by Kira Brady
Join me, the Heart tried again. It sent images of her stomping over everyone who had ever wronged her. But every image splashed another coat of hatred across her gut, and she felt sick. This cold, enraged presence wasn’t her. There was more to her than hate and revenge.
Grace dug her fingers into Leif’s shoulders and locked eyes with him. The Heart warped her vision: it slowly stripped away his flesh to reveal the dragon within. It tried to fuel her hatred, but it was wrong. Leif in dragon form didn’t scare her anymore. He was a rock through and through. He was her rock. She kissed him on his beautiful red and green snout. She felt his lips beneath hers and seized on the truth to strip away the false vision the Heart was feeding her.
“Fuck me,” Grace ordered.
Leif pressed her down into the creaky springs and drove her higher. She fed on those electric strokes, riding the power generated by their bodies to free herself from the Heart’s hold. She angled her hips to take him deeper, and held on as a wave of power and wet, hot lust rose inside her. Every inch of skin was slick with sweat. Her pulse raced in her wrists against his back, in her throat, in her womb where he stoked her until the wave crested and broke.
Her mind blanked. Past all anxiety. Past all fear. She rode on a river of liquid light. No pain. No heartbreak. No chains for the Heart to grab hold of and trick her mind. She existed in light and breath and peace. Her iron shields slammed back down and trapped the Heart. It no longer spoke in her mind. It was powerless to tempt her or take control. Still, she reinforced every crack in her shields. The Heart would not be her master.
The manacles melted from her upper arms and slid off her skin like liquid gold. They fell to the floor and solidified once more. She touched her bare arms in wonder. She was free.
In the next instant the windows of her apartment shattered, sending glass shards into the room. Outside the black sky pounded on the old brick and tore the limbs from trees. A malevolent wind struck at the apartment. It would have swept through the broken windows, but the wards held. Light flickered. The building shook.
“What the hell?” she asked.
Leif took the Deadglass from his pocket and fitted it to his eye. He adjusted the gears and swore. “Kingu has arrived.”
Chapter 21
Using his body as a shield, Leif protected Grace from the flying glass. In the Deadglass, he watched Kingu swirl outside the window and batter the empty window frames as he tried to force past Grace’s wards. The demigod appeared as a monstrous three-headed dragon in the glass. He twisted in the air, a creature more suited to sea than land, and his wraith claws had no trouble stripping the paint from the building. He was more powerful than any wraith had a right to be, even without a body to possess. If Kingu managed to get the Tablet of Destiny and the Heart, he could craft himself a new body and seize all of Tiamat’s god-powers. There would be no stopping him.
“You still have the Tablet, right, Grace?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because you’ve got what he wants, and I’m not going to let him have you. We have to run.” He scooped her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Is there a back entrance?”
“Yes. That door leads straight into the building behind it. It’s an apartment building.”
Grabbing her backpack, he ran for the door and slammed it open with his shoulder. The window frames shattered behind them. The racing of his heart was a steam whistle in his chest. He carried Grace into the adjacent building and found the stairwell. Please let the building be empty. He didn’t want to lead Kingu directly to civilians, but he had to risk it. If Kingu got to Grace, millions of innocents would die.
Thankfully the building seemed abandoned. Running up the stairs to the second floor, he broke into an apartment that faced the street behind Flesh Alley. “I’m going to fly us out of here,” he told Grace.
“We have to tell Corbette,” Grace said. “And the humans.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll want to kill me.”
“Corbette will have to get through me first.”
Her eyes were still silver. He hoped that didn’t mean the Heart was awake. He couldn’t feel her through the invisible tether anymore. He hadn’t realized how much he had come to rely on that bond. It was like a part of him had been sliced cleanly through, and the wound wouldn’t regenerate. It bled freely, a hurt he hadn’t known he had. A vulnerability that his dragon blood couldn’t protect. He was glad for Grace that she was free, but damn it, he wanted to feel her again. He touched her with his fingertips just to reassure himself that she was okay.
“If they kill me,” she said, seeming not to have heard his vow, “I don’t think that would stop the Heart. It would just free it to roam again. Kingu could capture it easy.”
“Yes. But he knows you have it.”
“There is nowhere I could run or hide—”
“We’ll figure it out. Together.” He forced her to meet his eyes. “Don’t you get any desperado ideas. You aren’t going to be all noble and try to draw Kingu away.” Don’t leave me. “We’re in this together.”
She set her jaw.
“Say, ‘Yes, Regent.’”
“Yes, Regent,” she parroted. He couldn’t force her to do what he wanted ever again; she had to trust him.
Calling the Aether to him, he Turned just as the brick walls started to shake. His wings squished awkwardly in the small space. With a quick apology to the former inhabitants, he used his massive tail to knock out part of the wall, picked Grace up in his claws, and lifted into the black sky.
“Hurry!” she shouted, but he didn’t need her warning. His honed dragon vision picked up a score of blue-tinged aptrgangr on the street below. He faced into the angry wind and flew north.
Ishtar have mercy on us, he thought. Perhaps the goddess of love would pity his lost heart. He struggled to feel Grace in his claws. He wanted to sense her feelings, like he had through that dratted ring. Ishtar seemed a sucker for tragic love stories, but this one wouldn’t be star-crossed. He would keep Grace safe and protect his people. He had inherited Sven’s crown for a reason, and he intended to put it to good use.
The malevolent wind pursued him north, and he led Kingu straight to Queen Anne Hill. The Kivati guards at the gates saw him coming and began to Change. Sorry, Corbette, he thought as he slipped past the startled guards and dove low over Kivati Hall. A black cloud of crows rose, screeching, from the surrounding trees. Leif shook them off. Before the Changed warriors—mostly Crow and a Thunderbird—could attack, Kingu was on them. They turned away from Leif to battle the new threat. The clap of thunder reverberated in the air behind him. He glanced back once to see the thunderbolt sear blue through Kingu’s wraith form. The demigod and his wind shrieked and fell back.
Grace was right: Thunderbolts were effective weapons against Kingu. Now they just needed Corbette to join their cause. Leif hightailed it past the Kivati’s hill and over the Ship Canal to the Ballard bluff. Rain streaked the sky. Crows followed him over the canal and thunder rumbled far behind.
But his luck ran out at the Drekar Lair. The chocolate factory was smashed. The remaining ceiling of the Great Hall had collapsed, taking part of the land above his lab with it. Admiral Jameson’s battle wagons were parked nearby, and he could see soldiers winching something large out of the hole.
Leif landed on the lawn, deposited Grace softly on the ground, and Turned.
“You led Kingu right to the Kivati,” Grace said.
“I know. I should feel worse, but I don’t. They abandoned my coal shipment and my woman on the field at Seward Park. Payback, Zetian would say, is a bitch.”
“Look at you, heartless ruler,” Grace teased. It was good to see her with color back in her cheeks. If she was making sarcastic quips, she must be feeling better.
“I’ve learned. There’s fair play, and then there’s protecting what’s mine. I will use any means necessary to keep you safe.”
She looked away. Retrieving her backpack, she dug out a chang
e of clothes and put them on. “Looks like Kingu was here before he hit up Thor’s Hammer.”
“Did the Heart wake briefly when we made love?”
“I don’t know. I was . . . distracted. I’m sorry about your lab. What’s Admiral Jameson doing?”
“He appears to be picking up the suits early. He better have a good reason.” Leif spotted Thorsson and his two guards coming toward him. “Casualties?”
“Ja. Two in the cave-in,” Thorsson said. “Humans.”
Leif ran a hand over his face. It was a relief so few had lived in the lair since the Unraveling. Only his lab, storerooms, a kitchen, and a few living rooms were occupied. Thorsson handed him a bag with a change of clothes, and he dressed. “And the admiral?”
“Arrived on Kingu’s tail.” Thorsson hefted his sword. “Your orders?”
“Let’s see what they want.”
Leif descended into the rubble of his lab and found everything trashed. His equipment was ruined. The boilers he’d so painstakingly crafted were dented like cars at a junkyard. The beakers were a garden of glass pricking up from the rocky ground. A crack ran along his worktable and cut it right in two. He had made love to Grace on that table. It hadn’t survived the force of Kingu’s wrath. But the suits had, which meant they worked even when not powered up and inhabited by a conscious soul. At least the runes held them together, the same runes that ran along Grace’s skin and kept the Heart trapped. He hoped they would also work to keep Kingu out.
In the middle of the trashed room, Jameson supervised his soldiers taking the finished suits of armor out through the hole in the roof. He stood still as a brass statue, hands on his hips and an eager look in his eye.
“What is the meaning of this?” Leif demanded.
The human soldiers stopped winching and pulled out their guns. Slowly, Jameson turned on his booted heel. Confusion hazed his eyes for a moment, then cleared. “Regent.”
“What are you doing here? This is a violation of our treaties.” Leif damned himself for not paying closer attention to those treaties when Zetian was drawing them up. He shouldn’t have been so laissez-faire about ruling. People were depending on him. Grace was depending on him.
Jameson didn’t blink at Leif’s anger. “I came to collect my armor.”
“How did you know I’d finished?”
“There aren’t enough suits for all my men. I’m disappointed in you, Regent.”
“I used all the resources I could—”
“You don’t really want humans to be protected, do you? I’ll be watching you.”
Grace stepped forward. “You idiot. Kingu is here. He’s leading a zombie army through the city. There isn’t time for this. You need to marshal your troops and order your people to the barracks.”
Jameson ran his eyes down Grace’s body. His lips pulled out in a flat smile. “And you are?”
“This is General Mercer,” Leif said.
“What happened to Thorsson?”
“He reports to her.”
In an abrupt shift, Jameson strolled off. Strange. He paused beneath the last suit of armor that was being winched through the hole in the ceiling and stared up at it. “Keep moving! Regent, when were you going to deliver these contraptions? How can I know they work?”
A wisp of smoke drifted from Leif’s nostril. “They work. They will work best if you put strong men in them. Not physically. Emotionally.”
“But if they need to be emotionally strong, what’s the point of the armor?”
Leif ran his hands through his hair. “The suits work.” His voice rang in the cavernous room. “And we will need them to defeat the demigod. They can shoot fire and nets, both which Marduk had to hunt Kingu. Humans, Kivati, and Drekar must work together. If we don’t, if we let our prejudices and past hatred keep us at each other’s throats, Kingu wins.”
“No one wants that,” Jameson said. The feet of the last suit disappeared through the roof. The lab felt deserted without it. His last great experiment sent out into the world. All that was left was ruin.
It surprised him that he didn’t feel more sorrow. He had Grace. Every experiment he’d ever created could go to bloody hell.
Jameson ordered his soldiers to go.
“What about this mess?” Grace asked.
“Not my problem,” Jameson said. “We found it like this. You should really keep better care of your things.”
Grace scowled.
“So where is this demon now,” Jameson asked, “and what is he after? Where is he going? I need details, man. My troops will be at the front of the line to battle the supernatural forces that threaten humans. You have my word. But we can’t act on rumor. I need a report. What is your battle plan?”
In the end Leif secured Jameson’s promise: he would provide support to the fight against Kingu. Human soldiers and weapons were his for the battle. Leif had twenty-four hours to rally Marks, the Kivati, and the Drekar too. The future of the world depended on it.
Leif called the Althing, an assembly of all his subjects. All factions except the Kivati had come to his summons. Birgitta’s heathwitches and the occult businesses from Grace’s street mixed with ministers from the Church of the New Revelation and the Mark of Cain. Regular citizens and Maidens of Ishtar huddled beneath thick wool wraps. Drekar lurked at the edges with their human followers.
Leif sat in the jeweled throne in front of the damaged chocolate factory and watched the crowd. The iron crown fit at his brow like he’d grown an extra set of horns. A raging bonfire crackled in the center of the gathering. Behind him, the thin autumn sun sparkled off the snow-topped Olympic Mountains. In front of him stood the hardened survivors who now looked to him to lead them to victory. He hadn’t wanted to leave Grace, but it wasn’t safe to have her in the center of the crowd with the Heart and the Tablet of Destiny. She had to hide from Kingu. He trusted her to keep the Heart quiet. Kingu couldn’t track it unless it woke. Grace’s temper was a liability, but now that she knew her weaknesses, she could be on guard. His whole being ached with their separation. Without the bond, he didn’t know where she was. He couldn’t feel her. He couldn’t track her. He wouldn’t know if she were in danger until it was too late.
His protective instincts urged him to find her, now.
But his place was here.
Zetian struck an imposing figure in red silk next to the bonfire. She threw some powder into the hearth and blue flames shot up. The Althing had started.
Standing, he accepted the dramatics, the hush, and the reverence as his due. He told them the story of Tiamat and Apsu’s lost love, of Kingu’s war, and Marduk’s victory. He told them of Kingu’s escape during the Unraveling, and the new war against the gods Kingu would launch if he found Tiamat’s Heart.
Lastly he told of their secret weapon: the Tablet of Destiny, which they would use to defeat Kingu a second time. He left out the details, because it might come down to quick thinking and luck. He appealed to their honor and their love for their homeland, and he laid out the battle to come.
The Althing, by law, was an open forum where anyone could ask anything without fear of retaliation from their ruler. One by one, men approached the bonfire to ask a question, and he answered each honestly.
If he was to lead these people to their deaths, he would do it with courage. He would be the ruler they needed him to be. They needed something to believe in. They needed a new Marduk to lead them against the gods. He could arm them with swords, he could shield them with armor, but they would still fail if he didn’t give them hope.
Grace concentrated on her breathing. She focused on the rush of air through her nostrils. She was calm, cool, and collected. She was a quiet mountain lake. There was no reason to panic. There were no aptrgangr searching the street where she hid.
“Can’t you do something, Grace?” Elsie whispered. Her eyes were like saucers.
“No. If I fight, the Heart wakes.”
“But you can’t . . . I can’t—”
“You can.
You, Cindy and Frannie are ready. Consider this your first test.”
Cindy’s freckles stood out against her paper-pale face. Her fingers clenched the iron railroad spike Grace had slipped into her hand. “I’m ready.”
“Good.” So much for not letting other people fight her battles for her. Grace clenched her teeth and let the three Maidens rise from their crouch. She gave them a tight smile. This might be the hardest thing she’d ever done. “I believe in you.”
Longest fight in the history of fights, she was sure of it, but they did her proud. She watched the fear give way to adrenaline and the self-doubt shed off like a second skin. She crawled out from behind the Dumpster just as Elsie disabled the last walking dead.
“We did it,” Elsie said. An angry gash marred her long neck. Finger marks pressed red against her throat. Those would bruise.
“You did it,” Grace said. She knelt by the two downed aptrgangr and lit the tip of her running iron. She drew the banishing rune on each forehead. She imposed her will on the marks. The Heart stayed quiet, locked in its iron prison. “If the Kivati let him through, Leif should be pleading our case to Corbette right about now.”
“What do we do?” Cindy asked.
“We go to see the Wolf.”
Chapter 22
Every male in Kivati Hall wanted to kill him. Standing in the Raven Lord’s grand receiving chambers, Leif wished he hadn’t worn his crimson coat; it stood out like a matador’s cape, the red a reminder of every shed drop of blood between their people. The chamber was packed with enraged, distrustful Kivati. He knew every person there was remembering an aunt, brother, friend, or child who’d died in Sven’s century of war.
If he could convince them to set aside the past and join him, he would be better than a messiah. Still, he had to try. His hands hung open at his sides. He pleaded with Corbette as if there wasn’t anyone else in the room. No posturing. No pride. He laid out the threat facing them and, hat in hand, asked for help. “Tiamat’s Heart will give Kingu all her god-powers,” he finished. “Please help us.”