by Bella Klaus
Nut tapped me on the shoulder, which I guess meant that she’d searched her cabinet and hadn’t found Valentine. I turned back to Jonathan’s drawer and pushed it closed. The drawer above contained a muscular man with a human body and the head of a Doberman Pinscher who was either a shifter or an Anubis demon.
The saw stopped, and something heavy landed on a metal surface with a wet thud, followed by the rumble and buzz of another machine. It was probably the meat grinder. I shoved aside my speculations, continued to the next column of drawers, and pulled at the bottom one.
Magic crackled across my fingertips, making me snatch back my hand. I pursed my lips. The demons had set some kind of ward on the cabinet, perhaps as a warning that this particular body wasn’t for consumption.
I pushed my power into the handle, ordering the ward to yield. The metal warmed around my hand, and invisible sparks of magic exploded across my skin.
Shallow breaths whistled in and out of my lungs, and I braced myself with a hand on the stainless steel cabinet. Cold seeped into my palm, making it feel as numb as my heart. A month ago, I might have felt despair or maybe even hope, but I’d seen too much, experienced too much, and struggled too much to feel anything other than grim determination.
If Hades and Brother David could rise from their ashes, so could Valentine. His body was mostly intact, and his soul resided in my pocket. I just needed to try.
As I pulled open the drawer, a familiar mix of scents filled my nostrils—strong coffee mingled with a hint of passionflower and lemon balm from our shower. My heart skipped, and I dropped to my knees.
Valentine’s head was turned away from me so I could only see light-brown ice crystals clinging to his black hair. My breath caught. The demons hadn’t bothered to rinse the coffee from his body before storing him—even though he’d gotten killed in their establishment.
Grief wrapped my throat like a constrictor, and the skin around my eyes heated with the onset of tears. Whoever had put him here had also left a four-inch gap between his head and neck, making the sight of his broken body more gruesome.
The weight of his condition crushed my ribcage, stealing my breath. Was Valentine dead or still undead? My vision blurred, and I blinked over and over, trying to focus. Up until now, I hadn’t thought of how I would react to seeing his unmoving corpse.
I’d seen Valentine alive, freshly dead, undead, and in varying states of thirst. Now, he was nearly desiccated with bronze skin stretched over sharp cheekbones and eyelids that looked like they concealed empty sockets. Even his lips were thinner, looking like they belonged to someone else.
My fingers drifted to the side of his face, which was now hollowed with a lack of blood. “This is the last time I’ll ever stand over your corpse.”
The machines whirred and squealed from beyond the rows of carcasses, setting my teeth on edge. “Could someone knock out the butcher?” I asked. “It’s time to set Valentine on fire.”
Nut patted my shoulder, which I took to mean that either she or her brother would take care of the demon turning the oversized corpse into sausage meat. I sat back on my heels, arranging my cloak between my shins and freezing floor. After getting settled, I pulled the sphere from my pocket.
Valentine’s heart was just as alive as it had been after I had reduced it to ash, beating in sync with mine. Warmth filled my chest at the sight of the organ that housed his soul, and my own heart ached to slip into the void and tell him what had happened. There was no time for conversation. The sooner I set him ablaze, the sooner he would revive.
I bit down on my bottom lip, hoping his heart would survive a second burning. The last thing we wanted was for Valentine to resurrect into an amoral supernatural vampire or someone as mindless as Brother David.
Moments later, an unconscious figure in a red apron and white overalls floated on the right side of my vision, and the top drawer of a mortuary cabinet opened. The unconscious man slipped inside, and the door slammed shut.
“Thanks,” I said over the sound of the machinery. “Can you pull Valentine out and place him on the floor, please?”
As the twins eased Valentine’s lifeless body out of the drawer, I placed a palm on the top of the sphere and pushed my magic into my palm. When Valentine had first summoned me to Koffiek using the engagement ring, he had told me that he’d protected the heart with an enchantment that would only unlock with my magic. Sweat beaded on my brow, and I gulped, hoping he was right.
The smooth surface warmed and shrank under my touch, creating a fishbowl shape with an opening large enough for my hand.
“Finally.” The word came out as a relieved sigh. I reached into the sphere and wrapped my fingers around Valentine’s heart. It was damp and smooth with muscle fibers that radiated heat. The organ tensed and spasmed under my touch, and smoky magic curled around each digit, forming a band around my wrist.
My breath quickened, and my heart thrummed an excited beat in sync with the heart. This was just like the handfasting ceremonies wizards and witches performed when they married. Was Valentine’s soul aware of what I was doing?
I pulled the beating heart from the jar and set it between the prominent pectoral muscles of Valentine’s unmoving and half-frozen body. “Sorry it’s taken so long to revive you.”
Next, I pushed his head down to his neck. Not that the position mattered—Hades had been separated into different jars, and I still managed to resurrect him with a fifth of his ashes missing. With my palms on his solar plexus—the chakra in the body governed by the element of fire—I closed my eyes, inhaled a deep breath, and channelled my magic down my hands and into my palms.
The heat of Valentine’s burning body warmed my cold skin, and light from the flames shone through my eyelids. I opened my eyes to find flames spreading across his body, even faster than they had consumed Aurora. They charred the outer layer of his skin, consuming his heart, which continued beating, even though it was ablaze.
A sob caught in the back of my throat. “What if he can feel the fire?”
Gentle hands pulled me to my feet, and I shuffled back, bumping into one of the twins.
“Nut?”
She gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
Valentine’s body continued to burn, and smoke drifted to the ceiling, coating it with black soot. Blood roared between my ears, mingling with the boom of my heart. The hum and whirr and churn of the machinery faded into the background. We’d finally done it—found a way to reunite Valentine’s heart and body with my fire magic—but what if something went wrong?
Tremors took control of my skeleton, and I clutched at my arms, trying to stop shaking. Each time I’d seen someone burn like this, the results had been terrible, from Father Jude transforming into Kresnik to Brother David turning into a soulless husk, to Aurora being cast into Hell.
My throat dried—a result of trepidation and smoke inhalation. I pulled my cloak over my mouth and nose, trying to create a filter.
“It probably wasn’t a good idea to start a fire in a confined space,” I said from beneath its thick fabric.
Nut made a soft snort.
“It’s not like we could carry him out of the room undetected,” I muttered.
She hummed her agreement.
Fire crackled and popped. Flames darkened and danced toward the slaughterhouse’s white ceiling. My magic had completely consumed Valentine’s body. Ice crystals melted from the ceiling, dripping water onto the inferno, but it burned too fiercely to extinguish the blaze.
The machines stopped, plunging us into an eerie silence broken only by the whirr of the ceiling fans.
My stomach flipped like a crepe. “What’s—”
A hand clamped over the lower half of my face, and Nut pulled me into her larger body. My muscles stiffened, and my heart rippled with a spasm of alarm. What on earth was happening? Valentine was still burning, filling the space with smoke and flying debris. He probably needed another ten minutes before he completely reduced to ash.
Footsteps approached, and I held my breath, my heart spasming a rapid beat. I straightened. Now that my power had returned, I could also defend Valentine.
“I smell phoenix flames,” said a cold voice with a New Mesopotamian accent. “Spread out. The girl might have returned to revive King Valentine’s body.”
“Alone?” asked a bassy voice.
“You saw how she spat flames at everyone?” the vampire warrior snapped. “Prepare yourselves for anything.”
Valentine’s flames rose four feet, radiating enough heat to cook the nearest row of cow carcasses and fill the air with the scent of cooking meat. There was no telling how the smoke would interact with the Helm of Hades, so I stepped toward the hanging corpses, using their muscular bodies both as cover and a vantage spot.
Instead of a horde of cloaked warriors, a woman even shorter than me walked toward the flames, which reflected on her platinum hair, amber eyes, and a white coat. My lips parted to let out a surprised breath. She was the demon doctor Valentine had hired to get rid of the firestone around my heart.
She stopped several feet away from Valentine, clutching a battered brown case to her middle and furrowing her brows. Several paces behind her lumbered a seven-foot-tall demon hybrid clad in the white uniform of a waiter. I raised myself on my tiptoes and craned my neck, checking for signs of the vampire, but he was probably lurking somewhere else.
“What is this?” said the large man. “Spontaneous combustion?”
“Impossible,” the accented voice replied with a scoff. “Remove the meat from the room, clear the smoke, and I will find the wretch who reduced my master to ash.”
With a nod, the large man turned on his heel. “Let me get some help.”
“Tell me when you’ve finished,” the vampire’s voice echoed from the other side of the slaughterhouse, sounding like he was standing in the doorway. “Doctor, your help is needed elsewhere. It’s going to take more than a powerful warlock to separate our masters’ ashes from each other and from all that wretched coffee.”
The doctor man walked away, and I slumped against a carcass, waiting for the footsteps to recede before exhaling a relieved sigh.
As soon as the door clicked shut, I peeked out between two carcasses to find Valentine’s flames had reduced to half their size, indicating that it would soon be time to collect his ashes. He would probably produce more than Father Jude, who had been half his size before he’d stolen my power for Kresnik.
It felt like an eternity. An eternity of waiting for Valentine’s body to burn. And an eternity before that of being apart from the man I loved. My heart thudded a rapid beat, and I wrapped my arms around my middle, aching for the burning to stop. How long did it take for a large man to burn to ash? I exhaled a ragged breath. Too long.
By the time the fire had reduced to a couple of inches, only a blackened outline of his body remained. My heart pounded hard enough to rattle my ribcage and the pulse in my dry throat reverberated with anticipation.
It was nearly time.
I waited for the fire to die, leaving only the barest of embers among the ash. There was nothing left of Valentine—even his bones had reduced to fine powder. I clutched the empty sphere to my chest and stepped forward, my pulse fluttering in my throat like a trapped hummingbird.
This was the moment everything would change. I needed to collect every scrap of ash so Valentine would resurrect exactly as he was—not like Hades, who had become younger and with diminished power. When Valentine rose from his ashes, he would need all his magic to deal with his enemies in New Mesopotamia, the civil unrest within Lamia, and the war against Kresnik.
On legs that wouldn’t stop trembling, I walked to the mortuary cabinet. The last vestiges of smoke curled around my body, and my heart beat with a force that made my fingers tremble.
We were so close…
Lowering myself onto my knees, I set the crystal onto the floor. The tremors of my fingers worsened as I brushed Valentine’s hot ashes into a pile, but I could barely feel the heat or the cold.
Tears blurred my vision, and a choked sob caught in the back of my throat. “Stay with me,” I whispered. “We’re nearly there.”
A large hand closed around my neck, slamming me backward into the metal cabinet. Pain exploded in the back of my skull, and I squeezed my eyes shut, breathing hard from between my clenched teeth.
“I knew you were still skulking around,” the voice sneered. “But I expected you to emerge from one of those drawers, not lurk unseen among the meat carcasses.”
My mouth dropped open, and I opened my eyes to find a red-eyed vampire staring at my left ear. He was an ancient with skin as smooth as alabaster, stretched into a rictus of a smile. A black-as-tar mustache curved around high cheekbones toward his sideburns with a sliver of hair running down his chin to form a beard.
A spasm of panic tore through my heart. Could he see me? I shook off that thought. He’d probably caught the movement of the ashes and guessed that I was trying to gather them to revive Valentine. The fingers around my neck tightened, choking off my air.
“What do you want?” I rasped.
“Do you know how long I have waited for the opportunity for greatness?” he asked. “With a phoenix at my command, I can destroy my enemies.”
My lips tightened. I thought he wanted revenge for what happened to his master. “Let go of me, and Valentine will pay you—”
“It’s power I desire, not gold,” he said in a creepy sing-song.
“You want me to be your assassin?” I asked.
His smile broadened, revealing a mouthful of teeth sharpened to points. “Allow me to introduce myself.” Still pinning me to the cabinets, he bowed with a flourish. “Nonaginta-Novem, son of Prince Draconius.”
“The ninety-ninth?” I asked, translating his name from Latin to English.
His lips tightened. “My master didn’t bother to name us after the tenth, but you may call me November.”
“Right,” I said from between clenched teeth.
“I expect you’re wondering about your demon bodyguards?” Without waiting for my reply, he added, “One of them tried to attack me from behind, and I soon found the other. They’re currently indisposed.”
My eyes bulged. Did he kill them? “What does that—”
November clamped a hand over my mouth. “Do not interrupt your new master.”
My brows drew together. Did this psycho not understand the concept of free will or had he forgotten how I had reduced his father to ash? I wrapped a hand around the hand pinning me to the cabinet and pushed my magic into my fingers. Flames spread beneath my palm, filling my nostrils with the scent of burning flesh.
November screeched and threw me to the ground. “What is the meaning of this?”
I rubbed my neck, gulping mouthfuls of air. “Go away, and I won’t burn your body parts.”
His lip curled. “How dare you…”
I crawled away, not bothering to continue the argument. The Helm disguising my presence was an artifact of legend. It had helped Hades to defeat the Titans, helped Hermes defeat a giant, and aided Perseus in decapitating Medusa. All I had to do was stay quiet so the vampire wouldn’t sense my location.
“Show yourself,” he hissed.
Creeping beneath the carcasses, I put as much distance as possible between November and me, and tried not to make a sound. If I could stall him for long enough, Valentine would rise and help me subdue this ancient vampire.
November advanced toward me with his fangs bared, slashing his claws blindly through the air. “Reveal yourself and submit to me or I will scatter the ashes of your lover.”
His words sent a jolt of alarm through my insides, and I landed on my ass. Bile rose to the back of my throat. I swallowed hard, my gaze darting in the direction of the cabinets, where I’d left Valentine’s ashes. What the hell was I going to do now? November seemed crazy enough to carry out his threat.
“I will give you until the count of three,” he said. “Three…
”
A shudder ran down my spine. What choice did I have but to give myself up?
“Two,” he snarled.
“Stop!” I scrambled to my feet behind a half-cooked cow, using its huge body as cover. “If you’re going to be my master, I need some guarantees.”
“Name them,” November said, sounding drunk on his own triumph.
“Leave Valentine alone, so he can resurrect and rule over the vampires in Logris.”
“What else?” He advanced toward me with a swagger.
“There will be no master-slave relationship.” I backed down a row of dead cows to project my voice from the other side of the room. “I’ll perform three assassinations for you and then I go free.”
November twisted in my direction, annoyance flickering across his features. “You don’t want to become the consort of the King of New Mesopotamia?”
I rolled my eyes. Did he really believe Prince Draconius’s slurs that I was some kind of power-hungry wench? “Do we have a deal or not?”
“Show yourself, and I will consider your request.”
Stopping at the end of the row of carcasses, I poked my head from behind what appeared to be a skinned elephant to find November positioning himself in a direct line between Valentine’s ashes and where I stood. Even though he was facing in my direction, I couldn’t afford to relax. At his age, he could probably move four times Valentine’s speed, and in the blink of an eye, disperse his remains across the room.
“How do I know you won’t try to strangle me again?” I asked.
November stalked toward me, his nostrils flaring as though trying to catch my scent. “I regret my actions and apologize without reservation.”
My lips tightened. He was only sorry that I could defend myself.
“Now,” he snarled, “will you show yourself to me or will I scatter Valentine’s ashes to every corner of this room and beyond?”
The pulse between my ears pounded at full volume, and my survival instincts screamed at me to continue hiding. As long as I stayed in one spot, kept on the Helm, and didn’t move, I’d be safe from November. But it wasn’t me in the biggest danger. With one flick of his wrist, he would destroy any chance I had to save Valentine.