouth. “One lived down the hall my freshman year at CCU. She partied harder than all of us combined.”
The mer could shift into fully human bodies for short periods of time, but if they went too long, the shift would be permanent, their scales drying up and flaking away into dust, their gills shrinking to nothing. The mer down the hall had been granted an oversize tub in her dorm room so she didn’t need to interrupt her studies to return to the Istros once a day.
By the end of the first month of school, the mer had turned it into a party suite. Parties that Bryce and Danika gleefully attended, Connor and Thorne in tow. At the end of that year, their entire floor had been so wrecked that every one of them was slapped with a hefty fine for damages.
Bryce made sure she intercepted the letter before her parents got it out of the mailbox and quietly paid the fine with the marks she earned that summer scooping ice cream at the town parlor.
Sabine had gotten the letter, paid the fine, and made Danika spend the whole summer picking up trash in the Meadows.
Act like trash, Sabine had told her daughter, and you can spend your days with it.
Naturally, the following fall, Bryce and Danika had dressed as trash cans for the Autumnal Equinox.
The water of the Istros was clear enough for Bryce and Hunt to see the powerful male body swim closer, the reddish-brown scales of his long tail catching the light like burnished copper. Black stripes slashed through them, the pattern continuing up his torso and along his arms. Like some sort of aquatic tiger. The bare skin of his upper arms and chest was heavily tanned, suggesting hours spent near the surface or basking on the rocks of some hidden cove along the coast.
The male’s head broke the water, and his taloned hands brushed back his jaw-length auburn hair as he flashed Hunt a grin. “Long time no see.”
Hunt smiled at the mer male treading water. “Glad you weren’t too busy with your fancy new title to say hello.”
The mer waved a hand in dismissal, and Hunt beckoned Bryce forward. “Bryce, this is Tharion Ketos.” She stepped closer to the concrete edge of the quay. “An old friend.”
Tharion grinned at Hunt again. “Not as old as you.”
Bryce gave the male a half smile. “Nice to meet you.”
Tharion’s light brown eyes glittered. “The pleasure, Bryce, is all mine.”
Gods spare him. Hunt cleared his throat. “We’re here on official business.”
Tharion swam the remaining few feet to the quay’s edge, knocking the crustacean into the drifting blue with a careless brush of his tail. Planting his talon-tipped hands on the concrete, he easily heaved his massive body from the water, the gills beneath his ears sealing in as he switched control of his breathing to his nose and mouth. He patted the now-wet concrete next to him and winked at Bryce. “Take a seat, Legs, and tell me all about it.”
Bryce huffed a laugh. “You’re trouble.”
“It’s my middle name, actually.”
Hunt rolled his eyes. But Bryce sat beside the male, apparently not caring that the water would surely soak into the green dress she wore beneath the leather jacket. She pulled off her beige heels and dipped her feet in the water, splashing softly. Normally, he’d have dragged her away from the river’s edge, and told her she’d be lucky to lose just the leg if she put a foot in the water. But with Tharion beside them, none of the river’s denizens would dare approach.
Tharion asked Bryce, “Are you in the 33rd or the Auxiliary?”
“Neither. I’m working with Hunt as a consultant on a case.”
Tharion hummed. “What does your boyfriend think of you working with the famed Umbra Mortis?”
Hunt sat down on the male’s other side. “Real subtle, Tharion.”
Yet Bryce’s mouth bloomed into a full smile.
It was a near-twin to the one she’d given him this morning, when he’d popped his head into her room to see if she was ready to leave. Of course, his eyes had gone directly to the left nightstand. And then that smile had turned feral, like she knew exactly what he was wondering about.
He certainly had not been looking for any of her sex toys when he’d opened up the linen closet last night. But he’d spied a flash of purple sparkles, and—fine, maybe the thought had crossed his mind—he’d just pulled do
wn the box before he could really think.
And now that he knew where they were, he couldn’t help but look at that nightstand and imagine her there, in that bed. Leaning against the pillows and—
It might have made sleeping a shade uncomfortable last night.
Tharion leaned back on his hands, displaying his muscled abdomen as he asked innocently, “What did I say?”
Bryce laughed, making no attempt to hide her blatant ogling of the mer’s cut body. “I don’t have a boyfriend. You want the job?”
Tharion smirked. “You like to swim?”
And that was about as much as Hunt could take with only one cup of coffee in his system. “I know you’re busy, Tharion,” he said through his teeth with just enough edge that the mer peeled his attention away from Bryce, “so we’ll keep this quick.”
“Oh, take your time,” Tharion said, eyes dancing with pure male challenge. “The River Queen gave me the morning off, so I’m all yours.”
“You work for the River Queen?” Bryce asked.
“I’m a lowly peon in her court, but yes.”
Hunt leaned forward to catch Bryce’s stare. “Tharion’s just been promoted to her Captain of Intelligence. Don’t let the charm and irreverence fool you.”
“Charm and irreverence happen to be my two favorite traits,” Bryce said with a wink for Tharion this time.
The mer’s smile deepened. “Careful, Bryce. I might decide I like you and bring you Beneath.”
Hunt gave Tharion a warning look. Some of the darker mer had done just that, long ago. Carried human brides down to their undersea courts and kept them there, trapped within the massive air bubbles that contained parts of their palaces and cities, unable to reach the surface.
Bryce waved off the awful history. “We have a few questions for you, if that’s all right.”
House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) Page 40