“The depression, no?” Gregor asked, struggling to find the proper word for the mental disorder.
“Something like that.”
“New home, new problems. Homesickness deadly, find some way to – how do you say – cheer her up?”
“I don’t know how,” Asher admitted miserably.
“This month, isn’t it a big time for couples?”
Asher stared at him blankly, the emptiness of his deep blue eyes saying what words didn’t.
Gregor snorted. “You have a woman,” he pointed out. “You must know of the Valentine’s Day.”
He had heard of it, just never celebrated. Wasn’t that where candy was exchanged for kisses or some other form of affection? He chewed on his lower lip, considering. “What does one do on Valentine’s Day?” he finally asked.
Gregor sighed deeply. “My woman and I exchange cards. My sister and hers have scavenger hunts, it depends on couple.” Clearly done with the conversation, he got back into position to continue cutting the tree, probably regretting asking Asher what his problem was in the first place.
Asher got into position, too, but talked while he pushed and pulled the saw. “Genevieve likes hunting,” he said more to himself than Gregor. “What else do people do?”
“Give one another candy–”
“I knew that one.”
Gregor scowled at him. “You want answer or no?”
Asher nodded as the tree began to give under the pressure of the saw. Its sap slowed their work but Asher didn’t notice, he was too engrossed with this idea. He could do this, he could make Cora smile again; he just needed more ideas. He could give her something normal that would make her happy. At least he hoped he could.
“Heart balloons, lover’s cards, snowdrops–”
“Snowdrops?”
“It’s what us Danes call the flowers. White flowers are snowdrops.”
Asher nodded, surprised when the tree started to topple. It crashed to the snow, sending a wave of powder up into the air when the force of the trunk struck through the soft snow. Gregor stepped up beside him and clipped Asher on the shoulder. “You don’t have to overthink, something simple is enough for a good woman.”
Gregor then leaned forward and grabbed one of the branches between his gloved fingers and started dragging it, leaving a divot trail through the snow as if he were actually pulling a sleigh. Asher usually would step forward to help him, but as Gregor had observed, he was distracted.
Gregor said he could go simple, but Asher didn’t want to go simple. Cora deserved everything, especially with what she had been through before coming to Denmark. What she had been through because of him; because she’d had the misfortune of meeting him. Without him she could have gone on prosecuting evil, but now she was on the run.
She was not a simple woman, she was complex, so she deserved the most complex Valentine’s Day Asher could possibly offer her.
2
Reigniting an Old Flame
The dream still haunted her. The nightmare she still seemed to live and the ghost from the past who still stalked her in sleep.
Krone.
The former handler during Asher’s assassin days had decided Cora was preventing him from reaching his full potential and so had decided to kill her for Asher’s own good. He had almost succeeded.
He had abducted her from Asher’s apartment, locked her in a storage unit and sliced her open again and again to send a message to Asher, or just because he enjoyed watching her bleed.
She shuddered as she remembered. The way his fingers felt tangled in her hair, holding her steady, honestly just as unpleasant as the knife itself. The way he cackled in her ear every time she screamed. Enjoying her pain. Reveling in it. The monster who had tried to make Asher a monster just like him.
In her nightmare she watched that knife as it traced over her flesh. Watched blood bead up from the hollows of her vessels, and listened to Krone’s endless laughter, so uncanny she was instantly back in that storage unit. Instantly a prisoner again.
She shuddered again.
She had loved being a bounty hunter, loved bringing evil to justice, she had taken down men thrice her size and dragged them before the law like it was nothing, but nothing had prepared her for Krone’s elevated training and if Asher hadn’t saved her right in the nick of time, she would not have been able to save herself. Perhaps that was the worst part of all: she no longer felt confident in her ability to defend herself, and there was no way to prove otherwise while in hiding.
They were incognito, completely removed from the action their previous lives had held so much of. For this reason, she and Asher were both having trouble adjusting to their new lives. Their new monotonous lives of taking odd jobs under new names. No more bounty hunting for this pioneer, only under the table payments at a nail salon of all things. That was one thing Cora had never bothered with when planning her disguises unless the occasion truly called for it. She needed fancy nails when hunting some extravagant bounty. Rich bastards noticed everything and never would have believed she belonged at some expensive country club without elongated fake nails. She found they mostly got in the way when it came to weapon wielding, so she typically skimped on manicures. Yet now she was painting nails for tips. Irony was a cruel mistress.
They mostly hired her because she spoke English, most of the customers in that part of Copenhagen were tourists which was why Asher had chosen that location. “More foot traffic just like us, less likelihood of standing out,” he had said as if it were that simple and his company didn’t have people on their payroll specifically trained to hunt down deserters.
Especially deserters that killed their handlers.
“Excuse me?”
Cora looked up from the dish of murky mineral water designed to soften hands. She had been gazing at her own reflection for lord knew how long, just reliving the nightmare from the night before.
A plump older woman stood over her table with a polite All-American smile that was tight and didn’t touch her eyes, barely upturning her features. “Are you available?”
She was talking slow, as if Cora couldn’t understand her. “Yes, please take a seat.”
The woman’s eyes flashed with surprise, and some relief. “I wasn’t expecting someone from the United States,” she admitted as she sat with a plop. “You look to be about my daughter’s age, she moved here to study abroad. I’m just here to visit, but I admit, I am a little homesick and a manicure is the one thing my husband lets me treat myself to at home.”
“Well that’s why I’m here. What would you like?” Cora took the woman’s meaty hands and examined her nails.
“Hearts for Valentine’s Day,” Cora’s customer said cheerfully.
Valentine’s Day already? They had only been in Denmark for a few months but it was months spent obsessing over the past, it was almost a surprise to find that time had proceeded forward. What had happened to Halloween? Or Thanksgiving? Or Christmas for that matter. Not that it mattered, she hadn’t really done much to celebrate the holidays since her father was killed. No family, you know? The holidays are insufferable with them, but pretty bland without them. “Valentine’s Day manicure it is.”
The woman presented her barely chipped nails. Clearly, she was only before Cora for the experience.
“So, are you not enjoying your time in Denmark?”
“It’s more for young people,” the woman sighed. “I love your accent. New Jersey, right?”
Shit, Cora thought, keeping her expression passive. She had been trying to rid herself of her accent for this new identity. It would be one of the most defining characteristics about her that an assassin from The Company would be looking for. When faced with an innocent looking plump woman however, she hadn’t given it much thought and lowered her guard enough to sound like herself. Which is why this unsuspicious tourist was exactly the type of person The Company would send. Cora cleared her throat, “Yes, I moved here for college, just like your daughter.”
&n
bsp; “Working your way through college then?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Cora lied as she massaged a salt scrub into the possible assassin’s hands.
“Do you ever get homesick too?”
Cora’s hands faltered a moment, then resumed their work. It was more than just fear she had been feeling. She was homesick, she realized. She missed her old life chasing down bad guys and making sure they received every legal punishment imaginable. She missed Brett and Trudy. She missed not having nightmares every night and not being suspicious of everyone. Homesick and haunted, not a great combination.
Cora finished the client’s nails, painting each a bright pink then stamping on red hearts while listening to her bland gossip and retrieving her small tip. That was one thing about tourists, most of them didn’t tip well. Cora sighed once the woman had left, staring back into the murky mineral water she had just replenished, when one of their regulars, Gloria, burst into the door with a loud ding.
Cora jumped, instantly alert, not that she hasn’t been painfully alert the entire time since coming to Denmark.
“There’s a man selling cigarettes to children!” she declared loudly. Gloria was known for being dramatic, it seemed to Cora that she was flamboyantly emotional about all things, but this caught her immediate interest.
In Miami where Cora had lived as a bounty hunter, she had gotten a whole drug wing of the local syndicate busted for doing just that. Only it had been methamphetamines instead of cigarettes, but potato-pitato, right?
“Where did you see such a thing?” Flora – the shop owner who always enabled Gloria if for no other reason than she was a great tipper – asked, aghast.
Cora could guess where she had seen it, just up the road there was a school. She diverted her eyes out the window, searching for this mysterious man passing out cigarettes to minors. She saw nothing, even though the school was in full view.
Typical, the loud witness had run their mouth and scared away the game before it could be caught. Rookie mistake.
“Right up the road! What should I do?”
Well, don’t bother going to the police. They’ll take your statement and file it into the trash-bin, Cora thought.
“You should go to the police,” Flora said. “They can set up surveillance.”
Unlikely, but maybe the police in Denmark were more reliable and more likely to follow-up on a complaint of this level. After all, Cora didn’t know anything about law enforcement in Denmark, but she’d had to deal with so much incompetence from police in Florida that she was skeptical.
“I’ve already reported him!” Gloria sputtered.
Sounds about right, Cora thought bitterly. If it were her, she’d apply her own surveillance. It could be boring, but it paid off when some jackass selling addictive drugs to children saw the inside of a cell for their dirty deeds.
“They said they couldn’t waste resources,” Gloria went on to whine and Flora gasped at the audacity of it. “I mean, what could be more important than the safety of our own children?”
What indeed? Cora wondered, heat blossoming behind her neck, a familiar desire to rise up and do something, put a stop to the madness, then an equally familiar feeling of helplessness chilled the heat of her passion. She couldn’t do anything about it. She had to lay low, for her life and Asher’s. So that The Company, no doubt hunting him for his desertion, didn’t find and kill them both.
She couldn’t do anything to help, the children would just have to be smart enough to say no. As if...
“There he is again!” Gloria shrieked and everyone, including Cora, turned their attention to the window.
He was short in stature, with a thick build hidden beneath a baggy sweatshirt. He leaned forward into a hunched posture and walked with a slight limp. His face was hidden by a ball cap and a beard, scraggly hair sticking from beneath his hat as coarse as straw. Cora took in as many details as she could in the two seconds it took for him to limp past the salon window. It was second nature now, an instant response to devour as many details about a person just in case she needed the information later on.
Without much thought, she got to her feet and jogged out the salon door after the perpetrator.
“Genevieve?” Flora called after her just before the salon door closed behind Cora. Once outside, she started power-walking a safe distance behind him, but still within her line of vision. She didn’t want to spook him and was confident that she wouldn’t. Men were hardly bothered by women following them down the street, most didn’t even notice, but this man peeked over his shoulder, looking at her from beneath his ball cap before picking up speed.
Cora blinked back her surprise and started walking a little faster after him. He broke into a jog, she broke into a jog, and so it continued until they were both sprinting down the decorated streets. He zigged into an ally and Cora zagged after him. For a man with a limp he was fast, it felt as if as soon as she rounded the corner he was rounding another and she would lose sight of him until she made the next turn.
Then, as she was starting to gain, he ducked out of sight again behind a sales cart being pushed into her way by a merchant selling white roses and huge heart-shaped balloons. She skidded to a stop just before colliding with the man’s cart and tried to look through the balloons rattling together in the breeze. Her perpetrator was gone.
“Shit,” she panted, realizing with a quick shiver that she was outside in Denmark, running down the trampled snow-covered streets in her thin tee shirt with the salon logo on it. She had been chasing a man through alleyways. What calls more attention than that? Sighing, she turned away from the trail her legs were itching to follow, and walked back to the salon where, as she expected, several women now gaped at her. Yep, she had gotten their attention and quite possibly ruined her and Asher’s new identity. Double shit.
She would have to tell him and they would have to move and start another mundane life somewhere else.
To hell with it, she thought bitterly as she plopped back down at her station with her arms crossed, if she had just exposed her identity anyway, might as well go all out.
Coraline Santos was back.
3
Love Unrequited
Gregor had told him that the Hotel D’Angleterre was the most romantic historical spot in all of Europe, so Asher scrounged together the little money he had earned and booked a room. Cora wouldn’t be expecting a fancy place like that. They had gotten so used to freezing rooms really only big enough for one of them, so Asher did not expect Cora to discover him before he was ready for her to.
He had purchased several balloons from a street vendor, enough to covertly fill the room, and then some. He walked out with what remained clasped in his hand. Red heart balloons even if the main color of Valentine’s Day for the Danish was white.
As he exited the hotel with a slight spring in his step, the most spirited he had felt in a long while, Asher noticed a child running around the gardens outside. He slowed to watch the young boy pull back a slingshot and shoot birdseed through petals on flowers, at unsuspecting bugs, or at some imaginary foe.
The slightest shadow of a smile tugged at his cheek as he watched him, perfectly innocent and oblivious – something Asher could never recall being himself.
One balloon string slipped from Asher’s fingers as he passed him, floating up towards the sky. The boy looked up, his mouth dropping into a curious O, as he watched the balloon float lazily upwards.
Asher held out the remaining bundle of balloons. “Trade?”
For a moment the child looked confused, then took the balloons and held out his slingshot and birdseed.
Taking into account the wind speed and direction, and the weight of his ammunition while ignoring the stickiness of the grip, Asher pulled the slingshot back to his cheek and fired the seeds into the air. The balloon exploded.
I’ve still got it, Asher thought with some satisfaction, turning to return the slingshot to the boy, then froze.
A figure with
the same business haircut, same body type, same posture as Krone stood watching him and the boy.
Krone was dead, Asher knew it logically. He’d pulled the trigger. He’d watched the bullet strike Krone between the eyes and blast out the back of his skull, killing him before he could hurt Cora anymore. He knew Krone was dead, and yet his stomach still tightened as his blood chilled in his veins.
“Mr.? Are you all right?” asked the child in a heavy accent, concerned at Asher’s sudden blank stillness.
Asher looked down for a split second before he returned his gaze back to Krone. Or where Krone had been. When he looked back up he was gone, his figure having evaporated into mist.
“Mr.? Do you want your balloons?”
“Keep them,” Asher mumbled, searching the horizon for his old handler. He could have sworn it was Krone himself. Asher swallowed; apparently Krone’s ghost didn’t just haunt Cora.
On the walk back to their cramped apartment, Asher felt the need to look over his shoulder with every crunch of snow beneath someone’s boot, and any flash of movement to his peripherals. He was always aware of his surroundings, some training simply could not be undone, but now he was hyper aware of himself and the world around him.
He checked over his shoulder every few steps, thinking what Krone would say to him if he were alive to see him now. “You can’t represent The Company looking like a homeless man,” he would scold. Krone always wanted Asher to remain well groomed, so now Asher let his beard grow a bit scraggly and his hair was long enough to tickle his neck and sweep just over his ocean blue eyes.
“An expert marksman such as yourself shouldn’t be associated with such a witch,” Krone’s imaginary words echoed through his head.
Stop.
“Look how weak she has made you.”
Enough. His traitorous mind did not listen; instead it remembered what Cora had looked like laying on the ground covered in her own blood with Krone’s foot positioned over her fingers as if ready to crush them.
Heart Song Anthology Page 6