Shea winced and shook his head. “Already tried it. His talent is as scrambled as the vampire's."
"Figures. No shortcuts."
"Like you said. We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way. Everyone ready?"
"I've been ready since I got here,” Renee muttered darkly, surging to her feet. “C'mon, folks, we're burning moonlight."
* * * *
Loki woke to a strange tingling sensation. He lay on his back in a dark, damp place, something heavy sitting on his chest. What the—?
He reached up and tried to dislodge whatever it was and sank his fingers into something fleshy and warm, more than a little like a huge, steaming pile of dog crap. He jerked his hands away, stomach roiling. Well, as a bonus, at least it doesn't smell like dog shit.
He lay there in the blackness for a while, careful to keep his breathing slow and even. His body could manage on very little oxygen, so he took small sips of air. He wasn't too worried—Renee would find him. He knew that as well as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow. As long as one didn't intersect the other.
He lifted his head, trying to pierce the gloom to figure out what, exactly, was laying on his chest. No dice. The darkness was all-encompassing. He lay back again, muttering under his breath. How humiliating. Him, the great Loki, caught like some foolish mortal, waiting to be rescued by his girlfriend, of all people.
He tried to sit up, levering himself against the weight on his chest, but only succeeded in bashing his head against something only a about a foot and a half above him. He reached upward, ran his hands around for a moment.
I'm in a bloody coffin. Someone had a twisted sense of humor.
* * * *
Malice sat only a few feet away, staring unblinkingly at the pine crate in which he interred his immortal captive. It hung suspended by a chain above the ten-foot pit he'd excavated the previous night. He could sense the creature's awakened state, as well as the low thrum of fear he broadcast. Pain was no way to torture an immortal. Isolation was a far better tack to take—at least at first.
He reached out with his mind and flicked the switch wired to the chain. The crate began to descend in a series of short, jerky movements the occupant was certain to not only feel, but understand. Malice thought it vital the victim knew what was happening to him. He felt the urge to laugh out loud but suppressed it savagely. The isolation would be more severe if he heard nothing before Malice buried him alive—no clue to anything about his situation. He must have nothing but that situation to focus his emotions on, no target to focus anger upon.
He loved the fact that immortals couldn't die through suffocation. He knew from personal experience, however, that it was very uncomfortable not to breathe for any extended period of time. Discomfort was different than pain, he'd found. More insidious. Another weapon against immortals.
The crate slid into the earth and settled with a muted groan. The mound of dirt beside the pit slowly began to fall in, then grew into an avalanche of moist, fragrant soil as Malice added the pressure of his mind behind it.
In seconds it was done. Now to leave him to stew a while.
* * * *
The immortal who thought of himself as Stormchild strode purposely across the stage, ignoring the expectant stares of the two dozen or so pairs of immortal eyes sitting in the small auditorium. He was a tall man, over six and a half feet, and his broad shoulders were half covered by the lion's mane of gold-blond hair like a cape hanging halfway down his expansive back. He faced those assembled with the calm, slightly jaded eye of a practiced performer. An audience was an audience. Even these immortal bums.
It was a better turnout than he'd expected. Apparently Shea's tactics offended quite a few more of them than he'd realized.
Stormchild—once called Thor—was a master of the element of Air. When he spoke, it reached every ear in the house without any need for electronic amplification. “Greetings,” he said, with a slight bow. He placed the guitar on its stand and smiled out at those gathered before him.
"We all know why we're here,” he said. He waited to see a few nods. “As immortals we've always been independent,” he continued. “We've each gone our own way, not bound by loyalty to any authority, be it earthly or some legacy from Alantea. Now, after twenty-five thousand years, Deryk Shea wants to re-establish his authority by calling on us to accept him again as Captain, subtly reminding us that we owe our lives, or at least our freedom, to him.
"The purpose behind mortal labor unions is so the individual members can negotiate as one solid front. This is what I propose we do—unify, not necessarily against him, but to make sure our own interests are served.
"What say you?"
"What personal interest do you have in this, Thor?” The voice came from the back, a deep bass rumble he recognized instantly. One of the immortals had taken the name of the disease that had made them what they are. Thanatos. The one who had taken the visage of Death, claimed the form of the Grim Reaper as his own. He always wore it with other immortals. Stormchild thought it likely he only wore it with other immortals.
Of all those he'd never expected—Thanatos hadn't even attended the Gathering. He hadn't been seen in years. He was one of the lost ones, the twenty-five immortals who'd vanished into the anonymity of the teeming throngs of humanity. As had Loki, he mused, though most of them knew where Loki was now, and something of what he'd been up to.
It had always paid to keep one eye on Loki, no matter what else was going on. A wary eye for the trickster was something that had become almost an unspoken tradition among them. Stormchild wasn't surprised Athena had thrown in with Shea. She'd never been the strongest among them. Sif, on the other hand...
"You think I'm trying to gain power myself, Thanatos? I've never cared for it much more than the rest of you. Why would that change now?"
Suspicion had become the immortals’ stock in trade. At least, for most of them. For some of the same reasons he mistrusted Shea, others might mistrust him. Made them more independent than ever—that was what time and separation had done to the immortal race.
"People change,” came a second voice out of the crowd. Stormchild picked the wind-tanned face of Manennen—once worshipped as a god of the sea by the ancient Celts—an immortal man who'd spent more time on the deck of a ship than he had on land. He also hadn't gone to the Gathering. “I follow no man but myself."
"I am making a proposal, nothing more,” Stormchild said, his amethyst eyes cool as the north wind. The temperature in the room literally dropped a few degrees. “I don't care who's in charge. I never said I wanted the job."
He saw surprise on enough faces that he had to laugh. He shook his head. “People may change, Manennen. But we rarely do. We will elect one of our number to represent us to Shea. Do you want the job, Manennen?"
The sea god shook his head. “No, thanks."
"Is anyone truly opposed to this idea, or just opposed to me in that position?"
No one else spoke. “Fine. We need to figure this out. I nominate Thanatos."
"Thanatos?” Sif stepped out of the crowd, her voice incredulous. “Shea won't accept Thanatos—he sees his grim reaper affectation as proof of mental instability."
Stormchild wasn't happy to see her. “I thought you'd become one of his lackeys, Sif."
She threw back her head and laughed. There wasn't a lot of true humor in the gesture, more like a streak of bitterness a mile wide. “What, and take scraps from his hand like a tame dog? Uh-uh. Not my thing—you should know that as well as anyone, Thor.
"I nominate myself."
"And we should trust you so much more than we trust Thor?” This from Morrigan, a tall redhead who, for all her paleness and flame-red hair, still managed to project the image of her symbol—the raven. Maybe it was the black trench coat that somehow billowed around her even in the stillness of the auditorium.
He remembered Morrigan, if only by reputation. She'd been an assassin back on Alantea, one of the few immortals who had been a criminal
from the outset. Deryk Shea would no more accept her—assuming that was what she was after—than he would Thanatos. Sif, as much as he hated to admit it, was probably the best choice.
"Any more nominations?” He wasn't sure which would bother him more. That there were no more, or that he wished there had been.
* * * *
"This is Deputy Breed. She's on loan to me from the Pierce County Sheriff's Department,” Stone said, walking up to Shea's forest green SUV with a tall, slim, slightly horse-faced blond women with piercing emerald eyes.
Dressed in street clothes, Athena had to admit the woman didn't look all that much like a cop. She might have been in her late twenties, and certainly wasn't what anyone would consider pretty in any normal sense, but something made her appearance remarkably striking. Maybe it was the eyes—they were large and deep, with a hawk's piercing intensity. Something in the set of her jaw spoke of considerable determination.
"The trail starts here,” Renee murmured, climbing into the front seat beside Shea. He gave her a quick nod and started the engine. He barely spared the Deputy a single glance.
"We going to all pile in this thing, or are we taking different cars?"
"We'll be in her unmarked,” Stone answered. “Don't worry, we'll keep up."
"Great,” Shea grunted. Athena wasn't sure what to make of his attitude. A little put-out, she could understand. Dragged out of his cozy office space to chase an immortal he was less than fond of in the first place—reason enough to be irritated.
He slipped casually out into traffic, leaving the parking lot with the practiced touch of someone who drove all the time, though Athena knew Shea rarely left his building—he lived in the penthouse apartments, had his own gym and dojo on-site, and rented the back side of the first floor out as nightclub, in case he wanted to go ‘'out'. Though he would've been the only person Athena knew who considered clubbing in one's own building to be going ‘out'.
He was an odd sort of recluse, but a recluse nonetheless. Not that most immortals find a way to hide from the world. I don't think I've really had a ‘life’ since the French Revolution. Strange to think of that now.
Renee hadn't quite stuck her head out the open window, but the window was fully down and she inhaled deeply of the night air. “I can smell him, but..."
Shea grunted. “Give it some time. You may have the senses, but no experience using them like this. And an immortal's going to be harder since he's unlikely to have been wounded. No blood."
"Sounds as though you've spent some time thinking about this sort of thing."
"I used to hunt,” was all he'd say. “Take your time. I'll drive around for a while and give you a chance to look for a bit stronger tang."
"Tang?"
"Some place the scent lingers more, or has a stronger residue,” Shea explained, in a tired voice. “Just let me know if it gets stronger, or starts to feed into your telepathic sense."
Athena found herself nodding, remembering that, while he had no powers of his own, Shea seemed to have a talent for recognizing and making use of the talents of others. It was a minor talent, as such things went, but he'd always been able to make very good use of it.
Even so far as to recruit me into a position I never would have sought for myself. Athena had grown to enjoy it, playing investigator for Shea's insurance company. It didn't keep her particularly busy—he had other investigators and her title was, as she'd discovered, more or less ceremonial. She investigated what he called ‘the weird shit'.
She was the one he'd set to hunting their mysterious killer, along with Stone and, to a limited extent, Hermes. The other immortals were supposed to be helping as possible, but she had the nasty feeling they were simply avoiding anything to do with Shea and his ‘faction'. She'd heard a few whispers on the wind that one of the others was trying to form a council to represent the interests of those not of Shea's faction.
Their interests should be intertwined, considering they all knew what they were up against here. Pisses me off that they'd play politics at a time like this. This world, and the lives of everyone—everything—on it are at stake. The immortals, as much as they liked to pretend otherwise, weren't a hell of a lot different from the humans to whom they felt so superior.
* * * *
An hour of searching found them way the hell up on Sixth Avenue, almost so far as Jackson. Renee had picked up strong emanations from this direction, so Shea had gone with it. “Might as well head for Titlow,” Renee said finally, obviously frustrated by now. “I'll try another reading from there."
* * * *
Loki only knew darkness and the sound of his heart's indomitable beat. He expected to feel fear at some point; laying in this dark box, buried beneath several hundred pounds of moist earth, but he felt nothing of the sort. He felt oddly at peace.
Being deprived of any normal experience outside the box, his mind had started to manufacture things. He could almost feel the gentle lapping of water, a large body of it. Like a lake, perhaps, or the sound itself?
He stirred restlessly. His chest ached from the strain of not breathing, of not being able to breathe. Being immortal certainly had its compensations. It also, as he was discovering, had its share of tortuous moments. He settled back, straining not against his physical bonds, but the psychic bonds that held his soul in his body. He'd never had any of the gifts of moving outside his physical shell, but sometimes necessity—and he did deem this necessity—could help a new ability manifest.
He hadn't left his body, precisely, but somehow, inexplicably, it felt as though his body had expanded. He could feel the minute living things, the worms, the beetles, and other similar things crawling in the earth around his prison. But that wasn't all. Not far away he could feel the chill of water—the Puget Sound.
On the edge of his awareness. There! People, mortals, moved within the range of this new sense. Mortals who were seeking him. How he knew this, he couldn't say. It wasn't as though he read anything of them, only their existence, their proximity, but he knew something of who they were, what they sought. One was Ian Stone, the federal agent, the one who knew far too much about the immortals—the other was a child in comparison, knowing little other than her duty.
Just a little farther away, moving in a group, he could sense others like himself—Athena, Shea, and ... Renee!
* * * *
The vampire's head snapped up. “I feel him nearby,” she called to the others, who'd spread out in a ‘V’ formation and were walking through the park more or less together. Stone and Breed were ahead of them, beginning to skirt the brackish, foul-smelling tidal pool that formed the centerpiece of this particular city park.
"Where?” Shea scowled, peering into the darkness ahead with a fierce look in his eye.
Renee shook her head. “Not far. North, along the beach, maybe?” Her uncertainty seemed to bother her. She thought she should know instantly, now that some part of their connection had been re-established. “His presence is still diffused somehow, but more so. It's like I'm sensing something much larger than a human body."
"We're not human,” Shea responded. “Come on. I think I know where to look."
Eight
They walked along the railroad tracks. “Careful,” Shea warned. “The trains come through here very fast—we may not have a lot of warning."
He'd apparently intended this for the benefit of the mortals. Stone offered him a flat, cold stare, barely visible in the gloom.
Breed seemed more amused than anything. She and Athena exchanged grins.
"Your concern is appreciated,” Renee murmured, “but it looks as though we have a bigger problem than a train."
"What?"
From the underbrush beside the tracks exploded a teeming mass of small, squatty creatures, squeezing through holes in the chain link fence and rushing toward them in a mob. At first glance, they looked a little like monkeys, or some sort of small baboon, but their charcoal gray skin, floppy bat-wing ears, and beady, malevolent glares told a
different story. Clad in piecemeal armor and wielding small swords barely visible in the darkness, they swarmed the group with all the feral rage of a pack of starving rats.
Stone had his gun in his hand and fired repeatedly into their midst. Small, vicious things spun away, spraying blood, but there must have been a hundred or more of the creatures. What Athena found the most eerie, considering, was that they attacked in perfect silence. There were no snarls, no taunts, not even the sound of harsh breathing.
Shea had insisted she go armed at all times, though, of course, it was impossible for her to carry a sword everywhere she went. It would draw stares, if nothing else. She loathed guns as a general rule, so Shea settled with her carrying a telescoping spring-like baton. He'd given it to her with a look of disgust that it wasn't something better.
She didn't care. She had the baton—an asp, that's what he'd called it—and used it to fend off a pair of these things by smashing their hands hard enough to disarm them. They snarled soundlessly, baring mouths filled with row upon row of razor sharp teeth.
She risked a glance over at Shea. He hadn't even bothered with a weapon, instead snatching one of the little buggers up and using it as a bludgeon against its fellows. That one actually made a sound, a high, keening noise like an air raid siren, choked off every time it struck something.
Apparently tiring of the noise, Shea slung it around and hurled it through the treetops toward the water just out of sight. He struck with hands and feet, lying absolute waste to any of the little monsters foolish enough to close with him.
The roar of Stone and Breed's pistols sounded like thunder echoing down the tracks. Well, if whomever took Loki didn't know we were coming, I'm sure he does now.
Then, as abruptly as they'd poured out of the brush, they vanished, picking up their few dead and disappearing into the trees. Stone nursed a nasty gash across his thigh and Breed held her left forearm and wrist gingerly.
"What happened?"
"One of the little fuckers got me,” Stone snarled. “What do you think happened?"
Loki's Sin Page 10