Death's Dancer

by Jasmine Silvera

  Oh, no you don’t, Vogel. No attachments. Not to him.

  “Does he give better massages than I do?” Kyle interrupted her thoughts.

  “No way,” she lied.

  He sniffed. “Of course not. He’s trying to get laid. I have pure intentions.”

  Isela reached forward to squeeze his hands. “Jiří’s good, huh?”

  “In more ways than one,” he said.

  Dirty jokes flew unrestrained as they cleared the table and did dishes.

  On his way out the door, he called back up the stairs. “Oh, Yana says thanks for the new bag.”

  “New bag?”

  “You sent one over, from Prada, to replace the one you scuffed up on your ‘date’ with Gregor.” He drawled out the name. “She wasn’t going to make a big deal of it, but. . . that was nice of you.”

  First the coat, now this purse. This devil certainly was into details.

  Isela wondered if Azrael would be so detail oriented between the sheets. But she already knew that. He’d explored every inch of her body between the shower and the bed, except the ones that, by avoidance, made his purpose obvious: to make her beg.

  She fidgeted restlessly, thinking of the tone of his note. She was not going to go run back to his bed. No way in hell.

  Isela dozed until dawn but couldn’t get comfortable in her own bed. When she admitted it, a dangerous, insatiable feeling had begun to grow. She was trapped. To go back would admit she was hungry for what he was offering. To stay away meant denying the need she hadn’t known she possessed. She dragged herself out of bed and onto her mat to warm up her body and let the sunlight tickle her skin. It wasn’t as satisfying as the stroke of Azrael’s darkness.

  Isela could have kicked herself. She thought about sending a message, but pride won out. He’d delivered a hell of a seduction, an invitation on a silver platter, literally, and she’d as much as declined by sneaking out like a petulant teenager. She consoled herself by remembering that the note had not been worded like an invitation. It was an order.

  Isela refused to be bossed around. As Azrael had reminded her, she wasn’t one of his people. And she still had a job to do. The allegiance had hired her to help Azrael find a killer. Identifying her was just the start. They still had to catch her.

  She needed new choreography. She’d learned from the past she couldn’t repeat a dance—it didn’t work that way. Each one had to be unique, tailored to the specific request. It was time to get to work.

  She thought of the gold shadow that danced with her. It seemed to want to help her. It had shocked her out of the dance in time to get to Azrael before the demon, maybe she could appeal to it for Azrael’s protection when he faced the Queen of Diamonds.

  Isela wondered if Azrael had told the rest of the allegiance who was responsible. She had reread every passage referencing the necromancer and the dancer. A few scanty mentions and then nothing. They had erased the Queen of Diamonds from the collective memory. What had she done?

  “History is written by the victors,” she murmured.

  A flash of memory made her reach for her phone. What if the necromancer’s wasn’t the only collective memory that had information about the Queen of Diamonds? If necromancers and witches were somehow connected, maybe the coven had some information. She dialed her oldest sister-in-law, Evie. The phone went to voice mail on the second ring.

  “I don’t know if you’re avoiding me too,” she began her message. “I don’t blame you. But I need to ask you something about the end of the war, something that might be able to help me get out of this mess.”

  When Isela got back from the practice room, it was after dark and her muscles ached. Something was wrong with her choreography. She was missing a piece, and the gold flicker hadn’t appeared once. Evie hadn’t called back either, but perhaps Bebe could tell her something in the morning.

  Frustrated and restless, she had a shower and then made herself go to bed. If Azrael called in the middle of the night, she needed to be rested and ready for—anything. Any murders, she corrected over the heat building in her body at the thought of what else the necromancer might require her for.

  Idiot. He wasn’t going to call. No, he’d send Gregor to drag her back to the castle by her hair. If he even still wanted her.

  He was the necromancer, and one of the most alluring men she’d ever seen. If he needed a quick fuck, Azrael could avail himself of any one of the power-hungry women who made their interest in necromancers clear. And how dare he talk about wanting to break Gregor for touching her? No wonder Gregor was a homicidal maniac, working for a boss like that.

  Isela shivered, thinking of the speed and intensity with which Azrael had struck Gregor, collapsing his chest like a paper bag. Maybe they were sitting around now, drinking that awful scotch and commiserating.

  “No hard feelings, man.” Azrael would laugh.

  “Dicks before chicks.” Gregor would remind him.

  Furious at her own overactive imagination, Isela flung back the covers and leaped out of bed.

  Into the arms of a masked man.

  She didn’t have time to scream. His hand closed over her wrist, twisting it to pin her arm to her back. He shoved her toward the bed. Isela went limp, rocking her weight sideways, and slammed his solar plexus with her free elbow.

  A grunt and she was free. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Azrael peeled off his filthy coat, tossing it onto the nearest chair as he strode into the castle from the garage below. Shoes followed, he didn’t want to track gods-only-knew-what over the priceless Berber rugs upstairs. Gregor and Lysippe remained below, dealing with the scum they’d apprehended in connection to the grimoire and the mess they’d made of the car. Usually Azrael would have stuck around, but he had other things on his mind.

  The household was more active than he would have expected, given his orders. Then again, it had been almost twenty-four hours, and running a household this big took constant effort. He swore, thinking of the dawn that had come and passed in his absence, leaving his promise to Isela broken. If he had been particularly aggressive in his pursuit of the grimoire, it was because every hour that ticked past dawn reminded him he should be elsewhere at that moment—and otherwise occupied.

  When Lysippe had woken him mentally with news of a lead, he’d had to pry Isela’s body from his to leave the bed. The way she’d sleepily stroked him had almost made him call off the hunt for a few hours. But he wanted to enjoy her at his leisure, and there was no guarantee they would get another lead of this quality. He’d watched her curling into the warm space he’d left behind and walked away, counting the minutes until his return.

  The aggression had served him. Their search had taken them through the seedy darkness of Prague’s underground and all the way to Budapest tracking the last living link to Havel Zeman’s unusual grimoire. But the creature got word of their coming and bolted, turning it into an all-out hunt through the Southern Alps to a small town on the Croatian coast. When they caught the creature, it was all Azrael could do not to expedite the process by killing it. Centuries had taught him the dead were much more cooperative than the living. But even if the creature hadn’t been booby-trapped, there were other factors making death a more complicated option than usual.

  Gregor seemed surprised at the command to secure him for transport back to Prague but, sagely, said nothing. The Hessian had regained Azrael’s graces on this hunt; his origins as a member of the elite soldiering corps known as Jaegers made him ideal for operations like this. It was one reason he and Lysippe got along so well. The passion for tracking game of all kinds made them siblings of a sort. There had been a moment or two, while they were back-to-back facing a room full of undesirables, that Azrael had realized Gregor was enjoying himself, supremely. He and Lysippe had kept a running total of kills, bantering numbers back and forth on the ride home until Azrael put a geas on the car. He’d sketched the symbol for “silence” on the dashboard with one fi
nger, and Lysippe’s protest cut off midgroan under the magical command that barred sound. She crossed her arms over her chest in the backseat and raised her eyebrows in the rearview mirror. When he refused to lift it, she gave their captive a good kick with the heel of her boot in frustration.

  He didn’t have the patience for their chatter. His mind was where his body wanted to be: buried to the hilt between the lithe legs of a dancer who was currently warming his bed in eager anticipation.

  Azrael mounted the stairs by threes, tugging at the remaining buttons of his shirt. He should shower first—perhaps he’d run them a bath in the big tub and splay her open on the warm tiles with the view of the snowy gardens stretched out beneath them.

  The first sign that something was wrong was the empty chair beside the door where Tyler had been posted to attend to her. She’d possibly sequestered herself in the room and sent him on an errand. He knew the undead made her nervous.

  But when he opened the door, the room was empty. The bed was made, a fire was going, a hot bath was prepared, but all signs of her presence had been eradicated. He sent a single thought to the household, a word and a command, as he swept the room. Even the smell of her had faded. She’d been gone for some time.

  The boy appeared at the door. “My lord.”

  “Was I unclear?” Azrael banked his fury to a slow burn.

  The boy flinched as if he’d been struck. Azrael had seen ghosts with better color.

  “No, my lord,” he said. “But she. . . she said she would be back. A few errands.”

  He was young and new to service but eager to please. Azrael thought he might be less off-putting to Isela—the newly dead were still so near to their humanity. Plus they had a common country of origin, and since Tyler had been voluntary, he’d been allowed to keep his memories and personality.

  “And you believed her?” New and naive.

  “I tried to go to the Academy, but they wouldn’t let me past the visitors’ area,” he said, evidently confused by the fact that being a messenger for the necromancer hadn’t granted him an all-access pass. “I waited for hours, but she didn’t come down.”

  Azrael should have known better. This was Isela. She was all stubborn pride and prickly independence. Even when her body wanted to be curled up against him, her mind adhered to her rigid code of their relationship as patron and artist and kept him at a distance. The same mind that had sparked her leap to his defense in a dark abattoir surrounded by demons. He had spent centuries collecting warriors brave enough to do such a thing.

  If Isela thought he would be that easy to put aside, she was mistaken.

  Azrael swore and smiled with a savage pleasure that made Tyler whimper. But the boy drew upright before him.

  “I failed in my duties, my lord,” he murmured. “I humbly submit to whatever punishment you see fit.”

  “Do you think I need you to submit to punishment?” Azrael growled.

  Tyler quaked. But Azrael’s fight wasn’t with the boy. He wanted to get his hands on Isela. Obviously, she needed a reminder of exactly how thoroughly her body responded to him.

  Azrael knew he should probably prove a point to Tyler. The boy needed to learn the import of a command if he was going to remain in Azrael’s service. “Get to the garage. Gregor has his hands full.”

  Visibly trembling, Tyler collected himself enough to bow stiffly at the waist before disappearing down the hall. Azrael stalked into his room and slammed the door.

  He reached for the phone, thought better of it, and put it down. He didn’t want to give her any warning—she might take the opportunity to go hide under her mother’s skirts, and he wasn’t ready to deal with the coven. He knew where she’d be. He just had to retrieve her. This time he would go himself.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Azrael caught a glimmer and paused, rubbing his drying hair absently with the towel. A hot shower had done worlds for his mood. He was almost humming as he prepared himself to hunt down his prize.

  He knew better than to turn his head and look directly at it. Instead, he relaxed his vision and let his focus go soft. A familiar woman’s figure contorted elegantly in postures he’d seen before: Isela. But there was a disjointed urgency to the movement. It was trying to communicate something to him.

  Intrigued, he slowed his breathing, slipping into stillness between one heartbeat and the next. The glimmer touched the center of his chest. It hit him like a blow. And then he realized why. It was a blow—or the echo of one—Isela had just received. She wasn’t dancing. She was fighting.

  The touch formed a connection between them. He felt every blow as if it fell on his own body. A thickening, cloying sensation rose in the back of his throat. It had been centuries since he’d had any of his own, it took him a moment to realize what he was feeling: fear.

  Azrael didn’t stop to wonder at the sudden connection between them, arrowing a thought back to the source of the sensation.

  Isela, say something.

  A startled pause. Then, Busy at the moment.

  The words were flippant, but he still tasted her fear as if it was his own.

  Azrael dressed without thinking, cycling through his mental connections until he touched Lysippe’s mind. Car, front, now. Something is wrong with the dancer.

  Five minutes later, a black Porsche slid to a stop as Azrael ran to the curb. Gregor was still dressed as he had been for the hunt, and the hint of his sword hilt flickered like an afterimage between his shoulder blades.

  Azrael frowned. “I called for Lysippe.”

  “The dancer is my. . . responsibility,” he said as he whipped the car into the road.

  Azrael’s mind reached for the mental connection between them.

  Isela, I’m almost there.

  Better hurry. You’ll miss all the fun.

  Good, she was still joking, but the fear was there. Now he could also feel pain. Rage surged in him.

  How many are there?

  Two. My apartment. They’re good. Fuck.

  Another lash of pain, this time in his left hand. He slammed the fist into the dashboard, leaving a dent. Gregor downshifted, picking up speed as the engine roared.

  This time her voice came after a sob. Azrael?

  Yes, dancer.

  Hurry if you can. Please. I don’t think I can—

  Silence. Azrael gripped the door as the car swung into a turn at an impossible speed. When he looked over, Gregor was smiling. For someone born before cars were invented, he’d taken to them with a natural affinity Azrael envied. He drove like he fought, all attack.

  Dancer!

  Stop shouting at me.

  Answer me when I call you. He wanted her angry, fighting.

  Weaker now. I don’t belong to you.

  Ah, but you do, he purred. See what happens when you disobey me?

  You send a couple of thugs to kill me?

  His chest clenched. I favor diplomacy, as you know.

  I might approve of you punching a hole in these guys.

  Leave them to me.

  Might want to get a move on. The fear made her voice tremble.

  If you let them harm you, I will turn you into a zombie. He felt the spike of her heart rate and thought he’d gone too far.

  If you do, I’ll spend my undead life trying to kill you.

  Zombies can’t kill their masters, he taunted.

  Watch me.

  Honking twice, Gregor plowed through the oncoming traffic, weaving through cars that too slow to get out of his way.

  Isela?

  Silence. Gregor slammed the brake, jerking the wheel, and the car swung 180 degrees, putting the passenger side closest to the Academy’s front door. Azrael was out before the car had fully stopped. He glanced back once as Gregor emerged, the sword fully visible now. The Hessian nodded and, with a running start, began to scale the building’s walls, heading for the roof.

  Isela?

  Nothing.

  Answer me, godsdammit.

  As Azrael drew power, the
lights of the building flickered uncertainly. With a whispered word, he blew the door off the hinges. The night watchman leaped to his feet as Azrael charged up the stairs. Too startled to draw his weapon, he gaped openmouthed at the necromancer. Azrael rendered him unconscious with a flick of a wrist, unlocking doors ahead of him into the inner sanctum without slowing down.

  Even at this hour, there were a few students roaming the halls. They stared at him; a few sinking to one knee as he passed. A petite Asian woman without an ounce of fear in her eye blocked his path.

  Azrael scanned her mind—she was a friend of Isela’s—and he grabbed the coordinates for her apartment as he dodged her. “Get your building’s security director, and pray Isela isn’t dead.”

  Her face drained of color, but she moved quickly in the opposite direction.

  He splayed his hands at his side as he ran, calling power to him, and the halls succumbed to darkness before the emergency lighting flickered on. He sped his movements to a blur. He leaped two flights of stairs, ignoring the screams from those he surprised on the way.

  Isela, answer me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Isela, say something.

  The first time she heard his voice in her head, her strength surged, as it had the night he had told her to run. It was clear the two assailants hadn’t expected her to be as strong as she was. She used her flexibility and honed grace as her ally, dancing her way from them repeatedly. She had never been so grateful for Trinh’s sparring matches; she’d managed to disarm both, twice breaking holds that should have forced her to surrender. But she was outmatched and outnumbered.

  Isela had needed that second wind badly, and Azrael’s continued baiting restored her determination.

  She wasn’t a fighter, and now her assailants were angry and growing desperate. It was only a matter of time before she made a mistake. She’d knocked the first one down by the couch but lost track of him in the shadows.

  I might approve of you punching a hole in these guys. She made it to the kitchen, hoping to get to a weapon.

  Isela took a risk, lunging too close to her opponent to get to a knife. He blocked her and grabbed her wrist. She tried to break the grip, but he held firm and swept her legs from beneath her. She hit the floor square on her back, her wrist wrenching painfully as she went down. She kicked up, catching him in the groin, but he was armored. He pinned his knees on either side of her chest. Her left hand yanked at the kitchen drawer level with his head. He stopped the motion by slamming it on her fingers.