Carnage: Nate Temple Series Book 14

by Shayne Silvers

  Callie hadn’t been pleased. I hadn’t been pleased. Ryuu had been extremely pleased.

  He’d also been somewhat approving of my response, respecting me for it and even humbly apologizing for his oversight—even though it had been Callie’s oversight.

  All that to say, he was a badass, and he led a group of ninjas who had chosen to guard Callie—the White Rose, as they called her. Callie had picked up quite a few strays in recent years. She even had a talking skeleton who seemed like a real riot. Xylo adored red balloons and he wore pirate boots. I had questions.

  They were in some kind of wooded clearing, holding small cups the size of shot glasses. A bottle of sake—judging by the kanji on the label—sat on a quilted picnic blanket between them. A park in Kansas City, I presumed.

  She…well, she definitely looked like she was too busy to come to Chateau Falco to meet with Hermes and make sure her old pal, Nate Temple, was safe. She hadn’t even finished her bottle of sake yet. Gee golly, I was surprised she’d even had time to take the phone call from Gunnar and Alucard. I’d have to thank her for really going out of her way for me. Kansas City was practically on fire, judging by the tranquil scene spread out before me.

  I mean, the park was obviously a hotbed of crime and intrigue, what with the chirping birds, the lush greenery, the lack of other park-goers, and the sunbeams shining down through the canopy. That picnic blanket looked downright nefarious, and the cheese and crackers were probably poisoned with greed—

  I gritted my teeth and took a calming breath. After a few seconds, I begrudgingly admitted that I felt jealous. I also admitted that I was giving some serious thought to my visit with Aphrodite later.

  I saw a pair of wooden staffs and training swords tossed into a pile not far from their picnic blanket. I frowned harder, eyeing the sake, the sunlight, and the weapons. Sake was not typically used in weapons training, as far as I knew. They had unfastened the top buttons of their jackets to cool off, and their hair was sweat-soaked from sparring.

  They were laughing at some joke I’d missed. Carefree. I watched as she settled her hand on Ryuu’s shoulder, actually wiping at her eyes as she tried to regain her composure.

  I stared, refusing to blink.

  All other sounds seemed to fade away, and I suddenly felt very hollow. A gentle breeze blew through the scene—not affecting me in the slightest—and I could almost taste Aphrodite’s perfume in the air. I knew it was all in my head—a knee-jerk defense mechanism to seeing Callie enjoying herself with another man.

  Ryuu laughed alongside her, and I saw the hidden embers of desire in his eyes. I knew that look well. I’d had it before with Callie. I didn’t even breathe, wondering why I felt strangely hollow and empty inside even though I was full of anger, sadness, and jealousy. All irrational feelings, based on my lessons from Aphrodite. Because I was also confident of her claim that we weren’t right for each other.

  Despite the weatherman’s forecast, the silent, all-encompassing hurricane of emotions raged.

  Callie finally looked up. Ryuu had been watching her, so they ended up locking eyes from a hands-width away. Their laughter cut off as abruptly as if a plate had been dropped in a restaurant. I watched, the hair on the back of my neck rising up of its own accord, as Ryuu hesitantly leaned a fraction of an inch closer. Callie didn’t pull back.

  Instead, she bit her lip expectantly.

  I stared at the two of them, ignoring the imagined, echoing sound of laughter in my ears. Aphrodite’s laughter—not her laughing at me, but an echo of her laughter with me from when we’d hung out naked last night. I smelled a whiff of guilt in the air, but it quickly floated on by as I watched Callie hesitating to act on Ryuu’s obvious advance.

  Callie suddenly turned away, lowering her gaze to her boots, looking shaken and mildly angry. Her purple-flecked blue eyes sparkled, full of pent-up emotion.

  I watched her, feeling like a dried husk of myself.

  By the looks of it, Callie had similar conflicting emotions about us as I did, and that reaction hit me like a punch in the gut. Aphrodite…had been right. It wasn’t just me. Otherwise, Callie would have punched Ryuu in the throat for even hinting at a kiss. It was obvious that part of her had desperately wanted to lean forward rather than away.

  Surprisingly, it was…somewhat of a relief. Painful, but still a relief. My guilt about my night with Aphrodite slowly evolved to a mild—very mild; I’m not a saint—form of sympathy for her current emotions.

  Irrational jealousy was apparently an inherited trait. It was science, so I didn’t argue it.

  Aphrodite had hinted that I did hold someone in my heart. Somewhere. Maybe Ryuu was Callie’s soulmate. I wondered if she knew. If Aphrodite had paid her a visit, like she’d intended. Was that why Callie had hesitated, momentarily entertaining Ryuu’s kiss?

  “My apologies,” Ryuu suddenly said. “I should take a quick walk and leave you to your thoughts,” he said, abruptly standing, bowing, and spinning on a heel. Callie reached out a hand, her composure cracking with angst, but Ryuu was already striding away.

  Her hand fell and her shoulders slumped.

  I stared at her long white hair, refusing to blink. I gritted my teeth as she brushed a loose strand behind her ear. She was beautiful and talented and amazing. Sure, she had qualities I didn’t like at times—much like any of my friends.

  I loved her.

  But I wasn’t in love with her. There was a difference. I didn’t currently know the identity of my mysterious soulmate, but that wasn’t the point. Something deep inside me knew that she wasn’t the one for me.

  It was a strange dichotomy. I obviously cared deeply about her, and part of me clung to the idea of a relationship, even while another screamed for me to move on. Much like the convenience of the easiest, straightest path versus the longer, winding, more difficult road. They each led to the same place, but the rare vistas viewed from the more difficult route were not visible on the easier, straighter path.

  29

  I flinched as I suddenly sensed a new presence. I angled my neck to see a warrior in gleaming gold kneeling behind a bush. I stared, blinking incredulously. Her armor—pleasantly forged to show off the beauty of the feminine form—had not been repaired and still looked uncared for. She gripped a wicked trident in one gauntleted fist and glared at Callie from her hiding place.

  Kára. What was she doing here? Was she looking for me?

  I waved a hand at her to check, wondering if she could even see me. Although I was clearly in her peripheral vision, she didn’t acknowledge me in the slightest. Damn it. Was she actually in Kansas City? In the real world? I crept closer, knowing that Ryuu would kill her if he found her. Thankfully, he was on the opposite side of the clearing.

  Was she spying on Callie in hopes of finding me? Was that why Hugin and Munin had led me here? And where were the two miscreants—

  A sudden flapping of wings drew my attention as two large ravens swept down from a nearby tree. Their raucous caws seemed to echo as if in a cavernous stone room, even though we were in a park. Which meant they were on the astral plane as well. I realized I was holding a large rock in my hand, ready to throw it at them if they attacked Kára. They landed on the bush directly before the Valkyrie with a rapid flap of their wings to slow their descent.

  Kára’s form dispersed like wind-blown smoke and she cursed up a storm. I froze. Wait. Kára was on the astral plane. Then why couldn’t she see me?

  Her form slowly rematerialized, and she glared at Odin’s ravens with murderous intent.

  “You should not be here,” one of the ravens said. “Our agreement was to be your eyes. You being here jeopardizes everything.”

  “Fuck off.”

  I chuckled at her blatant disrespect of the ravens. None of the three heard me, so my humor swiftly faded. She obviously knew them well. But what was this about an agreement?

  Judging by Kára’s dented armor, her search for me had introduced her to many unsavory types—it was
even more beat up than when I’d last seen her with Freya. As I focused on her trident, I noticed dried blood on the tips. Where the hell had she gone looking for me, and who had she poked?

  I walked closer, seeing no need to hide my presence since they couldn’t see me.

  Kára rose up from behind the bush to a standing position. As she did, her form flickered again, as if she really was made up of mist. It happened every time she moved. My form didn’t seem to do that.

  Her upper body was adorned by a golden cuirass covered in eccentric sworls and curlicue designs, looking like an armored corset. Her lower half was somewhat covered by a short skirt of black leather strips—much like Zeus wore but a different color—with golden tridents on the lower tips. Beneath that skirt was a whole lot of bare leg. She wore furry leather boots, also decorated in golden runes and symbols. The fur was matted—with blood, presumably.

  I was able to get a closer look at the hand-etched depiction of a lighthouse over the left breast of her cuirass, but I still didn’t understand its significance. A closer look only showed me how bad a carving it actually was. Kára was definitely not an artist. I cocked my head, trying to get a better look. Maybe it was a tower, not a lighthouse. Or just a random stack of lego blocks.

  Maybe she’d let Alice vandalize her armor for the hell of it. But Alice was actually incredible at drawing, so I doubted it had been her.

  I gritted my teeth in impotent frustration as Kára’s glare rolled right over me.

  “You should not be here, Kára,” Munin said, mimicking his partner in rhyme, Hugin. I studied the three of them, flapping my arms dramatically in hopes that the ravens were just ignoring me to be dickheads. They had led me here, after all. They didn’t even blink, focused entirely on Kára.

  “You should not be doing many things you are currently doing,” Hugin added in a soft, almost compassionate tone.

  “I must find him,” Kára snarled, clenching her trident tightly. “I will find him.” I stared at her incredulously, a kernel of hope blooming deep within my chest. She really had been talking about me with Freya!

  “I think it’s safe to say that he is not here,” Munin drawled dryly.

  Kára pointed her trident at Callie, nearly skewering both ravens in the process. Since they didn’t react, I was betting they were immune to her blade. Or Kára’s mist form couldn’t touch them. “She might know something,” Kára argued lamely, drawing her trident back and setting the haft into the ground at her feet. It wasn’t entirely clear how Kára intended to get that something out of Callie, but the look in her green and blue eyes told me she was ready, willing, and able to spill blood.

  Munin shifted from foot to foot. “She knows many things. How he tastes, for example—”

  Kára’s trident suddenly flared with light and she stabbed it directly over his head, missing him by millimeters. This time, he let out a panicked squawk, tumbling down into the bush. He winked back into existence a moment later, on a different, safer branch.

  “You fucking crazy?” he screeched, flapping his wings angrily. Kára’s form buffeted against the pressure, momentarily breaking up. “We work for your boss’s boss!”

  “Not for long,” Kára growled under her breath, reforming even as she said it. Then she laughed harshly. “That was not a threat. I meant that I might be unemployed soon.”

  I frowned, having forgotten that little tidbit as a result of my own adventures—robbing corporate secrets, crashing birthday parties, and skinny dipping in a Frost Giant’s version of a hot spring.

  I did recall that if Kára got fired, she’d revert to soul-status—which wouldn’t help her cause at all. And…mine either, I admitted, realizing I was smiling shyly—nervously. I started, shaking my head. I’d meant as a friend, Freud. I wasn’t rebounding, but Aphrodite’s lessons were on the forefront of my mind.

  The ravens studied her and then each other. “Not it,” Hugin finally said.

  Munin narrowed his eyes and flapped his wings. “Ragnarok it all!” he cursed, hunching down as if preparing to take flight.

  Kára grunted. “I already spoke to Freya about it. We didn’t finish the conversation.”

  The ravens calmed, cursing under their beaks. “Why not?”

  “We…had an observer,” she said cryptically, turning away to conceal the faint smile tugging at the side of her lips.

  But I sure fucking saw it. I grinned smugly, glancing over at Callie with an air of triumph. Ryuu was pacing worriedly behind her back. Callie was fidgeting with her small glass. It was obvious that both knew of the other’s presence, and still needed a few moments to gather their thoughts. Or drink more sake.

  “I’ll see your ninja, and raise you a Valkyrie,” I muttered with a pompous sniff.

  Kára waved a hand at the ravens, gripping her trident tightly in her other fist. “Shoo. I need to hear what she says.”

  Why had the ravens brought me here? Or had they? Maybe I’d just hitched a ride somehow. They obviously hadn’t seen me. The ravens left, and I realized that I was still staring at Kára.

  I stepped up beside her. “Hey, stranger.”

  She didn’t react and I let out an annoyed sigh. I glanced up at Callie and sighed again.

  Kára—even though invisible to them—kept her distance, probably fearing that Callie might know some magic to detect her if she drew too close.

  Which…wasn’t necessarily wrong. Callie was alarmingly powerful—much more powerful than when I had first met her. I’d seen her carrying around a Beast of her own, as a matter of fact. An eyeless white fox with melted silver oozing from her vacant eye sockets. The fox wasn’t in attendance, thankfully.

  Ryuu walked up to Callie, and I was surprised to see the cool anger in his eyes.

  “Too much to drink,” Callie finally said, sounding embarrassed. “I’m a lightweight,” she said off-handedly, still staring out at the scene as if she doubted her own words.

  Ryuu remained silent. He made no move to resume their earlier moment, making me wonder if it truly had been an unplanned event. That he hadn’t intended for it to happen but hadn’t wanted to miss the opportunity. He just stood there, close enough for support if Callie needed it, far enough away to give her space if she needed that. And he was still angry. Actually, he looked a lot angrier after hearing her excuse and chewing on it in silence.

  She fidgeted uncomfortably, not meeting his eyes. “What almost happened a few minutes ago,” she began sheepishly, “never happened.” She turned to Ryuu with a determined look in her eyes, and abruptly jerked back in surprise. “I…” she stammered, caught off guard…by her ninja’s now furious glare. “I have feelings for Nate,” she finally managed, lamely.

  Kára growled savagely, clenching her trident tight enough that it seemed like she was trying to hold the weapon itself from attacking Callie.

  I realized I was grinning boyishly. “I’m amazing.”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment, seeming to gather his resolve. “Then I guess I will echo your lie.” She cocked her head, frowning. “I apologize for my actions,” he said, dryly, obviously not meaning it at all.

  Kára burst out laughing. “Damn. I actually like this guy,” she breathed, smirking. I smiled along with Kára, nodding my agreement. Ryuu was clever. I’d give him that. Of course, clever people got killed all the time in this world. A tactic was only deemed clever after it worked.

  Before that, it went by idiotic, reckless, or foolish. Three of my favorite words.

  Callie’s lips thinned as she finally comprehended his meaning. “I was not lying, Ryuu.”

  “This isn’t the Riverboat Casino,” he growled. “Doubling down on a lie will not save you.”

  Kára lifted her trident, hooting as she pumped it in the air. “Go, Ryuu!” I was more interested in Callie’s dilemma—facing a man who wouldn’t tolerate her bullshit, even though he worked for her. But I was smirking at Kára’s vehement glee. Just hearing her smile and laugh as opposed to being broody and grim was en
ough to make me happy.

  Callie brushed her hair behind her ear, patting the stump he’d occupied earlier. Ryuu sat down on the blanket instead, a respectful distance away. “We have more training to do, so we should make this brief,” he said.

  Callie glared at him. “I’m sorry for hurting you, Ryuu.”

  He studied her for a few moments. “Are you ready to continue training, then?”

  She clenched her jaws. “Stop being an asshole. I’m trying to apologize.”

  He leaned forward. “Then stop being a fool. I don’t care for your apology. I want your heart.”

  She stiffened, her eyes widening as she opened her mouth wordlessly.

  Even Kára stared at him, cocking her head as if he’d appeared out of thin air.

  Ryuu’s anger faded somewhat, spotting a tear on Callie’s cheek. He winced, reaching to brush it away and she slapped the shit out of him—THWACK!

  Kára let out a whistle but I didn’t turn to look. Wow. I was more impressed by the fact that Ryuu hadn’t attempted to block it. He was a ninja, after all. In fact…

  He was chuckling. He had a perfect red handprint on his cheek, and he was laughing. Callie blushed. She opened her mouth to apologize, but Ryuu held up a hand, cutting her off. “That was the most honest thing you’ve said in ten minutes. Your honesty echoed throughout the park.” He smirked. “And my skull.”

  Callie’s blush deepened, and a faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She let out a frustrated sigh. “Fine. You win, fucking ninja Jedi,” she snapped. “I’m not sure what Nate and I have! Happy now?”

  Her words struck me like a gong, seeming to simultaneously echo throughout my body, the astral plane, and the wooded park. It wasn’t sadness I felt, but hearing the words out loud…hurt.

  Ryuu stared at her, waiting. Not giving her an inch. He did not nod. He did not smile. He did not gloat. He just waited, forcing her to do this on her own without his help. Just like she’d lied on her own and he’d called her on it.