“You know you sound super-paranoid, right?” I asked.
“I know how it sounds, but look at the facts.” He pointed to the article on his tablet again. “A Valkyrie is killed outside of a club owned by Huitaca, and no one reports on it?”
Huitaca was an immortal known as much for her beauty as she was for her partying. Her reputation for hooking up with celebrities and getting arrested had led to the media crowning her queen Celebutant for the past quarter of a century.
“So you think Huitaca killed your mom?” I asked.
“No, I know who killed her,” Asher assured me. “I’m just saying the media covers every scandal Huitaca is involved in, but somehow ignored this one.”
He had a point, but I was too distracted by the fact that he claimed he’d already found the murderer, so I asked, “Who killed her?”
“My grandma and I started our own investigation, since no one else seemed to care about my mother’s murder,” Asher expounded. “It was a lot of knocking on doors, bribery, and threats of violence, but we were finally able to come up with a name: Tamerlane Fayette.
“Everything we found pointed to him,” Asher went on. “From what we gathered, Adela had gone to Huitaca’s club on orders to return another immortal—a Laka—so it was no big deal.”
Lakas were peaceful flower goddesses renowned for being among the easiest to deal with, and they almost always welcomed death and thanked the Valkyrie.
“The Laka even turned herself in to the Evig Riksdag two days later, where she was promptly returned,” Asher elaborated. “So she had no reason to kill Adela. But while Adela was there, Tamerlane got a whiff of a Valkyrie in the club, and he lost it. Witnesses saw them arguing until a bouncer made them take it outside, and that’s the last time anyone saw Adela.”
“So who is this Tamerlane Fayette?” I asked.
“He’s a Petro Loa,” Asher said.
A Petro Loa was essentially a fiery angel. They were divine, which meant that they usually didn’t cause much trouble, but a fiery angel would explain Adela’s burnt corpse.
“Great. So you got your guy.”
Asher looked at me somberly. “I never found him. Every avenue I tried was a total dead end. He’d completely disappeared. And then, a few months ago, I figured out why.”
He quickly scrolled through his tablet until he found a screenshot of a form I knew very well.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked.
“Like I told you, we used a lot of bribery and threats of violence,” he replied vaguely. “But even all that couldn’t get me an entirely unredacted version.”
“But you can’t just get this,” I insisted, as a sick feeling grew inside. “The Riksdag won’t just hand out this kind of information. These forms are supposed to be top-secret.”
“It took me over two years to get this,” he said.
“Even if I believe this is authentic—and I don’t know that I do—it doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “This says my mom was sent to kill Tamerlane Fayette, so I’m sure she did.”
That’s what I said, but that’s not what I felt. A cold anxious feeling had settled inside me, working its way deep into the pit of my stomach, making my organs twist and my heart race.
Asher tapped the numbers beside the D.O.T.—the date of transfer, which was how the Riks coded returns on forms. “The date she was assigned to kill Tamerlane was over a year before my mother was killed.”
“Maybe they put in the wrong date. It’s much more likely this was a clerical error than that my mom didn’t do her job.” I kept asserting this, that none of this meant anything, but my words felt empty and left a metallic taste in my mouth.
He laughed darkly, and the raw pain in it cut through me like a knife. I realized he wasn’t lying. He might be wrong about things—maybe even everything—but he believed everything he’d told me.
“Your mother failed in her duties and did not kill Tamerlane Fayette, and because of that, my mother is dead,” Asher said, looking me directly in the eyes. “And I need to know why. You can help me. I’d like it if you did, actually. But whether you do or not, I’m going to find the truth.”
TEN
With the blinds closed, the only light in the apartment came from my laptop screen. Bowie sat curled up beside me, content now that the threat of Asher had gone. He cooed when he slept, sounding like a sleepy pigeon, and I absently scratched at the soft fur between his antlers.
After Asher had made his request for help, there hadn’t been much more to discuss. He had already told me everything he knew, so it was then that I asked him to leave. Just before he did, he offered me his business card, and I took it quickly to hide the embarrassing trembling of my hands.
“In case you change your mind,” he’d told me, then he turned and left my apartment.
I didn’t plan on changing my mind, but I couldn’t seem to stop glancing over at the card where it sat discarded on the arm of the couch beside me.
It was a tiny little screen, no bigger and no thicker than a playing card. It was black now, but when I reached over and touched it, it slowly faded to white. His name, job title—private investigator—and his number were in bold, beneath an animation of an eye looking around, a play on the term private eye, I assumed.
Once he’d left, I fed Bowie, closed my blinds, double-locked the door, and then immediately got on my computer. In the time since Asher had been gone, I’d done nothing but search online, looking for anything to destroy his story.
Unfortunately, I had yet to find it.
There was very little online about his mother, but that was typical for a Valkyrie. The only thing I could find tagged with her name was her obituary, which was deliberately sparse. I did manage to find the article that Asher had shown me with the burnt corpse in Ou’helstad, and the date of the murder did match up with her obit.
Tamerlane Fayette, on the other hand, had plenty written about him. After all, he had been alive for 230 years. That was more than enough time to make the news.
Most of what I found on him seemed positive and in line with what I knew about Petro Loas. He traveled a lot, working on foundations to help orphaned children. While he’d been born in Haiti, he spent the last fifty years living exclusively in the States.
Since he’d been here, he’d gotten married to a mortal woman and had three children. The pictures of his family I found in his sister-in-law’s social media showed a happy family—all bright smiles, like they were doing an advert for toothpaste.
Then, four years ago, he’d disappeared. There was no trace of him, other than a few posts online of people inquiring where he went. According to official posts on the site for the orphanage he ran, he’d simply stopped showing up to work one day, and after a few months they’d had no choice but to replace him.
And then, six months later, his entire family was murdered. His wife and all three children. Well, murder wasn’t exactly the right term. The agents investigating the crime were divided on whether it was a criminal act or simply an animal attack. The bodies had been shredded, so many were convinced it was an errant dragon or other wild beast that got them.
Some speculated that he’d show up for the funeral, but there was no sign of him. He’d simply vanished.
That is, of course, until he popped up to kill Adela Värja four months later, assuming that I believed Asher’s story.
The locks on the door clicked, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Bowie’d already had a rough night, so he squawked, flapped his wings, and then dashed under the table to hide. Oona walked into the apartment and flicked on the light.
“Why are you always sitting in the dark like some kind of weirdo, Mal?” Oona asked through a mouthful of food.
She had a small paper sack filled with fat round pastries in her hand. Based on the smell of clove and onion, I guessed it was kibbeh—a deep-fried croquette stuffed with mushrooms, onions, and pine nuts that a friendly marid sold at the street corner near our apartment.
“I�
��m not a weirdo.” I closed my laptop and stood up to stretch. “It’s just been a long night.”
She held out the kibbeh toward me, offering me some, but I shook my head. I hadn’t eaten tonight, but my stomach felt too queasy to put anything in it. My encounter with Asher left everything feeling … off.
“Were you working on something for school?” Oona asked as she flopped back on the couch.
Asher’s business card had been sitting precariously on the arm, and it fell forward toward Oona, causing the screen to flash on.
“Who’s Asher Värja?” Oona asked, picking up the card. “And why is this here?”
I poured myself a big of glass of water and took a deep breath before launching into the long story about Asher and everything he’d told me, and then about everything I’d found online.
“I thought that Draugrs were just urban legends,” Oona said once I finished.
“Draugrs?” I asked.
“Yeah. You know, immortals that skip their death by Valkyrie, and become really immortal,” she elaborated. “They walk the earth long after they’re supposed to be gone.”
“I’ve never heard that term in school,” I said.
“Maybe that’s because they’ve been trying to convince you that they don’t exist, so you don’t try to make one yourself,” Oona supposed.
“Maybe,” I allowed.
“But the rest of the story doesn’t make any sense,” Oona said.
“I know.” I sat on the couch beside her with my legs crossed underneath me. “None of it does.”
“Do you believe him?” Oona asked.
“I mean, no.” I rubbed my temple and looked at Oona out of the corner of my eye. “Do you think I should?”
“There’s parts of his story that seem like they add up, but then there’s other parts that I just can’t wrap my head around. I know I don’t know your mom that well—”
“Join the club,” I snorted.
“—but I just can’t imagine her letting anyone go,” Oona went on. “Not without good reason.”
“So you’re saying that I should talk to her about it?” I asked with a heavy sigh.
Growing up, I’d thought that Marlow was a pretty good mom. Not that I really had anything to compare her to, but she always made sure I had food, clothes, and a roof over my head. She just wasn’t the kind of mom who tucked me in at night or read me bedtime stories or talked about my feelings. Hell, I’d been calling her “Marlow” instead of “mom” since grade school, and she preferred it that way.
In retrospect, she was more like a gruff aunt who really, really believed in self-reliance. And most of the time, that wasn’t a bad thing.
But at times like this, I couldn’t imagine her reacting well to me asking her if she’d ever failed at the one thing she prided herself on more than anything.
“That would be a start,” Oona suggested. “Or if you’re afraid of Marlow shutting you out, you could talk to somebody that’s an expert on Valkyries. I honestly don’t know enough about what you do to know if what Asher is suggesting is even possible.”
I laid my head back on the couch and reached over to grab the last kibbeh out of Oona’s bag. “First I eat, then I sleep. I can’t ever come up with good ideas when I’m hungry and exhausted.”
“So you’re gonna talk to Marlow?” Oona asked with wide eyes.
“I’m gonna start small. I’ll talk to Professor Wu first.”
ELEVEN
Even though I made it to Intro to Divinity and Immortality ten minutes early, there were already a few students in their seats, including a busybody vampire talking to Professor Wu about bringing up his grade.
“So you’re saying that if I do a report on an important figure in the netherworld, it will help my grade?” the vampire was asking.
“I’m saying that we’re going to be covering Kurnugia in a few weeks, so having a knowledge of important figures would be helpful,” Professor Wu replied carefully. “Researching immortals like Ereshkigal, Osiris, and Anguta would definitely be beneficial for you.”
Since a moment alone to talk to Wu about Asher’s claims was out of the question, I resigned myself to sitting in the back row and using the extra time to bone up on my coursework. I’d only just taken my seat when Sloane Kothari came into the classroom.
Her brown eyes widened, and then she narrowed them and grimaced, as if resenting the fact that I’d gotten here before her. Her perfectly coiled black curls bounced as she stomped to her spot.
“Nice outfit,” Sloane sneered, taking her seat in the row in front of me.
Because of my muscular build, most clothes built for the average human woman did not fit me. Thankfully, Oona’s mother was a seamstress by trade, and either she or Oona modified a lot of my clothes to make them work. Since we’d moved in together, Oona had even begun taking it upon herself to make me a few pieces herself, in exchange for me kicking in a bit extra when rent was due.
What I wore now was an ombre maxi skirt with a slit down the side—an Oona creation specifically for me—with a cropped black bralette and a frayed smoky open-knit sweater over the top. I actually really liked my outfit, especially in comparison to the prim and proper schoolgirl number that Sloane had on today.
I’d also added a leather garter around my thigh, where I’d sheathed a dagger, because my run-in with Asher last night had made me jumpy. I moved my leg so the slit would fall open and expose the dagger.
“If you wanna compare fashion tips, we can go outside after class and have a little chat,” I suggested, deliberately aiming the garter so she’d be able to see it.
She glanced back at me, and when she noticed my dagger, she scoffed. “Must you always be so crude, Malin?”
“You just seem to bring out the worst in me,” I admitted.
“So many early birds here today,” Professor Wu commented, stopping whatever snide comment Sloane had right on her lips, and she turned back to face him. “Is everyone getting antsy about the midterms?”
“I just like to stay on top of things,” Sloane said in her saccharine voice.
Wu sat on the corner of his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, you all should be a little worried. We had a staff meeting this morning, and I know for a fact that many of your midterm exams are going to be incredibly difficult.”
A few of the students groaned, including myself. That’s just what I needed on top of everything else right now. Impossibly hard tests.
“Is there anything that any of you have questions about that you’d like me to explore more in depth?” Wu asked.
No one said anything, and the class was still kinda empty, so I took a deep breath and decided to go for it. “What if, um, Valkyries didn’t kill—or, return—someone?” I asked carefully.
“The biggest problem would be overpopulation,” Wu explained. “We’re already facing population growths that are causing major problems all over the world, and if you added the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of immortals that never died into the mix, we’d all risk extinction from oversourcing the earth.”
“No, I mean, what would happen if just one Valkyrie didn’t kill one immortal?” I asked. “I would never, ever do that, but I was just curious. What would happen exactly?”
“It would be catastrophic,” Wu intoned ominously. “The system we have in place is a perfect equation written by the gods and the Eralim. You’ve heard of the butterfly effect.”
“It is the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere,” Sloane supplied to a question that Wu hadn’t even asked.
“A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, and that causes a tsunami in Japan,” Wu simplified. “And we don’t know how one immortal living longer than he was intended to can affect everything else.”
He grabbed a marker and began diagramming on the whiteboard, drawing symbols and numbers until they filled up the entire space.
“This is the basic formula—what’s known as the Mort
al Equation,” Wu explained, gesturing to the board. Supposedly, it was math, but it looked like an alien language to me. “I’m not an expert on this, but essentially it explains every decision the Eralim ever pass down. Are you taking Devil’s Abacus: An Advanced Course on Mathematics and Existence with Professor Lovelace?”
“I am,” Sloane chirped, but I just shook my head. I was taking basic algebra for my math credit, and I’d barely scored high enough to even get into that class.
Wu waved his hand, attempting to cover up his mild disappointment. “Anyway, Professor Lovelace can explain this all better to you than I ever could, so that’s where you should go if you have any more questions about the Mortal Equation.
“But to answer your question, it would be horrific if a Valkyrie failed to kill an immortal,” Wu finished. “Our whole world could collapse on itself.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, looking down at my tablet.
Which meant that if there was any truth to what Asher Värja had said, we would all be in serious trouble.
TWELVE
As soon as my last class of the day had finished, I got on my luft and made the half-hour trek across the city to the Tesla Park borough. When I put my mind to it, I could make the trip in as little as fifteen minutes, but today I was in no hurry.
Marlow lived in a tiny fourth-floor walk-up apartment in a narrow brownstone. Even though I’d shared it with her until I moved out on my own over a year ago, the place never really felt like home. Still, it always felt strange coming back and knocking on my old front door.
It took her nearly five minutes to answer, and when she finally did, she was blurry-eyed and her short bleached-blond hair stuck up at odd angles. Her lips were permanently stained a shade of red from her lipstick, but the rest of her face was pale, other than the dark circles under her eyes.
“Malin?” Marlow asked, squinting at me. “What are you doing here? Did you have a job today?”
“No. I just wanted to visit,” I explained lamely and offered a smile that I hoped didn’t look as sick as it felt.
Between the Blade and the Heart Page 5
