Hearts of Darkness

by Kira Brady

  “And your old man?”

  “He never recovered from her death. He lived just long enough to see me through nursing school.”

  “That’s rough.”

  “Yeah.” Kayla swallowed back a tear and focused on searching through the box of loose notes and newspaper clippings. She found an article about an archaic Babylonian festival. At the top in large red letters Desi had written Gate stabilization—Ask Sven. On an essay about Chief Seattle, Desi had written Curse—Ask Sven.

  Who was Sven?

  At the bottom of the box was their mother’s obituary. Desi had written the plot number, K-9881, next to the cemetery address. Maybe she had visited, leaving flowers on the grave. She must have been searching for closure.

  “Well, that’s it. No dust bunny left unturned.” Kayla sat back against the bed and wiped the dirt out of her eyes with the back of one hand. Fatigue wove cobwebs three feet thick in her brain. “If I don’t find it by the end of the week, will those guys really come after us?”

  “Me? Please, those idiots are the least of my worries.” He paused and rubbed his bruised ribs. “You, however, should watch your back.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He grinned. It softened the sharp edges of his face and lit up his eyes, making him striking, if not beautiful. Kayla had the strangest desire to kiss him again, which was crazy. He thinks he’s a werewolf, remember? Fur and fangs at the full moon, not to mention the arsenal of weapons strapped to his muscled body. Too much stress had her brain malfunctioning. She needed a good night’s sleep. She had a job to do, and then she was out of here.

  “You mentioned,” she said, “back at the morgue, that your boss dated Desi. I need to talk to him. He should know who her friends were. They might have some insight to where she would hide something valuable, or someone she might have given it to.”

  Hart shook his head. “Don’t even think about it. You’re not going anywhere near Norgard.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Norgard, huh? Even if I didn’t want to find this mysterious necklace, I’d still want to ask him about my sister’s death. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. If they dated, Norgard was probably the father. I want answers.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but seemed to change his mind. A curtain descended over his face, hiding all emotion except indifference. He shrugged. “Do whatever you want, babe. It’s no concern of mine.”

  “I will.”

  She followed him into the main room. “We aren’t finished. How will we contact each other if we find anything?”

  He snatched a pen off the counter and turned to her. He pulled the cap off with his sharp white teeth and picked up her hand. “I’m giving you my number.” The pen tip tickled her palm. “There you go.” He dropped her hand and recapped the pen.

  Kayla watched him stroll to the door, feral grace in his stride, cocky arrogance in the set of his shoulders.

  “Don’t get in any more fights,” she called after him. “Stay out of trouble.”

  He snorted and left without a word. Opening her hand, she read what he had written.

  For a good time call . . .

  Oh, brother.

  Chapter 4

  Butterworth and Son’s Mortuary first opened in 1903 as a one-stop shop for the dead: morgue, funeral parlor, and crematorium. Before that, the land had been an Indian burial ground. The result was one seriously haunted chunk of earth. The number of dead passing through the Gate in this spot had forever warped the Aether, so that even humans could sense the otherworld. Various bars and restaurants had come and gone, quickly driven out of business by strange happenings and ghostly vandalism.

  Butterworth’s, as it was now called, was the longest-running business to occupy the building, thanks to the owner, Sven Norgard, who understood how to manage otherworldly inhabitants. No one, living or dead, crossed Norgard. He’d turned the place into an opium parlor and tea house. Those of Seattle’s famous musicians who were unlucky enough to die in Norgard’s debt performed nightly, putting a new twist on “live” music.

  All were welcome, but for a price. Guns were checked at the door, no exorcisms allowed, yet the air reeked of violence. Shadows slithered in the flickering glow of the candelabras. Clouds of opium puffed from the deep, red velvet booths like sweetly scented, miniature volcanoes.

  Hart pulled himself up to the massive mahogany bar that took up one wall. Hand-carved dragons decorated the imposing piece, a nod to the owner and his kin. Every muscle protested from Hart’s earlier fight. He was getting too old for this crap. In the fifteen years he’d worked for Norgard he’d watched countless other men die. Two more jobs, he could do it. The Lady had never done him any favors, but maybe She’d take pity on him this once.

  Doc, the bartender, saw him and ambled over. Charms tinkled from the man’s portly belly, warding off spirits intent on breaking his bottles of alcohol.

  “Happy Nisannu,” Doc said in greeting. “May Tiamat aid you in the coming year.”

  Nisannu—the celebration of the Babylonian New Year—was in full swing. Norgard had gone all out with fountains of fermented honey wine and free chocolate. Red streamers hung from the ceiling and stalks of barley decorated the walls. Stone Babylonian gods, illuminated by red lanterns, leered over the dance floor.

  “What’ll it be?” Doc asked.

  “The usual,” Hart said. “Tell Norgard I’m here.”

  Doc nodded and poured him a cup of Darjeeling with a shot of gin. Hart gingerly raised the porcelain cup to his lips. The delicate handle felt ridiculous in his thick fingers. As he waited, he watched the grinding bodies on the dance floor, keeping his back to the bar and an eye on the door so no one could catch him off guard. The thick air, clogged with sweat and opium, threw off his nose. Without his sense of smell he felt blind and vulnerable. If it were up to the beast, he would avoid all crowds and closed spaces. Too bad he had no choice in the matter.

  Like most Drekar and Kivati haunts, Butterworth’s was wired for gas. Red plates of glass covered the chandelier and wall sconces. The bloody glow of the lights illuminated an empty chair on stage. In front of it sat an old-fashioned microphone flanked by two large amplifying horns that pumped out music from the ghostly entertainer. Hart dug out his Deadglass and raised it to his eye to see what the dancers, high on opium and alcohol, could see: a thin young man with stringy blond hair, torn jeans, and a flannel shirt sitting in the chair and strumming a beat-up guitar. He looked not much different from the way he had in life—same paper-pale skin, same hollow eyes. He played with a demonic flare that roused the crowd to a frenzy.

  Hart pocketed the Deadglass and surveyed the room. Politicians made deals in the booths that lined the walls. Ishtar’s Maidens, in lace garters and little else, slipped through the crowd selling their wares. He caught sight of Oscar’s blond head at the back of the room and raised his teacup in a mock salute. His fellow operative saw him and touched his forehead in return. Norgard discouraged camaraderie. It was practical, given the short life expectancy of his blood slaves.

  Speak of the devil. The tall blond Viking glided through the crowd toward him. His beautiful face made people trust him. In his left eye, he wore a Deadglass monocle. His right eye was clear blue, icy as his heart. Unless feeding, fighting, or fucking, the oval iris looked mostly human. Usually by the time anyone noticed its irregularity, it was much too late.

  Norgard owned half the city and controlled most of the territory across the western United States. His business interests covered everything from technology and aeronautics to chocolate. All of his ventures flourished; Norgard had the Midas touch.

  Behind Norgard stalked the head of his personal guard, Erik Thorsson. Civilization might have advanced, but Thorsson hadn’t. He was a bloody, violent individual, better suited to pillaging by longboat than running a business. Norgard indulged him, especially if that violence was directed toward the Kivati.

  Norgard slid gracefully onto a stool next to Hart, engulfing him in a wave of iron-
scented air. The beast inside Hart strained forward at the sight of his alpha. Norgard had taken something natural and twisted it, leashing the beast. But Hart’s mad totem couldn’t be fooled for long; this alpha and makeshift pack were tainted. Once the blood debt was repaid, the beast would make its move. Hart found himself eyeing Norgard’s throat, saliva pooling along his sharp canines. He wrenched his gaze away. Soon.

  “What could be so important that it could not wait for later?” Norgard asked. A hint of Norse tinged his voice.

  Hart waited for Norgard to order a drink—glögg, aflame as usual—before telling him the job had changed. Norgard’s nostrils flared, but Hart didn’t give a damn. The Dreki had left out a dangerous amount of information.

  “Losing your touch, mad dog?” Norgard smiled, showing a mouthful of sharp teeth. “What could be so difficult in robbing a silly chit?”

  “Seems you’re not the only one interested in this so-called sentimental trinket.”

  Norgard had the grace to look away. It was as much an admission of guilt as Hart was going to get. “Corbette. I had hoped he was unaware of its existence. What does he know?”

  Hart shrugged.

  “The man is a stuffed shirt,” Norgard said. “His reactionary tactics will never restore the glory of the Kivati. Their gilded age is over. He needs to accept that and move forward. Open up, rather than isolating his people like some damned Victorian commune. I will not let him interfere in my plans.”

  Hart took a sip of his tea and waited. It was a rant he’d heard before, and privately agreed with. Corbette thought a few generations of exacting protocol and rigid societal laws could keep his people from fading completely into the Shimmering Lands. But nothing could wash the taint from the blood. Nothing could restore the integrity of the cracked Gate. That didn’t mean Hart agreed with all of Norgard’s views. Humans wouldn’t accept the supernatural races unless the hellfire of the apocalypse was raining down around their shoulders.

  Norgard sighed heavily. “I suppose this means the original price will no longer suffice.”

  “You suppose right.” Hart had never figured why a man so filthy rich could be such a penny-pincher.

  “Fine. So close to freedom,” Norgard said. “What will you do, little Wolf, when you no longer bear the leash?”

  Hart wanted to tell him to go to hell. He’d follow the packs north to Canada, last of the great wild spaces, and then he didn’t know what he’d do. Anything. Everything. No one to answer to. Nothing to keep him here. He’d find somewhere he could run free.

  “Can you taste it? The tang of blood coating your palate? Free to let its magic feed your own soul once again?” Norgard leaned in, a seductive purr in his voice. “Or is it fear that haunts you? Knowing that once the leash is gone, the madness will take you, faster and stronger than ever. What will stop it from destroying you? What will stop you from destroying everyone around you?”

  Hart growled low. The beast waited beneath the surface, hungry and aching to be let free. His skin itched with the need to Change. His mouth watered. He wanted to rip the Dreki’s throat between his teeth.

  Norgard smiled and leaned back. “I rest my case.”

  Hart reined in the beast. “Tell me about the necklace,” he bit out. “What’s it a key to?”

  “Ah.” Norgard paused to adjust his French cuff sleeves under his crisp black jacket. The gold cuff links glittered under the flickering gaslights. “I didn’t lie when I said it was sentimental.”

  Hart knew that. While the Drekar were experts at manipulating the truth, they couldn’t outright lie.

  “Two centuries ago,” Norgard said, “I took a grand tour through Asia, along the Silk Road and into the uncharted interior, seeking the great Babylon Gate. I never found it. The ancients hid it too well. But I discovered a small shrine where nomads still left offerings to the gods. It was heavily warded. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t a benevolent spirit they worshipped, but Tiamat’s lover Kingu.”

  Shit. While Norgard paid homage to the Norse gods of the land of his birth, they were only the incarnation of an older, more violent pantheon. His true sovereign was Tiamat, the Babylonian goddess of chaos, mother of all dragons and the demon horde. No Norse word existed for her. She was the beginning of the world, and she would be its end.

  “The price of this job is rising with every word,” Hart said.

  “Don’t I know it.” Norgard ran a hand through his long blond hair. “Can’t depend on your overwhelming concern for mankind to do the right thing, can I?”

  Hart raised an eyebrow. Norgard should be glad, since that meant Hart wouldn’t have a problem returning the damn thing to him. The world was doomed if its fate rested in the soulless, profit-hungry hands of either of them. “So this necklace does what exactly?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  Lady be damned. Nothing connected to the Gate to the Land of the Dead could be good. The Gate in Seattle wasn’t the only one, of course, but it was vulnerable. A Gate could open wherever a mass exodus of souls tore a hole in the Aether. It usually took centuries of bloodshed to open a new one. The Kivati’s job was to keep this one closed, but it seemed like Norgard had an ace up his sleeve.

  A commotion at the entrance to Butterworth’s prevented Norgard from providing more details—probably to his relief. Hart followed his gaze over the undulating mass to a clique of skinny young teenagers. Their leader was a willowy girl with a long, thin nose and pouty red lips. The Kivati’s future queen. Her hips were cocked at a haughty angle as if she had every right to be here. Her companions looked nervously at the crowd, as well they should. The Kivati youths had left behind their regimented bustled gowns and corsets for the skanky threads of the modern age. If only the Raven Lord could see them now: midriffs exposed by halter tops, platform shoes, and fishnets pulling eyes up to thighs tantalizingly bare under short black skirts.

  “Well, well. What have we here?” Norgard’s brilliant white teeth flashed in the dark parlor. “Has the princess evaded her bodyguards? Such rebellion. Such spark.” His forked tongue slipped out to lick his lips. “I would be a poor host if I didn’t indulge her little indiscretion. Perhaps return her to Corbette in a less than pristine condition, hmm?”

  He laughed and stood up. His Drekar pheromones pulsed outward, a beacon calling his prey. Part metallic, park enthralling musk. Humans throughout the parlor turned with dazed, hungry eyes. The room swayed toward the towering blond man, like iron to a lodestone. He used the attention to glide unhindered through the crowd.

  The noise was dimmed enough that Hart—with his heightened hearing—could eavesdrop.

  “Princess,” Norgard said, “welcome to my humble establishment.”

  The girl raised her haughty nose as the large predator stalked her way. She hid her fear well, but not well enough.

  Hart shook his head. He felt a brief moment of pity for the girl. She was what, seventeen? Sheltered, spoiled, and rebellious made for a dangerous combination. Dangerous for her, that is. Stupid kid was going to get killed, and it would set off a new, bloodier round of Kivati-Drekar wars. More work for him, but shit.

  He still needed more info about the necklace. Was it a key to the Gate? Seemed likely. Chief Seattle’s curse had cracked the Gate in Seattle. This was the perfect place for someone to attempt to free the demons that waited hungrily on the other side.

  Hart didn’t want to still be here when that happened.

  “Missed you.”

  Kayla opened her eyes from a deep sleep. She lay in Desi’s bed, in Desi’s tiny apartment. The faded patchwork quilt was the same one Desi had as a child.

  Her sister lay beside her.

  Kayla smiled. “Where did you go? I thought you had left me.”

  Moonlight spilled onto the pillow from the open window, bathing Desi’s face in a pale, milky glow. “Come with me,” she whispered.

  “Oh, yes.” Kayla tried to raise her hand to smooth Desi’s braids, but her arm wouldn’t move. Something wasn’t righ
t. Her sister was with her; surely that was a good thing.

  “Forever,” Desi said.

  “Yes, forever.” Kayla smiled at the thought.

  Desi’s eyes were darker than Kayla remembered. Flat black instead of twinkling mahogany.

  Kayla wanted to pull up the blanket to warm her suddenly cold arms. “It’s been so lonely without you, sweet girl,” she said.

  “You must find it,” Desi said. “Come.”

  A knocking started from somewhere outside. Desi’s lips thinned. Her eyes narrowed.

  “What is that?” Kayla asked.

  “No time,” Desi said in a voice lower than Kayla remembered. “No time, my Kayla. You must find it. Blood will out.”

  “Blood will what?”

  The knocking got louder, like hammers upon tin. Kayla imagined she heard the ruffle of feathers.

  “No time,” Desi hissed. “Let me in—”

  Kayla tried to turn her head to see where the noise was coming from, but her neck wouldn’t move. The hammering became a thundering inside her skull, like Athena’s birthing pangs. She winced under the assault. The edges of the room began to blur.

  “Desi?” she asked.

  Her sister looked sorrowful. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

  “Desi?” Kayla started to panic. The thundering sounded like cannons, bursting through her eardrums.

  She woke with a start.

  Her window was a mass of black feathers. Huge wings brushed the pane, again and again, blocking out light as the crows dove, trying to break in. Their beaks pounded against the glass, rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat. Her heart jumped in time. It was like a Hitchcock movie. With each swoop, they pinned her with their beady black eyes.

  Fear seized her. She held her breath, praying the window wouldn’t break. The crows screamed. Macbeth’s witches, weaving spells of terror.

  She swallowed and forced herself to move. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she jumped out of bed and ran to the window. She pulled the shutter closed and secured it. Moving to the other side of the white dresser, she shoved it with her back and shoulder until it shifted across the floor and barricaded the window. It was only particleboard, but it would have to do.