Dawn Slayer

by Clara Coulson

  “Are you for real?” Orange sparks dance across her fingertips. “You’re going to try and blame me for something that isn’t even remotely my fault?”

  “Don’t act so surprised,” I spit, throwing her earlier words back at her. “My job is to protect people from powerful supernatural threats, and your involvement in the Dawn Slayer matter jeopardized my ability to do that. If you hadn’t spurred Hays into throwing that bomb, alerting the entire city to our presence in the park, my team would have had the opportunity to recover the sword without engaging in a large-scale battle with the Children of Enoch.

  “Because you intruded into a situation where you didn’t belong in order to score a big payday, all my vampire allies are now seriously injured and locked up at the DSI Moscow office. And I don’t have the time to scrounge up a bunch of new friends in a city thousands of miles from home. So yes, Barnett, I will do whatever it takes to make your life both short and hellish if you don’t play my ally for the day and help me save Foley. Now make your choice.”

  I tap on the gear shift between us in a slow, even cadence to mimic the clicking of a metronome. The sound draws taut the tension in the air between me and the abrasive witch, makes it seem like there’s a definitive countdown, after which my offer will be withdrawn.

  “Last time we met,” she says as she ruminates over her current options, “you didn’t have any magic. Which is interesting in and of itself, given that humans don’t acquire magic at random. But what interests me more than your apparent nonhuman ancestry—and the fact that DSI, if they knew about that ancestry, broke the rules to employ you—is the fact that learning magic takes a great deal of time, time you haven’t had.”

  She leans against the seat cushion, pretending she can’t feel Lucian’s knees poking into her spine. “At maximum, you’ve only got about half a year of magic practice under your belt. And judging by your performance in the park, the bulk of your studies have been poorly structured. In short, your magic skill level is laughably low compared to mine. So what makes you think I have to pick from your sadistic choices? What makes you think I can’t end you right here and now?”

  “If you thought you could,” I reply without missing a beat, “you would’ve done it already.”

  “Or maybe I just wanted you to spill what you knew about these cloaked bastards so I could be better informed about who might chase me after I take this.” She grasps the hilt of the sword with her gloved hand and gives it a hard shake for emphasis.

  The blade apparently doesn’t like that treatment—because it bites her.

  A small bolt of energy strikes her hand, and she drops the sword in shock. Crying out in pain, she turns her hand over to reveal that the bolt sheared straight through her glove and ripped a chunk of flesh out of her palm. Bright red blood pools in her palm and soaks the brown fabric of the glove a darker shade.

  “The hell?” she hisses. “I thought it only hurt you if you touched it barehanded.”

  “Me too,” I say, equally astonished.

  It didn’t hurt me when I picked it up earlier. Well, it didn’t hurt me until I touched it with my…Wait a second.

  Now that I’m thinking about the sword again, I notice that the burns on my right hand and wrist are still aching quite a bit. Even though most of my other injuries are well into the process of healing, nothing but echoes of pain in my bones and muscles. Curious, I roll up the sleeve of my coat.

  Etched into the raw pink tissue of my wrist is a series of interlocking gold rings, each no wider than a piece of piano wire. Extending upward from these rings are several more curving lines that disappear beneath the edge of my glove.

  I peel the burned leather off my hand and tug the glove free to reveal my sore palm.

  An array of gold lines converge in the center of my palm, forming some kind of complex symbol. More lines extend from the top of my wrist and curl gracefully back and forth to create a mesmerizing shape made of gold loops on the back of my hand. All in all, it looks as if I’ve somehow obtained a delicate gold tattoo, complete with the skin irritation that comes along with having a needle jammed into your skin thousands of times in a row.

  Barnett ogles the tattoo. “Oh, don’t tell me.”

  “What?”

  She growls under her breath. “Touch the sword with your bare hand.”

  I stare at her, wondering what sort of game she’s playing. “Um, I’d rather not. The last person who did that got turned into a pile of salt.”

  “Yeah, but you already touched it with your skin, didn’t you?” she says.

  “Well, I may have…brushed it.”

  “Mhmm.” Her left eyelid twitches. “And it didn’t zap you out of existence. So touch it again.”

  I dither for a few seconds, partially convinced she’s trying to trick me into killing myself. But the logic in her argument is sound. If I touched the sword once and it didn’t kill me, why would it kill me now?

  Reaching out with a quaking hand, I poke the pommel of the sword. Then I flinch back, expecting some cosmic force to smite me for daring to touch the sword of an angel.

  But as Barnett predicted, nothing happens. The sword doesn’t kill me. The sword doesn’t bite me. The sword doesn’t hurt me at all.

  “As I thought,” Barnett grumbles. “The sword’s got a self-discerning dominion spell drawn into it somewhere, and that spell latched on to you. For some unfathomable reason.”

  “Huh?”

  She rolls her eyes. “A dominion spell is a spell that limits the use of a target, that is, a place or an object, to a single person by allowing that person to bypass the target’s safeguards. Whoever made this sword gave it the ability to choose an ‘authorized user’ based on some set of criteria we don’t know. You apparently fit that criteria. So when you touched the sword back at the park, instead of killing you, the sword ‘attacked’ you with the dominion spell instead. That thing on your hand is a sigil, a physical manifestation of the spell, which has keyed your magic signature to the sword, giving you and only you the ability to wield it.”

  I stare at my new tattoo with a tempered sense of awe. I have so many questions—starting and ending with “Why me?”—but with the clock steadily running down on Foley’s remaining lifespan, I can’t indulge my curiosity. “So, if I’m the only one who can wield the sword, then that means it’s now useless to the Children of Enoch.”

  “And to me.” She huffs. “There’s no point in delivering a dud to my client.”

  “Unless you kill me and free up the sword’s ownership again.”

  “Right.”

  “And are you going to attempt to kill me?” I ask.

  Barnett looks from the sword that turns people into salt to the man who likes to electrocute people to death with giant lightning bolts. “I’m an enterprising bounty hunter, not a suicidal maniac.”

  “Ah, so you’ll help me get Foley back from the clutches of our new favorite bad guys?”

  She lets out an exasperated breath. “Yes, all right. I’ll help you get the vampire brat back in one piece. But only because I can’t come up with a strategy to beat your ass into the ground while you’re sitting right next to me with a manic gleam in your eye and a seraph blade at your beck and call. So yeah, you win, Kinsey. You got the sword, and you got my help. Happy?”

  “Not really, but I’ll take the win anyway.”

  She drops her fist on the dashboard hard enough to leave a dent. I get the impression she wishes she could plant that fist in my face. “Just for the record,” she says, “if someone puts out a hit on you in the future, I’m taking the job.”

  “And here I was going to promise you some reward money from House Tepes for helping protect the house elder.”

  “I don’t want vampire money. If I take it and the ICM finds out, they’ll never give me another job.” She eyes me through the reflection in the windshield. “I thought you were the sort who followed similar principles of loyalty, but I guess I had you pegged wrong.”

  “What
do you mean?”

  “You jumped ship at DSI to work for the vampires. Or at least that’s what you’ve been implying throughout this entire conversation.”

  “That’s not exactly what happened.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, I—” My left wrist throbs, a warning from the binding oath.

  I can’t tell Barnett what happened between Targus and me, because unlike Foley and Lucian, she’s liable to go blabbing about it to people who’ll spread the info to DSI. Knowingly telling the truth to an individual like Barnett is explicitly prohibited by the oath’s terms.

  Damn. This is going to be irritating to navigate around in the long term, isn’t it?

  “I can’t tell you,” I finish lamely. “But I can show you. Sort of.”

  She shoots me a distrustful look. “It better not involve you taking off your clothes.”

  “Thankfully, nudity is not required.”

  “Fine. Show me.”

  I tug up my left sleeve to reveal the pale marks of the binding oath.

  Barnett sits up straight, suddenly alert. “But that’s a…Who on earth gave you that?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Oh, I get it.” She grins. “Someone got the better of you and stuck you with a set of shitty oath terms. That’s why you’re here and not at home. Because you got your ass booted out.” Her grin falters slightly. “But that oath design is standard among human practitioners, which means the person who bound you is a member of the ICM.” The grin falls away completely. “Last I checked, your home city was getting pretty thin in the way of major practitioners, after those Methuselah freaks scared everyone away with that infectious curse. The only practitioner there I’d expect to pull out a binding oath on a Crow would be…”

  I see the moment where she figures it out, a sharp flicker in her eye, but she doesn’t state her conclusion aloud. She swallows it, along with a gallon of suspicion and supposition, as she realizes my presence in this city, the presence that robbed her of a huge payday, is an indirect result of one of many games the ICM leadership is currently playing. She spends a few moments stewing in the irony, bitter that her own clients knocked her down, before she sucks it up and does the logical thing: she files away the revelation so she can use it to her advantage at a later time.

  “Okay then,” she says, “moving on. How do you want to approach this problem with the kidnapped vampire?”

  “You’re asking for my strategy?” I reply. “I thought for sure you’d insist on doing things your way.”

  “Oh, I will be. I just want to tear down your bad ideas first so you won’t interrupt me when I explain my better ones.”

  “Need I remind you that you fumbled the whole park exchange intercept because you failed to preemptively gather enough information about the situation before you killed the shapeshifter wearing my face?” I rap my knuckles on the steering wheel. “I’m not sure you should really be boasting about your ‘tactical genius.’”

  She gives me a dismissive wave. “Success in my profession is a function of time and complexity. The less time I have to complete a complex job, the more likely it is that something will go wrong. This time around, I was given minimal intel from the get-go and had limited time to gather my own before the best opportunity to obtain the sword came to pass. So yes, I was working with one hand tied behind my back, and it didn’t go so well. It happens from time to time.”

  I fidget in my seat, my irritation building. “You know we only have like three hours before we have to meet with the Children of Enoch, right?”

  She throws up her hands. “We’ll have to make it work somehow.”

  “You inspire such confidence.”

  “I try.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Let’s just get on with this.” I take a few seconds to get my thoughts in order. “First off, I have a question for you. Which member of the High Court hired you for this job?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “High Wizard Galanis was the one who contacted me, via his personal secretary, but my contract had a stamp of approval from the entire Court due to the sum of money involved.”

  “Or so you think.”

  “You don’t think they all actually approved of the job?”

  “No, I think some of them are keeping up appearances, particularly the appearance of being ignorant to what some of the other members are up to.”

  She purses her lips. “That’s some cryptic conspiracy bullshit right there, Kinsey.”

  “Believe that if you want. But I don’t want you calling Galanis.”

  “Hold up. Why would I call any member of the High Court?”

  “Because my plan is to convince a particular member of the Court to send us backup.”

  “You actually believe that’ll work?” she scoffs. “Just shooting off a ‘help me’ message to a member of the High Court of the ICM, a group of people who go to extreme lengths to obfuscate the extent of their influence in the dark side of supernatural politics?”

  “If I say the right things to the right person, I do indeed think some assistance will materialize.”

  Baffled, she interlaces her fingers and drops her hands into her lap, an inch shy of Dawn Slayer’s hilt. “And which member of the Court, pray tell, do you believe will listen to a heartfelt appeal from Calvin Kinsey, the former Crow who now works for the Vampire Federation?”

  A humorless smile creeps across my face, and I answer, “Omotoke Iyanda.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Between a pair of veils and some careful timing, Barnett and I are able to carry Lucian and Trisha up to my room in the Marriott. Once they’re settled on the bed, I swap out the ruined designer clothes Foley bought me this morning for a wrinkled outfit from my suitcase. I also take a few minutes to freshen up, though I don’t bother to wash more than my face and hair with a few splashes from the sink, as I fully anticipate getting beaten to a pulp at least once more before the day is out.

  Barnett spends the time I’m in the bathroom using some sort of spell to draw the dirt and grime from her clothes. At the end of this process, there’s a small sphere of detritus floating in the air in front of her. I emerge from the bathroom just as she makes a flicking motion with her finger that sends the sphere sailing across the room. It lands in the trashcan near the door with a puff of dirt.

  Barnett gives herself a once-over, and frowns at the multitude of tears in her coat and jeans. “I would prefer to mend these rather than walk around looking like a hobo, but I guess that would be kind of pointless, since we’re planning to waltz right up to the Children of Enoch and challenge them to a brawl.”

  I hum in agreement. “I certainly wouldn’t recommend you put on your Sunday best.”

  She examines my rumpled clothing as I’m stuffing my feet back into my boots. “So what, is that your ‘Saturday worst,’ or did you raid a clothing donation bin before you left the States?”

  “Funny.” I finish tying my boots and snatch my last decent winter coat from where I draped it over the back of a chair. “And you’re one to talk, with that pseudo-cowboy getup of yours.”

  “Cowboy?” She scrunches her nose. “I don’t look like a cowboy.”

  “The hell you don’t.” I slip my coat on and button it up. “You’ve got a long tan coat, knee-high boots, dark-wash jeans, and a wide leather belt. When you pulled out those six-shooters back at the park, I was honestly shocked to find you weren’t wearing chaps. You scream ‘Texas transplant.’”

  “And you look like you just rolled out of bed,” she snaps back.

  I shrug. “I feel like I just rolled out of bed, after a night that involved way too much tequila at a club playing music loud enough to break glass. Makes sense that my duds would match my mood. You, on the other hand, have no excuse for your fashion faux pas.”

  A faint blush darkens the undertones of her brown skin. “You want me to drop this job?”

  “No, I want
you to stop joking around and focus on the task at hand. If we survive the next couple hours, we can banter at each other to your heart’s content. Until then, let’s limit the jabs to the kind you make with weapons and use our mouths for more productive things.”

  Barnett makes a skeptical noise deep in her throat. “You’re one to give a lecture on appropriate behavior.”

  “I know. It’s the sign of a dire situation.”

  Grabbing the duffle bag next to my suitcase, I dump its contents onto the floor and sweep them under the bed, where they won’t be disturbed until I (hopefully) return to collect them later. Then I snatch the sword from its resting place against the wall, stuff it into the bag, and zip the bag closed.

  When I slip the bag’s strap over my shoulder, I experience an odd sensation that isn’t quite déjà vu. I perceive myself as Hays—wearing my body but not quite being me—as he picked up the duffle bag in a similar way, shortly before he made his fateful trip to Izmailovsky Park.

  The sensation vanishes as fast as it came on, but I’m left with a lingering chill.

  Hope this next exchange doesn’t end as badly for me as the last one ended for Hays.

  I check on Lucian and Trisha one more time. Lucian’s wounds are healing at a much slower rate than normal, but they’re still healing faster than a human’s. I take this to be a sign he’ll fully recover from the golem poison at some point.

  Trisha is healing at the regular vampire rate, but her burns are so extensive that she’ll be regenerating deep tissue for a while yet. And given that she’s still out cold, I assume her head injury rattled her brain pretty hard.

  Assured that they’re both getting better, I motion to Barnett that it’s time to go.

  “What if the cleaning crew comes by while you’re out,” she asks as we head to the door, “and finds two badly injured people unconscious on your bed?”

  I snatch the do not disturb sign off the interior handle of the door, open the door, and hang the sign on the exterior handle. “Got it covered.”