Unholy Spirit (The Necromancer's Daughter Book 3)

by Genevra Black

  Satara’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and after a few more moments, she turned to look at Basile. “She was a valkyrie. But she was wrong. Almost as though she was broken. And you should listen when Edie tells you something,” she added curtly.

  The priest had already waved a dismissive hand. “But that’s impossible. That’s impossible. As you know”—he nodded to her—“you can’t just become a valkyrie. You have to be inducted by other valkyir. One of Skuld’s Riders, specifically—one of the first six valkyir. Or Odin or Freyja themselves.”

  “So they got one of them to do it,” Cal said from the couch, where he was gnawing stubbornly on an unlit cigarette. “Paid ’em off or something.”

  Next to him, Adam pulled a face and snorted. “With what, Cal? Bitcoin?”

  “I dunno, gold? Treasure? The satisfaction of a job well done? I’m not a fuckin’ valkyrie.”

  “That’s a shame. You’d look good in a metal bra.”

  Elle cleared her throat. “Wooow.”

  “If you two could stop flirting,” Basile snapped, “we have some more important things at hand. And no, Cal, they didn’t pay them off. These are ancient spirits of Fate, not the Sopranos.”

  Cal held his hands up, glaring. “Hey! Don’t bitch to me. You’re supposed to be the priest of Odin. So did one of these Rider chicks turn her or not?”

  “I doubt it. First of all, Satara said she’s, what, broken somehow? Well, they’d have done a better job. And second, there’s no way this … conspiracy or whatever it is goes up that far. Odin or Freyja would know. I don’t get a ton of communication from the big cheese, but that would be on my radar. And Odin’s working against whatever’s going on, so he’d have no part of it.”

  “We’ll just have to ask the Riders what’s going on when we see them,” Edie mumbled, looking back at Satara.

  She had eased herself into a dining room chair. Her wings were still down, trembling. The feathers had grown even sparser, and the skin and muscle below was withered and necrotic. Edie shivered at the sight of exposed tendons—or maybe that was bone?

  They had no choice but to use the horn now. They were out of time.

  “We need to head out,” she said a little louder, looking back over at Basile. “Let’s get everything we need together and go to Asgard.”

  The priest glanced at Satara, then back. “Fine. I’ll have everything ready within an hour.”

  Edie allowed tentative relief to soothe her panic slightly. But … there was one more thing. Something missing. Or, rather, someone. “Is Marius not back from checking on Yuval yet?”

  Basile sighed, and Adam winced. Her moment of relief was over before it really started, cold seeping into her limbs.

  “We were going to say something,” Elle said, wiggling uncomfortably, “you know, before you dropped the valkyrie plot twist. We called Yuval earlier to ask where he was.”

  She paused, so Edie prompted, with a measure of irritation, “And?”

  “She said he was never there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  As Marius exited the subway station into West Harlem, the wintry wind bit into him, stinging his face—but even the unnatural cold could do nothing to cool the anger and anxiety washing through his body.

  Three weeks. For three weeks, he had barely left that subway platform, waiting and watching. When he hadn’t been pacing back and forth or arguing with Basile, he had slept in fits and starts, always interrupted by nightmares. In the dreams, there was always a pervasive sense of dread, a certainty that his friends were slowly dying. Sometimes, he watched them be swallowed up and dissolved by darkness; others, he found himself unable to move as he heard their screams of agony, cries for help.

  In all of them, he could do nothing. And when he woke on that dingy cement floor, sweating through his sleeping bag, he always found the same thing: The nightmares were real. There was nothing he could do.

  He’d had the option to go with them. It had been his choice, in the end, to stay behind. He had never regretted a decision so much. And all because he had been too proud to let the priest handle his soul.

  Idiot. Useless. Useless to the Aurora, useless to the Reach … useless to Edie and Satara.

  He was holding them back. Just as he had held his father back. It was because he’d been protecting Marius’s “secret” that Radiant Eirik had betrayed the Aurora. If it hadn’t been for his dead weight, could all the resulting betrayal and death have been avoided? If it hadn’t been for his stubbornness, could he have helped his allies come home sooner?

  He knew the path ahead. He needed to stop the Gloaming. And yet at every turn, he felt powerless to do so. He kept falling down. The loss of his former life, flush against the grief, stacked on top of the helplessness…

  Fuck it.

  The thought of wasting another second, of failing again, choked him. Suffocated him. He would not sit idle any longer.

  There was one thing he knew he could do.

  With a shiver, Marius closed his coat against the cold air, shoving his hand in his pocket. It was better than the wind tunnels of Central Manhattan, at least; the buildings here didn’t loom quite as tall. Most of them were made of brick, gorgeous and old. It made sense to him that the Temple of the Mid-Atlantic Divine would be in such a neighborhood.

  He had been in New York City for a month now, and not once had he seen Radiant Oddfreyr’s Aurora. Granted, the Blood Eagles seemed to be harassing the city more than anyone identifiable as the Gloaming—perhaps the Radiant had not yet realized that they were connected.

  Still, he had never known the Aurora to stick their heads in the sand while chaos overtook their city. Even his father had mitigated the damage as much as he’d been able. So where were the Blades of Tyr now? What were they waiting for?

  Marius intended to find out. From the Radiant himself, if possible.

  Of course, the last time he had been in an Auroran temple, he’d been confined to his room, awaiting trial by the Divine Assembly. The last time he had spoken to Oddfreyr, the Radiant had practically threatened to kill him. But after what Edie and the others had gone through in the Wending, risking his own life seemed only fair.

  He’d simply have to keep his face hidden until the right moment. For now, all he had to do was walk toward the golden dome peeking up over the other buildings.

  The neighborhood around him was not what he had always envisioned when he heard the name Harlem. Though as an Auroran he was bidden to isolate himself from the world around him and worship the old gods, his father had seen to his education in history. Eirik hadn’t neglected to teach about American history.

  Marius hadn’t thought about those lessons in a long time, but they came flooding back to him now. If he remembered correctly, through them, his father had revealed a particular fondness for the artists of the Harlem Renaissance. A pang of sadness reverberated through Marius’s chest as he recalled that, thinking of his own rogue copy of Rolling Stone.

  The Aurora had been their whole lives. They had never been allowed normality. Now, with all that expectation pulled out from under him…

  He wished more than anything that he could speak to his father now, wherever he was.

  But the Harlem reflected in those lessons was not the one he saw now. Its streets were lined with gastropubs and pricey shops. There were more white pedestrians than he had imagined there would be, too, crossing from the college campus into condominiums. He hadn’t been expecting to see Cab Calloway dancing down the street toward him, but it didn’t seem like the same neighborhood.

  It wasn’t long before the temple came into view. With its gray bricks, white trim, and Gothic Revival architecture, it looked like it belonged in Westminster more than New York. It blended into the area around it, simply a large complex of buildings that he was sure the average pedestrian assumed was part of the City College campus. In the dawn’s light, the dome of the main building glowed like a small sun, almost impossible to look at dead-on.

  Now to ge
t in.

  Marius had the disadvantage of not having grown up in this temple; he had no idea where the secret entrances were, where guards were stationed, what the quickest route to the Radiant’s office would be. But he knew—and saw, as he approached the front doors—that he had come at the right time.

  With the sun’s rays just beginning to touch the temple, Aurorans were streaming in for morning prayers. The crowd was thick enough that Marius was sure he could join them unnoticed, and so without hesitation, he crossed the street and inserted himself into the throng in time to slip into the vestibule hall.

  At once, the familiar smell of freshly baked bread and the heady scent of beer washed over him, so familiar and comforting that he had to remind himself to stay on his guard. After morning prayers, an offering to the gods and ancestors, there was usually a breakfast. His stomach grumbled at the thought, but he wouldn’t be attending.

  In fact, he already had his eye on his target. As the crowd hurried from the vestibule into the nave, his gaze locked on the golden figure standing before the altar ahead and didn’t waver even as he slipped onto one of the backmost benches.

  Tall and puffed up, Oddfreyr wasn’t wearing his helmet. Marius swore he could see the piercing blue of his eyes even from where he stood. His unsettling gaze scanned over the Aurorans as they took their seats, and quickly, Marius ducked his head as if in prayer. It would be unwise to reveal himself here; he would wait and shadow him.

  After a few more minutes of the crowd milling, talking and laughing, the doors to the inner sanctum were closed, and all eyes turned to the Radiant.

  As Oddfreyr began his prayers, Marius found himself critiquing his style. There were certainly things his father did differently, and better, though everyone around him seemed content. The words weren’t that much different, but the tone was … off.

  He’d had no idea how foreign a temple could feel. He couldn’t help but wonder if it was due to a distinction in culture or if, after nearly two months away from his people, he was already starting to think like an outsider.

  But now was not the time to dwell on that. He pushed it from his mind and moved his lips along with the others, fudging the words as best he could, pretending to know what he was doing. When the prayers finally came to a close, he rose with the crowd and watched as Oddfreyr and a couple of his vivids exited using the side entrance.

  While the rest of the Aurorans began filing out toward the mead hall, Marius diverged just short of the sanctum doors, skirting the wall to the side entrance. It was set in an alcove, with a couple stairs up, and slowly, he leaned to peer into the corridor beyond.

  To his left, Radiant Oddfreyr was retreating toward a set of open double doors leading to a large green area. As he and the vivids flanking him crossed over the threshold, Marius slipped into the hallway and followed.

  He was surprised at how naturally sneaking came to him, his feet silent against the floor, the cold darkness around him strangely comforting. He was not used to that feeling; he’d lived his whole life in the sun. But however surprising, it was a boon now, and he would take what he could get.

  When he stepped into the large courtyard, the comfort of the shadow fled. Dread tickled his spine. Looking around hastily, he could only see a few other people in street clothes, and would likely see fewer and fewer the deeper he was led into the temple. But it was too late to turn back now. He would just have to hope he wasn’t spotted or, if he was, that no one asked questions.

  The Radiant disappeared through a smaller entrance on the far side of the courtyard, and Marius followed at a distance. Again, cool darkness washed over him. The layout of this temple wasn’t the same as the one he was used to, but the cathedral-like stone walls were the closest thing to home he had seen in weeks.

  A curved staircase took them up to an empty second-floor corridor, at the end of which stood ornately carved wooden doors. Marius didn’t have to be an expert on the layout of this place to guess that those were the doors to the Radiant’s office, and more than likely, the vivids with him would end up guarding it.

  Heart thumping, he glanced around for somewhere to hide before slipping into a room to his left. An administrative office, it looked like. It was empty for now, but with morning prayers ended, who knew how long that would last? He had to act fast.

  Peering from his hiding place, he confirmed his suspicions. The Radiant had disappeared into his office and the two vivids now stood flanking the doors. He would need to get rid of them before anything else. And without his armor, best to try and take one at a time.

  He backed into the office, glancing around the room before grabbing a stack of papers from a desk and pretending to riffle through them. “Hey, can someone help me in here?” he called out, and braced himself.

  The sound of shifting armor reached him, and after a pause, he heard one of the vivids say under their breath, “Did you hear that?”

  “Must be one of the staff.”

  “Should I…?”

  Another pause. “Go ahead. Better they bother us than the Radiant.”

  Marius set the papers down and flattened himself against the wall by the door, summoning a shield of light over his right forearm. He was able to track the vivid by the sound of their chainmail, and he held his breath as they entered and scanned the room in confusion.

  He leapt from his hiding place, tearing the vivid’s helmet off with his left hand and striking them across the back of the head with the shield in one smooth motion. They dropped to the floor with a loud clatter, and Marius knew their friend wouldn’t be far behind.

  “Ronnow?” A frantic voice. As more chainmail clinked toward Marius’s position, he heard the soft hum of a light blade being summoned.

  Marius flexed his fingers and summoned his own in response. His glowing shield dissolved, the light flowing down his arm in a helix before coalescing into a ball of energy at the end of his wrist. He raised it like a cannon just as the second vivid appeared in the doorway, and the light shot forward, exploding in his face.

  The vivid barely had time to shout before Marius darted forward, yanking him to his knees and striking him in the back of the head. He collapsed next to his partner.

  Marius slid into the hallway quickly, locking the door from the inside before closing it. There was no need to kill them—he’d killed enough vivids to last him a lifetime—but he had to delay them, at least for a little bit, should they wake up.

  Brushing off his clothes, he looked down the hall. The door to the Radiant’s office stood unguarded before him.

  He inhaled deeply, slowly. Who knew what fate lay beyond that threshold? This was for the Reach, and for what was left of the Aurora’s honor … and for himself.

  Before he was quite aware of it, he had darted to the doors and thrown them open.

  Oddfreyr’s office wasn’t like his father’s. His father’s had been situated on a balcony overlooking a beautiful library. This one was smaller and more typical, with wood paneling, a coffered ceiling, and a fireplace. A desk stood as the focal point, with leather chairs opposite. And behind the desk, abruptly standing from his seat, the Radiant himself.

  His eyes locked on Marius, and he froze. Recognition bloomed on his face like a fever, changing every inch of his expression, twisting it. “You.”

  Marius kept an eye on the Radiant as he closed the doors behind him. “So, you’re still in the city. I was beginning to wonder if you were here at all.”

  Oddfreyr scowled. “Never doubt that, oathbreaker.” When he saw that the word made Marius flinch, he sneered. “Did you come here to turn yourself in, or did you think you might try to kill me?”

  “Your guards made it easy enough,” Marius said with a shrug. Though he tried to remain impassive, he couldn’t hide his own burning anger at seeing Oddfreyr again; he could feel all his muscles tense, his jaw clench, his brow furrow tightly. “But I don’t want to kill you … if I don’t have to.”

  Oddfreyr relaxed back slightly but didn’t sit. “I wou
ld ask what you want, then, boy, but it doesn’t make any difference to me. Either way, you won’t be leaving this place.”

  Those words chilled Marius, but he held fast to his calm. “I didn’t come here for glory. I want answers.”

  The Radiant said nothing, simply crossing his arms, and so Marius took a few steps closer, poised to defend himself at any moment.

  “The Gloaming is infesting the city. Those ‘Blood Eagles’ are sowing chaos. Everything is falling apart. And here sits the Radiant of the Mid-Atlantic Divine in his ivory tower”—Marius gestured around the well-appointed office—“not sending aid to anyone and standing for nothing. Why?”

  “I see no Gloaming,” Oddfreyr scoffed. “And it is not my job to deal with the unattuned. They have their own institutions for that.”

  “Those institutions are failing.” Marius shook his head, trying to school the disgust and loathing from his voice but not fully succeeding. “How can you not see the Gloaming? You think the Blood Eagles just popped up overnight on their own?”

  “Humans have their own free will, apart from the attuned.”

  “Not usually with such impeccable timing.” He frowned, unsure of what he should reveal. After a moment, he settled on, “The Reach has gathered evidence that the two are connected. The poster child of the Blood Eagles is Gloaming.”

  Oddfreyr curled his lip. “And what do you want me to do about it? You’re not in a position to tell me how to do my job, coward,” he added, face becoming redder.

  “Stop them!” Marius snapped. “I want you to stop them. Use the army of Tyr at your disposal and stop them.”

  “I haven’t seen them doing anything worth that reaction.”

  “The rallies? The riots?”

  Oddfreyr barked a laugh. “I haven’t seen them start any riots. Only the people ‘protesting’ them.”

  “Yes,” Marius breathed. “How convenient that the riot gear only comes out once the Blood Eagles are done with their business.”