The Talon & the Blade

by Jasmine Silvera

  A humorless smile creased his mouth. Back in the old days, they used scrying glass and spelled bowls of water. Times change.

  He snugged his tie, plucking at the knot until it suited him. He was a long way from the forest estate of his childhood. Back then it had been leather and fine cloth tailored for him, as befit a young man of noble—if somewhat inconsequential—birth. He’d never lost the taste for dressing well in any age.

  Though time and experience had eroded his sense of the virtues of nobility, he maintained the rigid structures of dress as well as he could. The clothes did not, as they claimed, make the man, but they did maintain order. And a required amount of distance between himself and others.

  The phone chimed as the connection was established and the call began. He should have taken Lysippe’s offer for a full briefing before he’d left Prague. But he hadn’t wanted to have his perception tainted by her experience with Raymond. As always, she’d let him pick his course. He braced himself for an epic I-told-you-so.

  The black screen resolved to an image of an unfamiliar blonde. He frowned, expecting Lysippe’s short curly hair and dark skin.

  “You must be the scary one. That was fast—I’ll get her.” She cupped a hand over her mouth and called out. “Lys!”

  This one was new. He hadn’t known Lysippe had a thing for blondes, but tastes changed.

  The view swung past a pair of full breasts to take in a dirt-covered arena ringed in clean white fencing. A copper blur streaked across the screen, resolving to a horse at full gallop. Clinging to its back like a burr, a figure flipped from one side of the animal to the other, her feet touching dirt long enough to send up a few clods before she leaped again. Each side, then a pause over the center of the saddle, balancing on her grip of the pommel and stirrup. Before the horse pounded out of view, she slipped into her seat so subtly the animal scarcely flicked an ear.

  They loped across the far side of the arena. No bit, only a rope circling the animal’s neck. Lysippe’s hips rocked with the horse’s movement, her upper body almost motionless.

  “Show-off,” Gregor muttered.

  The blonde laughed and the camera refocused on her face. “I know. I told her the same thing.”

  Gregor paused, the woman’s bone structure hooking him. She was beautiful, almost painful to look at, but alien. Yet he couldn’t look away. His nostrils flared in surprise.

  Only Lysippe would take a succubus for a lover.

  The view swung back.

  “That bad, is it?” Lysippe said, breathing a little hard herself as she scissored her legs and dropped to the sand beside the finely bred animal.

  “You know I can’t divulge—” he began as she took the phone.

  “It’s a joke.” She laughed, then called over her shoulder, “Habibi, cool him out for me, would you?”

  Well, her preferred endearment never changed.

  The blonde hopped over the fence to meet the horse’s affectionate nuzzle with her open palms. “Of course. Come, you little sneaker.”

  The horse blew out and the woman crooned at it. He watched them walk away over Lysippe’s shoulder, the woman’s fingers light on the horse’s cheek.

  Lysippe arched a brow. “You were saying?”

  “Really?”

  “I’ll thank you to keep your opinion of my bedmates to yourself.”

  “Does Azrael—”

  “I’ve broken none of his codes.”

  As if it would matter. As the oldest member of Azrael’s Aegis and his adopted daughter, there would be little he would object to. She’d handpicked and trained each member of his Aegis over hundreds of years. Azrael trusted her. They all did. She’d enforced a code that had made them a unit—they had each other’s backs against supernatural creatures and the machinations of necromancers. Having watched Raymond’s Aegis try to devour itself just a few paces outside their master’s door, Gregor had a new appreciation for Lysippe’s strategy.

  She wiped sweat from her brow with her forearm and sighed. “I warned you Raymond would hold his cards close. Azrael should have sent me. But tell me what you can, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Gregor poured himself a scotch and sat down, pausing to straighten his cuffs. “It’s not Raymond I have questions about.”

  Her brows rose. “You met Ana.”

  No point in mincing words. “I gave her my vow.”

  She laughed so hard she had to wipe her eyes before she could speak again. “Rich. And I thought I’d lost a comedian when Dory jumped ship.”

  He sighed and her face fell.

  “You gave a vow to that single-minded homicidal lunatic?”

  He gritted his teeth in frustration at the stream of dead and archaic languages that reminded him she was over 1,500 years his senior. She could be such a mother hen sometimes.

  She kicked the fence post with enough force the wood cracked and the crossbars buckled. That refreshed her round of swearing. Mostly living languages this time, so at least he understood the bulk of it.

  She glared at him. “Letting the little brain make all the decisions, are we?”

  “I don’t know what you presume…”

  Her brow shot north. “How many years has it been? I knew the ascetic thing would be your undoing. Get laid once in a while, wasn’t that the first thing I said to you? It will keep you from thinking with your boner.”

  Gregor recoiled. “My… are you drinking?”

  “I will be raising a glass to your memory after this call.”

  He shoved himself out of his chair, checked the windows, plucked at his tie in the mirror. Energy moved through him, and he had nowhere to put it. He needed a chase, a hunt, a kill.

  Lysippe tried again. “Ana Gozen was a trained killer before Raymond gave her the gift. She had that bushido bullshit driven into her when she was too young to know any better. She’s not a person, she’s a weapon, and the only thing she’s better at than wholesale slaughter is maintaining her loyalty, and that will always be to Raymond.”

  No bitterness or anger laced her words. She spoke as she always did, with unadorned confidence he’d never questioned until now.

  “Then she’ll be quite capable of handling herself on this hunt,” Gregor muttered. “At least I won’t have to worry about that.”

  She made a little choking noise of disbelief. “Gregor, she will not hesitate to let you hang if it means keeping his house and his secrets safe.”

  “Is that what she did to you?”

  It sounded bitter to his own ears, and once the words were spoken, he regretted them. She deserved better than his scorn. Lysippe sighed and shook her head at him.

  “The damage done between Raymond and me needed no help.” She rubbed her mouth, gazing over the edge of the camera and into her own past.

  Then she must have caught a glimpse of one of her animals or the blonde, because the tension in her face eased. She took a deep breath, and when she looked at him, a little smile tugged at her mouth.

  “I should have seen it coming. You’re alike, you two—you like terrorizing things. And you have always enjoyed being in over your head.”

  Again, Gregor lost his words. Did she really see him as empty loyalty bent to the next kill?

  She shrugged, meeting his eyes. “You’re a big boy now. I’ve taught you well enough, or not. Just don’t forget what she is and whom she serves. Keep your own countenance, princeling. And watch your blind spot. Everyone has one… Well, except Ana.”

  The call ended and Gregor poured himself a double. He drank it down with a little laugh, imagining Lysippe on the other end doing the same.

  At the knock on the door, Gregor smoothed his lapels and rose to meet his fate. He recognized the undead woman at the door from Raymond’s office. Good, his message had been received. He retrieved the package Azrael had prepared. “Take me to him.”

  She led him to the deck behind Raymond’s office. The North American necromancer looked over his shoulder. “You have something for me?”
r />   “My master sends his regards,” Gregor said. “And this token of his good will.”

  Gregor withdrew a small vial. Even packed in unbreakable glass and sealed with wards, the power from within surged. Not even sunset’s glow could dull the shine of the liquid.

  Raymond spun, his nostrils flaring. “Ambrosia. Where—”

  Gregor gave an apologetic smile. Raymond nodded. He must have known Gregor would be unwilling or even forbidden to reveal the source of such a precious liquid capable of boosting power and increasing the effectiveness of spells. Azrael had anticipated that a few drops of ambrosia taken from deep in the mountains of eastern Europe would be something more precious than Raymond’s composure. He’d been right. Raymond took the sphere containing the vial, studying the wards.

  “You will thank your master for me and assure him of our future cooperation.”

  Gregor bowed.

  Raymond’s fingers curled around the sphere until the light disappeared. “Is there anything else?”

  “I understand we will be driving,” Gregor said.

  “I leave the particulars to Ana’s discretion.”

  “I’d like to request a specific automobile.”

  Raymond exhaled, facing the hills again and the distant glimpse of the sea. “Is that all?”

  According to Lysippe, Raymond came from the Pacific Northwest. Curious that he had chosen to live here, so far from the ocean he seemed unwilling or unable to put his back to for long.

  “She’s gotten her wish. I’m paying attention now.”

  Gregor assumed he was talking about Ana. “Sir?”

  Raymond lifted his head. “Ana is my right hand. You will not interfere with her in any way. But you will stop this creature, no matter what the cost.”

  Gregor had survived as Azrael’s enforcer for over two hundred years. Necromancers could be cold, making sacrifices with the calculation of a master gamesman. Yet he had never seen one so willing to use a member of his own Aegis as a gambit. And, based on this afternoon’s reconnaissance, the most valuable one.

  He wondered at what Raymond considered worth the price of losing her.

  Chapter Eight

  Ana turned as her door chimed and slid open. Raymond entered without waiting to be invited. She finished buckling the strap of her stiletto and set her foot on the floor. There was no breeze. Whatever irritation Gregor roused in Raymond, he’d mastered it. Good—she didn’t have time for any macho bullshit.

  He assessed her, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned against the kitchen counter. “You look stunning.”

  She’d picked a single sheath of cobalt-blue silk, the cowl neckline draping between her breasts, mirroring the backless effect brought on by the draping that exposed her spine to the top of her hips. The dress fell to her ankles but the slits ran well up her thigh. Fight or fuck, she was good to go.

  She shrugged one shoulder, sweeping the hair off the back of her neck. “I got a report this afternoon of some trouble with newcomers. I’d like to have it settled before we leave in the morning. I thought I’d take Azrael’s hound along for the ride.”

  “Good,” Raymond said. “Get rumors circling in the territory. He’s got quite the reputation. Almost as terrifying as yours, I hear.”

  Her brows rose. “You expect less?”

  “He came to see me.”

  Ana checked her rage. He should have at least done her the courtesy of asking her to arrange the one-on-one. She bit her tongue against the demand for specifics she knew Raymond wouldn’t give.

  “I get the sense Azrael does many things differently in his court,” she mused instead.

  “Do you?” The air in the room charged, fine hairs of fabric on the rug and wall hangings beginning to stir.

  “Master.” Ana palmed her fist and bowed, reminding them both of her place. “I am your servant.”

  “And he is yours, it appears,” Raymond said, mocking now. “Don’t bore me with obedience, Ana. I prefer your tongue sharp.”

  “Do you?” she said, hearing the echo of his words in her own.

  “I always have.” The necromancer smiled. “He does not trust me.”

  “Should he?” Ana couldn’t check the edge in her tone.

  Raymond’s voice held a dark timbre when he replied. “It’s contagious.”

  “I know you.”

  “You do,” he said, sobering. “We are alike, you and I. We shaped ourselves, birthed ourselves, named ourselves. We survived by our wits until we had the strength and the power to do more than just survive. We don’t require the trust of others.”

  No, she hadn’t. At the beginning. But after a century of conflict inside and out, a deep weariness had crept into her bones. The solitary existence of immortality weighed her down. If he would confide in her, just once. Reveal something more than the absolute necessity. Just because.

  She took a chance. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe… “What did he want?”

  Raymond stared out the window. “He asked for a car.”

  Her true sight applied to all grace-blooded things. She had been specific when she’d traded her soul for this life. To see the nature they hide. The lie. Ana exhaled, closing her eyes as though it would sharpen her grace-given gift.

  Not a lie. But that didn’t mean he was telling the truth.

  He crossed the room to her and the air moved with him, clattering frames on the walls and buffeting the windows. “I’ve forwarded the specs to your assistant. It should be delivered before your departure.”

  The wind swept behind her, cradling her and tugging loose the short hairs at the base of her neck. He stopped a few feet away, hands at his sides, gaze out the window over her shoulder.

  Once, he had touched her—tucked hair behind her ear, cupped a palm on the back of her elbow, or some such familiar gesture of an intimate. She could no longer remember. Her reaction, gripping and twisting his wrist away from her as she slipped the blade against his throat, had been swift and unmistakable. She’d done it without thought, forgetting who—and what—he was. Flinging herself away, she folded into a deep bow of submission as shame burned her face, and set her blade at his feet. She would never forget the look in his eyes. He’d never touched her without necessity again.

  The irony of the rumors of what lay between them coated her tongue with bitterness. She kept her eyes down.

  “I don’t care where his true loyalty lies, as long as it is in this house,” he said, focused on the spot just past her temple. “And if it is to you, all the better.”

  “I don’t need protection.” She glared up at him. “Send him back. I can handle this alone.”

  Raymond’s guarded expression turned more troubled than she had ever seen for the flash of a moment. He held a breath as if weighing his next words.

  Then he spun to the door and the crackle of his energy withdrew as the room went still again. “Happy hunting, Ana.”

  By the third stop, Gregor was sick of LA and everyone in it. Even his mild curiosity about what this side of the country would look like had died an airless death after ten minutes in a glossy shopping center. Beside him in a body-hugging swathe of blue fabric, Ana Gozen’s satiny plum lips rose at the return of the sales clerk. She leaned a hip against the counter beside the stack of shoeboxes piled high, her expression that of one gleefully anticipating a calamity.

  “We don’t have those in stock,” the clerk said after clearing his throat. “But it’s no problem ordering them… sir.”

  Gregor fought the urge to press his fingertips into his temples. The store had emptied of shoppers when they’d come in, but now the window was crowded with gawking mortals. Tourists. Aegises existed in a gray area of the Allegiance code. They were allowed to operate openly as a visible reminder of a ruling necromancer’s power. Mortals knew who they were, what they were, and feared them as much as the grace blooded did. Being a prominent member of a necromancer’s retinue made him a recognizable public figure. Strangely, the same didn’t seem to a
pply to Ana. Unless she spoke, no one seemed to focus on her. Maybe it was just the novelty of his presence.

  He had a reputation to uphold in any case. He sighed and swung his gaze back to the waiting boy.

  The boy recoiled at the expression on his face.

  Ana laughed, and Gregor’s nostrils flared. Against everything, he wanted to hear it again.

  When she had appeared at his door after his meeting with Raymond, he expected her to be furious for the breach of protocol. Instead, she gave him a cool smile.

  “I am told you have errands in the city. I have some business to attend to. Perhaps we could combine our efforts.”

  The racing stripes of the white ’67 Shelby in the horseshoe drive matched her dress. The V-8 thundered to life as the undead valet climbed out, and Gregor inhaled the sweet perfume of burning gasoline. After Isela had wrecked his coupe, Azrael had insisted he switch to electric. He felt a bit like a recovered smoker getting a whiff of cigarettes outside a crowded bar.

  She pulled out of the grounds as Gregor explained his mission.

  “Shopping for your master’s consort?” Ana said, with a trace of a taunt. “If you provide a list of items you require, I can have them sent to you. Or we can ship them if you’d prefer.”

  The muttered reply forced its way between his clenched jaws. “She would not make it so easy for me.”

  “Your mistress has a unique sense of humor.”

  “Scores to be settled are a universal feature of humanity, it seems,” he said, unable to keep the exasperated humor out of his voice.

  “Raymond has taken on a few doozies in my time,” Ana said. “Is it true Azrael made the dancer his consort before she became a vessel?”