by Kira Brady
Gah. She threw the fire tube at him.
He snatched it out of the air. “Not good enough? I designed it to be so efficient that it should last you at least six months before you need to refuel. You can adjust the height of the flame too.” He turned the base of the tube clockwise and flicked the switch again. This time the flame was short, the size of a regular lighter.
He’d made it for her? “What’s it cost me?”
“What is it worth to you?”
She eyed the tube. She’d lost her lighter, and she needed fire to burn the bodies so another wraith couldn’t animate them. Not to mention all the other things she could use it for—light when the torches blew out, fire to keep warm, a weapon. “Not much,” she lied.
“Then the price won’t be much, will it?” Asgard stood and sauntered closer. His ancient green eyes hid a hint of laughter. “Maybe we should sweeten the bargain.”
Grace didn’t bargain with the devil. She always ended up on the losing end.
The Dreki invaded her personal space, blocking out the light and smoke of the lamps and the sound of the whirring machines. Leaning in, he put his face next to her ear. His hot breath on her neck sent shivers racing down her spine. It’s not real, she reminded herself. It’s just a Drekar trick. He’d screw anything as long as it had a soul.
“Regent—”
“Leif,” he breathed.
Oh, Freya, no. She would never call him Leif. “Send me on an assignment.”
He pulled back. “Why?”
“Otherwise I’m going to keep taking whatever job I can find. No matter the danger.”
“Right.” He unzipped half her hoodie before she could protest, slid the tube and the Deadglass into the front of her corset, and zipped her up again. He lifted her chin with one long, elegant finger. “I demand payment.”
She steeled herself.
One corner of his broad mouth curled. He leaned in, cinnamon and musk curling her toes in her boots. The clock on the wall seemed to still, an eternity stretching between the threat and the reckoning.
And he feinted a hairbreadth from touching her lips. His mouth hovered by the delicate rim of her ear. “I’ll collect later.” Then he turned and strode away, leaving her with the Deadglass and the tube lodged heavily between her breasts like a twenty-ton IOU.
How dare he try to ensnare her further in his debt? She was going to pay that bloody thing off and stick the golden slave bands up his ass.
“What about my—”
“Weapons are on the table in the foyer,” he called back. “Your sad excuse for a bicycle is on the factory porch. Your cat ran and hid; good luck finding him.” The reddish-gold light wreathed his head, steam clouding the end of the laboratory like sulfur smoke. He looked more inhuman than ever. She would be smart to remember that.
For Freya’s sake. Leif threw the nearest rack of beakers across the room in a satisfying crunch. Why did he have to make an ass of himself? His grandfather would have washed his mouth out with lye. He’d always fancied himself civilized. A gentleman. But Grace brought out the barbarian in him. Something primitive took hold, the dragon that had crawled out of Tiamat’s primordial waters. Unrefined. Ruthless. Hungry. It took one look at that little hellion and wanted to eat her up. She called to his deepest, basest appetites. One sarcastic glance from her, and his gentleman’s gloves came off. Raw-knuckled and raving, he might as well knock her over the head with a club and drag her back to his cave by her hair.
Gods, what was wrong with him? He’d baited her. It went against every chivalrous bone in his body. She’d believed he was the worst sort of lowlife. Believed he would force himself on an unconscious woman, and it made him spitting mad.
But rather than proving her wrong through his actions, he was actually living up to her poor expectations of him. Exchanging favors for the flame thrower, indeed. He had designed it especially for her after seeing her need for a dependable lighter. It was just a silly trinket, but it could make her life a little easier. What had possessed him to bargain with her for it? Maybe he was just as mad as Sven after all. He had always prided himself on his logical, scientific thinking, but she made all the blood in his brain rush south.
Freya take Sven and his blood slaves. Grace demanded a job, but he couldn’t knowingly send a woman out into danger. He couldn’t in good conscience refuse to let her pay off her debt either. He was in a bind.
Leif rammed his shoulder into the copper boiler next to him. It fell and cracked on the hard stone floor. The clang reverberated through the room.
Erik Thorsson, his brother’s deranged right hand, burst into the room with his sword drawn. A berserker of whom legends were made, he’d never really crawled out of the primordial soup. “Regent!”
Leif straightened and ran his hand through his hair. “Ah, Thorsson.”
“Who attacks?”
“No one. Nothing. I was just . . . getting out a little bit of aggression, don’t you know?” Leif picked up a beaker and hurled it at the wall, where it shattered.
Thorsson gave him a blank stare, but put away his sword. Leif could breathe again. “The girl . . . bothers you? I’ll take care of her.”
“No! No.” But a thought occurred to him. “Follow her, Thorsson.”
“But—”
“Keep her safe, but don’t let her see you.” Normally, Leif wouldn’t want a Dreki like Thorsson anywhere near a woman, but Thorsson had taken Sven’s loss personally and poorly. All his considerable loyalty was now stuck squarely on Leif. Leif could use that to his advantage. The berserker wouldn’t cross him.
“And Thorsson—don’t touch her.” He leveled his stare at the larger man, and the Dreki bowed his head.
“Understood.”
She was his.
Chapter 5
Grace found Bear and stormed out of the lair. Her dinged-up bike waited for her against the porch of the weather-worn mansion that had once housed Loki’s Chocolates. The Drekar had replaced the damaged mansard roof and shattered, leaded-glass windows, and painted the new wall boards cherry red. It looked almost respectable. She put Bear in the plastic daisy basket that hung from the handlebars and walked the bike down the long, brick walk toward the iron gates. Two hulking Drekar guarded the gate, weapons ready, eyes glowing in the darkness. They leered at her.
She ignored them, as she always did, because she was the Regent’s property and therefore untouchable. Mounting the rusted bike, she headed down the hill and through the Drekar city of Ballard. At least Asgard had had the decency to bring her ride. Him and his stupid offended honor. What game was he playing? He didn’t act like any of the Drekar she’d met. They all went out of their way to put her in her place.
Thinking of Asgard put a sour feeling in her stomach. He wanted her to trust him, but the moment she let down her guard, she knew he’d strike. The thin hint of dawn drew an outline of the Olympic Mountains across the horizon. It was just enough light to find her way onto the old Interurban highway that connected Ballard to downtown. Since the bridge over the canal had survived the Unraveling, extra effort had been made to clear the road. Now it cut through the debris like a spell-tipped blade, from the Drekar territory in the north, past the Kivati stronghold of Queen Anne, and down to the human-occupied sections in the old downtown. Sections not directly controlled by a major player were at the mercy of highwaymen. But at least the highwaymen kept their sections free of aptrgangr. If they charged a toll on the section they guarded, who could complain? It meant humans could walk safely to the shanty pubs and tent cities that had sprung up along the road.
At the foot of Queen Anne Hill, she passed through the closed-up stalls of the Needle Market. It had grown overnight like a weed between cracks in the cement. Most of the supplies were salvaged: canned goods; clothing; building materials, mostly straight nails and reusable wiring; two-by-fours that had been cut from the bones of houses no one lived in anymore. The original owners were long gone, or if they weren’t, no one was around to enforce property
rights. Other stalls offered magic materials of dubious origin and effectiveness. Fortune-tellers and heathwitches made a brisk business in portents and potions. For the right price you could hire a priest or shaman to exorcise the evil spirits from your house. Crystals, gris-gris, dried cat gut, pickled bat wing, powdered dragon bone, new age books dug from the rubble—anything and everything could be found at the Needle Market.
Not that those little magics worked, but the belief they did helped some people sleep at night. Grace wanted to pound stall owners for taking advantage, but who was she to take away that little bit of hope? If it helped . . . every little bit was worth it.
By the time she reached the crater that had swallowed the land from Pike Place to Belltown in the Unraveling, the back of her neck had started to itch. It could mean nothing, but she hadn’t survived this long by ignoring her instincts. Time to find company. She skirted the crater until she came to the new Butterworth’s Tea Room and Opium Parlor. The original building, a former mortuary and funeral parlor, had crashed along with the rest of Pike Place Market. The new location was a bland warehouse, but inside it was almost like old times. The sentimental patrons had dug Norgard’s giant carved dragon bar from the rubble and placed it center stage in the new bar overlooking the hungry sea.
She almost liked the new place better. It perched dangerously on the edge, and that’s where its patrons had always been. Misfits like her and power brokers like the mayor, glitzed-up girls and Ishtar’s Maidens selling their wares. Opium fiends and goth clad wannabes. University kids and ravers. They all mixed and mingled under Butterworth’s red glass lights. It was the perfect place to see and be seen, or to hide away in full view, as she liked.
“I’ll be back in a bit, Bear,” she told the cat. He gave her a baleful look, but stayed curled up in the plastic basket. She locked the bike against a metal grate on the side of the building. So Asgard didn’t like her bike, huh? Even a “death trap” like this was valuable post-Unraveling. A ride, any ride, was better than walking. The dragon emblem carved on her lock kept it relatively untouched. She wasn’t too proud to use her Drekar connections when she had to.
Entering Butterworth’s was a little like coming home. Doc, the bartender, kept the place hopping just like old times. Those who hadn’t made it to shelter for curfew stayed all night. Even now the opium booths were packed. On the parquet floor people danced like it was the end of the world, and perhaps it was.
Grace slipped in and out of the crowd until she found Oscar.
“You should know, girlfriend, that pissed look is scaring away my mark.”
“Tough. I need to talk to you.”
Oscar sighed theatrically and followed her off the dance floor to the great, carved bar. They found Hart, the only one of Norgard’s mercenaries to have won his freedom, already staked out on a bar stool next to his wife, Kayla. Hart was a Kivati Wolf who wore Bad like a cologne and ate Dangerous for breakfast. People saw him coming and ran the other way. Grace had seen beneath the sarcasm and big bad reputation to the gruff, but loyal, heart underneath. But he wasn’t one of them anymore. He’d rejoined the Kivati, and if the bump under Kayla’s striped dress was any indication, his pack would be increasing in size.
She made Oscar sit between them.
“Still sore?” Oscar whispered.
“He abandoned her.”
“He went back for Kayla. She’s forgiven him, why can’t you?”
She cleared her throat and motioned to the portly bartender.
“Be gentle, Reaper,” Oscar said. “Strength doesn’t mean you know how to carry a heavy grudge.”
“I can hear you, you know,” Hart growled.
Stupid inhuman hearing. “I thought now that you scrape for Corbette, you’d gone soft,” she yelled over the noise of the bar.
Hart growled. She could feel it in the vibration of the air, the raised hair on the back of her neck that had her instincts ready to run. The Mad Wolf looked out of his human eyes. The thin violet band around his iris flooded into the black. Grace held her breath.
But then Kayla put her hand on Hart’s knee, and the tension rushed out of him like the tide fleeing the beach.
Damn, but Grace would never get used to that. Shaking her head, she pulled the Deadglass out of her shirt. “Asgard gave me your ghost finder—”
“Keep it,” Hart said. “Ain’t many ghosts on the Kivati’s hill.”
She smoothed her fingers over the brass. It could come in handy, especially if Bear was going to be picking up new friends. Her lip curled. She stuffed the Deadglass back beneath her shirt. “You’re going to stay then?”
“Seems like it.” He leaned in. “Corbette has us scouting outside the city. Outpost towns are being picked off one by one. Whole populations, gone. I’d rather lay low beneath his stuffiness’s dark shadow than stick my neck out as bait, if you know what I mean.”
“I wonder how many of those frontier people are now haunting our fair city. Aptrgangr numbers are up.”
“Lose your bands, Reaper,” Hart said, and the gold slave bands around her upper arms seemed to heat. “That gold won’t do you no good on the other side of the Gate.”
“Soon, Wolf.” Not soon enough. Grace waited until Doc had filled their drink orders, then said her good-byes and motioned Oscar to follow her. She needed to get away from Mr. Big Ears. Slipping through the crush, she cradled her teacup against her chest until she found a secluded alcove. Between the exposed brick and a steel beam, she tossed down the oolongtini.
“Liquid courage?” Oscar raised his eyebrow and leaned in. “Well, well. What could be so serious that our dear Grace needs a drink?”
“Screw you.” She slouched against the wall and watched the undulating mass of bodies. She wanted him to ask. She wasn’t sure how to say it herself. She wasn’t good at this talking thing. “You know I never ask you for favors.”
He crossed one pin-striped leg over the other and twirled his teacup around his finger. “Never, darling. Asking is the hardest part.”
Oscar got her. He was her best friend, and she could always count on him to understand what she didn’t say. He was pretty close to paying off his own blood debt. She didn’t want to imagine doing this job without him at her back. “Asgard has decided to get involved.”
“Finally. I was beginning to think I’d be reduced to selling my secrets to the Kivati, and they’re not worth much now that the old bastard is dead. So what job did Asgard give you? Need a friend?” Oscar leaned forward.
“No, he thinks we should be sitting on our asses, safe.” Grace snorted.
“How boring. I don’t think I’ve been safe since I was nine.”
“Like anywhere is safe. In the last week alone, five people have reported seeing the shadow of a monster-sized, three-headed dragon.”
“Kingu?”
“Sounds like it, but Asgard doesn’t want to hear it. What’s in Seattle that Kingu would come back for? That slice of the Tablet of Destiny? I don’t think anyone has seen it since Rudrick used it to open the Gate. Asgard is busy playing with his machines and pretending to work with the Kivati. He doesn’t want to bloody his lily-white hands.”
“I see. But you’re looking better.” Oscar motioned to the side of her face where her bruises had disappeared.
“Yeah, about that.” She shifted in her seat. “Did you ever get healed by Norgard?”
Oscar sat back. “Sure. But a right nasty business. I try to win my dragon’s blood from a different source.”
“Who, Zetian?” She tried to imagine Oscar sleeping with the Drekar female and failed. Zetian was like a black widow; she’d bite a man’s head off.
“No. Other mercenaries. Let them pay Norgard’s price. I bet them for their bottles. I never lose.”
“You never bet me.”
“You never have bottles.”
If the Drekar blood could be drunk like a cordial, it didn’t need sex magic to work. A cold sickness rolled through her belly. She’d never examined Norg
ard’s claim too closely. Had he ever come right out and said that she needed to fuck him to heal? He had never offered her bottled blood. A Dreki couldn’t lie outright, but he could suggest like crazy. She’d just assumed it wouldn’t work.
They both watched the movement through Butterworth’s for a long moment. Beneath her calm face, rage boiled up. That bastard. How had she survived so long being such a blind fool? She didn’t want to hear this. She’d never asked the price before. They didn’t talk about hard stuff like that. You didn’t make friends when none of you would be around long.
So many of them went on assignment and didn’t come back: Savona and Peter; Kat laid down by a Kivati bomb; Emmett, Bill, Andy. Grace had buried Molly herself on the bluff so she could always see the sun stain the sky red and pink over the mountains. Not even four months in Norgard’s service; Molly came back, but she wasn’t Moll anymore. A ghost had a way of disassociating with the living. It didn’t belong on this side of the Gate. It warped. Festered.
I’m going to go now, she thought. But she didn’t speak. She just left. Fuck Oscar. What was she supposed to do, huh? He could have said something, but would it have been worse knowing? She’d always suspected, deep down, that sex magic wasn’t a necessary part of the Drekar blood’s pull. But she’d wanted to believe it. It made everything easier. First she’d wanted to believe Norgard loved her. Then she’d wanted to believe it was necessary to take some of the pressure off. To make it less dirty. To take away some of the responsibility for her actions. She’d slept with Norgard only to heal. It wasn’t a choice. Gods damn him.
“Wait, Reaper.” Oscar followed her out of the stuffy bar into the grey light of dawn.
A raincloud of ash drizzled to the north. The waves crashed angrily against the ruined seawall a few stories below the edge of the crater. Scavengers were already hard at work. They crawled over the pile of twisted metal in front of her like coal-blackened monkeys. Kids as young as five or six edged along the top floors of the gutted tower. With the windows blown out, the sea air barreled through, whipping their thin little jackets and pulling them closer to the dazzling drop.