Poisoned Kisses

by Stephanie Draven

  “Very well.” Hecate sighed. “You’ll find the hydra in the New World. He’s on his way home, because he’s about to lose someone very dear to him indeed.”

  Niagara Falls in winter, with its thundering gray river, was gloomy as the Styx. Kyra watched the netherworld entrance of mist below the tumbling water of the falls, and waved to the receding shade that had been Marco’s father. Kyra hadn’t killed him, but she’d guided the stubborn old man a little ways when he died. Giving him some light between the threshold of this life and the next had seemed like the least Kyra could do. She even let him see her as a sweet angel, because it seemed to comfort him.

  He spoke of his estranged son, how heartbroken he’d been to lose Marco to a world of weapons and war. Kyra didn’t add to his burden by telling him that Marco had become a monster in truth and that she planned to cage him for the greater good. She’d built a dungeon to contain him. Now she just had to find a way to lure him there.

  Of course, Kyra couldn’t just put on a sexy outfit and pick up the hydra in a random nightclub again. He’d be wary of strangers now, and twice as dangerous.

  Fading so that none of the mortals could see her, Kyra made her way to the funeral home. That’s where inspiration struck. Marco’s ex-girlfriend made only a brief appearance—just long enough to express her condolences to the family. Long enough for Kyra to study her face and memorize its shape.

  Ashlynn Brown wasn’t the sort of woman that Kyra would’ve expected to find in Marco’s past. The hydra was a fierce warrior; she’d discovered that from painful firsthand experience. So how had he ever cared for someone so delicate? With doe eyes and fawn hair, the woman looked as if she were ready to bolt at the first sign of unpleasantness. It’d be tricky to impersonate such a meek woman, but it was the best idea Kyra had.

  Kyra waited until Ashlynn left, then took on her appearance, right down to the prim black dress. The soft eyes, the rosy skin, and the wavy hair that could not seem to commit to being either light or dark. She even disguised her peridot choker as Ashlynn’s classic string of pearls.

  The hydra might trust Ashlynn. He might go home with Kyra if she looked like Ashlynn. Then she could lock him up in the basement dungeon she’d built and Daddy would never find him.

  Marco knew that funerals were for the living, so the least he owed his family was to show up wearing the face his mother recognized. Consequently, he eschewed all disguises and made his way down the funeral home’s hallway in a dark suit and overcoat, bracing for the inevitable reunion; he just didn’t expect it to be with Ashlynn Brown.

  His ex was sitting on a polished wood bench by herself. Her hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders, and she still dressed like a society girl, but there was something different about her, if only he could put his finger on it. Perhaps it was the confident tilt of her shoulders and the alluring smile. Or maybe it was the way she looked at him like he was some kind of hard candy she wanted to suck. No. That was the look the angel of death in Naples had given him, just before she tried to kill him. So why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?

  Ashlynn stood to greet him, a bouquet in her hands. “So sorry about your father.”

  If they’d been anywhere else, he’d have brushed past her without a word. Ashlynn Brown belonged to another part of his life. Another life entirely. Still, it was his father’s funeral, and she’d been good enough to come, so he fumbled for a polite reply. All he came up with was, “Asphodel?”

  Ashlynn seemed to suddenly remember the white lilies in her hand. “Oh! They’re for your father. I’m told it’s an old Greek tradition.”

  “Very old.” In one of her saner moments, his mother told him that ancient Greeks used to plant asphodel on the graves of their ancestors to nourish them in the underworld. But Ashlynn had never been interested in his family’s ethnic heritage, so this was an entirely unexpected gesture. “Thank you…”

  “Can we go for coffee, Marco? After, I mean?”

  It was a spectacularly bad idea. The funeral dredged up enough bad feelings without adding a trip down memory lane to the equation. He’d only come to pay his respects and comfort his mother; then he planned to leave the country. There was a storm coming, and he had a jet waiting under an assumed identity in Toronto. But in spite of everything, the way Ashlynn looked at him, the way she seemed to look into him, made it hard to refuse.

  Damn it. He was over Ashlynn Brown. He hadn’t thought of her for years. He wasn’t even sure he’d actually been in love with her when they were engaged, so why should he feel a pull toward her now? After all this time, he couldn’t imagine what they’d even have to say to each other, but bless her shallow little heart, Ashlynn might be the only person from his past still willing to speak to him.

  “Sure, why not?” he found himself saying.

  Chapter 5

  His father’s casket was white. An oddly fitting color. White was stark and cold, intolerant of any blemish. Just like his father had been. And yet, Marco didn’t resent the old man. His father had fled from war-torn Cyprus with his wife and child in tow. He’d lived a difficult life, and Marco hadn’t made things any easier. I’m sorry, Marco thought, reaching out to touch the dead man’s cold hand. But his father couldn’t give him forgiveness now; he wasn’t really here.

  Grief tightened in Marco’s chest. It hurt so badly, he stuffed his hands into his pockets to keep them from shaking. Just then, his sister, Lori, marched to his side, and after ten years, the first words his sister spoke to him face-to-face were, “You shouldn’t be here.”

  She’d lost weight; her face had become all sharp angles, and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. He supposed he hadn’t made her life any easier, either. “Lori, can we not do this now? It’s a funeral.”

  “He didn’t want to see you even when he knew he was dying,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Why would he want you here now?”

  Marco had resolved not to fight with Lori today, so he clenched his teeth instead.

  “Unless…” His sister’s tone lightened with hope. “Have you given up…what you do?”

  “I can’t,” he ground out. “I’ve told you before, there are people whose lives depend on me.”

  His sister sniffled. “Then why are you here?”

  “Because he was my father, too,” Marco said, desperate for a cigarette.

  His sister softened and turned into his arms with a sob. He kissed the top of her head, but the tenderness of their reunion was broken the moment she felt his holster. “You’re wearing a gun?” Lori whispered furiously. “Don’t you know everyone’s watching you?”

  Marco had been in such a grief-stricken stupor he’d hardly noticed the other mourners. Now he realized there was a staring crowd. Were they waiting for him to cry? Or were they watching him because of his notoriety? Even if people didn’t know exactly what Marco did for a living, there were rumors. “Bet he’s in the mob,” he thought he heard someone whisper, and he had to restrain a dark and bitter laugh. Their imaginations just weren’t fertile enough.

  As the wind outside rattled the funeral-home windows, every eye seemed to settle on the expensive sunglasses that dangled from the pocket of his tailored suit. Every glance felt like judgment, except for one. Ashlynn was there, like some kind of beacon in the midst of a sea storm. As if she had some kind of innate understanding of his mourning. And when their eyes met briefly across the crowd, it unexpectedly steadied him. At least, until he saw his mother sitting by herself. “Ma?”

  “Oh, Marco, I’ve been waiting hours to see the doctor,” his mother said in Greek. “Can’t you speak to a nurse about moving up my appointment?”

  She didn’t know where she was. Maybe she didn’t even know her husband was dead. Marco tried to smile, tried not to alarm her, but he couldn’t make himself do it. “How are you feeling, Ma?”

  “I’m so sad,” his mother said, her scarred cheeks drooping. “I’m always so sad.”

  When he was a boy, she used to say, “I left
my smile in Cyprus.” He never understood until he was a soldier. Until he saw for himself how ethnic fighting splintered communities, broke nations and stole the happiness of the survivors. Now, from her wheelchair, his mother reached for his hand. “It’s so dark Marco. It’s black as night.”

  But it wasn’t. The darkness was inside his mother’s mind, and Marco felt it creeping into his own. “I’m sorry about Dad.”

  “I’m frightened,” his mother said, her voice rising in terror. “I’m frightened. I can’t find my way!” She lifted her hands, clawing at her face as she retreated back into that shadowy place of madness.

  Marco caught his mother’s wrists and called for Lori, but Ashlynn got there first. She stooped down and gently took his mother’s hands from his. “It’s not that dark, Mrs. Kaisaris. If you just look at me, I’ll guide you.”

  Marco wanted to push Ashlynn away. This was none of her business and she should stay out of it. But his mother stopped struggling. “Oh, the light,” his mother murmured and in that moment, Marco thought he saw something flicker over the old woman’s scarred features. Something like…grace. “But you’re—you’re not Ashlynn, dear.”

  “Of course she’s Ashlynn,” Marco said.

  As a teenager, his ex had always been polite about his mother’s illness, but shied away from her, as if madness were contagious. Now, Ashlynn let his mother grip her hands like they were a lifeline, and didn’t pull away even when the older woman’s nails dug into her skin. “Ma, let Ashlynn go,” he said quietly. “You’re hurting her.”

  “It’s all right,” Ashlynn said. “She’s hurting worse than I am.”

  Lori pushed forward with a bottle of pills and his mother’s nurse in tow. “Both of you get away from her,” his sister said, glaring at Marco as if he’d caused his mother’s outburst. Ironically, it was the one damned thing he didn’t feel guilty about today.

  “You’re okay now, aren’t you, Ma?” Marco asked. “I’m right here with you.”

  “Please,” Lori said, acidly. “She doesn’t even know who you are. On the days she remembers you, she tells the doctors that her son was a soldier, a peacekeeper. And you know what breaks my heart, Marco? She sounds proud. Ma’s mind is so far gone she doesn’t have any idea that you’ve become some kind of mercenary.”

  He shouldn’t have this argument. Not now. Not again. Not here where everyone was listening. But being home again was opening every old wound. “I’m not a mercenary,” he hissed, voice low. “It’s not like I sell weapons to the highest bidder. I choose sides in the world.”

  Lori just shook her head, angry tears in her eyes. “But nobody elected you to choose sides, Marco.”

  “The people we elected are doing a shitty job of it!” Marco wanted to slam something. He wanted to kick over chairs, or crash the floral displays to the floor. It was only Ashlynn’s hand on his arm that calmed him and gave him the presence of mind to fish a check from his coat pocket. “Here, take it.”

  That’s when Lori realized it was a check. “I don’t want your money,” Lori snapped.

  Marco took a deep breath. “Funerals are expensive. You can’t afford it with the house, and mom, and the restaurant—”

  “Your money is blood money, Marco. I think you should go.”

  And, for once, his sister was right.

  Chapter 6

  Kyra was shaken.

  It wasn’t that she thought she was the only person in the world whose mother suffered from mental illness. But in confronting the hydra again, she hadn’t expected such a stark reminder of her own past. It made her feel sorry for Marco Kaisaris and, somehow, she was going to have to shake that off.

  She’d managed to get the hydra to agree to go for coffee. If she played this right, she could lure him into the basement dungeon she’d built for him, and then neither his poisonous blood nor his bullets could ever hurt anyone again. But Marco didn’t look like he was in any mood for a caffeinated beverage. He maybe needed a Scotch on the rocks, not a latte.

  Once he’d helped her into the car, he was distant, but showed no signs of suspicion so she must be doing a good job of impersonating Ashlynn. Then again, the man had just lost his father. She had him at his most vulnerable. “No one ever tells you how much smaller a person looks in death,” Marco said, pulling out of the parking lot. “It’s like something’s missing, as if their spirit took up physical space.”

  “Oh, but it does,” Kyra said emphatically. But now wasn’t the time to give lessons to mortal men on the physicality of the soul. Snow was turning to sleet, and it was good that Marco was driving because Kyra had trouble concentrating on the road. She was too busy watching for signs that Daddy was on her trail. She knew to be alert for the vultures of Ares or Athena’s telltale owls, but here in Niagara Falls, Kyra had to be just as wary of the local echo god who once carried Iroquois war cries on the wind.

  “Listen, this was a bad idea, Ashlynn.” Marco’s black-gloved hands tightened on the wheel. “We’re not just two old friends going for coffee. You don’t know me anymore and, trust me, you don’t want to.”

  “I know you’re in some kind of trouble with the law,” she replied.

  When they stopped at a red light he looked like he wanted to reach for the unopened package of cigarettes on the dash. Instead, he folded a stick of gum into his mouth and crumpled the wrapper. She watched the way his strong jaw worked under his five-o’clock shadow. “Some kind of trouble with the law…is that what my sister told you?”

  “Would she have been wrong?” Kyra asked, avoiding the question.

  The light changed, but Marco didn’t drive through the intersection. Instead, he abruptly pulled over to the side of the road. Gravel popped under his tires. In the oncoming sleet, traffic cut past them in an angry blur of headlights and windshield wipers. “I can’t do this,” Marco said. “I can’t just pull into some coffee shop and sit down with you in a crowd and act like—”

  “You don’t have to act like anything.”

  He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I can’t do it, Ashlynn.”

  This wasn’t going well. If he made her get out of the car, then all Kyra’s scheming would be for naught. Scrambling for an alternative plan, she tried to play on whatever sense of chivalry he might have. “Can you at least drive me home?”

  Marco gnashed at his gum. If he’d known who it really was beside him in the car, he’d have left her stranded—or perhaps even strangled—on the side of the road without a second thought. But when he finally glanced at her, he nodded.

  “I’ll give you directions,” she said as he pulled back onto the road.

  “I remember the way.”

  “No, I just bought a new house,” Kyra said, and that wasn’t even a lie. So they drove up Niagara Parkway, mostly in silence. She’d chosen the desolated location carefully—just about as remote a place as one could get and still be in Niagara Falls. But once they were in the hinterlands, he was impatient. “Just how much farther is it?”

  “Not far. Up ahead after the turn. You should come in. I can make you that coffee.”

  “I just need to drop you off, and leave. This time for good.”

  So that’s how it was going to be. Kyra hadn’t planned to use her powers right away, but unless she did, Marco Kaisaris was going to disappear again before she could stop him from becoming one of her father’s minions, or from putting AK-47s into the hands of another group of child soldiers. Luckily, Kyra saw the guardrail up ahead. Staring intently, she concentrated all her power. Ever since she’d been poisoned, it was painful to do this and she knew it’d weaken her, but she had no choice.

  She was a nymph of the underworld, a torchbearer of Hecate; a mortal like Marco couldn’t bear the light she cast. Widening her gaze, she flashed her inner torchlight so brightly that it hit the guardrail reflectors and bounced back into Marco’s eyes. He brought his hand up as a shield against the sudden glare, but it was too late. Temporarily blinded, he lost control. They hit a patch of ice. He cursed
, pumping the breaks, but to no avail. The car spun out and crashed in an explosion of shattered glass.

  Kyra found herself face-first in a ditch, covered with shards and pieces of metal. She’d been thrown from the car and something inside her felt ruptured. The pain was so intense, she couldn’t catch her breath. She was bleeding. It shouldn’t hurt this much, she thought, as she fought for air. She should be healing faster. But she wasn’t.

  Gasping as icy water seeped into her clothes, she thought for a moment she understood what it was to fear death. And having used all her power to cause the accident, it took all the strength she had to maintain the illusion that she was another woman entirely.

  Dazed and bleeding, Marco found himself standing in another ditch staring at another motionless body. He was confused, momentarily unable to orient himself in time or place. His instinct was to reach for his gun and radio for air support. It was only the snow that reminded him he wasn’t in some war-torn country in Africa. What had happened? Had he hit another car? If so, where was it? He only saw his own rented Jaguar in the ditch. And Ashlynn. She lay half-submerged in the water, bobbing like a beautiful but broken doll.

  The sight sent a jolt of adrenaline through him. Climbing over the wreckage, he jumped into the ditch, slush up to his waist. His overcoat fanned out behind him, soaking up water, becoming a heavy drag, and utterly worthless against the piercing chill. Still, he desperately slogged forward.

  Grabbing Ashlynn by the shoulders, he pulled her out of the ditch. He managed to push her up onto the snowbank and drag himself out after her. He was grateful to find her breathing and at least semiconscious, but her teeth were chattering. He had to get her somewhere warm. And fast.

  He hoped the keys in her coat pocket were for the house at the top of the hill. It didn’t really matter; it was the only house around. He’d break the door down if he had to. Lifting Ashlynn into his arms, he carried her up the snowy driveway, his dress shoes sliding on the ice every few feet or so. She made a weak protest but he ignored it. There was no way she could walk on her own given her condition. Besides, as he recalled, Ashlynn wasn’t built for adversity.