Myths and Mortals (Numina Book 2)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  Sandis shook her head. “He had allies, I know that. But . . . he only used me with his enemies. Always at night. I only remember small pieces of it, and sometimes nothing at all.”

  Bastien nodded his head in agreement. He understood. He knew the pain of summoning. He wore brands identical to hers. He’d lived under Kazen’s roof. Not as long as she had, but he understood her better than Rone ever could.

  She glanced to his door again, then away. “Maybe he’ll go back to the lair and we’ll get a second chance.”

  The thought of stepping into that summoning room, even with Kazen long gone, raised gooseflesh on her arms. They were silent until Bastien sat up straight and grabbed his knees with his hands. “You’re brave. Y-You could fight him.”

  Sandis shook her head. “How can I fight him if I don’t know where he is?”

  “With . . . me. With the others, if we can find them.”

  Her skin prickled as she looked at her new comrade, at the honesty lighting his freckled face. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’re eligible to be a summoner.”

  Sandis’s lips parted, but no sound passed them. She stared at Bastien, her mind churning until it caught like a cocked gun hammer.

  She’d never considered that before. She’d summoned on herself, yes, but never on another.

  A summoner.

  She met all the qualifications. All summoners had to be vessels first, even if just for one possession. It connected them to the ethereal plane. They needed to know the spells, which Sandis did. She didn’t have an astral sphere, but Bastien, Alys, Dar, and Rist were already bound, and Sandis thought she knew the symbols for a few other numina to summon into Kaili.

  She could be a summoner? Summon Ireth? The idea of taking Bastien’s blood and pumping it into her own veins made her hair stand on end, but she’d be using Kazen’s own weapons against him.

  “I don’t . . .” She tried to find words. “I don’t know the meditation.” Meditation was what aligned the summoner’s spirit with the ethereal realm, allowing him or her to call down numina from one plane into the other.

  “I do.”

  She blinked.

  “I know it from watching my old master. He wasn’t . . . as hard as Kazen, I guess. Or maybe he was just hard in different ways.” He shook his head. “I could teach you—”

  The door to the bedroom swung open, and Rone, circles under his eyes, stormed into the room. “No, Sandis. Please don’t.”

  Sandis’s spine instantly straightened. “Were you spying on us?”

  “Spying? I am literally one very thin wall away from you.” He gestured to the room. “I don’t exactly have to try.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt her,” Bastien tried.

  No, she thought, but it would hurt you.

  Rone ignored him and walked to Sandis, crouching in front of her so they were level with each other. “Sandis.” His voice was softer now, but strained, like he wanted to yell but couldn’t. “You’re afraid of Kazen using you? Then break it.” He stood and half ran into the kitchen, grabbing a paring knife from one of its drawers. He returned, crouching in front of her once more, and held its handle out to her. “You’ll be free of them if you just break the brands. Just one of them. They’ll never be able to use you again. It won’t stop you from . . . summoning”—he took great discomfort from the word—“so you’d get the best of both worlds.”

  A tremor coursed through her arms. She looked at the knife, at Rone. It wasn’t the first time he’d made the suggestion. “I-I can’t. Ireth—”

  “Ireth isn’t yours anymore.”

  Sandis felt tears sting her eyes. Bastien’s gaze burned a hole into the side of her face. She couldn’t meet it.

  Ireth hadn’t finished telling her whatever he’d been trying to say. There were clues she was missing. Something important. What did he know about Kolosos? And she . . . she missed him. Missed the ever-present burn in the back of her throat or throb just beneath her skull. The promise that she was never fully alone.

  Ireth had been true to her until the very end. And now a true monster had replaced him. Yet she wasn’t bound to Kolosos, so the numen should have no connection to her.

  Was it all in her head?

  Rone felt your skin burning.

  “Sandis.” Rone took one of her hands with his. “I want you to be safe. This is how you’ll be safe. Even if you want to . . . summon. But you won’t be used anymore.”

  She swallowed. Why do you want me to be safe now? she wanted to say, but not with Bastien sitting right there. So she just shook her head, and Rone sighed and pulled away, taking his warm hand with him.

  She and Bastien watched him trudge back to the kitchen and toss the knife onto the counter. “About earlier. I shouldn’t have taken this victory from you. I didn’t mean to be so . . .”

  “Malevolent?” Bastien tried.

  Rone glared. “Let’s go with cross.”

  Sandis nodded, and Rone’s shoulders relaxed. Sandis knew his expression well. He was thinking about something. She didn’t like it.

  “I’m going to go talk to one of my contacts,” Rone finally said.

  She rolled her lips together. “Contacts. Engel?”

  He nodded. “A crooked scarlet. Might have an idea where Kazen likes to hide.”

  Sandis massaged a knuckle into her tightening belly. “Maybe it would be better to lie low for a while longer. Make sure we’re safe.”

  Rone scoffed. The sound both agitated her and curled her stomach into an even tighter ball.

  Closing her eyes, Sandis took a deep breath, filling her chest, all the way up to her shoulders, before letting it out. “Be careful.”

  Rone studied her face a moment. “Keep the door locked.”

  He slipped into his room and grabbed a packed bag—the same one he’d toted around before, when he’d helped Sandis run. Before he’d . . . stopped. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Rone strode out the door and shut it firmly behind him. Following his path, Sandis locked the door.

  Silence floated about the flat for a long minute.

  “The meditation,” Sandis whispered, turning to Bastien. “How would I start?”

  Chapter 11

  Kazen had lost it all.

  His assailants had been Grim Rig’s old gang; he was sure of it. He should have destroyed them when he’d killed their boss. And that impudent Godobian . . . had she let him out of his cage?

  Sandis. Sandis. Sandis. Kazen absently drew her name on the slick stone beneath him near the mouth of the dark market, where he had fled. The closest lamp was a hundred feet away and around a corner, leaving him a glimmer shy of complete darkness.

  It rankled him to think how differently all of this could have played out, had he been a little swifter when Sandis had been chained to the summoning-room floor. Had he killed Rone Comf himself instead of sending incompetent men to do the job.

  Choices, choices, choices. Somehow, he kept making the wrong ones. This had not been a problem in a very long time.

  His long fingers curled into fists, which he smashed down onto her invisible name. His lair, gone, and his valuables with it. His amarinth, gone. His vessels, gone. All he had left was the truth. He’d make them all see it soon enough. He’d unravel the lie and make the entire country choke on it.

  Sandis. Yes, if only he’d been swifter. He’d have his monster, he’d—

  Kazen sat up, his back rigid, his body feeling thirty years younger. Could he possibly . . . ? It was an option, yes. Oh yes. If he did that, if the child’s body wasn’t ruined, he could have his Kolosos and his revenge—without the chase. Yes, that would do wonderfully.

  Kazen picked himself up off the stone, ignoring the dampness of his clothes. He brushed his tailored jacket with moist palms and held his head high, his plan stitching together at the forefront of his mind.

  Yes. First, he’d visit his accounts and withdraw the money he needed.

  Then the hunt would begin.

  Cha
pter 12

  Rone assumed Thamus Dakis still worked in District Four—the eastern slice of Dresberg that housed Helderschmidt’s firearm factory, Arnae Kurtz’s flat, and the dilapidated neighborhood where Kazen and his grafters operated. He passed over the northeast canal and swung by the library, hopping on the back of a passing cart to hasten his journey to the police station.

  The station was a two-story cube built of cinderblock, its windows thick and double paned. One in the back had bars—the sole window of a temporary holding cell for prisoners. The building’s front door was heavy but unlocked, permitting the common man to walk in and file complaints to the deaf ears behind the too long, too tall desk to the left. Just beyond that desk was a set of cement stairs leading upward. Rone had reached their base when one of the men in scarlet uniforms jumped up from his chair and said, “Halt!”

  Halt. Like he was a soldier. Rone quickened his step and took the stairs two at a time, emboldened by the amarinth in his pocket. The scarlet bolted after him, drawing a pistol from his belt. Rone took a sharp turn onto the second floor and immediately grabbed the second doorknob on the right, swinging it open.

  To his relief, the piece of slag he’d been looking for sat at his own desk. The man jumped up suddenly. He’d been sleeping.

  Rone wasn’t surprised. But Dakis was, when his eyes found him.

  “I’m here to see him,” Rone said, letting a northern accent slip into his voice. “Calm down.”

  The policeman chasing him had a face nearly as red as his uniform. He didn’t lower his gun.

  Dakis’s beady eyes shifted from Rone to the scarlet. “It’s fine, Tad. Let him be.”

  The scarlet holstered his gun but held his place. Rone slipped into the office, shut the door in Tad’s face, and locked it.

  Thamus Dakis hadn’t changed at all since Rone last saw him, save for somehow looking slimier. He was in his late forties and small in stature, his mousy brown hair cradling his ears like it feared the baldness on top of his head.

  Dakis folded his fingers together, stuck them behind his neck, and leaned back as though he owned the world. “This is a surprise. Desperate for hire?”

  Something about the scarlet’s tone made Rone want to knock a few of his teeth out. Could he get away with that? Probably, considering the kol in his pockets.

  “I need information.” Squaring his shoulders, he closed in on the desk. Some of Dakis’s smugness drained from his face.

  The policeman sat up. “I owe you nothing, Verlad. I pay my fees.”

  Yes, you’re a good little cad. “Then I’ll pay mine.” He took a stack of kol from his pocket and dropped it on the desk. Dakis’s eyes glittered like newly cut diamonds, but when he reached for the cash, Rone dropped his fist onto it. “I’m looking for a man named Kazen.”

  Dakis frowned. “Is that a given name or a surname?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s all I have.” Rone studied his face. “I think you know who I’m talking about.”

  “Hmm.” Dakis folded his arms. “What does a nice chap like you want with grafters?”

  Rone picked up the cash. “I’m paying for answers, not for questions.”

  Dakis shrugged. “I haven’t heard a lick about him for a month. If you’re wanting something recent, you’ve reached a dead end.” His hand darted out like a viper, trying to tug bills from Rone’s grasp. He succeeded with a few.

  God’s tower, the man was a rabid dog begging for scraps.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Dakis met his eyes. “You don’t have to.”

  Rone hunched over the desk, but Dakis didn’t cower. “You expect me to believe you didn’t hear a single gunshot yesterday? That you didn’t see an army of mobsmen infesting that dilapidated southeast square of yours in the middle of the night?”

  Dakis barked a laughed. “No! Really? Hmm.” He rubbed his chin. “But even if I had, I wouldn’t have.”

  Rone glowered.

  Dakis sighed. “My good chum, did you know that men scramble to work on my force? That they request District Four more than any other in the city? Specifically that southeast corner?”

  Rone said nothing.

  Dakis folded his hands under his chin, a smile tempting his lips. “They fight for it. That dark, dreary, disgusting spot overrun by slag. Why? Because of the kol. Do you have any idea how much money Kazen pumps into our coffers to keep my men from snooping around? To keep his roads and buildings full of holes?”

  Heat churned at the base of Rone’s throat. “Too bad you weren’t there last night, then. Use your head, Dakis. If I’m looking for Kazen, he’s on the run. Which means he won’t be around to make his usual bribes.”

  The policeman’s jaw slacked. “I . . . see. And you’ve no leads.”

  He cursed inwardly and straightened. “I didn’t come here for tea.”

  Dakis’s hands formed fists and thudded into his desk. “Damn.”

  So the louse really didn’t know where Kazen was. What a waste of time. Rone pocketed the rest of his kol save a couple of bills, which he let float to the desk.

  As Dakis leaned forward to collect them, Rone asked, “Do you know my real name?”

  Dakis lifted his head. “What? No—”

  “Good.” Rone swung a right hook hard into the scarlet’s cheek, knocking him off his chair.

  He vanished out the door before the man had a chance to get back up.

  Sandis sat in the small hallway that stemmed off the main room in Rone’s flat. It led to the privy and a closet, nothing more. The curtains were pulled shut, smoky midday light pouring around them, giving the place a grayish hue. Rone had left some time ago to get food and supplies, wanting to head out between work bells so the crowds wouldn’t be so bad. He’d told her twice to lock the door behind him, then tested the knob once she’d done so.

  But Sandis wasn’t supposed to think about any of that. She wasn’t supposed to think about anything. Focusing on the back of her eyelids, she cleared her thoughts.

  Bastien sat across from her, guiding her through the steps of meditation. He’d said it would take more than a couple of practice sessions. Still, Sandis wanted to get started right away so she could finish the journey sooner.

  They’d purposefully waited until Rone left to start.

  Right now, she focused on her breathing. Drawing air in slowly through the nose, releasing it quickly through the mouth. “My old master always thought of the sky,” Bastien said quietly. “Like he was breathing in part of the sky and discarding it, over and over again, until it disappeared, and the ethereal plane was exposed.”

  Interesting. No, don’t think. She forced her mind to clear. Inhaled again, trying to imagine herself outside, and not under four stories of flats. Tried to imagine herself breathing in gray sky. She coughed at the thought of the pollution filling her lungs.

  Try again.

  Stars. She imagined herself atop the Lily Tower, outside the city, where the pollution was a little thinner. The sky wasn’t gray, but black and endless, dotted with tiny winking stars. She breathed in, and the glowing specks rushed into her, tickling as they fluttered through her nostrils and down into her lungs. She expelled them quickly and inhaled again, sucking in more stars. A little bit of the black. Another inhale, another piece of the sky torn down. Behind it . . . yes, if she squinted, she could imagine a crystal wall. Dark blue and hard, like glass. Could that be the ethereal plane? But was it really something so physical, looming above them like a second heaven? Or was it more spiritual, haunting the very streets Sandis walked?

  She wanted to reach for it, feel it beneath her fingertips—

  A knock sounded at the door.

  Sandis opened her eyes, the gray of the apartment engulfing her, the visions of stars and crystal vanishing. She felt too heavy, like she’d woken from oversleeping, or eaten too much.

  Bastien turned, looking down the hall. The knock sounded a second time. He stood.

  “Wait.” She lunged forward and grabbed
his pant leg. “Rone wouldn’t knock on his own door.”

  He stiffened. “Do you ever have visitors?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Who could be at the door? A neighbor? A scarlet?

  She stood, leaning against the hallway wall. Crept past Bastien and peered into the sitting room.

  The knock didn’t sound again. A solicitor? She couldn’t imagine who—

  The door burst open, ripping the dead bolt from the wood. Sandis shrieked. For a split second, she thought Rone stood there, filling the doorway and glaring coldly at them.

  But this wasn’t Rone. He was too tall, too thin, with skin so pale it glowed white, and short hair darker than the night sky. His eyes were black orbs of tar.

  He looked at Sandis, then at Bastien, who stood beside her.

  He moved like wind.

  The man stood in the doorway one moment, and the next he was in front of Sandis, close enough for her to catch the mingled scents of dust and cigar smoke. His hand flashed forward, whiplike, grabbing her wrist and wrenching her arm behind her back. Pain blossomed in her shoulder. Leaning back, the ghostly man sent a solid kick into Bastien’s stomach, throwing him into the wall.

  “No! Stop!” Sandis screamed, even as her shoulder burned. This wasn’t one of Kazen’s men, was it?

  The man pulled down on her arm until she doubled over. He landed a knee to her gut that made her see stars and spit up part of her breakfast. For a moment she was weightless; then a bony shoulder pressed into her diaphragm. He was picking her up. He meant to take her.

  Bastien barreled into the stranger’s back, knocking both him and Sandis to the floor. Sandis landed hard on her still-bruised shoulder and rolled until her back hit the couch. She blinked, trying to gain her bearings. Bastien, she had to—

  The stranger was already on his feet, moving like a dancer. Bastien was a stone pillar, and he, water. He stood in front of Bastien one moment, then appeared behind him the next, grabbing the Godobian’s braid and jerking his head back. Bastien yelped, his hands going for his hair. The stranger released the braid, crouched, crooked two fingers on each hand, and struck Bastien twice in the hip. Bastien’s leg immediately buckled, as if the bone had simply vanished. His shirt hiked up in the fall, revealing the edge of his script.