Hunters (Out of the Box Book 15)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Sorry to even ask this,” Rose said, after another brief lull in the conversation, “but…your name?”

  I looked at her, frown lines puckering my brow so deeply that I could feel it. “What about it?”

  “Where’s it come from?” she asked. “Nealon, I mean. I know your mum was Sierra, and—well, I assume she kinda repurposed her own for your first name—”

  “Where does Nealon come from?” I repeated the question back, not really sure what the hell she was asking me. “I have no idea. Why?”

  “I was just curious,” Rose said. “I mean, uh…I didn’t know my da, so—”

  “Da?”

  “Father,” she said. “It’s a Scottish thing. But I didn’t know him—”

  “I didn’t really know mine either,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said. “That makes two of us, then. But your name…Nealon…you really don’t know where it came from?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t think most Americans worry that much about name origin. I know it came from my mom’s dad, as far as I know. His name was Simon Nealon. He was, uh…well, an Englishman, I think.” I tried to summon the only memory I had of him, which was actually a purloined memory given to me by the woman who had killed him. “He died in London in the 1980s.”

  “How?” Rose asked, with the quiet curiosity of a genuine student.

  “He was killed by a group called Omega,” I said, feeling a little weird about revisiting this particular piece of my history, which was not something I stirred the coals of very often. I paused, looking within. “A girl named Adelaide, who was a succubus, like me—she was working for them as an—well, an assassin or agent or fixer or something. She killed him in a fight.” Against the express orders of the Omega leadership, because she had been given her orders filtered through Wolfe, I didn’t bother adding, because why would Rose need that little helpful bit of context? I didn’t even really need it.

  “Is that the only member of your family you know of?” she asked. “I’m sorry,” she said, getting genuinely apologetic. “This is my thing—like family history? I know my mother’s family—my granny and grandpa and all them—back generations. We’ve lived in the same village for thousands of years, and I can trace that lineage back.” She looked down for a second. “I was the first of my family to leave. But, uh…like I said, I didn’t know my da, which…kinda drives me a bit nuts, you know?” She looked up at me, squinting. “That this is a—well, it’s a passion of mine, to know these things.”

  “Why didn’t you know your father?” I asked.

  “He was a drifter,” she said. “Passed through, met my ma. Stayed long enough to give her the gift of me,” Rose said with a faint smile, “and then he moved on, never to be seen around those parts again. So half my family is a mystery to me. I traced every trail I could of my mother’s side—heard all the stories from my grandparents, but…there’s this gaping hole in my history. I don’t know half myself,” she said. “He’s who I got my powers from, you see.”

  “That happens a lot,” I said. “Metas drifting and…leaving behind babies. Tends to cause some problems when they manifest and have no guidance.” I’d lost track of the number of fatherless metas I’d arrested, ones whose mothers had no idea where their powers came from. Teenagers who suddenly had powers sprung on them without any parent able to stop them? Formula for disaster.

  “Well, it’s a bit of mystery, obviously, and one I’d like to solve some day,” she said. “But it’s left me with this endless fascination with…genealogy, I guess. Ancestry. But…I could go on and on.” She blushed and looked away.

  “It’s good to have hobbies,” I said, glancing at the window as though Frankie would come battering in any second. “And let’s face it…we could use a distraction right now. Or at least I could.” I smiled. “Ask away.”

  “Really?” I nodded, and she leaned in again, earnest expression making me feel surprisingly at ease. “So you knew of your mum’s da…did you know about your ma’s ma?”

  “I never met her, no,” I said. “I vaguely recall my mom saying that she spent her final days in the company of an Omega operative named James Fries.” Rose cocked her head at that, and I could almost hear the question. “I had a lot of clashes with this Omega group early on. They were kind of a mafia for old gods of the world, dipping their hands into all sorts of criminal and odious stuff. Anyway, I guess they sent one of their agents to keep my grandmother entertained in her last days, an incubus because he could, well…” I shrugged. “Touch her, I guess.” I might have shuddered, if I’d ever seen my grandmother and had a visual to associate with that. Not that Fries was a bad-looking guy—evil to the core the way every incubus I’d ever met seemed to be—but not bad-looking at all. As evidenced by the fact that I’d nearly slept with him before I realized what human garbage he was.

  “So she died?” Rose asked, still leaning in. It was probably the best distraction I could hope for right now, this round of idle questioning. “Your grandmother?”

  “According to my great uncle Raymond, yes,” I said. “In Michigan, in 1989, I think.” I had a pretty good memory for someone who’d taken as many headshots as I had, both of the battering kind and, more recently, the bullet variety.

  “That’s fascinating,” Rose said, looking at me intently. “What was her name?”

  “Hell if I know,” I said. “I don’t think Mom or Raymond ever said, and I never asked.”

  Lethe, a whispered voice came from deep within me. The quietest voice, lately. Her name was Lethe.

  “Well, that’s creepy,” I said, frowning. “I guess her name was Lethe, according to…well, sources in my mind.” Wolfe, you knew my grandmother?

  Wolfe barely stirred. I served Hades, he said. I knew all his children.

  Of course. Naturally the Cerberus would know his master—and the master’s charges.

  “Lethe,” Rose said quietly. “Hm. Your branch of—well, of metas. Do you know…is it a large family?”

  I just stared at her. “I have no idea. Why?”

  “I was just wondering,” she said, demurring. “If you didn’t know your grandmother, but—”

  She went on, but I lost the train of thought that was listening to her as something occurred to me that had never occurred before. I was the great-granddaughter of the God of Death. For some reason, I’d never thought about it in those terms before, that the family was…well, that tight. Because if I was the great-granddaughter of Hades, then my great-uncle Raymond and any other of Hades and Persephones’s children were only a little removed from me. That meant that Kat was a lot closer in my family tree, in all probability, than I’d ever given her credit for, though I didn’t possess the knowledge of how many cousins, once removed, twice removed, great-whatever—to give name to our familial relationship. Suddenly the world seemed a lot smaller, especially when I considered that no matter how you sliced it, if James Fries was fooling around with my grandmother, it meant she was, at best, a great aunt removed a few times from him—

  “EWWWWWW,” I said, doing a full body heebie-jeebie and almost causing Rose to propel herself off the couch in surprise at my sudden reaction. She was wide-eyed, and I’d clearly interrupted her in the middle of some thought she was spelling out, which had caught her with her mouth hanging open. “Sorry,” I said once I’d collected myself, “I just…realized a family connection that was…not apparent before.”

  Shit. If Fries and I had nearly slept together too, that meant…ohhh, yuck. It didn’t exactly make us Lannisters, but the family tree was looking a lot more like a family bush the more I thought about it.

  Which meant that Frankie…

  “Shit,” I said, aloud this time. Rose just held her silence, though she’d managed to button her lip closed, which meant she was just giving me the crazy eyes. “I just realized something.”

  “What is it?” she asked, all attentive, worried.

  “Assuming this Frankie is a natural-born meta—” which was not necessarily a fa
ir assumption, given the way things were going in the world lately, with artificial meta serums flowing lately in America like beer at a high school kegger “—then…he’s related to me in some way…and probably not as distant as I’d like.”

  Which meant that when I killed him…if he wasn’t artificial…I was basically killing off one of the few family members I had left.

  34.

  Wolfe

  Norway

  175 BC

  Winter was hard here in the north, and it made Wolfe shiver, a despised feeling that raised his hackles and made him madder than usual. During these interminable months of all the years since they had come to this place, he had never adjusted to this frigid cold. Huddling in the mead halls at night with the others, hiding his flesh under cloaks and cloths and skins, rankled him. The volume of battle to be had here was plenty, an endless land of clans and clansmen ready to raise sword against these gods. Few raised an eyebrow at Wolfe’s desire to feast on flesh, but the people were fattier here, more gristled, and they got stuck in his teeth.

  Then there were the long pauses between the battles, the times when the conquest was done and the quiet fell. Wounds were licked, mead was drunk, celebrations went on nigh endlessly, and he sat around all the while wondering when the next fight would come. It always did, but never soon enough for his taste. He wanted it now, wanted the slick blood to be running down his hands now, felt the rankling, twisting feeling burning under his skin, that urge to go out and hunt.

  But he couldn’t hunt their own people here, no. They were protected. They were the worshippers. Pfeh. This was never a problem back in the Republic. Worshippers were sheep, goats, meant to be eaten as sacrifice. Odin seemed to take a dim view of such things here, which irritated Wolfe to no end.

  Save for the sacrifices they gave Lethe. Wolfe thrilled at the thought, when he did get a chance to consider them. Yes…she was thoroughly enjoying herself here. But who wouldn’t, being fed…as she was being fed?

  Wolfe sat in his perpetual corner of the meadhall, hiding his face under a leathered skin prepared by the tanner. It smelled of the piss used to complete the process, and now Wolfe wore two cloaks of the bound leather of human flesh. It made some of the servants in the hall of Odin look at him askance, worry dotting their fresh little faces. He would have liked to have ripped those off, but then he’d incur the wrath of Lethe, and he didn’t dare do that.

  Soft footsteps approached from his side, and Wolfe looked to see who dared come to him. None of the powers in this place seemed to fear him, and he respected that—after a fashion. He’d seen them all fight, and had his own opinions of their worth. Odin had certainly earned his place at the top of the heap here. Frigga, Freyja—they were worthy of some respect—which was why Wolfe didn’t simply disregard their wishes and tear through the villages around this place with wild abandon. In return they did offer him some pleasant appeasement as opportunities afforded themselves.

  And, of course…they seemed to find their way over to him every now and again as well, undeterred by his lone nature and desire to remain apart from their little kingdom.

  “You should move closer to the fire,” Odin said, looming over Wolfe, his beard still smelling of dinner. “There is no need for you to shiver yourself to sleep at night. We are having the carpenters add chambers, and build some more houses to our expanding holdfast. Soon you will have a room of your own, but until then…there is no reason to deprive yourself of warmth like you were one of Jotun’s brood.” He almost spat out that name like a curse.

  Wolfe would have cursed the name, too. He’d had encounters with Jotun and those kind, and none had been pleasant. All had ended more or less peacefully though, a fact for which Wolfe found himself…unusually thankful. The tall beast of a giant had the coldest, most frightening eyes that Wolfe had seen this side of Lethe before battle.

  “Maybe Wolfe is watching out for your brood,” Wolfe said. “Keeping them safe by keeping his distance. Animal instinct is a hard thing to keep down.”

  If Odin thought this statement funny or threatening, he did not give any sign save for a partly raised eyebrow. “And we appreciate your sacrifices in this regard. If you seek reward…you need but ask. You have done many great things in the service of your mistress, and through her, for us. If you require an indulgence, it shall be yours. I will lead you to a place where you may exercise all your urges freely, a village only a few days hence which has shown its defiance to us in recent days. I am normally more inclined to patience, but your desire and my need are almost matched horses, in this case, and my patience does not need to be infinite. Freyja thinks their intransigence has lasted too long already, as does your…mistress.” Odin smiled. “I expect that if you do not wish to partake, Lethe would gladly take the task of settling our disagreement with them upon herself.”

  Wolfe suppressed the shudder at hearing her called by her name, her true name, her birth name. Odin never called her that anymore, not since she’d adopted the Norse one that he’d offered her. She’d taken to it like a wolf to the kill, leaving behind Lethe in favor of this…northern perversion.

  “You don’t like it when I call her Lethe,” Odin said with mild surprise. “This is curious, because I know you don’t like it when I call her—”

  “That’s not her name,” Wolfe said.

  “I begin to believe that your difficulty is with me addressing her at all,” Odin said, “and not what name I might use to do so.”

  “She doesn’t belong here,” Wolfe hissed, the fire making a distant pop. “She is the daughter of death.”

  “She plies her trade here with more freedom and fury than she could in your own country,” Odin said. “She has told me of your land. Her father lives in a cave, outcast from those who rule. He survives on the scraps he can gather for his family, not daring to turn loose with the fury of his full power.” Odin leaned down. “If he came here, I would have him worshipped as the god he is and not keep him in a cave until time stole all use and life from him. We would rule the world, with a power such as his, and those of his offspring.”

  Wolfe turned his face away. “Hades has no desire to rule the world.” That was a lie; Wolfe had little idea what Hades wanted, save for to avoid the wrath of his brothers Zeus and Poseidon, both of whom had promised in most strident tones a union that existed to annihilate him should he ever slip the last bounds of decency and turn his powers against his brothers and their brethren.

  “I have a desire to rule the world,” Odin said, and he spoke hungrily now. “I would see my eldest son sit atop a throne of bones made of brave warriors, Mjolnir in his hand and his brothers as his regents, ministers across the land. Lethe could rule all the way across the cold steppes to the sea, the places she has told us about. I would see an army march across the wide world, an army of our people, led by her, led by her father, ready to take what is rightfully ours.” Odin extended a hand and clenched his fist. “You would be her righteous knight, her good right hand, the one to bring her the sacrifices that keep her…ravening hunger at bay.”

  Wolfe looked up, staring at Odin’s face. There was earnest bloodlust there that Wolfe might once have appreciated were it not wedded to a desire he now found…repugnant.

  Eyes met his across the meadhall, hiding behind the fire. Wolfe stared at the urchin of a girl who leered at him, and then looked away abruptly only a moment before he would have risen and offered challenge. His ire began to settle once again, and it was then that Odin spoke.

  “You are always watched by others, are you not?” The All-Father stared into his soul with that one eye. “Vivi in particular takes note of you. I see the exchanges.”

  “She is too young to give challenge, but she treads perilously close to it nonetheless,” Wolfe said in a low hiss.

  “She is too young to give challenge, aye,” Odin said, “but I do not believe that is why she stares at you. She sees beyond these days and into ones far past the reckoning of any of us. I have had the benefit of her sight, t
his young seer. If she stares at you, it does not mean challenge, for she has all the strength of an enfeebled kitten. It is because she is looking into your soul, and into the days ahead in your fate.”

  “My fate is my own business,” Wolfe said.

  “And you share it with none,” Odin said, “but she sees it nonetheless. And if you ask, she will tell you what lies ahead for you, for good or ill.”

  A scream sounded through the meadhall, high, forceful, that of a man in agony. All froze for a moment. The scream cut Wolfe’s thoughts about future days to a quick end, continuing for but a few seconds more, and then it cut to its own end, as suddenly as it had begun. Odin held his silence for but seconds, and then, in his resonant voice: “It seems your mistress has taken the first of her evening indulgences.”

  Wolfe turned away. “So it would seem.”

  “Her appetite is endless,” Odin said, something nearing reverence in his voice. “She goes through lovers faster than I can appropriate them from the ranks of our enemies. It is good that we have no shortage of foes, I suppose, for it keeps her…focused.”

  Wolfe did not say anything. The scream still echoed in his ears. He did not stay outside her chambers on nights such as these. He did not dare to, having heard the noises that always preceded the screams too many times. It awoke a feeling in him, one that he dared not give voice to. Not to his mistress.

  Not to anyone.

  “Do you wish to accept my offer?” Odin’s voice crackled with power, the temptation obvious to Wolfe, who could almost smell the offered kills through the imagined scent of other things…things going on Lethe’s quarters right now. Dark things. Sensual things. “The village is but three days’ ride from here,” Odin continued, “and there are many succulent conquests waiting therein,” Odin said, as if he could scent what Wolfe was thinking. “If none survived our visit…that would be a worthy message to send, I think, should you wish to partake. The manner of their deaths being particularly horrific…well, that would only add to the effect.”