Wrath & Bones (The Marnie Baranuik Files Book 4)

by A. J. Aalto

  Remy’s smirk was set to provoke, shoulders back, vibrating with needling potential. The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. Her lips and fangs were painted crimson with a fresh feed, and her cheeks were high with color. I wondered how many trolls had been in the crew of those ships, and how many were alive to flee back through the fog. I didn't see her freshly-turned troll anywhere; maybe she was keeping him sequestered for his protection, or, more chillingly, as a prisoner and ward against any future incursions. I'd gotten familiar with Viktor, the undead half-ogre in the service of The Organization, and wondered if Manflay would endure such a fate. He didn't strike me as the babysitting type.

  The blue-green curves of the Unhallowed Throne seemed to fit her diminutive frame perfectly, though it had only ever held the king’s bulk; the softness of centuries of use cupped her like loving arms. Rask muscled his way behind the throne, casting a curious glance at the lesser demon on the bench before cocking his head at the ceiling and the sky of rowan wood stakes above. I followed his gaze and noticed something odd; some of the silver chains were broken and empty.

  “Hello, little flame-spit,” Remy greeted the demon. She stretched her legs out in front of her and the hem fell away from her pale ankles as she crossed them. It was a movement that was a deliberate pantomime of inattention. “Will you scamper off to the pit, tiny demon?”

  The lesser demon gave a little jolt, like he hadn’t expected to be given an option. “I don’t have to? I can stay?”

  Remy’s left brow crooked up. “You are needed. Where is your place?”

  Aristoxenus was content to swing his little legs, cloven feet casting a shadow in the lantern light. He thumped his obsidian mace on the bench. He had a leader again, someone to worship, someone to whom to devote his loyalty. And, most importantly, someone to put between him and the Overlord. He was needed now, his out-of-Hell position secured. He cast an adoring, puppy-like look at his new queen and then got serious. “Serving you, of course. What are my lady’s wishes?”

  He read the cut of her gaze and anticipated her need, summoning, “The crown calls House Duchoslav.”

  Tomas Duchoslav, Crowned Prince of the Blood, left his bespectacled DaySitter, Marek Rys, standing beside his chair under the bear and dragon claw banner. The difference between them was as striking as the separation of Harry’s top-hat-and-tails elegance and my muddy sneakers. Dr. Rys was still in jeans and Converse high-tops, polo shirt rumpled, half the collar popped. Tomas Duchoslav, on the other hand, wore full, modern court dress; unlike the others of his age, he was dressed like Harry.

  When he stopped before his new queen, he met her eyes. “Dread Lady, House Duchoslav greets you warmly.”

  “Does it?” Remy’s dark eyebrow crept upward. “Does my memory betray me, or was House Duchoslav not integral in my imprisonment?”

  “It was, your Grace.” Thomas bowed gracefully. “I am the Undertaker.”

  She waited. When it seemed he was uninterested in making excuses for his past behavior, she prodded, “I starved for centuries in a cold Arctic trench, surrounded by mindless wyrms, Master Duchoslav. An apology might be nice.”

  “Dread Lady, it is my place to obey my master. When you were placed in the Darkest Corner, my only master was the First Turned, who ruled against your favor on this matter. Malas Nazaire made a compelling argument before the court, supporting the need for your imprisonment, and King Den demanded it be done. House Duchoslav has forever been responsible for seeing to our feral brothers and the Great Undertaking that secures them. I do not interrogate the demands placed upon myself or my house by my master.”

  “Ah. You follow orders, not question them. An admirable trait... for an ant. How delightfully contemptible. I spent centuries starving in that box,” Remy said coolly. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t banish you from my sight, Tomas Duchoslav, and wreak havoc on your house?”

  “Because now, Dread Lady, you are my only master.” He lowered his chin slightly. “You may be certain that I will never disobey you; I will accept your word as law, and I will do exactly as you command. Never will you doubt that it is my only desire to serve you.” He made that last bit sound both sober and licentious, his voice twisting down into a promising purr. “The full might of House Duchoslav exists solely to please you in all things.”

  Remy’s green eyes flashed chrome again, so briefly that if I hadn’t been watching, I’d have missed it. “Will you indeed,” she mused. “How interesting. Fair enough. I will reserve judgment and consider your words, Tomas Duchoslav.”

  “The crown calls House Prost,” Aristoxenus said. “Johannes Prost, answer your queen’s call.”

  Johannes Prost, Crowned Prince of the Blood, had at some point decided to join the party, and now swept forward with the whole of his house attending behind him. He was a bald man with grey skin and very dark eyes that seemed to bore a hole in the object of his focus. The other houses hissed in disapproval as he passed, but he did not remove his eyes from the lesser demon before the throne. When he got to the dais, Johannes performed a lithe bow that belied his advanced age. “The Screaming Cat offers our unwavering support, Dread Lady.”

  Remy flicked her eerie green eyes at him and asked, “And where is your Youngest, Johannes? He was summoned to this court by our UnResting Father, and he failed to appear. I am given to understand Jeremiah is busy committing vile acts upon children. As you well know, Love by the Dram has been forbidden for over two centuries, and your new sovereign finds it repugnant. We will not tolerate this behavior. Your Youngest offends me.” Her long fingers drummed the arm rest. “He offends me deeply. Where is he?”

  “He is gone, Dread Lady,” Johannes answered solemnly.

  “What do you mean, ‘gone?’ Where is his advocate?”

  When Johannes seemed unable or unwilling to answer, Aristoxenus summoned formally, “Umayma Eyasi, you will answer your queen’s call.”

  Malas Nazaire was a gruesome, pallid shade appearing at Remy’s side as he obediently thrust his withered hand upwards. As though caressing some unseen lover, the curled and knotted fingers of his bad hand unfolded and teased the air. The hollow rush of power through the room that followed was like a vacuum threatening to drag my guts right out of my flesh, and I felt the need to cup my belly. Harry was absolutely still beside me, but I felt his concern through the Bond; he didn’t know what was happening, but whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant. The powerful arm swung east and then west, and seemed to catch a scent. Malas curled that questing hand back into a fist and dragged it toward him. My heart shuddered in my chest and I heard myself groan involuntarily.

  A silver flash coalesced before the throne, and Johannes Prost shied away from it. The image struggled midair like a soul snatched from its body, kicking at the reality in Skulesdottir, a barely-there tantrum. And that’s exactly what I was seeing, I realized, as Malas’s face showed the strain of his efforts in a twisted snarl. The soul took shape unevenly, in tears and rips, parts of it jerking into view, and then the body around it, now a leg, and then her face. Umayma Eyasi, summoned to court through time and space by the sheer force of Malas’s telekinetic will. The fact that Malas could snatch her and teleport her without knowing where on Earth she was terrified me right down to the toes curling in my Keds. Could he do this to Harry? To Declan? To me?

  When Malas’s summoning hand shot skyward again, the revenants in the room slipped out of their chairs and faded back toward the shaded wall in unison as if they knew exactly what danger was coming. Johannes Prost cowered, throwing his arms up, one across his heart and one over his head. The ceiling of rowan wood stakes clattered, trembling under the weight of Malas’s call. Umayma laid on the marble floor, adjusting to her passage, panting and quivering.

  Malas demanded, “Where is your companion, Umayma Eyasi?”

  Umayma’s head came up and she stared up at the new queen of the Falskaar Vouras. She shook her head and dug into her pocket, bringing out a fistful of ash, and throwing it at the grou
nd by Remy and Malas' feet. There would be no need for the stakes from above; the misbehaving revenant was long gone.

  Johannes Prost made a jerking, gagging sound like he was dry heaving. He backed away from the cloud of ash as it settled on the marble. So small a pile of dust for how much damage Jeremiah had caused.

  “If that isn't enough for you, there's probably some of him still stuck in my earwax,” I heard myself say. Maybe it was unkind, but maybe I held a grudge for being mindfucked, shot, and left to bleed out and freeze to death in a dank, shitty little alley in Buffalo. I felt a flush of indignant, feminine power hit me through the Bond, and turned to stare at Johannes, challenging him to deny the truth. “His undeath was yours, but his death was mine. Warrant and all. Seriously. Fuck that guy.”

  When I looked back at the throne, Remy was staring at me steadily but gave away no outward hint of her approval. My scalp prickled and I stepped closer to Harry, reaching for his hand, wishing I didn’t have my gloves on. I needed the reassurance of his cold hand in mine. He knew it, and gripped me firmly, giving my hand a squeeze. It would be all right. Wouldn’t it? I glanced up at the side of his face, but he refused to take his eyes off the throne, and when I looked past him at Wilhelm as he returned to his chair, the prince’s eyes didn’t stray to me, either, though a light flicker of reassurance came through the house Bond. This was a frightening lady, but she was our lady.

  I mean, I was pretty sure she was on our team. Kinda-sorta sure. A little. Maybe.

  Aristoxenus pointed his obsidian mace at the banner of House Prost. I felt a moment of sympathy for the old guy who shuffled backward from the pile of dust that had been his misbehaving Younger; it was short-lived sympathy, considering that he could have put a stop to his Younger’s behavior if he’d wanted to. Umayma got to her feet slowly and followed him.

  “Call House Sarokhanian. Aston Sarokhanian, approach your queen.”

  Aston Sarokhanian rose from his throne, slight and drifting, a shady sliver of a being; how could something so little, so whip-thin, carry so much power? It was his turn to have his say, and he was pissed off. Rage rolled from the Soul Caller like a fogbank spilling off a cold lake at dawn. He wasn't trying to hide it; he threw it off like a spoken dare. I felt everything in me tense up and swung my focus instead to the crowned prince of my own house. Wilhelm Dreppenstedt wore a soft, indifferent gaze, a centuries-honed I-don’t-give-a-single-shred-of-a-fuck face. I tried my best to mirror it, ignoring the twist in my guts.

  Aston cupped one of his pale hands inside the other and lowered his head slightly, the barest of bows before his new queen. Behind him, Sayomi approached with something in her hands. It took me a minute to place why it looked familiar.

  Mangled black leather, a dangling wrist sheath half-torn from its seating in the sleeve, lining a dark grey on black pattern. Batten’s leather jacket.

  “Dread Lady of the Eversea,” Aston greeted expansively. “I am your most humble servant. I come before you to alert you to an appalling transgression against our house on Svikheimslending. It seems a mortal serving House Dreppenstedt has wandered too close to temptation.”

  What the fuck did that mean?

  “One of my Youngers was attacked without grounds while he stood guard outside my bathing chamber. He, of course, had no choice but to defend himself and his master.” He paused to let this word sink in, to cause the intended pain. I felt the unmistakable swell of desire from Sarokhanian; he had tasted Batten’s veins a long time ago during a forced feed, and once a revenant gets the taste of you, he will forever want more. Had Batten ever stood a chance? How had it gone down? And why did my cruel brain insist on wondering such things?

  Sarokhanian was speaking. “We have identified our attacker as the vampire hunter, Mark Batten, Second to Marnie Baranuik, DaySitter of Lord Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt. It is with a heavy heart and great regret that I must call for justice. I hope that my queen’s loyalty to her house does not cloud her judgment where neutrality is concerned.”

  Every revenant in this hall knew who Batten was, and what this meant. It caused lips to twist into smug curls; there was a smattering of deep chuckling and a single hissing snigger. Anger surged in me — anger at Batten, anger at the revenants, anger at myself and Harry for bringing him here — and I shoved it away furiously, focused on my physical pain, the throbbing of my bruised and swollen cheek, the hot ache in my lower back, the heartburn and cramps from the golden pod and the mellified man, and the impending feeling that I had to sneeze. That was extra-annoying.

  Remy had, as my brother would put it, totally vamped out; I wondered if she knew, or if she’d been in her lonely abyss so long that she had never learned to control her reactions. She flicked her eerie platinum eyes directly at me. “House Dreppenstedt, what say you?”

  I had soooooo much to say.

  Harry reached for my arm but he needn’t have bothered. I saw Wilhelm sweep forward and I didn’t move a muscle; it was not my place to speak for my house, despite the offer that Remy had just made. I demurred to my prince. For now.

  Wilhelm smiled, flashing fang. “Revenge, such a petty emotion, best left to small, imperfect creatures... like this one.” He plucked the leather jacket scrap out of the DaySitter’s hand. Sayomi flushed bright red. “Humans. How terribly childish they can be.”

  Sarokhanian moved a step closer to his DaySitter. “Are you accusing my advocate of inventing a situation—“

  “We all know that Mr. Batten is the grandson of Colonel Jack Batten, with whom you have had a prior personal quarrel, yes? Let us not be coy. It’s a shame, but you’re right; it is a very valuable lesson to us all. Human beings are food, and it does not hurt to remind them of their place. It’s unfortunate that one’s mortal company cannot be kept safe from a foreign, thirsting fang…” He let that settle in, casting an openly hungry eye down on Sayomi, who may or may not have been trying to quell some sexy inner response to that gaze. “But I think our queen will agree that if one house’s friends are not safe on Svikheimslending, then no mortal vein is safe.”

  A threat. Borderline, but I liked the feeling of uncertainty and near-panic it caused in Sarokhanian’s DaySitter. She looked up at Aston, wordlessly demanding that her master defend her. Alas, when you ride with the devil, you are never assured a smooth ride. Not that I'd actually fucked Him, or Asmodeus, but Azzy's angelic visage certainly had its private-time moments. I almost imagined I could hear Him chuckling through the Bond.

  Remy said nothing for a long beat. She watched the two houses stand off. Wilhelm dropped the torn jacket on the marble like it and the mortal it belonged to meant nothing to him, and left it there between them. It flapped open to reveal an ominous, dark stain and released a small stake from a torn sheath. It rolled noisily across the marble. I tore my gaze from it immediately.

  “Perhaps you should have protected him better,” Sarokhanian suggested.

  Wilhelm’s smile broadened. “No matter how closely we watch them, your Grace, there will always be opportunities when our precious ones are alone and vulnerable. Accidents will happen.” It was a promise. Wilhelm’s dominance was in question, and regardless of Batten’s misbehavior and betrayal, Wilhelm would come out on top.

  Remy waved them back to their own seats, contemplating the situation, staring at the torn piece of jacket as she did so.

  The queen finally spoke, and all eyes swung to her. “Where is the hunter now?”

  The corner of Aston Sarokhanian’s mouth curled up in an ugly smile and he crooked two fingers behind him at his banner. I heard the distinctive clink of buckles that preceded Gunther Folkenflik in his straightjacket. It was splattered with a startling diagonal spray of dried blood that had not been there the last time I saw him. His face was unblemished, but this meant nothing; the lycanthropy coursing through his veins would heal any minor injury fairly quickly.

  Folkenflik approached the throne, chewing his bottom lip over and over, his nervous tics getting the best of him; I knew Batten woul
d not have attacked Folkenflik unless he’d been set upon first. Mark had nothing against the werefox, and saw him as a reluctant Second, just as he was.

  Behind Folkenflik, under the banner, a noisy struggle broke out as several members of House Sarokhanian dragged a resisting figure forward. My heart lurched when I saw Batten’s dark head bowed but his body unbroken, his heels digging at the marble, his jeans torn open at the upper thigh like something had chewed its way to his femoral artery and then, upon seeing thick, knotted, possessive scars, changed course to a more available vein. His black t-shirt hung open over the hash marks on his right pectoral; a hundred eight, one for every kill. One had been added in a cruel slice that opened his flesh in a flap. It still drooled blood. Every revenant mouth that had not already been filling with saliva did so now as the scent of fresh spilled blood stirred them.

  Harry pulled up an internal wall and blocked his feelings through the Bond, effectively cutting me off from the rest of the house. I suspected this was as much to block them from my distress as it was to hide what the house was feeling from me. They had to do something. Do something, I willed to anyone willing to listen. I would have given almost anything to feel the reassuring brush of Wilhelm’s voice through my brain cells then, with promises that everything would work out.

  Batten scraped to a halt between two young revenants who dropped him unceremoniously on the marble; he struggled to hold himself up on shaking arms.

  “You have been accused of attacking House Sarokhanian, vampire hunter. What do you have to say in your own defense?”

  Batten lifted his stubborn chin and stared directly into her eyes. Challenging.

  Furious, I clenched my hands until they shook and felt my leather gloves creak. I had to say something; the need to yell at him was almost unbearable.