by G. K. Lund
“I had doubts you’d make it this far,” Agaton said, oblivious to our silent musings.
“Comforting,” Loki mumbled.
“You knew it was there, didn’t you?” I asked him. I didn’t wait for a response, though. “Because the constables had reported of troubles there not even a week ago. The agent who investigated the order after the Kin’s fall, probably looked into the case again. He or one of the constables sighted Melleta, or maybe Dekel Chiron mentioned her? He had become weary of her by that point. I don’t really know, but a heads-up would have been nice.”
Agaton moved his gaze from the gem and back to me, silent while he pocketed the gem. Then: “you are nothing but a criminal, barely escaping the cold and moldy dungeons. You’d do best to remember that.”
I opened my mouth to speak but caught a look of warning from Loki and decided not to say what I wanted to.
“However,” Agaton went on as if he hadn’t noticed our brief exchange. “You two proved more effective than I thought. You are breathing, after all.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“And the gem is returned to its rightful owner. Yes, I will provide you with the information at hand, if possible. But I will have no repeat of the mess you brought to our gates today. Understood?”
We both nodded. What else was there to do? The message was clear enough. Agaton owned us. It was him or the dungeons and new trials for illegally entering Atlantis. We would lose those trials. And trying to make amends seemed to involve committing new crimes. Wonderful. Yeah, this was going to be easy, I thought as I walked back out the gate with Loki, feeling the looks of hatred from the guards who now knew my past. They wouldn’t be the only ones.
Chapter Sixteen
I sat at the table in the library, a plate with a half-eaten sandwich in front of me. My hair was still damp from the shower I’d longed for, but my body ached in places I hadn’t registered when things had been at their worst in the order house. I should be happy that everything had turned out in our favor, but didn’t sense any feelings of joy or relief. The house was quiet, and every little move I made seemed to disturb that peace. Except it wasn’t really peace. If it had been, I should have felt more at ease in the house that had once been my home. I still considered it that, but I wasn’t sure my heart was in it at the moment.
The sound of a door closing drew my attention. Had that been the front door? I got up and went over to the closest window to have a look. The library was on the other side of the house, but it still gave an acceptable view of the street out front, on the other side of the garden. The tall, skinny, and bald shape that walked away from the house was hard to confuse with anyone but Walworth. It was late, but not too late to head out. He stopped right outside the iron-wrought gate closing the garden off from the street and seemed to be waiting. A minute later, a woman wearing a dark dress came up to him. It was hard to tell in the dark, but her hair appeared light, though whether it was blond or gray I couldn’t say. They seemed to know each other for they talked, their body language easy before Walworth offered her his arm and she took it and walked down the street with him.
Great, I thought, and let the drape fall back into place. So my elderly butler was on a date, and I was stuck here in a house that seemed to have lost its soul after my family had stopped living there. It was almost overwhelming.
I took the plate with the sandwich leftovers and made my way to the kitchen. It was also on ground level, but on the opposite end to the library. I’d made a deal with Walworth on Loki and me making our own food since we were coming and going at odd hours. I found something to wrap the food in and put it in the fridge, realizing as I shut the door that this was also a remnant of my past. Kin members were taught to be frugal. Waste not, want not, and so forth. Was that so stupid, though?
I stared at the fridge door but found no clarifying information on the matter there and decided to go to bed. There wasn’t much else to do.
When I came back to the hallway though, a loud bang startled me and I was running up the main stairs without thinking, though with sending a lot of silent curses Loki’s way.
“Who the hell are you trying to murder?” I yelled at him, pushing the door open without knocking. “What the…?” I stopped to stare at him, poised on a three-legged stool on top of a soft recliner while reaching up the wall to hang a bullseye with a long piece of jerky sticking out the corner of his mouth. He wasn’t covered in sand dust anymore either, so he’d taken a shower too… or maybe another grape bath. Who the hell knew? Below him, on the floor, lay an overturned bookcase that must have fallen when he’d tried to move it. I could see the lighter outline of it on the wall, the bullseye meeting the top of it.
“Murder?” he repeated in his strained position and glanced down at the bookcase. “Dust mites?” he focused on the white and black bullseye again and with a flick of his hand, had the nail fastened using magic. Then he glanced down and made a jump, landing like a cat again, the stool toppling behind and clattering to the floor.
I rolled my eyes. “Did you ask Walworth about this?”
Loki frowned. “Walworth? No. Does he own the house? Besides, he’s busy with Ms. Carlene tonight.” Loki grabbed the stool and put it upright before taking the jerky in his other hand and chewing off a sizable piece.
“You know her name?”
He shrugged and walked over to a table placed on the other side of the room, near a window. There lay an array of throwing knives there.
“Of course I do. I asked.”
“You did?”
Loki chewed yet managed a smirk directed at me. “It’s called small talk, Chastity.”
I sighed. I wasn’t good at that. At all. Give me a situation where I knew where I stood, and I could talk just fine. Trying to socialize merely to talk about nothing? That was not something I’d ever mastered. There’d been no need in the Kin because we always had something to talk about—our belief in what Kerwyn Bowden had told us. Praising him, discussing his teachings. That had been easy and second nature. Inquiring about the weather or people’s interests or whatever the hell people talked about? That was hard.
I stared at the fallen bookcase and left it to Loki to tidy up. It was his mess, after all. But as I headed for the door, I turned back and eyed the throwing knives.
“You’re going to be doing that? In here?” I eyed the wallpaper with some concern.
“You’ll find there is a disturbing lack of TVs in this house. A person has to occupy one’s time while waiting for the… ah conscientious Mr. Groth to inform of us of the next suicide mission.”
“Well, duh,” I sidled over to the table. “There are no TV networks in Atlantis.”
Loki only smiled and then pointed at the throwing knives with his free hand. “Want to try?”
Yes, I thought, because what else was there to do in this house? I picked up one and felt its weight. It was, like my daggers, only made of metal, though the alloy was steel. “I got used to practicing with moving targets Earthside though.” I glanced up at the waiting bullseye.
“I don’t think Walworth would agree to that,” Loki commented.
I smiled. I might suck at small talk, but Loki was surprisingly easy to talk to, and sometimes, between making fun of me and making his ridiculous self-aggrandizing declarations, he had something useful on his mind. Not that I’d feed his convoluted ego by telling him that. And sure, there was also the whole killing thing, but like I’d noticed back in Alaska, he didn’t seem to have a cruel streak.
I threw the knife, and it hit the bullseye. Loki didn’t look surprised. He’d seen me with my daggers by now.
“I am going to make myself into a respectable citizen,” I told him. “Since we’re partners—”
“Partners? More like cellmates.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” I picked up another knife and inspected it. “And as my partner, I might as well take you with me into respectableness.”
This time, the ex-god rolled his eyes. “Good grief.”
&nb
sp; “So, do we have anything more challenging than this?” I asked him and told him exactly which spot I’d hit on the board before throwing the knife and doing exactly that.
“There’s nowhere in this mansion to do anything but entertaining guests for tea and cake.”
“True,” I agreed, mulling this over. “Maybe if we start something before Walworth gets back?”
“Truly, does he own the place?”
“No, I guess I do, but it’s certainly his domain.”
“Hmm.” Loki crossed his arms over his chest, the diminishing piece of jerky forgotten a moment. “We’re going to need ample space.”
“Why?”.
“Because,” he began, scrutinizing me from top to toe. “You handle your daggers with proficiency, your footwork is acceptable, but you wield a sword with the grace of a broken weathercock.”
“Um…” That was a bit harsh.
“Also, you need to add some strength to those pipe-stalks you call arms.”
“I do not have pipe-stalks!”
“I wonder how long it would take you to climb to the roof of this house,” Loki mused as if he hadn’t heard my objection. “Probably minutes if you can even reach at all.”
“Hey, that’s not a nice thing to say to the person who came back for you.”
I hadn’t meant it seriously, but those words stopped him short. “Yes. Why did you do that?”
I blinked. “Come back for you? Because we’re partners. That’s what partners are supposed to do. Wouldn’t you have done the same?” The moment I let those last words out of my mouth, I regretted it because I might not appreciate the likely one-syllable answer to this.
“I don’t know what I would have done,” he said instead, which was marginally better. At least he was being honest.
“And now?”
“I guess we must find out.” And with that, he remembered his jerky and chomped down on it while picking out a throwing knife, which he proceeded to take with him toward the door instead of throwing at the board. “Come on, pipe-stalks. We have things to do to this house.”
“What? And don’t call me pipe-stalks,” I said and hurried after him, suddenly anxious for the house, and for Walworth’s nerves.
“Fine, Chastity.”
“Don’t call me that either.”
“I will take that into consideration.”
“Yeah, right,” I said under my breath and sped up to catch up. I didn’t know what lay ahead, but found comfort in the realization that the house wasn’t plagued with a soul-destroying quiet anymore.
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Also by G.K. Lund
Urban Fantasy
Atlantis Outcasts:
Malicious Magic #1
Curses in the Light #2
Rebels and Traitors #3
The Ashdale Reaper Series:
Deadly Awakening #1
Grave Intent #2
Dance of Death #3
Revenants of Life #4
Primal Powers (short story)
Hidden Fire (novelette)
Paranormal Romance
The Ashport Mender Series:
Outsider #1
Persistence #2
Dissonance #3
Convergence #4
Historical Fantasy
Avarice
About the Author
G.K.Lund is an independent fantasy author with a love of old stories and folklore; anything that’s dark, weird and wonderful. It’s a good thing then that G.K. is based roughly somewhere in the realm of Scandiwegia where old myths are plentiful. G.K. has a background in archaeology (dirty nails and all) and will probably have to put an archeologist into a story one day. Until then, potty-mouthed and kickass characters with other jobs will have to face high stakes and save the day.
Connect with G.K.
www.gklundwrites.com
Malicious Magic. Copyright © 2021 by G.K. Lund.
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