“I wasn’t born yesterday.” I watched its long, lean body amble by, its legs easily my height.
It laughed, the sound lapping at the warm pine-scented air. “Perhaps to me you were. I find myself …” It paused, searching for the right word. “Startled by your mediocrity. All this way to this land of people and you are but mere distractions. Perhaps when I am done with you I shall find a settlement and watch the living fall before me.”
It would be hours before Osiris heard of the rampaging creature straight out of myth and legend terrorizing a sleepy New Hampshire town. Hours during which the Recka could easily wipe out the inhabitants of nearby North Elway. Where were all the heroes when you needed one?
Shu was uttering a spell under her breath. I had no idea what kind, but the Recka didn’t seem concerned, though it could surely hear her. As powerful as Shu was, she only had whatever spell she could muster on the spot without any preparations. The odds were against us.
A black streak dashed between Shu and me and the Recka and disappeared beneath the beast’s belly.
By Sekhmet, Cat, you’re insane! I tightened my grip on Alysdair.
“For an ancient being, isn’t all this a bit beneath you?” I lifted my tone, adding a touch of nonchalance. “Or maybe you’re no longer the terrifying legend I remember from—”
“There is only one Recka, Soul Eater.” It reared up on its hind legs and spread its shining wings wide. And there was the little black cat, sitting on its haunches, ears pricked and tail twitching. The air pulled in and snapped out where it sat, creating a brief, silent flash of light that ended with the Recka screeching. Its cry resounded through the forests like the whine of a power saw, only a thousand times louder. Not only had Cat found a soft spot, she’d also opened the Recka’s gut in one long, bloody smiling line.
As the beast fell forward and Shu’s chanting grew louder, I rushed in with Alysdair aglow and hungry in my grip. The Recka landed on all fours, blood spilling over the road in a great gush, and charged.
Shu’s spell broke, lashing by so damn close its razor edges tore at my face. I searched for Cat’s fast-moving figure, but she’d vanished the second the Recka had roared, and now five thousand pounds of ancient Egyptian dragon beast was coming right at me.
I lifted my gaze.
In the last moment, with the beast so close I could feel the heat of its breath and smell the metallic tang of blood, and before my gaze would’ve locked with its cold yellow eyes, I brought Alysdair up, showing the Recka the blade’s mirror-smooth flank.
Shu’s spell struck at the same time, sinking its barbs in and yanking the beast up into a motionless stop. It didn’t make a sound, and for a heartbeat, the forest and the air froze with us. I couldn’t look—I wanted to, but if its power was intact behind Alysdair, I’d die just like everyone else who’d looked in its eyes over the centuries.
The Recka slumped and yawned over, falling with all the grace of a felled tree. That’s when I heard the wet schlurp and peeked out from behind Alysdair. Cat was perched atop the fallen Recka’s crown, and with her clawed hands, she’d scooped out its eye. She brushed her hair back with the back of her bloodied hand, smearing blood across her forehead, not that it mattered. Blood and fleshy pink Recka innards streaked the rest of her naked body.
She tossed the gelatinous orb to the ground and went to work on the remaining eye, cutting around the nerves and scooping it out like the first. Done, she snagged both eyeballs by their arm-thick optic nerves, slung them over her shoulders like they were fashion accessories, and strode to the bridge rail, where she tossed them over the edge.
My thoughts tangled at the sight of a bloodied shifter who’d just taken out an Egyptian legend with a little help from Shu’s magic, Alysdair’s polished shine, and the Recka’s own reflection.
“I’m disturbingly turned on right now,” I told Shu.
Shu’s brow arched. “Keep it in your pants or she may cut it off.”
3
“Funny how the Recka seemed to know you. What were its words? Familiar?” Shu lifted the highball glass to her lips and eyed me over the rim.
The Inn’s bar I’d found her in looked a lot like someone’s living room, with its mismatched chairs, reclaimed tables, and old locals hunched over their drinks as though they were part of the furniture. Small windows kept out the early evening chill, but also the light, plunging the room and its regular patrons in warm shadows.
Cat was out on the porch, boots up on the railing. I’d checked in on her after we’d gotten settled in our rooms, but beyond a lazy glance, she didn’t seem too interested in having company, and certainly not mine.
I could’ve chosen somewhere more private to have my little heart to heart with Shu, but I didn’t want this to turn into a raging disagreement, the kind that involved magic that would have the locals dusting off their shotguns.
“I’m certain I’d remember meeting the Recka before now.” I pulled out a chair and sat at the table that had once been a whiskey barrel. Someone had thought they were being artsy by repurposing it and planting a sheet of glass on top. “The Recka is—was ancient.”
“Is it dead?”
Back at the bridge, I’d stabbed its carcass with Alysdair and spoken the words, but I hadn’t taken the creature’s soul. Drinking down something as ancient as the Recka would’ve, at best, left me high as a kite for days, and at worst, completely knocked me out at a time I couldn’t afford to be off my game. Having recently come off a bender that almost saw me wipe out New York’s witch population, I didn’t need that kind of power tempting me all over again. I’d have liked to tell Shu the Recka was dead, but I wasn’t even sure Alysdair had devoured it. The body had turned to ash, as they always did, and the breeze had swept up the papery snow, leaving nothing to indicate that anything extraordinary had taken place. It was gone, and that was all that mattered for now.
“With beings as ancient as the Recka, death is negotiable.”
The whole bar was aiming for a two-hundred-year-old feel, but the TV, free wifi, and artificially distressed furniture overshot the mark by decades—and I should know. I’d seen the region when the Pequawket tribe had thrived in the valleys during the summer months.
“So it didn’t know you?”
I leaned a forearm on the table. “Let’s talk about your favorite topic: you. How did the Recka know how to find us?”
She put her drink down, her dark eyes flicking down with it. “I really have no idea.”
“You really don’t, huh?”
The corner of her lips turned up in a hint of a smile. That smug look told me she knew where this was going and she’d give me the runaround because she could. We both knew I wouldn’t toss spellwords around a small-town inn.
“How many times have we had variations of this conversation over the centuries?” she asked.
“Too many.” I sighed and leaned back in the creaking chair.
I thought we’d gotten over these petty games. She hadn’t tried to wiggle out of the curse for decades. Before that, it had been a regular battle between living with Shu and stopping her from slaughtering a village to power a spell that would’ve reduced me to the kind of trinket in market stalls back home. And yeah, she’d tried. She didn’t want me as a noose around her neck any more than I wanted her as a demon on my back. But lately, these past few years, things had settled between us.
She leaned back, mirroring my posture. “When was the last time I tried to screw you over?”
“Chicago, nineteen thirty-three,” I replied without missing a beat. “You gave the Outfit the runaround and put me right in the middle of it.”
Delight sparkled in her eyes. “Good times.”
“Sure, when you aren’t the one being ambushed in an alley by mobsters with twitchy trigger fingers.”
“They were just a distraction.”
They’d distracted me all right. I’d spent the next six months trying to placate the Outfit bosses and convince them I wasn’t some out-o
f-town hotshot muscling his way onto their territory. Meanwhile, Shu had been busy preparing the kind of spell that, had I not stopped it, would’ve trapped me in a timeless bubble while she rampaged through the thirties. Good times indeed.
“The Recka knew exactly where we were,” I said, bringing us back around to today and what it might mean for us tomorrow.
“Did you ask Cat? She has motive.”
“What motive?”
Shu ran her fingers down her glass’s edge. “She believes you killed Bastet.”
I stifled another sigh. What was it with people believing I routinely killed gods? Did I have a look about me that proclaimed Godkiller, or was it something I’d said? The only god I’d killed was Thoth, and he’d done most of the killing himself. I just happened to be holding the murder weapon.
“I’d know if Bastet was dead,” I said and was met by Shu’s thin, dark eyebrows arching upward. “Even if there was any indication she’d died, why would I have anything to do with it? It doesn’t make any sense. Cat’s smart. She knows that.”
Shu’s smile had hardened into a grim line. “Why is she hanging around you like sandflies on a camel if she thinks you’re innocent? She’s part of Bastet’s clowder. She’s honor bound to find her goddess, and if anything has happened to her, she’ll avenge her queen. You think she just decided to forget her oath and stay with us in New York to play at being part of our supernatural cleanup crew?”
Cat’s reason for staying was something I couldn’t answer. Early on, she’d been suspicious of me despite my denials, but she’d observed me long enough to know I was innocent—mostly.
“I’ll talk to her.” I could imagine how well that conversation would go down. Rubbing Cat’s fur the wrong way usually resulted in her claws coming out, and I was man enough to admit those Recka-killing claws were intimidating.
“Maybe redemption sounds sweet to the kitty?” Shu suggested.
That would’ve swung it but for one thing. “Cat’s soul is light. Sure, it’s a little tainted, but she’s mostly good. She doesn’t need redemption.” Unlike the demon stuck in a woman suit sitting opposite me.
Shu’s shoulders bowed as she seemed to deflate. Cat had sure looked like a decent scapegoat.
Shu glanced around the bar, but her focus was off, her busy thoughts elsewhere. Out of the three of us, Shu was the obvious suspect in leading the Recka and a vurk to me. Shu hadn’t been on the beach, she had motive, and it’s Shu. Her whole existence revolved around getting rid of me.
“Let’s quit with the games, Shu. We both know how redemption sounds. Shit, I’d hand me in for that too. Just know I’m on to you, and if you pull another stunt like the Recka before I can figure out a way—”
She abruptly stood, scraping her chair across the floor. “Till death do us part, arsehole.”
Me and the rest of the folks in the bar watched her stride off, smooth dark hair swishing, heels stabbing at the solid floor. Her power crackled, invisible to all but me. She was pissed. I’d found her out. Sometime soon, she’d show her hand, and I’d better be ready. I’d stopped her in the past, but that just made her more determined.
“Hey.” I figured it was best to warn Cat of my approach than startle her and find a fistful of claws in my gut, especially since she was gazing off into the dusk-smothered forest, her eyes focused on something far beyond my ability to see.
She blinked slowly and lifted her head, arching an eyebrow at the sight of me. I’d abandoned the coat and shrugged on a crumpled gray long-sleeve shirt over my black pants. She looked me over in that way of hers, stripping me down to raw information.
The rapidly cooling evening air had kept Cat wrapped in her sweater. She’d hunkered down in a weathered wooden chair and still had her boots propped up on the railing. She looked as though she had no intention of moving until dawn.
“What you did today—”
“Forget it.”
Yeah, I wouldn’t be forgetting the sight of her covered in the Recka’s blood anytime in the next few centuries. I’d seen some magnificent and horrifying sights over the years, most of them in the name of one god or another, but I’d never seen a shifter in her element, not even Bast—not outside of temple ceremonies.
“I’ve been around a while …” I leaned against the post holding up a little pitched section of porch. “Only a fraction of it spent as Ace Dante.”
Her shoulders tensed. She’d seen some of what the real me looked like, a monster of shadow and sand. Maybe that memory haunted her nightmares same as it did mine.
“I’ve never seen anyone as efficient or ruthless at killing, and that includes Bastet.”
Bastet was the Queen of Cats, the Protector of Women, and a warrior of the old ways. She’d commanded armies and helped topple kingdoms. If she wanted someone or something dead, Bast didn’t fuck around. Cat was so much like her and yet so … different in smaller, undefined ways.
Cat’s pulse delicately fluttered above the smooth curve of her neck. I couldn’t get a read off her face, turned toward the forest as it was. I’d hoped she’d take my words as a compliment, but around Cat, I was forever expecting her to declare that I’d insulted her honor and turn me into soul eater confetti. Lethal and beautiful—a dangerous combination.
“You’re not just one of Bast’s warriors, are you?” I said, sliding my gaze across the quiet track leading from the Inn toward the town farther down the valley. A small stretch of grassy lawn gave way to the forest, and as night descended, darkness crept toward us. “You’re her best.”
“She had no favorites.”
I noticed the past tense. Was I the only one who believed Bast was okay? Putting aside the fact that gods don’t die easily, Bast was too stubborn to die. She wouldn’t go quietly either. The pantheon would know about it, just like they’d known Thoth had “died.”
“We’ll find her.”
Cat bowed her head. “We will.”
There was a way of finding out for certain. It was forbidden, but that had never stopped me before. “Next time I’m in Duat, I’ll ask the souls in the Great River if she’s among them.”
“You can do that?” Hope lit up her shining night-sensitive eyes, and an odd little flicker of something flittered in my chest.
“Officially, no.” I smiled and left the rest unsaid.
She opened her mouth, probably to ask how, when the tinny clatter of an old car engine upset the quiet. Twin headlight beams tunneled through the dark as the car trundled toward the Inn. I recognized the rust-patched Volkswagen as it pulled to a stop in front of the Inn, as well as the driver who flung the door open.
“Get down!” the woman from the store yelled, looking right at me. Her coat was skewed, her cheeks flushed. There was no mystery as to where that bottle of wine had gone.
I took the couple of steps down off the porch and heard Cat plant her boots on the timber boards behind me. Time for an intervention.
A screech, like knives on slate, was all the warning I had before something punched me low in the back. The blow shoved me forward. I stumbled over my steps and nearly went down.
Cat’s bubbling snarl joined the unmistakable flap of leathery wings. I twisted, knowing less than a second had passed, yet the world had slowed. My heartbeat was labored and the air in my lungs thickened to syrup.
Poison. I knew it, even recognized it in that split second between feeling the barb sink in too close to my spine and seeing the wyvern beat the air above me, its stinger-tipped tail lashing back and forth. Too late, too slow, I lifted my arm to block its attack. It struck again—struck at my heart—and punched the stinger deep into my chest.
I saw Cat leap, reaching for the wyvern’s tail, and I heard the beast’s distinctive cry, but it was all happening so very, very far away. The wyvern sailed free, and with it went my strength. I was on my knees with no memory of falling. It wouldn’t kill me, but knowing I’d live didn’t make the chilling cold spilling outward from my chest and back feel any better. I clutched at my h
eart as the pitiful organ slowed. It wouldn’t kill me, would it?
The woman from the store stood over me, her watery eyes full of sadness. She may have said something, but all the sound in the world had washed away, leaving behind the thud-thud of my straining heart and the slow pump of my ice-cold blood. Numbed to everything but my own thoughts, I saw Cat rush in, her eyes shining in the dark. She was saying something about getting me inside, about getting help, about calling Osiris. I didn’t want any of those things, because I knew—trapped in silence—that the wyvern wasn’t the worst of it.
Cat hooked her hands under my arms. A stout, ruddy-faced guy had rushed out to help, and together, they lifted my limp body. I couldn’t feel any of it and only heard muffled voices, but I could see. I saw it all. I saw the small crowd gathering, and among them was the woman from the store, head bowed under her hoodie. I saw the silver in her eyes and the private little smile on her cracked lips … lips I’d kissed. She’d been different then—a different person a day ago. All light and laughter, eager and flirtatious.
The mark on my neck throbbed—a bite left in the heat of passion. Bethany-Jane, the one-night stand from the resort. But Bethany-Jane had been a lie. I should’ve known. My fling had left her mark on me, a way to track me into New England. Bethany-Jane hadn’t been a bartender or a middle-aged lonely drunk. The woman who’d set the wyvern on me wasn’t a woman at all.
She was the demigoddess Kabechet, Anubis’s daughter.
4
Cat paced, chewing on her bottom lip as she held my cell to her ear. She had to be dialing Osiris for the fifth time. Besides Cujo, there wasn’t anyone else to call on. Osiris hadn’t answered the first four times and he wouldn’t until it suited him—if at all. People came and went from the room, housekeeping asking if they could help make me more comfortable, and the hotel manager offering to call the paramedics, likely covering his own ass should I decide to sue over the wyvern in the rafters.
See No Evil (The Soul Eater Book 3) Page 4