by Kira Brady
Loaded down with coal, the wagons made slower progress back along the highway. The Thunderbird never let down his guard. She couldn’t get close enough to see if he had the Tablet around his wrist, let alone to steal it.
The first night they camped at Seward Park, at the south end of the lake. Mist seeped off the water, covering the ripples and splashes of the creatures within. It was dangerous to stay so close to the lake, but more dangerous to camp farther in the ruined suburbs. No one had cleared the houses this far from the main city. The bodies of the fallen—or what was left of them after six months of decay, wild animals, and bugs had at them—still populated the neighborhoods. So many dead for wraiths to pilot. The smell of rot and mildew couldn’t be pushed back by the breeze off the lake. The park was the safest campground; it provided a large cleared space where you could see what was coming at you. The humans were nervous, even worse than the horses. Even the Kivati were on edge. They didn’t like sleeping away from their wards and cozy creature comforts.
Once the wagons were circled with the humans inside, the four Kivati, Oscar, and Grace drew straws for first watch. They would take the shift in twos. She drew the midnight shift with Rafe, a Crow with auburn streaks in his hair and a thin scar at the corner of his mouth. He moved like a pretentious ass, slow and careful-like, but his eyes were quick. Between his fingers, he flipped an unlit cheroot.
The embers of the fire had died under Johnny’s watch, and she toed the remaining logs together with her boot. Oscar helped her collect more wood beneath the nearby trees in the park. The cold wove its way through the thin cotton of her black hoodie. She blew on her exposed fingers to try to chase the numbness out of them. At least the rain held off. Kneeling by the pile of wood, she took out Asgard’s flamethrower and set it blazing.
Next to her, Oscar whistled. “Where can I get me one of those?”
She turned the lighter over in her hand, remembering the look in Asgard’s eye when he tossed it to her and the IOU he’d left. She could still feel his heavy promise lodged between her breasts. “Asgard.”
“That’s some present.”
“It’s not a present!”
“Sure, sure.” Oscar watched the flames crackle as the wood caught fire. “So what else did he give you?”
“What makes you think there’s anything else?”
Rafe sat on a rock a foot to her left, not helping. He stuck the cheroot between his teeth and grinned. “Pretty lil’ thing like you? ’Course there’s more.”
“Tools of the trade aren’t gifts. They’re practical. Doesn’t Corbette provide your weapons? Your armor?”
“So what was it?” Oscar asked.
She turned her back to the fire. The nearest house squatted a couple hundred feet away, on the other side of a pile of downed trees. Curtains blew out of the missing windows, beckoning. There was something out there, watching them. Something large and intent. She tried to ignore it, while keeping her spidey senses on alert. Either it would attack or it wouldn’t. “Hart’s Deadglass and a bike.”
“A bike,” Oscar said. “You’re not exactly a diamonds and roses sort of gal, dearie. Maybe he’s on to something.”
“Go to bed, Oscar. Your shift starts in four.”
“Did I ever tell you about Roxanne?”
She pulled the Deadglass out from beneath her shirt and adjusted the gears to clear her vision. “I thought we didn’t stroll down that particular dark lane.”
“You’re right. We don’t.” Oscar took a swig from the small silver flask he always kept in his vest pocket. “But Roxie was something else. Bosoms out to here, blond hair down to there. She could turn a man’s head was he eight or eighty. She was the bartender at Butterworth’s before Doc. A real ballbuster. Had the whole place jumping. One of Norgard’s own, you know? He said she was the spitting image of Wicked Nell.”
“His first madam out in Seattle?”
“That’s the one.” Oscar took another drink. A loud splash, followed by the screech of some small mammal, marred the silence. “I would have given my front teeth for one dance with Roxie.”
“But you never told her?”
“I kept telling myself I’d do it tomorrow.”
“Wrong business to be in if that’s your strategy.” For Norgard’s pawns, tomorrow had a bad habit of standing a person up.
“Tomorrow’s finally here. Doc’s got a new girl at the bar that promised me a dance when we get back.”
She lowered the Deadglass. “What do you mean?”
“This is my last job, Reaper.”
She blinked. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Didn’t want to jinx it, you know how it is. But we’ll be home tomorrow night. Give me an hour and I’ll be drunk as two fools in love. I’m feeling nostalgic. I’ve worked for the Regent since I turned eleven. That’s a good chunk of time runnin’ and spying and conning. This is my last night on the road.”
“Congrats. That’s really . . . great. Big plans?”
“Just that dance. Then, who knows? Probably find myself a rich sugar mama and retire. Don’t look so sad, Reaper. I’m not leaving, just changing jobs.”
She turned back to the tree line. First Hart, then Oscar. Soon she’d be the last grizzled veteran in the dog pack. “I’m pretty close myself.”
“Good to hear it. What will you do once you’re free?”
Asgard had asked her the same question. Avenge my parents, sat on her tongue. Maybe she wanted something more for her life. Her parents certainly had. In their minds her future had involved taking state in the piano competition, getting into a top university, maybe a doctorate from Cambridge, eventually a smart husband they picked out for her and, of course, grandbabies. Above all they had wanted her to be happy.
Was she happy? She survived. Maybe that wasn’t good enough anymore.
“I’m still thinking about it,” she told Oscar.
“Something grand, I’m sure,” he said. He rose and clapped her affectionately on the shoulder. Suddenly the distance she’d always kept between them seemed silly. He’d become her best friend, despite her attempts to keep him at arm’s length. Trying to protect her heart from getting hurt again hadn’t worked out if the thought of him leaving, even just leaving the mercenary corps, hurt so much.
She turned beneath his hand and wrapped her arms around his skinny waist. “I’m glad for you.”
“Be careful, Reaper,” Oscar said. He gave her a squeeze and slipped off to his bedroll on the other side of the wagon circle.
Careful? Ha. She’d been too careful with her heart and too reckless with her body. Where was the middle ground? She had maneuvered herself into a corner. How could she let go of all this anger? It had been her closest companion for five years. It propped her up when she couldn’t stand, propelled her forward when her feet ached too much to take another step. If she let her anger go, what would hide the well of fear that hid in the heart of her?
Rafe slipped next to her in the cold fog. “Lighter?” She dug in her pocket and handed him the toy. He flipped it over his fingers as he examined the small gears, the letter G carved into the brass. Lighting his cheroot between his teeth, he puffed out a breath and handed the lighter back. He followed her gaze out into the abandoned houses that ran along the edge of the park. Most had collapsed. Some from the earthquakes. Some from the mobs afterward. Ransacked, tagged with signs against the evil eye, anarchy and devil symbols, and indiscriminate biblical passages, the buildings held testament to the passing of the modern age. The time when technology was king. When brains triumphed over brawn. When television, cheap food, and armchair jobs gave rise to medical epidemics that only plagued rich, slothful nations.
God, she missed those times. What she wouldn’t do for a potato chip. Just one. Greasy, salty goodness. Her stomach rumbled.
The Crow chuckled.
“Shove off,” she told him.
“Here.” He took a piece of jerky out of his pocket and offered it to her. “There’s nothing wr
ong with it. See?” He tore off a piece and popped it in his mouth. She watched him chew, swallow. Waited to see if he would suddenly gag. He looked okay. Her stomach rumbled again. He grinned, a bit feral. “You aren’t afraid of a little food, are you? I thought the Reaper was big, bad news. Or is this the way to ask you on a date?”
She took the proffered meat just so she wouldn’t have to answer. The smoky flavor hid the meat well. She didn’t want to ask what kind of meat it was, but with the Kivati it was probably legitimate.
“I thought so.” He watched the thick darkness and sniffed the air. They waited in companionable silence.
The creature watching them shifted; the faint creak of wood and ghostly breath slithered between the trees. Was that cinnamon? She didn’t get a malicious vibe from it, but that didn’t mean much. It seemed . . . hungry.
Maybe she was projecting.
“So,” Rafe said and took a long draw on the cheroot. His eyes left his watch to meander along her body. “Asgard sent his best little lady to see what a real man’s all about, huh?”
“What?” she deadpanned. “No, I’ve already met Oscar.”
“That pretty boy? Sweetheart, you come around Queen Anne anytime and ask for me.” He took another draw, flexing his bicep as he did. The smoke smelled of cloves. It had absolutely no effect on her. “I’ll show you my weapons, if you show me yours.”
“Tempting.”
“A real man protects his lady friends. He doesn’t send them out into the swamp after a couple walking corpses.”
“Protects his lady friends, you mean like Lucia?”
Rafe’s spine straightened as if an electrical wire had been jammed into his tailbone. “Don’t speak of her.”
“All the more reason a woman should be able to fight her own battles.”
“You don’t know nothing, slut.”
“What? A dirty Drekar whore like me shouldn’t taint the sainted name of Lady Lucia?”
Rafe grabbed the front of her shirt and yanked her off the ground.
The house in front of them exploded.
The Crow was a dead man. Leif burst through the rotting timbers of the house and let his rage fuel the Aether change. The man had put his hands on Grace. Leif’s vision, always green and blue in dragon form, burned red. Smoke poured from his long snout. His rage fused the pistons of his reasoning so that he couldn’t move forward from this one driving thought: destroy his enemy.
“No, Regent!” Zetian moved to stop him. “You’ll ruin everything.”
He heard her, but the words didn’t penetrate. He stretched his cramped wings and shrieked, the primeval roar that was more pterodactyl than lion.
His prey heard. The cheroot fell from between the man’s lips. He dropped Grace, and she landed on her butt in the dirt. He raised his crossbow just as Leif pulled completely free from the house. His aim didn’t waver, tracking Leif’s dragon heart even as he pushed into the air.
Grace tackled the man around the knees, pushing him off his feet and into the mud. The arrow flew wide.
She protected him.
It was all he needed to break the rage and bring his control back in line. She’d seen an arrow pointed at his breast and lunged, instinctively, to save his life. A single arrow wouldn’t slow him down, but all that mattered was her intent. Protecting the monster now, was she?
Grace would never admit it.
He could never forget it. He pulled that memory to him and curled it like a burning coal in the deep hollow of his heart.
Redirecting his flight, he soared up into the thin stream of moonlight. It slipped from between the clouds like a ripple of honey. Lake Washington spread black as an oil slick to the north. In his memory, the electric haze of a million city lights twinkled from around the lake. A blink, this civilization. Carved out from the forest depths in a flash of inspiration, only to crumble like sand castles beneath the ocean waves.
Zetian hadn’t followed him from the house.
Unease crept up his spine. He followed the trail of moonlight back down to the field of brown grass to find the first lurching soldiers of Ishtar’s army. Grace stood at the ready. The moonlight glinted off the blade in her hand. On her left hunched her thin friend, Oscar, with a rifle at his shoulder. She stood elbow to elbow on her right with the man who would be dead. The Kivati warriors spread out the line, crossbows ready. The humans waited between the coal wagons as a second line of defense. Not much of one, not if the aptrgangr got past the trained fighters.
Damn it. Zetian had argued Kingu would be too busy stalking Corbette to worry about the Tablet of Destiny. Why search for a silly bit of rock when one could have all the powers of a goddess? But Lord Kai had the Tablet shard, and now the aptrgangr were here. Zetian wanted to draw Kingu out. She convinced Leif they would simply observe and rule out the Tablet should nothing happen. Narrow down the field. It had seemed like a good idea. No civilians would be hurt this far out of the city. It felt better to do something, anything but wait around impotently while Kingu stoked fear across Seattle.
And then there was Grace. Was it Grace or the Tablet that drew the aptrgangr? It didn’t matter. He had let his wishes interfere with his expected outcome, and now she faced a field of adversaries with very little backup.
He’d screwed up.
With a long breath of fire, he took out the first five aptrgangr. The Kivati started firing and took down more. Wraiths fled once the bodies were disabled. They stirred the Aether, hot and angry, twisted with malice and hate. The wind around him shrieked. Wraiths attacked in their insubstantial form. Their passion was strong enough that he could feel their claws. He shook his long snout, trying to fling them out of his face.
Trust me to do my job, Grace kept telling him, but damn him if he ever sent a soldier into danger without a care.
Leif took another pass over the field. His dragon eyesight worked best at night, and he easily picked out Grace slashing and turning next to her thin friend. She wouldn’t blink at the thought of a demigod barreling down on her. She would run headfirst into a fight, not just because she was crazy, but because she had some mad white-knight complex.
Aptrgangr were one thing, but facing Kingu was not something she was prepared for. Leif was bigger, stronger, and harder to kill. He’d gotten her into this mess, and he had to get her out. He used this thought to brace himself. How did one defeat a demigod? Sheer power wouldn’t be enough.
He thought of the last time he’d fought. The last time he’d seen his brother. The last time he’d sunk his jaws into his brother’s tail and tried to pull him from the skies.
Leif had lost that battle. It was an inconvenient memory at a time like this. His brother had disappeared into the caverns beneath Seattle and never been seen again. Leif hadn’t had time to say good-bye.
Grace fought beneath him. He could pinpoint her location among the mass of bodies through the invisible tether. He hadn’t had time to tell her all the half-formed thoughts hiding on his tongue. Delicate thoughts. But that didn’t make them any less true.
He had wanted to untangle his feelings for himself first. She drove him half mad, forced him to examine unpleasant truths about himself, and skewered his lofty ideals to the wall like a butterfly in a specimen case. He couldn’t escape her barbed tongue because some of what she said was true.
But if he was truly the monster she believed, he would not be here now risking his neck for a handful of Kivati and some lumps of black rock. He was not impartial where she was concerned.
The air vibrated. Fog sculpted the ruined suburbs. It crept between the houses, a river of sick, wet Aether, condensing as it came, long tendrils twining together to form a phantom shape. Three long necks began to grow out of the creature’s trunk. Kingu was slow to materialize.
Leif didn’t wait for the fog to form three long jaws of teeth and fire. He didn’t give himself time to think. He launched forward and took the fog creature at the base of those necks.
Pain dug beneath his scales. Hot ash obs
cured his vision. He staggered at the sudden shock and fought to keep aloft.
The reptilian part of his brain took over, driving all thought from his head except to flee. He staggered while his skin burned, not knowing up from down, until he stumbled out of the fog.
He shot halfway over Lake Washington before he regained control of his senses.
Chapter 14
Grace wiped the sweat from her eyes and moved to avoid an aptrgangr fist. The Kivati at her right beheaded the dead man with his machete. She wiped the spray of blood from her cheek.
The attack had spilled out from the line of houses, the twitchiest bodies first, rank with the newly dead. She didn’t have time to get good and mad about Asgard’s sudden entrance. Dead bodies didn’t last long under a wraith’s tender care. They preferred live ones with tarnished souls; the sick, the oppressed, the downtrodden. Easy souls to push aside and take over. But they could animate dead bodies in a pinch. It was easy to pour inside the empty shell when no one was home. Weak wraiths were usually the culprits; they were also the easiest to kill. The more powerful the wraith, the easier the possession.
The Kivati weren’t thrilled to take her advice, but after the first line of bodies got back up with feathered arrows still protruding between their eyes, Rafe and his posse listened.
“Burn the puppet to ash so no one can pull the strings,” she told them. Rafe curled his lip, but dropped his aim. His next bolt cut the aptrgangr off at the ankle. It toppled and started dragging itself forward by its hands.
After that came the live ones, not so smelly, not so jolting. Harder to kill.
They’d run out of bullets and arrows in the first ten minutes. She’d never been so grateful for Asgard’s flamethrower. For Freya’s sake, if she didn’t have that puppy they would have all died before the first tendrils of fog stretched their way across the field.
Asgard, in dragon form, streaked through the air. He was freaking terrifying. She’d never fought with a dragon before, but by Freya’s good luck he was on her side.
As the aptrgangr approached she didn’t have time for fear. She entered the kill zone. Her feet and hands moved of their own accord. She danced the steps she knew by heart with more drive than a New York ballerina. Aptrgangr stepped into her dance and time slowed to a two-step. Nothing existed but her and Death.