Relics and Runes Anthology

by Heather Marie Adkins

  “I’m sorry!”

  “What was he into, Josiah?” I snapped. I didn’t holster my gun. “Tell me now, or so help me Senka, I will crawl into that maggot-infested brain of yours and take the information I need.”

  “You can’t do that,” a voice piped up from behind me. “That’s illegal.”

  I lifted my gun and pointed it at the voice, but kept my eyes on Josiah. “Fucking watch me.”

  “She’s the Reina’s hound, Sy, just tell her!” the girl hissed.

  Josiah pulled himself together and sat up, his back against the wall as if he could hardly hold his weight. “We swear an oath of silence to protect each—”

  I cut him off. “Oaths are not upheld in the instance of death. Rice is dead. That’s a little far outside the realm of needing protection. I want to know what he was in to and why.”

  Josiah glared at me, suddenly finding his balls now that my Taurus wasn’t clawing into his skin. An angry imprint of my gun’s muzzle blazed on his forehead. “The oaths we take are unbreakable. Death doesn’t change that.”

  I squatted before him and let the Taurus dangle harmlessly. I gave him a moment to sneer at me, to believe that I wouldn’t hurt him.

  Then I snatched his neck and dove in.

  I wasn’t great at glamours. Mediocre with energy manipulation. But I was great at a Veritas curse.

  My magick gripped his mind.

  He screamed.

  I shifted through his memories while I focused on the question: What had he tasked Rice to do in the days before his death? Like moths drawn to the flame of my inquiry, the correct memory presented itself to me.

  Josiah sat behind a large wooden desk, a manila folder opened in front of him. A knock sounded on the door, and he said, “Come in.”

  My brother, whole and healthy and alive, entered the office. I found it interesting to see Rice in Josiah’s eyes. Rice was beautiful and charming, with his long hair identical to mine and an easy-going grin. But Josiah’s memory included a rush of warmth and longing.

  He’d been in love with my brother.

  “Thanks for coming to see me,” Josiah said as they shook hands. “I have a job for you. It’s dangerous, but I think you might be the only person capable of completing it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You know what you told me about living on the Res? How it was so close to the Rim, you had to learn to block the darkness?”

  To Rice’s credit, his eyes narrowed warily. “Yeah.”

  Josiah took a deep breath. His memory included his hands shaking. “We’ve had intel that a councilman was seen traveling to the Rim under the cover of night.”

  Rice straightened. “Who?”

  “Weston.”

  “Fuck, are you kidding me? The lead councilman?”

  Josiah nodded soberly. “We need you to tail him. Follow him to the encampment and take pictures. Bring us proof.”

  The memories shifted again. Three times, my brother checked in with Josiah after being tasked with his mission. Each time, he had no proof, and he grew increasingly more agitated. Josiah had begun to note the changes, to be concerned that maybe Rice hadn’t been the right person for the job.

  A final memory, the night Rice died. Josiah worked late at his desk, lit by the warm glow of a small lamp. His phone rang. He lifted the old-fashioned receiver to Rice’s voice: “I did it. I got pictures. I’ll bring them tomorrow.”

  But for Rice, tomorrow never came.

  8

  I had already straddled my Ducati before Clara caught up with me.

  She started dating my brother less than a month before. She was a petite girl with insanely blonde hair and crystal blue eyes so red from crying, they seemed to glow. I liked her fierce affection for Rice, and her straightforward attitude toward life. I’d noticed a hardness to her that most girls in the Hollow — fae or human — didn’t usually have. I didn’t know her story, but I had a feeling it was at least as dark as mine.

  “Relle. Hey.” She offered me a hand, which I shook. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” I stared right into her puffy eyes as I said, “Why’d you let him do it?”

  Her jaw tightened. “We know the truth, Relle. A councilmember is shadow touched. Rice saw him at the encampment southwest of here the day he died. And if one of those fuckers has gone dark, there must be others. We can’t trust our council.”

  “I don’t care about that,” I said, but it was a lie, because I did. I just didn’t care about that as much as I cared how big a role the Insurgentia had played in my brother’s death. “You knowingly allowed Rice to walk into a situation that would put him at risk.”

  “He was willing to take the risk.”

  I rubbed my brow. “Of course. Rice would have done anything he believed in enough. And now, I’m going to have to prove a prominent member of our government had him killed.” I paused, staring at her. “The Insurgentia walks a dangerous line. You might remember that the next time you’re given a task. You’ll find yourself six feet under. Like my brother.”

  I turned on my bike, but Clara put a hand on my arm. “Wait!” she yelled over the engine. “I need to tell you something else.”

  I didn’t turn off my bike. I tapped my Com with a single finger to indicate expediency. “You have twenty seconds.”

  “Did you see him much this week?” She had to yell to be heard.

  I shook my head. I’d barely been home long enough to sleep most nights, and Rice was in some kind of virtual championship for a combat game he liked. We lived together, and we loved each other dearly, but we were different people. We’d wanted it that way after moving to the city. We were tired of being Relle-and-Rice, one person instead of two our entire lives. Mainly because, to my mother, twins were sacred. Magick incarnate.

  That damn ache pulsed in my chest and I fought the urge to rub it away. I’d never be able to. An invisible scar I’d carry the rest of my life.

  “Something went wrong,” Clara said.

  “No shit. Don’t waste my time.”

  “No, Relle. I saw him night before last. His eyes were black.”

  I laughed. “He’s Navajo. My entire family has nearly black eyes.”

  “Relle. Listen to me. Black as in shadow touched.”

  I cut the engine. “Come again?”

  Clara circled a finger in front of her eye. “The pupil and iris had grown. His whites were smaller. Trust me, I knew his eyes. I loved his eyes.” Her voice choked and a hiccup escaped.

  It was ridiculously endearing. I forgave her a little on the basis that she truly did care for Rice.

  But... shit. “I need to make a phone call,” I told her, lifting my Com. “Thank you for telling me.”

  She nodded and didn’t walk away.

  I looked at her pointedly. “What?”

  She blushed. “He loved you, you know. You were the center of his universe. I know he cared for me, but you... I would never have been able to compete against you. Rice’s sun rose and set in your orbit.”

  With that, she gave me a hug — so quickly I had no time to react — and hurried back inside Collier & Sons, LLC.

  Rice’s sun rose and set in your orbit.

  Do. Not. Cry.

  I hit the line for dispatch and asked to be connected to the morgue.

  The morgue was housed one level above Senka’s tomb on the opposite end of the block that housed Headquarters. The huge building played home base to the entirety of Senka law enforcement, including SEA and SEB, as well as the Council and the offices of the Reins.

  Getting an appointment to visit the morgue was like trying to make a deal with the devil. Only the coroner could conduct a visit, and if he wasn’t in, he could be called – but that didn’t mean he would come. Not even for me.

  My luck held up, because the coroner was in.

  Dr. Webster met me in the lobby with a grim handshake. “Long time, no see, Nez. Sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

  “Yeah. Thanks fo
r seeing me, Doc.”

  He led me to the elevators, and I grimaced. Second time in as many days, people were dragging me outside my comfort zone.

  The doc must have noticed the look on my face, because he laughed. “Ah, still not a fan of elevators, I see.”

  “Not when there are perfectly good stairs to use.”

  Dr. Webster laughed as we entered the elevator. He scanned his Com on the sensor and chose the level for the morgue. The elevator began to sink.

  I let the silence stretch between us. Dr. Webster rocked genially from his heels to his toes, humming an unfamiliar tune.

  Unable to hold the question in any longer, I asked, “Is he shadow touched?”

  Dr. Webster rubbed his graying goatee. The look was new since I had worked under him. I liked the contrast against his brown skin. The coroner didn’t grow old so much as he aged like a fine wine.

  “It’s hard to say after death,” he replied. “Acura’s darkness begins to drain back out into the world, and the symptoms fade. The sclera fades to the normal white.”

  “Don’t give me the technical, comforting bullshit, Doc. Do you think my brother was shadow touched when he died?”

  As if to punctuate my question, the elevator doors slid briskly open.

  “Your candor has always been refreshing, Nez.” Dr. Webster led me out into the sterile white hallway. “I miss having you on my team. This intern right now... she’s a nightmare. Can’t even see blood without going pale.”

  “You’re evading the question.”

  “No, I’m giving us time to reach your brother’s body.” He touched his Com to another sensor, and we entered his exam room.

  The hammering in my chest intensified when I saw the morgue drawers lining the back wall. I’d spent six months in this room on my rotation for SEB training many years ago. I adored Dr. Webster - his efficient movements and his brilliant mind. He’d earned my respect. I found it exhilarating to be back here, but terrifying to see my brother's body.

  Rice waited for me in Drawer #3. Six years ago, I’d watched bodies go in and out of that drawer and never once thought of them as a person. Human, fae, whatever — all of them empty husks. Not people at all.

  Dr. Webster tugged the sheet down past Rice’s face, but thankfully not far enough for me to see the wound on his neck.

  They were people, those bodies. I could appreciate that now, staring down at the man I’d loved most in the world. The man who reminded me so much of our father, and now was likely smoking a pipe with him in the afterlife.

  Dr. Webster gently pressed on Rice’s lids, opening a single eye. I’d forgotten how gentle he was with his patients, as if their empty bodies could still feel his examinations. “It appears to be a possibility.”

  I gazed down. Rice’s iris bled much further into his sclera than it should. The coroner could evade giving me a straight answer. He could try to explain it away to make me feel better, but the truth stood.

  My brother had died shadow touched.

  9

  I drove without a destination in mind.

  My mother had warned me. Senka Hollow is poison, she said, so many times, so often as I grew up. Her mantra had become a common part of my life; when she said it last night, my rebuff had been automatic.

  But now... what if Senka Hollow was poison? What if Senka had failed? Maybe the earthquake had been her demise, the end of her influence over the Hollow. If that were true, Acura’s darkness would sweep over us all in time.

  Demise insinuated death, though. And the guards were sure they saw movement inside the tomb. Which was crazy. Some part of me understood that Senka had been a living, breathing fae princess once upon a time, but in her role as our sleeping protector, she’d become more myth. A revered goddess: unreachable, insubstantial.

  I steered the Ducati to Old Reservation Road on impulse. I thought about disappearing into my mother’s house and sleeping the rest of the day away. I could hide in the room I’d shared with Rice for eighteen years and remember how the two of us tripped over each other in such a tiny space. When we moved to the apartment, it had been strange, learning to sleep in different rooms. The absence of his breathing in the night had unnerved me. For eighteen years, he was only feet away in a matching bed. I could hear his every sigh, his every movement. It became my nighttime lullaby.

  Now he’d never move or sigh or breathe again.

  Yards from the turn off to the Res, I changed my mind. I didn’t want to hide where I was safe and constantly reminded of my brother. I wanted to get away. When I was younger, if I wanted to escape the stifling disappointment of my mother and her ideals of duty, I’d go to the mesa.

  On the surface, the ruins of the cave dwellings were deserted at mid-day. I didn’t go inside; chances were good that sleeping shadow-toucheds filled the cavernous rooms. But the outside was quiet and uninhabited beneath a warm desert sun.

  I locked my bike and glamoured it to match the brilliant reds of the dirt behind it, so if anyone inside were to wake, they wouldn’t get any bright ideas about taking it.

  Then I scaled the mesa.

  The air always seemed cooler and clearer on the smooth plain high above the desert floor. Nothing could compare to the incredible view, either: endless desert all around and a distant, shimmering view of the city rising from the horizon.

  I sprawled on the ground and gazed up into the sky. So much boiled inside me. Rice, who died shadow touched after being sent on a ridiculously stupid mission for the Insurgentia. Senka’s opened grave. The Rein and Reina of Senka Hollow engaging in daily recreational domestic violence. Senka is poison. You must return one day anyway, Maurelle. You will be the next chieftess of this clan.

  I pressed my fists to my eyes until spots appeared on the inside of my eyelids. Pain was grounding, after all. A sure way to get your mind off everything else.

  Then I slept, my dreams thankfully, wonderfully blank.

  Heady clove-scented smoke awakened me.

  For a moment, I thought I had imagined it. I blinked into a still-bright sky and waited to see if it had been a figment of my imagination, the way I’d dreamt of it the night before.

  Nope. An elegant plume of smoke drifted on the breeze above me. I watched the swirls dance until they were gone, and then I shifted to look behind me.

  An upside-down version of Warren-the-time-traveler grinned at me. “You snore.”

  “I do not. Ass.” I sat up and shook away the vestiges of my nap. “What are you doing here?”

  “It would appear I’m following you,” Warren responded on an exhalation of smoke. He waved his dark brown cigarette in the air. “I assure you, I’m not. I come here sometimes. Clears my mind.”

  For the first time, I studied him in the sunlight. He wore his mahogany hair spiked into a peak at his hairline, and his black eyes were eerily large in his angular face. He reclined lazily on one elbow, legs out straight and ankles crossed.

  And yeah. He was still fucking hot.

  He took another puff of his cigarette, eyeing me silently.

  I relaxed. Okay, yes, he was shadow touched. But he didn’t feel dangerous or out-of-control, the way marks did. There was a wildness to the shadow touched once the darkness began to settle in that he didn’t have. He didn’t make my spidey-sense tingle.

  “When did you become shadow touched?” I asked.

  He tilted his chin and huffed out a puff of smoke. “At conception.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Try again.”

  Warren shrugged. “Believe me or don’t.”

  “There’s nothing to believe. The shadow touched can’t conceive.”

  He grinned. The movement made him look feral. “Who says?”

  “Science.”

  “Science is nothing but magick in disguise, and magick is variable.” Warren extinguished his cigarette on the ground and tucked the stub in his pocket.

  I lifted an eyebrow.

  He leaned back on both elbows with a movement meant to be a shrug. “I don’
t litter in sacred places. We already have that problem with the assholes downstairs.”

  “How do you get those cigarettes? Aren’t they expensive?”

  “I have my resources. Aren’t you going to thank me for saving your life?”

  “I don’t know that you even did.” I stomped the heel of my boot on the ground. “The mesa is still standing.”

  “The longhouse is not. Whole cavern collapsed.”

  “Oh.” I thought of the quiet, sacred space, and all the days I spent there with Tohyah as a girl. In those days before the Rim began to expand and the shadow touched began to move in. Seemed like so many doors had closed in the past two days.

  I processed this, and moved on. “When you disappeared, you told me I had a long night ahead of me. What did you mean by that?”

  He assessed me with those black eyes as if he could really see me. Not just the dusty jeans and tank — the same I’d worn last night when I met him — but all of me. The parts inside that fit together, little gears that whirled and twisted and comprised of my heart, my lungs, my emotions, my needs.

  “I’m sorry about your brother.” It wasn’t an answer, but it was. He had known what was coming.

  A lump lodged in my throat. I would not cry in front of this guy. “Could you go back? Take me back there and let me save him?”

  Warren’s brow drew together. He looked at me with something akin to sadness, which was not an emotion I generally associated with the shadow touched. “No. I can only go where I’ve been before.”

  “You haven’t been to the city?”

  “No. I have to be there. At that moment. With him. Like how I was with you last night.”

  “How did you know to be there?”

  “I knew.”

  The silence hung, hot and dry. After several moments that should have been awkward but felt almost comforting, Warren stood and stretched. His muscles drew taught beneath his plain black t-shirt, and a patch of tanned skin flashed above his low-hanging blue jeans. I thought of Tohyah, shirtless that morning on the Res, and not nearly so incredibly good-looking as this strange, black-eyed man who was shadow touched but... not.