The Talon & the Blade

by Jasmine Silvera

  “She knows where his aedis is,” Raymond said, looking back at the creature. His eyes couldn’t stay on her long, and his anger withered to something internally focused. “He meant to strip me of power and keep me under his control… as she is.”

  Gregor had never heard of such a thing. To sidestep the risk to himself and keep Raymond alive was a coward’s trick.

  “She’ll help us stop him,” Raymond said. “And I will free her.”

  Gregor shook his head. “Even if she wants to, she’s bound to obey his command. This stinks of a trap.”

  Both Ana and Raymond stared at him. The hint of a smile played at one corner of Ana’s mouth. Raymond turned a glower on her.

  She shrugged. “He doesn’t trust anyone. It’s served him well thus far.”

  Raymond sighed. “It’s a chance we have to take. We go after him now, before he can regroup.”

  Gregor opened his mouth to argue, but Raymond beat him.

  “Your duty has been fulfilled here,” Raymond said, lifting his hand to sketch a symbol in the air. “I release you from my service.”

  No. Not now. Not yet.

  Raymond’s finger left a trail of ochre sparkling in its wake. Released from the binding of his vow of service, Gregor staggered back a step, relieved of a sudden weight. He should have been elated. Instead, a spiraling sense of despair rose in its wake. Without the bond to Raymond, Gregor had no legitimate way to help Ana.

  Auger and the giants slowed to a walk in the doorway, taking in the sight of the enormous creature with awed breaths. Raymond started toward them, pausing when he noticed Ana hadn’t moved.

  “Ana,” Raymond called.

  Her eyes settled on Gregor, cool and dark. She turned her back and rejoined her master.

  Gregor didn’t miss the victorious expression on Raymond’s face.

  The giants smirked. Gregor gave them the finger. They closed ranks around Ana and Raymond, the creature trailing, and Gregor let the sinking in his stomach hit bottom. His liberty tasted sour in his mouth. Something tugged in him, a thin strand of something—a promise unspoken.

  It grew tight as Ana walked away, leaving a painful wringing in his chest. She’d made her choice.

  Best to get back to Prague before he had to fight his way out of the nightmare this territory would become in the transition of power. Barnabas had gotten the upper hand thus far because he’d managed to find a weakness of Raymond’s to exploit, and if one of the Allegiance didn’t take him down sooner, another younger necromancer craving power would later. Gus, the Suramérican necromancer, would have to be warned in her seat in Mal País. She would bear the most strain if the North American territory plunged into chaos. Ito would need time to gather intelligence and help Azrael prepare his strategy.

  Gregor started for the courtyard in time to watch the helicopter swing away from the island.

  Super.

  Another interminable boat ride later, he ignored law enforcement and gawkers to reclaim his car. One dared to approach and he let out a savage roar, sending the crowd screaming and tumbling over itself to get away.

  He slammed the car door hard enough to rock the vehicle and pounded his hands on the dash. It took the remaining scraps of his control not to rip the interior apart with his bare hands. Helplessness shook him by the throat, left him raging at his own inability to see a way through this situation.

  In the artificial silence of the automobile, his hand stilled on the wheel.

  Ana hadn’t chosen. She’d followed because her vow had demanded it. There had been no choice at all.

  He would not abandon her now.

  Certainty calmed him—the certainty of what he must do overriding the magnitude of what must be done. Even then, on the first day he’d known it: he’d follow her into hell.

  He should have fought harder to stay with Raymond. He had no idea where Laughing Girl would lead them. He scrabbled for his phone, dialing as he started the car. Free of his vow, he was no longer risking eternal damnation asking for help.

  Gregor couldn’t remember ever hearing the phone ring so many times before being greeted by Ito’s cheerful bark. “Moshi, Moshi.”

  Azrael’s head of intelligence sounded like he was running from something. “I need a track. Cell phone?”

  “Difficult. Not impossible.” Ito sucked his teeth and went into an explanation of satellites and piggybacking off signals that lost Gregor almost immediately. “Please hold…”

  Running, yes, and fighting something based on the sound of body strikes and soft gusts of air forcefully liberated from the body in the background. Ito’s voice returned. “So you and Ana Gozen, huh? I’ve got a bet she runs you through at least once before this is over. A moment—”

  As the dashboard navigation initialized, a familiar ping sounded. He paused, considering the map of the coastline and the moving arrow. Laughing Girl’s tracker.

  “Never mind, I’ve got them,” he said, grinning as he put the car in gear. “And Ito-san, ki o tsukete.”

  Ito laughed, and it sounded like he crashed through glass. “Sei vorsichtig, man.”

  “That’s no fun.” Gregor stared at the phone for a moment after the call disconnected. What the hell trouble had Ito gotten himself into now?

  Then he turned his attention to the road and flung the car into traffic. Horns blared and tires shrieked around him as he avoided a pileup. Whatever geas Raymond had put on the car to help clear the road must have been released with his vow.

  Good. He dodged cars and pushed the Audi to speed. It was much more fun this way.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ana scanned ahead as the helicopter closed in on their destination. Another island. A tactical advantage for a necromancer who controlled water. They pulled strength from the energy of their elements.

  On the small rocky island half a mile from the mainland, the Año Nuevo lighthouse station had long been abandoned by human inhabitants. Seabirds and elephant seals held court now, using it as a nesting ground and sanctuary. The original structures remained—foghorn station, keeper’s house, shed, storage—all beaten by the elements and slowly surrendering to decay.

  Her preternaturally sharp eyes picked up no human movement among the swarming birds and protesting seals. No light or curling flashes of power indicating the presence of another necromancer. Beside her, Raymond tracked the water beneath them, relentless in his search. He also benefited from being this close to the ocean. The wind buffeted the craft, and his color and vitality had returned as the last of the geas wore off. He almost looked like his old self.

  Seeing Laughing Girl again had done something to him. As if talking to her, touching her, had broken something in him he’d restrained for all the years Ana had known him, and probably longer. Without thinking, Ana laid a hand on his shoulder. She knew regret firsthand. She’d left Gregor without an explanation, an apology, or even a goodbye. He had come for her and she had walked away with barely a glance.

  Obsidian eyes and their unearthly metallic sheen rose, his gaze fixing on her with the inhuman consideration she knew all too well. The cold light offered no familiarity, no comfort given or received. She withdrew her fingers, settling her palm on the hull of the rocking helicopter as it circled for a landing. Whatever the reappearance of his former lover had brought out in him, it did not extend to her.

  “No sign of Huxley,” Auger confirmed from the copilot seat.

  Raymond pointed toward the flat area on the north end of the island, close to the channel dividing it from the mainland. The light swept the ground, wind buffeting the banking helicopter and making the landing difficult. Raymond needed to get control of himself, or they would crash before they ever made it to the island.

  Ana gripped the handhold, bracing her legs. The helicopter swung around and then came to a shuddering stop in midair. She knew that scent—cephalopod and seawater—and the curling tendril of a tentacle circling the helicopter’s chassis slapped against the window.

  Each suck
er was like a living, moving thing, gripping against the chassis as the whole muscle tightened. Metal screamed, and the instrument panel began to buzz in warning. She glanced out, expecting to see Laughing Girl.

  But the thing pulling itself out of the surf along the jagged black reef below them resembled a humanoid in the most vague sense—shoulders, neck, and head. But instead of a face with a nose and mouth, a mass of writhing tentacles slashed the air below a single, solid black eye. The wet, sucker-lined ropes continued down what should have been a chest and throat, disappearing into the surf. The tentacle around the helicopter was attached to a barnacle-crusted hand. The second hand braced on the rock below.

  Ana scanned it with her sight but found no sign of Laughing Girl’s familiar shape in the beast. Beneath the surface was only a sucking darkness she could not stare into long without feeling herself drawn into it. Dread expanded in her chest, pressing against her rib cage.

  The tentacle yanked and the helicopter plummeted toward the monstrosity. Horror shocked her into motion. Ana kicked open the opposite door.

  “Petr, Mitko, you’re up,” she shouted. “Catch.”

  The giants moved fast, diving out the open door.

  Ana caught Auger’s eye. “Get clear.”

  She grabbed Raymond and pitched him out of the helicopter. Auger kicked out the front window and dove. She wasn’t going to be able to stop this thing on her own, but she could buy them some time. Helicopters didn’t usually explode on impact, but anything was possible with the right help.

  Ana unsheathed her short blade. The instrument panel gave beneath sufficient pounding, sending sparks flying. She caught a flare and gripped it in her teeth. The helicopter dove and she lost her footing, turning her fall into a roll. She slammed off the back wall, slid out the open door, and caught a hand on the runner.

  Using the momentum of her fall, she swung back up the belly of the copter, encased in tentacle from midpoint all the way to the tail. She used the turgid skin for handholds as she worked her way to the fuel tanks. She buried her short blade in the metal skin until fuel leaked. Clinging to the hilt, she rocked back and forth, using her body weight to increase the opening. With a grunt, she pounded a flare on her thigh, jammed it into the opening, and flung herself free.

  The heat of the explosion washed over her as she fell. She tucked, landing in a roll, certain she’d broken a few ribs on impact. On her feet again, she took in Raymond and the rest of the Aegis, staring up the monstrosity illuminated in the glow. She glared at them all. What good was a godsdamned diversion if they weren’t going to use it?

  “Move,” she barked. “Get to the house.”

  It wasn’t going to provide them much cover, but better than being out in the open. On the ground, the stench of guano and marine mammals crowded her nostrils mixing, with burned kelp and meat.

  Auger broke first, running point as she’d trained him. His catlike reflexes and preternaturally sharp hearing would catch anything ahead. Mitko grabbed Raymond, ready to lift him off his feet if needed and fight with one massive arm. Petr brought up the rear, all brawn.

  Ana put herself between the monstrosity and their escape, Onee-san bared. A flash of silver caught her eye, and she looked up with a little grin. Her hand snaked out and snatched the smoldering hilt of the short blade from the air as it fell.

  She flipped it, blade out and flexed her knees. “Nice timing, Little Sister.”

  The monstrosity shook itself free of the broken, burning wreckage, showering her in flame and twisted metal. Scorched, flopping tentacles hung amid the rest of the writhing mass. Unlike Laughing Girl, who seemed to generate two new arms for every one disabled, this creature seemed to have a finite number. It was still three times Laughing Girl’s size.

  Dragging itself on its arms, it rose out of the surf, crushing or knocking aside the churning mass of elephant seals that did not flee fast enough. It swung a massive lumpy head to sight Raymond in its single lidless eye and then paused at the sight of her. It crouched on its arms, preparing to pounce. The tentacled maw opened, revealing rows and rows of sharklike teeth leading into an infinite darkness.

  Blades bared, she showed the monster her own teeth.

  It lunged. Instead of fleeing, Ana ran straight for it, dodging and slicing through tentacles whipping into her path. If she could get to the throat or whatever served for a solar plexus, maybe she had a chance. Hell, she’d even settle for that big lidless eye.

  Before she could reach it, the monster screamed, arching as a black harpoon erupted from just below its collarbone, punching through the tough hide. The harpoon claws opened like a flower, digging into the surrounding skin. The beast flopped backward with a roar, collapsing against the cliffside. Dark liquid rushed from the gaping hole in its chest as the harpoon dissolved into smoke. Groaning, the monster sank into the sea.

  A motorboat beached on the east side of the island, and as she jogged down the sandy shale path, Gregor appeared over the side of the cliff. He fell in step with her.

  “Another advantage of soul steel,” he mused. “A little creativity goes a long way.”

  “Handy.” She settled Onee-san in its sheath. “What are you doing here?”

  “I didn’t make my vow to Raymond, and we’re not done…”

  The whitecaps churned, and a set of barnacle-crusted knuckles appeared over the top of the cliff. Ana sighed. “Hold that thought.”

  Gregor lifted his hand and the black blade appeared in its more familiar form.

  She grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the cliff. “Let’s go. We need a plan.”

  He laughed. “Now you want to plan?”

  “Better late than never,” she muttered. “Come on. We’re safer in the interior.”

  The monstrosity rose, the hole in its chest still oozing. The wound slowed its movements, but it didn’t stop until its chest was out of the waves. It went no farther.

  “How…” Gregor began.

  It roared and Ana jerked her chin. “It can’t leave the water yet. If Barnabas summoned it, it may not be at full power. Maybe he’s counting on using whatever power he gets defeating Raymond. Something’s not right with that guy, haven’t you noticed?”

  It trailed them along the edge of the cliff the entire way. They met Raymond and the others, and she herded them all as far inland as possible. Ana sent Auger to scout the buildings for a refuge. The creature circled the island but couldn’t get close enough to do more than flail nasty tentacles and roar at them. Raymond took in Gregor’s presence with dispassionate consideration.

  “You’ve been released.” Raymond lifted his chin. “Waste my time at your peril, Jäger.”

  Ana had never heard of a sworn Aegis volunteering without some sort of contract or exchange. Gregor straightened his tattered lapels, his face as cool and expressionless as ever. Only she recognized the light in his eyes. The blue, still vivid as glacier ice, now burned.

  “You could use another set of hands.”

  Raymond inclined his head. “Yours?”

  “Azrael would not be pleased if I sent an ally into a trap without at least offering my service.” He even managed to look inconvenienced.

  Raymond’s mouth canted, but his eyes did not lighten. He scanned Ana, but she had centuries of practice at keeping her heart rate smooth and her expression even.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Who invited Cthulhu?” Ana asked as they mounted the porch behind the others, sweeping the darkness with her gaze.

  Gregor paused, confused. “Khul—”

  Ana squinted at him. “Dreaded dark lord? Great old ones? Elder gods?”

  He blinked. “Is this a Morodor thing?”

  “Mordor.” She shook her head but seems to be losing the battle with a smile. “And no. Unrelated. No time for twentieth-century genre fiction, eh?”

  He spread his hands to take in their current situation. “I’ll keep to the stock market, thank you.”

  Ana looked dangerously close to laughte
r, and the sight of it did him more good than he wanted to admit. The tension in him eased the moment he was by her side, softened under the bright glare of her gaze. He wanted to assess the burns on the back of her neck, check to see how much of the blood on her was her own. He kept his hands to himself.

  He turned his attention to the churning dark, full of the bellowing monster and panicked seal cries. Raymond seemed to accept his presence, but he had no doubt he would be the first the necromancer sacrificed if need be. He didn’t care.

  Raymond joined them, searching the waves. “I’ve heard of such an entity. A beast so terrible humans worshipped it as a god and sent their children for its feast before a coven banished it to the valleys of the sea.”

  “And Laughing Girl…”

  “No sign of her,” Ana said.

  “She feared it,” Raymond murmured. “That thing. Barnabas lured her with the promise of vengeance and bound her. Then he used her as an offering to the beast. The manacle binds her to obey Barnabas, but that thing kept her in line.” His voice rose with rage.

  “And it helped in the attacks,” Ana finished. “Not just the rogue pack. It can’t leave the sea, but she can. It used her to drive the mortals to him.”

  “Do you think that thing—”

  Raymond shook his head. “I would have felt it.”

  “She’s out there.” Gregor sighed, and Ana found his eyes in the near darkness, an exchange of suspicion. And whose side is she on?

  “And where is the master of ceremonies?”

  Barnabas rose from the sea, arms wide like a victorious conqueror.

  “Be careful what you ask for,” Gregor muttered as he and Ana stepped in front of Raymond, blades ready.

  “The Black Blade of Azrael,” Barnabas said, walking the worn trail toward the house, oblivious to the mud and the cold. Beneath his cape, the ill-fitting gray suit looked like something out of a film noir detective movie. “Freed from your leash.”

  He stopped twenty paces from the porch steps. The beast sank into the waves, its lidless eye fixed on Barnabas as if waiting for command.